Peacemaker Season 2 – A Heartfelt, Entertaining, But Ultimately Flawed Adventure
It’s been a long time, but I have finally finished this review of Peacemaker Season 2, so let’s talk about it. While this season doesn’t live up to the high standard set by Season 1, it’s nonetheless a decent entry into the DCU that takes the Peacemaker story in a bunch of unexpected directions. It effectively builds upon what the previous season established in an interesting and cohesive way while establishing its own narrative. This is also very much a James Gunn passion project, and you can feel his signature style of humor and storytelling throughout the show. While it may not be as good as Season 1, it’s still a solid 8/10 season that feels like a natural continuation of the Peacemaker story and a great expansion of the DCU’s lore.
One of the things I felt was great about this season was the additional focus on Peacemaker’s supporting cast, specifically, Emilia Harcourt, Leota Adebayo, and John Economos. These four can be considered co-leads of this season, and you could even make an argument for Harcourt taking on a main-character role. While the first season was all about Peacemaker’s problems and his reconciling with the past, this season is all about the effect of their expose on Amanda Waller, and how they are trying to find their place in the world after basically losing everything. You see the toll this takes on all of them, and how each of them is dealing with it differently. Harcourt tries to fill this missing piece of her life with booze, Economos chooses to run from these problems and takes on a lower-ranking position at ARGUS where he is frequently disrespected, and Adebayo tries to maintain a positive facade while her private life with Keeya is falling apart. This is something that I felt was done better here than during the first season, and serves to fully flesh out these characters and let them step out of Peacemaker’s shadow. Harcourt undergoes a powerful arc, as she reconciles with her feelings for Peacemaker and slowly opens up over the course of the season. Adebayo also plays a big role as the main emotional core of the season, and it’s through her that we get to see the best of all these broken characters.
Peacemaker (I’ll be addressing him as Chris from now on) also experiences a powerful arc in this season, as he uses the dimensional portal to access a parallel dimension where his brother’s alive and his father actually cares about him. Here, Peacemaker is also a hero, and this is what drives home the notion that Chris desperately wants to be accepted. He begins to spend more time in this dimension, living in this perfect world where he has everything he’s ever wanted and where his problems won’t follow him. However, he soon accidentally kills his alternate universe self, which causes him to fully embrace his selfish desires and live in this universe for longer periods of time while rationalizing this decision the best he can. This season cements John Cena’s skill as an actor, and he gives an incredibly vulnerable performance that further explores Chris’ internal struggles. Meanwhile, Rick Flag Sr. has taken control of ARGUS and is using Chris’ use of the dimensional portal as an excuse to settle his own personal selfish (albeit understandable) vendetta. Frank Grillo delivers such a hateable performance as this seemingly good man out to get his petty revenge. While you start the season off sympathizing with Rick, by the end you actively hate him for what he has done to Chris. He acts as a dark mirror to Chris in a way, where he releases his anger and grief not through forgiveness and friendship, but through borderline sadistic torment.
As the show goes back and forth between Chris having the time of his life on the alternate world and the events going on in prime Earth, there’s always this imminent slow-burn sense of danger and dread, as Rick slowly closes in while the 11th Street Kids stall for time. Economos is a standout in these earlier episodes, where he overcomes his cowardly nature and plays an active role in preventing Chris’ capture. His dynamic with Fleury, Judomaster, and the rest of ARGUS was also really entertaining, and he had a lot of great character moments that make you sympathize with him despite his decision to help hunt down his friend in order to keep his job. Eagly is another surprising standout during these earlier episodes, and is just an absolute badass all throughout. He basically defeats a whole ARGUS squad, and his cat-and-mouse subplot with Red Saint Wild was one of the most entertaining parts of the season. That final reveal of Eagly being the Eagle God was insane and so unexpected, and really recontextualizes everything Eagly has done in both seasons. Judomaster, Fleury, and the ARGUS agents are also a fun bunch, and provide plenty of fun comedic relief. The Earth X characters are all pretty fun twists on their classic counterparts. The inclusion of Keith was also a smart move, and allows Chris’ bond with his brother and the guilt he still holds over Keith’s death to be further explored. In my opinion this season also looks better stylistically than the first, with a more vibrant color scheme that fits the show’s tone. James Gunn’s musical taste is as good as ever, with the intro still being excellent and the soundtrack being absolutely heavenly. On the whole, this season was pretty good, but it does fall short in certain areas that keep it from being as great as Season 1.
While the season finale is the biggest point of criticism people have given, I felt the entire show was poorly paced. Aside from the 57 minute finale, each other episode only had a runtime of around 30-40 minutes, which is incredibly short for a season that has so much plot stuffed into it. This show has so many pacing-related problems, and feels very rushed a lot of the time. New characters like Fleury, Bordeaux, and the Earth X variants don’t really get a chance to shine like the old cast did, and Vigilante was just painfully neglected in this season. I would argue that Vigilante is perhaps the most important character in the show aside from Peacemaker himself, yet here he is sidelined for a large portion of the story and barely gets any character development. The Earth X plot also felt really undercooked, because we simply don’t get the chance to explore the world and its characters. It just sort of felt like DC just wanted to use this Earth as a plot device to move the story forward, which is a shame because there’s so much interesting content that could be explored. It would have been interesting to delve into this world’s history, and seeing more of the Freedom Fighters or how the Nazi death camps operated would have really fleshed out Earth X a lot more. I was also expecting a Nazi Superman cameo or something after David Corenswet posted that photo of him on set with John Cena, and that didn’t end up happening which was sort of disappointing.
However, I think the show’s finale best exemplifies its pacing-related problems. With a 57-minute runtime, you would expect it to manage to tie up all these loose plot threads and deliver a satisfying ending to this season’s story. With how episode 7 ended, it would have been perfect to see Chris finally reconcile with his inner demons by fighting his own brother Keith in order to protect his friends. It’s clear that his trauma still haunts him deeply, and seeing him being forced to kill his brother again could have been a powerful character moment. However, the finale chooses to go in a completely different direction by abandoning the Earth X plot completely, and instead becomes a jumbled mess of ARGUS exploring the QUC, flashbacks, and impromptu music numbers. The finale just chooses to ignore everything that came before and focuses solely on future setup. The episode literally ends on a cliffhanger with Chris being stranded on Salvation, and with no confirmation for Season 3 yet it seems like this just acts as setup for future DCU projects. With the proper payoff the Season 2 finale may be looked back on more favorably, but right now it just feels like a disappointing ending to an otherwise great season.
On the whole, this season isn’t as bad as people say. The show was pretty great up until the finale, and even then it manages to wrap everything up in a cohesive way. While the pacing could use some work, the characters are still as loveable as ever, and this season does a great job at expanding the DCU. It really cements John Cena’s position as an excellent actor, and doesn’t necessarily tarnish the quality of the first season. This season is still very enjoyable and definitely worth the watch.
