Holy Mid-Credits Scene, Batman! What That 'Suicide Squad' Interlude Means (Spoilers!)
Amanda Waller (Davis) at her favorite eatery in ‘Suicide Squad’ (Photo: Warner Bros.)
Warning: Major Suicide Squad spoilers follow. Proceed at your own risk.
For a caped-crusading vigilante who prefers to operate from the shadows, there are an awful lot of people within the evolving DC Cinematic Universe who seem to know Batman’s actual identity as millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck). In this spring’s divisive blockbuster Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the Wayne/Dark Knight connection was pieced together by his chief opponent, the Man of Steel (Henry Cavill), as well as Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) and Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg).
With Suicide Squad now in theaters, it’s time to add another name to that growing list: Amanda Waller (Viola Davis). In a mid-credits sequence, the architect of the titular all-bad-guy squad, Task Force X, has a sit-down with Wayne in which she makes it clear that she’s aware of his nocturnal crimefighting activities. As Bruce heads out the door, Amanda delivers a perfectly timed parting shot: “You look tired. You should stop working nights.”
Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman in ‘BvS’ (Photo: Warner Bros.)
Speaking with Yahoo Movies recently, Davis revealed that the scene — which got a big reaction in the screening we attended — was a last-minute addition to Suicide Squad, a film that reportedly went through a number of changes during and after shooting. “They called me and said, ‘You’ve got to come in and do a special top-secret scene. I was like, ‘Really? With who?’ When they said, ‘Batman,’ I was so jazzed. My daughter was jazzed! She said, ‘Mommy, I want to meet Batman!’”
However excited mother and daughter might have been off-screen, in the finished sequence, Davis maintains Waller’s steely-eyed, tart-tongued demeanor. The sequence picks up with Amanda sitting across from Bruce in the same restaurant where she pitched the idea for the so-called “Suicide Squad” to incredulous government officials at the beginning of the film. Waller called this meeting because she needs Wayne’s considerable influence to help absolve her of any blame in the wake of the Squad’s mission to stop the out-of-control Enchantress (Cara Delevingne) from destroying Midway City, an established DC Comics metropolis that has been home to such heroes as Hawkman and the Doom Patrol.
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Even though the members of Task Force X — including such previous Bat-foes as Deadshot (Will Smith), Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) — succeeded in their objective, they caused a lot of collateral damage… enough to put her reputation in jeopardy. Wayne agrees, but he demands a high-priced favor in return: official government files on some of the mysterious meta-humans he first discovered among Luthor’s private notes, like the guy who runs faster than lightning and a demigod who can control the oceans.
Waller’s ‘Suicide Squad’ reference manual (Photo: Warner Bros.)
Luthor’s meta-human files from ‘BvS,’ complete with groovy logos. (Photo: Warner Bros.)
(Significantly, the Enchantress is also included in the documents that Waller passes along, suggesting that even though her spirit is no longer inhabiting the body of archeologist June Moone, she may not have departed this plane of existence.)
If you saw the Justice League trailer that dropped at Comic-Con last month, you already know how Bruce plans to use these files. He’s going to travel the world, assembling a super-group to battle the approaching extraterrestrial threat of Steppenwolf, the primary villain of the Zack Snyder-directed film and a possible gateway to an even bigger baddie: tyrannical despot Darkseid. As Bruce heads out the door, presumably to hop in the Batplane and track down his future League members, he takes a moment to needle Waller about their frosty friendship. “I don’t believe in friendship. I believe in leverage,” she replies, in a deliberately measured tone that makes Wayne stop in his tracks.
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And at that point, she wallops him with the fact she knows that he’s Batman. It’s made clear earlier in the film that Waller and the Dark Knight have been in touch before; she reached out to him to capture Deadshot when the assassin was spending quality time with his daughter in Gotham City, resulting in a crowd-pleasing alleyway brawl that was one of Smith’s favorite scenes to film. “Fighting Batman was one of the highlights of my career,” the former Fresh Prince raved to us in a recent interview. “When I saw the Batmobile come around the corner and Ben Affleck jumped out, I went full fanboy. They were like, ‘Cut, cut. Will — that’s really not like Deadshot. Pull it together.’”
Meta-humans Wonder Woman, Cyborg, and Flash join Batman in ‘Justice League’ (Photo: Warner Bros.)
But at that point, we weren’t yet aware that Amanda knew the identity of the man behind the cowl. For that matter, it’s left unclear whether Bruce knows she knew all along. What he does know is that he doesn’t like her, and he definitely doesn’t care for her Suicide Squad. “If you don’t shut it down, someone will do it for you,” he says ominously on his way out the door. Does this foreshadow an eventual Justice League vs. Task Force X mega-battle? At least one member of the Squad will need to be rounded up: In the last scene of the movie, Harley Quinn is rescued from captivity by her quasi-boyfriend, the Joker (Jared Leto), and it’s entirely possible that she’ll ask him to spring her fellow bad guys as well.
In the short-term, though, the League is going to have its hands full fighting Steppenwolf. And Davis is keeping Waller’s potential involvement in that battle close to her vest. Asked about whether she’ll appear in Justice League, the actress semi-jokingly says, “I think you should ask the powers that be that, and then negotiate my salary.” Once again, Amanda Waller knows something that rest of us mere mortals don’t.
Watch Jared Leto on the Joker’s twisted romance: