‘Peacemaker’ Went Full ‘Doctor Who’ Explaining How Portal Doors Work

It’s time to see once again what’s new in the world of Christopher Smith in another episode of Peacemaker. Will Chris return in the nick of time to save Eagly from whatever twin-tailed horrors ARGUS has in store for our feathered friend? Will Chris and Harcourt ever become Facebook official? Will we ever figure out why Chris’ “best dimension” appears not to have any non-white people roaming about in the background? Let’s cease with the incessant questions and what awaits

Episode four, “Need I Say Door,” begins with yet another flashback. This time, we see the Smith family out hunting when they come across a small gray alien, who stands only three apples tall. Unfortunately, this isn’t E.T. or Mac & Me, as the alien doesn’t last long. He is quickly shot by Auggie Smith (Robert Patrick), who also backhands his oldest son, Keith for protesting the shooting.

However, for the Smiths, the gray alien didn’t die in vain, because he left behind a silver helmet, along with the dimensional portal he must have emerged from. That’s right, we just got a Peacemaker helmet and pocket universe origin all within the span of three minutes.

As we move on from Gunn’s thinly veiled excitement in showcasing the murder of the underdog, we return to John Economos (Steve Agee) and the ARGUS team as they, joined by Red St. Wild (Michael Rucker) and Judomaster aka Rip Jagger (Nhut Le), barrel toward Chris’ house to murk Eagly and steal his pocket universe door. Meanwhile, Chris is back, likely enjoying his big hero moment from the last episode and contemplating whether to leave his dimension behind for what he claims is the “best dimension ever.” Still waiting for the other shoe to drop on that one.

Thankfully, Chris’ daydreaming gives him a moment to notice the bullet holes in his ceiling and the chaos in his post-orgy house left by ARGUS’ last visit. He finds himself wondering where Eagly is. Fortunately, Eagly is just in the kitchen, eating. However, a text from Economos warns Chris that ARGUS is at their doorstep, ready to breach. Just in time, Chris grabs the helmet from the cadaveric alien he encountered earlier. He and Eagly make a swift exit right before ARGUS arrives. This sets off the extended chase sequence for the rest of the episode.

What follows is chaos in the woods behind Chris’ house, where he squares off against Rip Jagger, while Eagly, keeping a watchful eye, circles overhead and is being trained on by Red St. Wild’s rifle. Just when things look grim, Economos comes in clutch—body-checking “Captain Cultural Appropriation” straight into a stone on the ground. He’s still alive, but he’s definitely got some brain damage. Secure the bag, Michael Rucker. Meanwhile, Rip Jagger unleashes a head scissors into a tilt-a-whirl takedown, snapping Chris into a headlock mid-spin. They crash to the forest floor in a tangled heap, with Chris’ wide-ass frame pancaking Jagger with all the grace of a falling vending machine.

While Chris phones Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) to pick him up like a kid who had a bad day at school, ARGUS locates the security pad to Chris’ pocket dimension and tasks Economos with opening it. Cutting back to Adebayo and Chris, Chris phones Adrian Chase (Freddie Stroma), asking him to get some doors from Lowe’s to concoct his plan to “move the portal” while Economos stalls for time. Bet Mr. Terrific wishes his spheres knew how to do that in Superman.

By this point, it’s clear that episode four, while being a big cat-and-mouse game, also doubles as a big lore explainer for how Peacemaker’s pocket universe works. Or at least, as much as Chris understands how it works. The gist of which is that he can transfer the portal door from his dad’s house to where they’re headed: Grandpa Smith’s derelict cabin in the woods. Apparently, Chris had only been able to pull off the portal door switcheroo twice when he was a kid.

In the midst of all the chaos, Chris tells Adebayo about the “best universe ever,” where his dad is still alive. Adebayo, not believing in the parallel universe despite all the extraterrestrial chicanery she has witnessed thus far, questions whether Chris is still having visions of his dead dad, experienced at the end of the first season—a plotline that was quickly abandoned this season.

However, Chris insists that this situation is different from one of the 99 doors to a parallel world, saying, “But it’s better.” Once again, the anticipation for learning why Chris, Keith, and their historically racist Pa are lauded as the Top Trio hero team in that universe makes us long to see Chris and Adebayo discover the reason why the grass isn’t greener on the other side. But we’ll have to wait for that to be revealed another day.

After some weird space science winging it from Chris, the pair manages to transfer the portal doors in time. Sasha Bordeaux (Sol Rodriguez), pissed at Economos’ wishy-washiness, reports back, telling Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo) that their mission failed. He doesn’t take the news well. He’s so pissed that he asks to get in contact with Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), who appears to be in the midst of yet another barroom brawl.

While she’s nursing her wounds at home, Flag Sr. makes a house call, reaffirming they’re on a first-name basis on account of her and his son being such close friends he’d cheat on a world-ending witch girlfriend, Enchantress, with her. While they talk about Rick Flag Jr.’s funeral, Harcourt stresses that Chris only killed him on Amanda Waller’s orders, but Flag Sr., again, isn’t having it. This leads him to cut to the real purpose behind his visit: to offer Harcourt a job that’ll exempt her from the US government’s blacklist: apprehending Chris. Dun dun dun!

Elsewhere, Adebayo finally asks about what happened to the other Chris in the “best dimension ever.” Chris fesses up to killing himself in self-defense. In the spirit of sharing, he also reveals he was only in the alt-dimension because he was gawking at a photo of his other self and Harcourt being together, and that she’s dating Rick Flag Jr.

Adebayo takes all of this “fucked up Twilight Zone shit” well (she doesn’t). Reading the room, Adebayo tells Chris she thinks he shouldn’t go back to the alternate universe and should make the most of the life he has here, even if he’s less of a dick than his dead self was. Chris retorts, saying he feels like he spawned in the wrong universe: a dark dimension, given how fucked his home life has been.

We conclude with Chris texting Harcourt to arrange a meeting, as she considers whether to betray him. Unlike Jerry from the last episode, we will have to wait until next week to find out what happens with Chris and Harcourt, as ARGUS lies in wait to capture him.

Peaceful Peacemaker Pontifications

• Fleury continues to be a delightful bird-blind idiot—truly a grade-A addition to this motley crew of dumbasses.
• Eagly putting the fear in god into Red St. Wild, believing he’s some mythical “primal eagle”? All the accolades for best boy. Unfortunately, this only motivates St. Wild to kill Eagly even harder.
• This episode, by far, is the silliest and most lore-important episode this season. Everyone really put their whole Peaceussy into hamming up their comedic timing and exaggerated expressions to make this nearly 40-minute episode fly by with mile-a-minute jokes. Helmets off to all involved.
• Michael Rucker going full hog, doing a forest fire dance with his jibblets hanging out… not much else to really say here but that it’s a thing that happened, and it helped him locate Chris and crew.

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