After eight weekly episodes, Peacemaker season two has finally come to an end. James Gunn’s sophomore effort with the John Cena-led show, which exists in canon limbo between the DCUs of old and new, had a lot of hype around it. That hype became even more fever-pitched as the show was positioned as a direct follow-up to Superman. So without further ado, here are all the peaks and valleys from Peacemaker season two.
Liked: Eagly being badass
We here at io9 have made it our top priority to glaze Eagly, the best Peacemaker character (edging out Adrian by the narrowest of margins), at every given opportunity. He’s simply a delight. There’s just something about the Puppet kayfabe of its cast of actors having to pantomime (or better yet, act with a mocapped actor like in Superman) for all of Eagly’s silly little moments.
Whether it was Eagly indignantly ignoring the team to chase down some baloney or soaring into the fray for his big hero moment, the fact that CGI and motion capture turned a damn bird into a cherished character—and made viewers search “does the bird die” every week—is proof of how good Gunn is at weaponizing cute animals to pull at our heartstrings. Thankfully, the bird survived this season. Big shout-out to Dee Bradley Baker, whose wild career arc led to voicing the show’s undisputed best boy.
Liked: Red St. Wild’s Looney Tunes side quest
Peacemaker‘s second season felt distinctly sillier than its first. Maybe something was in the water with the show sharing a streaming service with Looney Tunes (before Warner Bros., in its infinite wisdom, got rid of the show) because this season had big Looney Tunes energy. No element emphasized that more than Michael Rooker’s Elmer Fudd-ass subplot as Red St. Wild, who hunted Eagly while toting a comedically oversized rifle. It’s always a good sign when a comic book show isn’t afraid of being goofy, and this whole bit was peak. No notes.
Liked: That big (albeit predictable) Earth X twist
Although viewers predicted that Peacemaker‘s alternate dimension was Earth X weeks in advance of when Gunn thought they would catch on, the punch of the reveal wasn’t any less effective as a huge “uh-oh” moment of the season. Kudos to Gunn for deliberately choosing background characters in Earth X to be of the mayonnaise complexion variety, while rapidly cutting back to our world—set in Atlanta, mind you—with very visible and, dare we say, drop-dead gorgeous extras turning the heads of the main cast. It was a clever twist made all the more poignant for fans sitting in anticipation for how that shoe would drop, and it dropped in the most hilarious way possible.
What’s more, it managed to make its entire Nazi world ride the line between being outwardly comedic and deeply upsetting, highlighting the danger Judomaster and Adebayo were in. We know Gunn tries not to make his works analogues for real life events (cough cough Superman), but letting Adebayo say the quiet part out loud about our current political climate not being so different from Earth X was some good shit. Robert Patrick’s character can keep his fence-sitting centrist hero speech, though.
Liked: The Superman cameos
From the moment Gunn became publicly cagey about where the rest of the season would head, it was clear the DC boss had big plans and cameos in mind. While it was a bit of a shame that, despite all the secrecy, he ended up scooping himself in the director’s commentary of Superman‘s expedited digital release, it didn’t make Nicholas Hoult‘s cameo as Lex Luthor any less huge.
Considering Gunn’s misgivings about his Peacemaker characters haphazardly making cameos in other DC projects without his prior knowledge, it was neat to see Gunn make Peacemaker feel less like a property stripped for parts to elevate shakier projects and instead act as an essential lynchpin. It can afford to have cameos that aren’t silhouettes, and big marquee players in the DC Universe can come play around in Peacemaker‘s toy box.
Liked: The 11th Street kids’ winning chemistry
Gunn’s really good at making an ensemble cast of characters who are otherwise assholes feel like the most endearing, compelling, tight-knit group of pals. Peacemaker‘s cast is to DC what the Guardians of the Galaxy misfits were to Marvel, and that sentiment is made even more true in season two.
With every development where the gang was on their own splintered adventure, the thought of “I wonder what X would think/say about this” was all but impossible to ignore. And, not missing a beat, the show would deliver those moments. Seeing the gang’s reunion teased out was super effective because the show felt like its heart was made whole whenever the group got together and tried to overcome whatever harrowing situation they were in. Witnessing the gang giving each other shit from a place of love and dropping the pretenses of their joking relationships to get real was one of the best bits from the show.
