RIOTUS

A lot has happened since the first season of Peacemaker debuted on HBO Max in 2022. Warner Bros has had a few owner changes, HBO Max became just Max, and now, when this season starts, it’s HBO Max again. The DCEU was in play, and James Gunn was still connected to the MCU, now he runs DC Studios, and the DC movie/TV universe has rebooted into a new continuity. With two chapters down with Creature Commandos and Superman, we’re back with Peacemaker, but how is it a season two when the old continuity is gone? Well, much like DC Comics‘ past reboots, let’s just say things happened similarly, but with a few notable differences. I won’t get into it so that you can find out for yourselves. Still, Chris Smith, Adebayo, Harcourt, Economos, Vigilante, and of course, my main eagle Eagly are back to learn about themselves and maybe save the world accidentally.  

Chris Smith, aka Peacemaker (John Cena), is now seen as a hero by the public after the events of last season, but life still isn’t going the way he thought it would. He doesn’t feel like a hero, he’s constantly feeling guilty, and he’s still reckoning with his upbringing from his white supremacist father. He can confide in Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) about these things and his feelings for Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), but even that is going nowhere for good ol’ Peacemaker. Things begin to look different when, in the pocket universe, his dad sets up to work on his tech, and he sees another door with a similar keypad. When the code is the same, he finds himself in another universe much like his own, except Peacemaker is doing great, his dad loves him, and he’s a top-tier hero in this United States. Everything is coming up Peacemaker here, and that makes living on his own earth a bit harder to deal with. 

This portal to a pocket dimension catches the attention of Rick Flag Sr., who now leads A.R.G.U.S. after Amanda Waller lost her position following her daughter Adebayo’s public exposure of her actions. Rick Flag Sr. doesn’t care for Peacemaker much since he killed his son (in The Suicide Squad), and after Lex Luthor’s actions in Superman, they have to be a lot more diligent. With A.R.G.U.S. using Economos to spy on Peacemaker, things are not looking good for him here, and it is not helping his multiversal decision to leave or not hard.  

John Cena owns this role at this point. The overly earnest and wanting to please puppy dog face of Cena really brings you right back into this small world of these characters. Cena is still funny when needed and is able to deliver dramatic scenes with a great range of emotions. Cena gets to do more here in season two emotionally than in season one, and that was an emotional season. Cena and Brooks really come off as best friends now. They pull off the bond the characters made by the end of season one. With Adebayo more like Peacemaker now, as things just don’t go the way she’d like, she’s able to maintain a more positive outlook while also being the member of the group that always makes the most sensible decisions, even amidst all their foolishness.  

Holland gets to do a lot here with Harcourt, as she has to play two versions that are not much alike. The one we know is struggling with being blackballed by Waller and has a very toxic way of dealing with her frustrations. She excels at playing the character who struggles to express their feelings, with Cena being the more open of the two. Steve Agee is great as Economos, but his scenes with the great Tim Meadows as A.R.G.U.S. agent Langston Fleury take the show to comedic heights that it couldn’t hit last season. Meadows’ Fleury takes the overconfident yet bumbling mediocre government agent type to the bank. Every scene he’s in is guaranteed to elicit a laugh.  

A surprise addition this season was Sasha Bordeaux, played by Sol Rodriguez. The character, first debuting in comics twenty-five years ago as Bruce Wayne’s bodyguard, has had a long and twisty history with plastic surgery, becoming a cyborg, falling in love with Batman, and dealing with his rogue, evil A.I. Satellite. Here in Peacemaker, though she’s Rick Flag Sr.’s right hand and a hard task master with all the agents having to deal with her more than Flag himself, I think she carries off the character well as she’s clearly a straight man in this serious role with hardly any funny lines coming from her.  

Frank Grillo is the actor we actually know the most in the current DC Studios through voice and physical performances, but in this show, we get to see more depth. He does have layers, as he is focused on protecting the US from threats, but he also definitely wants to have a face-to-face with the man who killed his son on a mission. It doesn’t matter whether he was following orders or not, and you can infer that from Grillo here. Other times, he does well as the tired, overwhelmed boss in the office with his kooky office of agents – big sitcom vibes here.  I wish there was more for Freddie Stroma‘s Vigilante to do, where he’s even more of the “kid” character in the group, with his main issue being that he might not be Peacemaker’s best friend anymore, as Adebayo has taken that place. Still, I feel there could be more there for him.  

The show features cameos that people are familiar with, but that’s not a significant factor in the story. The tone of the show isn’t oft putting after Superman, the different tones and levels of explicitness work, and still feels like the same universe. For the real diehards, keep your eyes posted to a thing that looks very much like the Multiveristy Map of the Orrey of Worlds this season. I never expected Peacemaker to give me an It’s a Wonderful Life-style story for a superhero, and especially one like Peacemaker. Yet with Gunn and Cena’s reinvention of the character, it works, and as I said, it has the right amount of humor and drama, just like the masks that represent theater itself. Just like the previous season, I feel that this show captures the essence of the post-crisis DC Comics in live-action and was a very entertaining watch.