I was away on vacation outside the country the night Peacemaker Season 2 debuted on HBO Max. “It’s fine,” I thought. “I’ll just stay off social media until I get home in 24 hours to steer clear of any spoilers.”
Welp, spoiler alert: I didn’t and I didn’t.
Yes, long before I had the chance to plop myself on the couch to soak in James Gunn’s three-years-later follow-up to his first season of Peacemaker – a series that somehow straddles two different DC cinematic universes – I had learned the series retconned Season 1’s Justice League cameo into the Justice Gang (plus Superman and his chaotic cousin Kara). I also learned a few reasons why this season might confuse folks who tuned into the premiere out of curiosity following Gunn’s relatively family-friendly Superman (one of those reasons rhymes with bull-buntal budity).
Despite several other retcons that change or ignore elements of Peacemaker’s prior appearances in The Suicide Squad and the show’s first season, Peacemaker’s sophomore (and sophomoric) outing gives us more of what we love about the helmeted, hard-living antihero known to his friends as Chris Smith. But there’s more to Peacemaker this time around. You see, his deceased supervillain father had all sorts of portals to parallel universes in his secret lair … and in one of them, he’s still alive! Also alive is Peacemaker’s long-dead brother Keith, which creates a crisis of sorts for our hero as he grapples with his own reality, an alternate reality and the many possible realities that stand before him.
John Cena is fantastic in this series, and I’m not just saying that because I worked with him for more than a decade at WWE. He’s always excelled comedically – whether as Peacemaker or in screwball flicks like Ricky Stanicky, an underrated gem – but he brings some serious dramatic weight to the character this season and I can’t wait to see where he goes from here. Cena just might be my favorite wrestler-turned-actor, and I feel like he’s still just getting started.
But you can’t discount the rest of the cast. Jennifer Holland gets into one of the most brutal fight scenes I’ve seen in a while in this episode as the beat-to-hell Emilia Harcourt, while Danielle Brooks gives the series some welcome warmth as Leota Adebayo, one of Peacemaker’s most trusted confidantes, (outside of his pet eagle, naturally).
I was skeptical about Peacemaker planting one foot in the old DCEU and the other in the DCU, but the series seems to be making it work so far. If Superman has gotten you back into all things DC, then give the first season a spin and get caught up. Just make sure the kids aren’t in the room. Trust me on that.
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