Liked: John Cena’s evolution from wrestler to bona fide actor
Among wrestlers turned actors, the hierarchy of talent is still ironclad, with John Cena behind Dave Bautista and leaps ahead of Dwayne Johnson. However, Cena’s performance this season was his best yet; with his uncanny comedic timing, physical acting, and emotional depth, Cena was firing on all cylinders. You can always tell when an actor is just phoning it in compared to when they’re deeply in their element, playing off their costars and acting like a sponge, squeezing out every action and reaction they can from a scene. And Cena did that shit.
Watching him play a man with a silly helmet who bawls his eyes out when he’s seen as a joke—and later realizes his weirdo assortment of a found family is willing to kill his alternate dimension family to save him—was genuinely emotionally stirring. Sure, solid scripts lay the groundwork for exceptional stories—but the raw vulnerability and versatility Cena brought this season truly earned him the title of actor.
Didn’t like: The repetitive, rambling jokes
One of the strong points of Peacemaker‘s first season was its comedy. Much of it was Donnie Darko-esque, delivering terminally online asides about fandoms, niche factoids, or observations that would otherwise fit right at home on r/ShowerThoughts subreddit. But what made them work was that they weren’t throwaway quips to fill time. Some were overly long but worked because they were the rare, drawn-out, improvised bits in a sea of short-jab punchy jokes.
We didn’t get much of that this season. Instead, the humor hovered somewhere between “drawn-out Family Guy prelude to a cutaway gag that never comes” and Ghostbusters-reboot levels of “oops—all improvisations.” The end result was a lot of long-walked bits that weren’t worth their flimsy punchlines. Unfortunately, much of this was divvied up to Economos, making him a character one would reflexively brace themselves for in preparation for a ramble that didn’t go anywhere, much less effectively distract the bad guys while the rest of the gang engages in sneaky subterfuge.
Didn’t like: Too many musical montages
It’s no secret that James Gunn loves his needle drops. And to his credit, he does it better than most. Much of his deep pulls are leagues preferable to the overplayed tunes other directors employ, which become more distracting to the scenes they’re tied to than a stellar underscoring.
That being said, Gunn got a bit too overzealous this time around. While yes, Foxy Shazam’s “Oh Lord” is a bop, its inclusion as one of three needle drops in montages in the show’s finale felt more like padding out a limp ending to a show whose penultimate episode ended on a stronger note than its own finale. What’s worse, many of the finale’s musical sequences felt like they would’ve been leagues more interesting as actual scenes. Speaking of…
Didn’t like: That cliffhanger finale
Much of Peacemaker‘s thrust as a show felt like it petered out by the time its eighth episode and final episode rolled around. Sure, we got to see what happened between Harcourt and Chris on that boat. Sure, we got to see the gang have an emotional climax that deepened their bonds. But the whole episode felt like multiple epilogues stitched together to signpost where the DC Universe was going with portal dimensions, leaving the 11th Street kids in the dust.
And that sucked. Especially since its heavy-handed musical montages flattened moments when it felt like we were building up to the gang thwarting ARGUS’ plans with Planet Salvation, only to putz around with Judomaster, Fleury, and Bordeaux (who just show up as new members of the group without any real justification for why), setting up their own base of operations.
Having the legs cut under what felt like a way to get back at ARGUS made it seem like the show didn’t really know what to do with them. Plus, Chris getting black bagged and sequestered in Planet Salvation felt like a cop-out after that rah-rah speech about fighting back—and a bit of a waste of time with a show that’s otherwise been lean and to-the-point.
Ultimately, “Full Nelson” felt more like an empty punt toward the rest of the DC Universe that left its characters in a lurch. Placing Chris in a proverbial box and filing him away was certainly not a cathartic touchdown. We spent the whole season liking these characters. Having the finale set up other shows while shelving the 11th Street kids didn’t instill excitement for how Lanterns—or any future DC project—will “yes, and” with Peacemaker as an expansive connected universe.
Peacemaker season two is now streaming on HBO Max.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
