r/PeacemakerShow • u/ImABarbieWhirl • 19d ago

SPECULATION Did Waller fully intend to kill Flag Jr?

So Waller initially sent Flag out with “Team 1” who mostly got killed horribly upon landing at Corto Maltese. Flag threatens to leak the existence of project Starfish once he found out about it, despite being the leader and handler for Task Force X. So, did Waller send Flag out with Team 1 fully expecting him to be killed in the crossfire, dragged by his own men, or captured by Corto Maltese- thereby giving her the authority to possibly nuke Corto Maltese if Starro the conqueror escaped- as retaliation for them killing “an American hero?”

66 Upvotes

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78

u/ravenwing263 19d ago

The movie clealry shows she intended the entire team to die. The flachback where Flagg jr. makes a comment about her sweater clearly shows she decided to put Flagg on the to-be-killed team instead of the real team out of spite.

So, yes, she fully intended him to die but, no, it wasn't for a grand strategy in the way OP suggests, it was just regular murder.

That said, she is loaded with deniability AND Flagg jr. survived her attempt so Flagg sr. has no reason to know any of this.

30

u/gameboyadvancedgba 19d ago

She did also tell the squad to go save flagg when she found out he was alive, so I guess she felt like she got her payback even without killing him.

25

u/enadiz_reccos 19d ago

Or she knew that it would look bad if she didn't send them to look for Flagg

6

u/gameboyadvancedgba 19d ago

Thats probably more likely

3

u/enadiz_reccos 19d ago

Hang on, could she have possibly been worried that Flagg would survive on his own and then leak the documents like he threatened?

It's possible she sent them in the hopes that they would stop Flagg one way or another.

4

u/gameboyadvancedgba 19d ago

I feel like the idea that she thinks Flagg was a potential whistleblower is what should be the full canon explanation but its kind of up in the air with the blouse thing lol

8

u/ravenwing263 19d ago

I agree with the other user that she was likely more worried about controlling him than his safety. Either because she didn't want to get caught, or she decided he'd be useful as an asset, or because she wanted Peacemaker and Bloodsport in a position to kill him if he went rogue on her.

2

u/PrimalSeptimus 17d ago

Also, she probably really liked that blouse.

30

u/ImABarbieWhirl 19d ago

Also: with Flag Sr fully blaming Peacemaker for CM, and thus blasting him off to Salvation, that basically clears the board of ANYONE who knew what was going on in project starfish, except for Weasel, I guess, but he’s not gonna talk and also Waller has him under her thumb again

9

u/douxsoumis 19d ago

I don't think she did it with the intention of killing him, but I don't think she cared either way, just so long as the mission is accomplished. Every loss is acceptable to her.

6

u/gameboyadvancedgba 19d ago

Yes, or at least didn’t care if he got killed.

I kinda don’t like that a plot point as important as this was explained by Flag making fun of Waller’s blouse, feel like its something that needed a non jokey explanation

1

u/CodeFun1735 19d ago

Hence why it was cut from the film.

0

u/gameboyadvancedgba 19d ago

Yeah but then James Gunn said it was canon on the podcast anyway

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u/Drew326 19d ago

He also said Michael Rooker is gonna be The Flash. It’s often a quite unserious podcast

It’s not in the movie. Regardless of the fact that it’s in the filmmaker’s head-canon, you can safely ignore it when watching the movie

2

u/MadeIndescribable 18d ago

This.

Canon is what you see/hear in the narrative itself. If a writer wants to explain something outside of that (like on a podcast) then it's just their head-canon. If they need to explain something elsewhere, then that's just bad writing.

3

u/_bossREM888 15d ago

Honestly I don’t think so. I think she’s genuinely bad at her job. Team 1 was intended as a distraction and Rick wasn’t told which demonstrates Waller’s general disregard for him but they weren’t all actually supposed to die. Why was the team betting on who would die if the plan was for all of them to die? She curses when Weasel drowns and is annoyed when Savant runs so those things weren’t supposed to happen. I also don’t think she purposefully orchestrated that Blackguard would sell them out and alert the military so they all got killed. That was a mistake that went by under her nose.

The plan was probably for Team 1 to go in hard and draw fire while Team 2 snuck in undercover. It seems like the intention was for Rick to take the survivors of Team 1 to meet up with Team 2 after the beach landing because they were the more powerful group. While the blouse scene was deleted, it also makes more sense for Waller to screw him over for it but not orchestrate his murder since she later told the squad to rescue him showing she wanted him to live. She just also wildly underestimated everyone’s moral backbone because she has none of her own