One of my favorite DC movie heroes was killed by a toilet, of all things, and looking back, I still can’t get over that being how their life ended. Deaths in superhero projects are often like songs in musicals – necessary parts of the story that basically define whether a project will work or not in some fundamental ways.

While not every movie death is made equal, the vast majority of memorable superhero releases involve at least one devastating death that defines the plot in a major way, and leaves you more emotionally invested in the narrative. That said, it’s fair to say that toilets usually don’t factor into these moments, with the exception of one unusual demise.

The Suicide Squad Gives One Of Its Least Dignified Deaths To One Of Its Best Heroes

The Suicide Squad does a great job of underlining the appeal of several characters who’d initially proved more divisive to DC fans on their debuts in Suicide Squad. The sequel of sorts manages to take an array of figures and show them in new, more endearing lights, including Rick Flag Jr.

The Suicide Squad plays into Joel Kinnaman’s charisma, with the character serving as the lone “normal” solider in a team of eccentric figures. Flag is also played as one of the most heroic of the team, with his actions being defined by his belief in doing what’s right over what’s easy, even when this places him in harm’s way.

However, this doesn’t just put him in harm’s way in The Suicide Squad – it puts him in death’s way. In contrast to Flag’s moral standing, Peacemaker brawls with the man who is one of his heroes over a hard drive that has evidence of US involvement in “Project Starfish” and the awful experiments being done using Starro and Starro’s powers.

This leaves the two rolling around the facility Starro is being held in – which is filled with inhuman examples of how Starro was being used – before they crash into a set of toilets and shatter one of the tanks. Peacemaker soon after grabs a grubby-looking ceramic shard from this chaos, and uses it to stab Flag in the heart.

The close-up short of Flag Jr’s heart being pierced and starting to beat its final pulses is grim enough, but looking back, there’s an especial kind of indignity to being stabbed in the heart with the shards of a toilet that’s in the middle of a bleak scientific-experiment-slash-torture facility area.

Rick Flag’s Death Helps His Story Stand Out Even Years Later

There are a wide range of interesting and unique ways superhero stories have killed people over the years. Explosions, monster attacks, and everything in between line the history of the fates of DC and Marvel’s most unfortunate characters. However, being killed by a sharp broken piece of toilet tank taken to the heart is unique even among this unusual roster.

Part of this is, of course, how painfully mundane in some ways Flag’s fate is. In a story wherein a shark-man who’s thought to be the son of a god is eating people, and a mindcontrolling starfish has killed hundreds, Flag is killed by a piece of an ordinary household item stabbed into him by a character without any powers.

Almost ironically, it’s this exact nature that makes Rick Flag Jr’s death one that’s lived on and remained memorable for audiences long after many more dramatic demises. That said, part of this is the way in which Flag’s unfortunate bathroom murder continues to be relevant to the DCU timeline even close to half a decade after we saw it on-screen.

Rick Flag Being Killed So Unceremoniously Justifies Every Storyline That’s Resulted From His Death

While plenty of other characters die in The Suicide Squad – including another notable figure from Suicide Squad in the form of Captain Boomerang – these deaths are all a little better in the sense they’re at least in slightly more dignified circumstances. Boomerang, for example, is killed by a runaway helicopter, which is a little more conventionally action hero-esque.

The nature of Rick Flag being killed in one of the most unceremonious ways in DC movie history does mean it makes sense he metaphorically haunts the narrative long afterward. This is both in The Suicide Squad – where the team’s decision to save innocent civilians from Starro feels like honoring their fallen leader – and in later releases.

Peacemaker season 1 has the тιтular protagonist be deeply damaged by killing someone he considered a good person – leading to his growth in the series – and season 2 looks set to capitalize on this more via Rick Flag Sr seemingly seeking revenge. Rick Flag Sr’s introduction in Creature Commandos also continued to underline the death of The Suicide Squad‘s hero.

This works to make it feel not only as though Rick Flag Jr’s death still means something, but also that the particularly unpleasant circumstances of his death-by-toilet demise are balanced out by his fate having a bigger impact on the overarching lore of DC‘s movie world. Either way, though, it’s at least not a death you forget in a hurry.