Peacemaker Season 2 Review: Becoming a True Hero
Season 2 of James Gunn's PEACEMAKER is a darker, more character-driven look at this comic book antihero.
My excitement for season 2 of Peacemaker has been up for a while, and his brief cameo in the new Superman movie increased it even more. And in just one week, it begins! Warner Bros. and HBO Max provided me with the first five episodes of James Gunn’s new season for review, and season 2 is more character-driven, more brutal, and more heartfelt than the first, which is saying something because Peacemaker has been solid from the jump. (You can read my full recap of season 1 here.)
Because the show is bridging the DCEU to the DCU under Gunn’s leadership, the season 1 recap retcons a couple of moments. We now have Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) asking her mother, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), to send in the Justice Gang, and at the end, where the previous Justice League showed up in silhouette, we now see the Justice Gang, with Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion) and Hawkgirl (Isabela Marced) having a conversation about Peacemaker (John Cena). It’s a small, but necessary correction. It will be interesting to see if those scenes are updated when season 2 releases.
Season 2 of Peacemaker picks up about 8 months after the end of the first season. Adebayo is trying to start a detective business. Economos (Steve Agee) is still working for ARGUS, now headed by Rick Flag, Sr. (Frank Grillo), and having regular calls with Adrian/Vigilante (Freddie Stroma). Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) is struggling to find work after being blackbooked by Waller when Adebayo shared the inner workings of Project Butterfly. Peacemaker/Chris Smith is interviewing to become a member of the Justice Gang so he can be the hero that he sees in himself, but they are only able to see the things he has done wrong.
This seems to be a common refrain for Chris Smith through season 2. He desperately wants to be a hero. He acknowledges the areas where he has done wrong, and he is trying to make amends, only to be told repeatedly that his past is the only metric by which he is allowed to be measured.
So when Chris discovers that the interdimensional nodule that his father, Auggie (Robert Patrick), discovered leads to a parallel universe where everything is going well for him, he is drawn to that world. A world where Peacemaker is a hero. A world where his father and Harcourt both love him. In the first five episodes, the tug between the world where he has close bonds with the members of Task Force X, but is otherwise considered a joke, and the world where he didn’t experience many of the traumas that led him to that position.
Despite the existence of an interdimensional portal and a parallel universe, season 2 of Peacemaker is far more grounded in the characters than the first season. There is no potentially world-ending threat; the only thing the team is fighting this time is trauma. When Harcourt is unable to get work, we see her going to rough bars just to pick fights. Adebayo is dealing with a rough patch in her marriage as she realizes that her mother was right about her desire to do something more active to help people. Economos is stuck between keeping his job with ARGUS and trying to be a good friend. And Vigilante is trying to figure out how to open up to people, even though he is clearly not a healthy person.
Beyond the main team, there are some new characters connected to ARGUS that make things interesting. The addition of Frank Grillo as Rick Flag, Sr., definitely complicates things for Chris, as he is bent on avenging his son’s death at the hands of Peacemaker. This season also gives us Tim Meadows as Langston Fleury, and in addition to the always hilarious Freddie Stroma, he provides the bulk of this season’s humor (his encounter with Eagly is the most horrific and hilarious part of the show). Gunn regular Michael Rooker has a spot as Red St. Wild, a character who has the most comically gigantic gun since Jack Nicholson’s pistol in Batman. Sol Rodriguez is in as Sasha Bordeaux, a character who becomes interesting in episode 5 in a way that feels entirely too spoilery to mention here.
I can’t say much about the new opening sequence, but I will share that the Foxy Shazam song “Oh Lord” has been on repeat in my head. While this one isn’t quite as fun as the first season, it grew on me, and feels like it integrates into the show way better. And honestly, these lyrics offer a shocking amount of insight into what you’re about to watch.
I went into the first season of Peacemaker as an absolute skeptic. He was my least favorite character of The Suicide Squad, because his whole antihero schtick seemed too one-note to be interesting. I watched because my partner wanted to see it, but I was hooked pretty quickly due to the compelling character development, the team dynamic, and some shockingly good acting from John Cena. The first five episodes of season 2 take all of that and amplify it even more. I can’t wait to see how it ends, but if the beginning is any indication, it’s going to be a wild ride.
Rating: 4.5/5
The eight-episode second season of PEACEMAKER, from DC Studios and Warner Bros. Television, debuts August 21 at 9:00p.m. ET on HBO Max followed by one new episode weekly through October 9.