This article contains spoilers for “Peacemaker” and other DC Universe projects like “Creature Commandos” and “Superman” (2025).
Season 2 of James Gunn’s superhero comedy “Peacemaker” aired its finale Oct. 9. Before the finale, the show was a fantastic continuation of Chris Smith’s (John Cena), aka Peacemaker’s, story, offering one of few good takes on the overused superhero multiverse trope.
Peacemaker, first introduced in James Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad” (2021), is a self-proclaimed superhero who “made a vow of peace, no matter how many people [he has] to kill to get it.” However, thanks to a support network of government agents Leota “Ads” Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and John Economos (Steve Agee), as well as the masked psychopath Vigilante (Freddie Stroma), Peacemaker is able to reach a more well-adjusted mental state. In season one, he moves on from some of his delusions and kills his father (Robert Patrick), a supervillain named White Dragon who leads an organization called the Aryan Empire.
At the start of season 2, this newfound stability is threatened when Peacemaker discovers a portal to another world where everything seems much better than his own. He is part of the “Top Trio,” a superhero team made up of himself, a version of his father that is neither bigoted nor cruel and a version of his brother (David Denman) that survived childhood. However, he kills his doppelganger in a heartwrenching and unwanted battle and is forced to live a double life.
Peacemaker’s escapades into the other world fit into the narrative as a form of escapism, with each re-activation of the portal out of his depressing life drawing the authorities tracking this rift ever closer.
This investigation is led by General Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo), who holds a grudge because Peacemaker murdered his son in “The Suicide Squad.” Seeing Peacemaker accept this as a consequence of his actions shows just how much his character has grown and makes Flag’s indifference to this growth all the more tragic.
Economos, still working for the government, is dragged into this investigation and forced to stake out his friend’s house. To make sure Economos does this unwanted job, Flag assigns Agent Langston Fleury (Tim Meadows) to work with Economos. Tim Meadows was the standout performance of this season, bringing laugh-out-loud hilarity to every scene he was in. His “bird blindness” (an inability to distinguish types of birds) made for a particularly great gag when he goes up against Eagly, Peacemaker’s pet bald eagle.
This investigation into Peacemaker provides a few good character moments like these, but otherwise feels like little more than a way to fill out the intervening episodes as the plot moves at a snail's pace. The story finally gets there when Peacemaker attempts to abandon his old world and flee into the new one.
When Peacemaker’s friends follow him through the rift, the audience is finally shown another person’s perspective on the alternate universe. It quickly becomes clear that this is a universe where the Nazis won WWII. This twist is not only shocking because Peacemaker’s new life is a twisted lie, but because he is so ignorant that he somehow didn’t realize.
Once Agent Harcourt has pointed out the Swastikas on the American flags and the mural of Adolf Hitler on the wall of her alternate self’s office, Peacemaker decides to save his friends from this Nazi dimension and get them home safe. His ability to turn on a dime keeps the audience from focusing for too long on his privileged and self-centered behavior.
Eventually Chris is forced to confront the version of his family he has been masquerading as a part of. While his brother is irate, his father offers a calmer perspective, telling Keith that “Revenge isn’t gonna bring your brother back.” When Harcourt then calls this version of Peacemaker’s father a Nazi, he begins a monologue:
“I didn’t create the problems in my world, Missy. I don’t agree with them. I applaud you if your world is perfect and you fight every injustice you ever see. Is that what you do? Unfortunately, I haven’t got the strength for that. I fight the madman murderers and monsters in front of me because that’s all I can control.”
This isn’t to say that he is a good person — the Blue Dragon is too weak mentally to overcome an indifference to the problems in his world, even if he would be strong enough physically to make a difference.
However, he also asks if any of the people he is talking to is strong enough to do so, and by extension able to criticize him. This reflection is really scary because of how it draws comparison between this racist dystopia and our own world. This man, lauded as a hero in a truly evil reality, is asking the viewer if his world is different enough from our own for them to not try and make a difference.
Eventually, the alternate version of Vigilante — someone with a desire to make a difference — bursts through the window and kills him before he can finish. Though the Blue Dragon wasn’t as bad as the White Dragon, the show puts forth a question of if he should be punished for his inaction.
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In the final episode, these interdimensional shenanigans have concluded. Peacemaker is imprisoned and chooses to isolate himself from his friends. This plot could have been a great ending, but the decision was made to intersperse it with many scenes meant to set up a sequel to “Superman” (2025).
The plot primarily follows Harcourt and Fleury as Flag commands them and a team into several expeditions into the portal they stole from Peacemaker. This operation, in collaboration with Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult), is such an abrupt shift that I’m tempted to say that Flag has been replaced by some kind of shapeshifter, something that happened in “Creature Commandos,” a recent James Gunn DC project which starred Grillo as Flag.
It upsets me that I feel the need to mention so many other DCU projects though. While James Gunn promised that his DCU projects would “be their own thing,” this season finale certainly didn’t live up to that promise, turning the show’s story into a rapid fever dream to give runtime to other stories.
Even the more well-received crossover cameo in the season premiere is an inappropriate mashing of characters and themes, with Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion) making fun of Peacemaker’s bisexuality by saying that one of the only things he is good at is “blowing dudes.” While this character was pretty aggressive and crass in “Superman,” this depiction where he is homophobic feels widely outside of his character.
But to look on the bright side, this season’s opening theme certainly lives up to last seasons.
Oliver Gerharz is the arts editor and former podcast director for the Daily Cardinal. He is a journalism major and former host of the Cardinal Call. Follow him on Twitter @OliverGerharz.
