Back in August, I binged the first five episodes of Peacemaker season 2. That portion of the series seemed much more dynamic and action-packed than season 1 and set up a mysterious plot twist that had DC Reddit fans clamouring for theories, even breaking down the iconic dance sequence intro.
As such, I gave it 4/5 stars – and without the context of the remaining episodes, I can see why I made that decision.
Unfortunately, further instalments saw that standard slowly drop. Now that Peacemaker is finished (possibly for good), I’m reflecting on what made this season take a turn for the worse, and why tying it in with the new DCU may have been a mistake after all.
Spoilers for Peacemaker season 2 below
Salvation solely exists to set up Superman 2
Although James Gunn previously called Peacemaker his favourite project out of everything he’s worked on, he is first and foremost one of the DCU head honchos, along with Peter Safran.
Therefore, there’s a chance that there were discussions behind closed doors about how this show could continue, despite originally being part of the former DCEU – and it sure seems as though there was an agreement to tie it into one of the biggest movies in the franchise, ensuring cross-promotion.
As a recap, you’ll know that Chris Smith was dragged unwillingly into one of the parallel universe doors to a place dubbed ‘Salvation’ as a test dummy. This prison planet is reserved for meta-humans and presumably will be spearheaded by Lex Luthor, who made a brief cameo in episode 6.
Since the finale, Gunn has confirmed that Salvation will play a big part in Superman: Man of Tomorrow, which is slated to release on 9 July 2027. While many DC fans will be excited to see the franchise unify, the final episode felt different from all those that came before it.
While it set up the special ops agency Checkmate from the comics, most of that sequence was wasted on stock-footage shots of the 11th Street Kids and co laughing in an office block, rather than showing how the characters made that decision, hilarious banter and all.
Even the use of the title song, Oh Lord, felt so wasted compared to the scene that accompanied Do Ya Wanna Taste It in season one. The latter accompanied a kick-ass action sequence, as the group went hell for leather to take down the (poor) Cow and eliminate the threat of the Butterflies.
But this time? We got a cheesy concert, with most scenes showing Chris and Emilia singing along. While it’s lovely that they’re having fun, it’s hardly doing anything to propel the plot forward.
All these scenes felt like filler until the episode could finally get to the mic drop moment of Salvation. Which again makes me question why Rick Flag Sr. waited long enough for Peacemaker to set up his own startup before dragging him to prison? It doesn’t feel like a cohesive narrative.
The whole episode was there for the Superman sequel, and genuinely left me a bit bored in parts. Which, considering how strong the plot and character development had been in earlier episodes, was a real darn shame.
Plus, didn’t we just do the super prison thing in the first Superman film? With Lex Luthor and his pocket universe? It’s not a new concept.
Adebayo, Vigilante and Rick Flag Sr. deserved better
My original review did criticise how Adebayo and Vigilante were underused throughout the first five episodes, and my opinion on that hasn’t changed.
The former did get two emotionally cathartic moments in the season finale, but it makes me wonder why both were held back for one episode. We could have had Leota and her partner discuss their relationship much earlier than we did, as she was already reflecting on their different paths in life earlier in the show.
But because this was inserted in the weirdly paced final episode, it didn’t feel as emotionally impactful as it could have.
As for Vigilante, he mainly got to shine when he interacted with his alternate universe self. I wish we’d had more of that, which could have been fixed by adding more episodes, and thereby a longer stint in the Nazi world – but more on that later.
Jessica Miglio/HBO Max
But perhaps the biggest misstep of the final few episodes related to Rick Flag Sr. Despite his clearly unhealthy obsession with revenge on Chris for killing his son, he did still display some warmth towards both Harcourt and Sasha Bordeaux earlier in the season. There seemed to be some character depth and shades of grey to him.
But instead, we saw him laughing joyously with Lex Luthor’s old pals (who Flag hadn’t previously been crazy about) as members of his team are quite literally having their faces ripped off, and their bodies dragged right next to their feet in the search for Salvation.
As someone who lost his own son, surely, he’d have a lot more empathy for those on his force? It’s so out of character that you almost want to look for reasons to justify it.
Entertainment site New Rockstars sums it up well here:
The comments even speculate that he could be Clayface, or is being mind-controlled in some way. Others reference Flag’s suffering in Creature Commandos (no major spoilers here) and try to justify his extreme views because of it.
However, not all Peacemaker fans will have seen the animated series Creature Commandos. James Gunn even said that the live-action show would all make sense on its own without additional context.
So, either Flag’s development was reliant on other content (which wasn’t made clear), there’s something else going on with him that hasn’t been revealed yet… or it’s bad writing, plain and simple.
Earth-X was resolved way too quickly
The key plot line that made most fans go nuts was the influence of Earth-X from the DC Comics. While the show called this world Earth-2, the internet colloquially knew it as Earth-X.
Whatever you want to call it, the premise was the same – it’s a universe where the Nazis won WW2, and that racist and backward ideology has taken over the United States. People of colour are rounded up and (presumably) put in concentration camps, while the Peacemaker of this world was seemingly a nasty piece of work who relished enforcing the law.
Jessica Miglio/HBO Max
It’s a horrifying prospect, and quite frankly, we didn’t get to see the 11th Street Kids grapple with it enough.
When Peacemaker left Earth-1, it felt rather final and a true turning point for his character. So, to have him pulled out of the world just two episodes later, with little reaction to realising the truth about his so-called perfect world, felt a tad rushed.
It’s also confusing that this version of Auggie Smith was… well, not a racist piece of s***. How would that be the case? It seems as though both Keith and Chris had prejudices, and surely, they’ve learnt that behaviour from somewhere. I just can’t buy that a family this close doesn’t all feel the same way in a white supremacist setting, especially knowing how awful Chris’s dad was in Earth-1.
We also barely got to see development from the alternate versions of Emilia Harcourt or Rick Flag Jr. – who, lest we forget, was actually alive in this universe, despite being dead on Earth-1.
Why was he not used more to interrogate Chris’s morality, after so much of the show was about Peacemaker grappling with his murder? Could there have been a way for Flag Sr. to jump into this multiverse, find his son alive and therefore have a more complicated and nuanced journey to finding Salvation through brutal means?
Jessica Miglio/Max
Had this season been two episodes longer – the same as the first instalment – then maybe we could have had more time in Earth-X, as well as stronger character development across the board.
To give credit to Gunn, he has acknowledged on Threads that “not everyone can love everything” and understands people’s criticisms of the finale.
For the record, I really wanted to keep enjoying Peacemaker, but the wider DC Universe ended up meddling too much with the narrative.
