Spoilers for Peacemaker Season 2

The final episode of Peacemaker season 2 aired a few days ago, and the reaction has been somewhat mixed. Some fans felt the episode was a let-down and that it was disconnected from the rest of the season. I’ve seen it described as season 3 episode 1, instead of as the season 2 finale.

On balance, I did enjoy the episode and the season at large. I want to get that in earlier, because this review is going to be kind of critical. The season had some great moments. It had great character work, great jokes, and great ideas. Nicholas Hoult’s cameo as Lex Luthor was a particular standout; he was able to be more sinister than the Superman film allowed for. In fact, the cameos in general, Lex and the Justice Gang, were well handled. They felt like organic inclusions rather than Marvel-style sequel bait; they made narrative sense.

Despite all that, I am sympathetic to the criticism. The season was structurally flawed in a lot of places. For one thing, there was a jarring change in pacing and focus. Season 2 was a fairly slow burn. It focused on developing its characters instead of big action set pieces. I’m not criticising that, don’t get me wrong, it was good. But there were episodes without much story in them. In the last episode, however, a lot happened, and the pacing notably increased. It was as if they spent the entire season building up the story and then had to rush the conclusion.

The episode 6 reveal that the alternate universe was ruled by Nazis should have occurred at an earlier stage as well. It was a great and kind of terrifying reveal. They were also right to open episode 7 with a joke (Peacemaker not noticing a huge painting of Hitler), since it doesn’t actually make much sense that he wouldn’t notice and would only work if they leaned in to how absurdly oblivious he is. But again, they spent several episodes hinting at the reveal, and then only spent one episode dealing with it. The finale instead pivoted to LuthorCorp’s cronies taking over A.R.G.U.S. and building a dimensional prison.

This isn’t the first time that one of James Gunn’s DCU shows has done this. Creature Commandos was also a slow, character-focused burn that rushed the ending, tying up various plot threads with an unsatisfying handful of lines. I’m a huge fan of DC, and I think James Gunn is a great filmmaker, but I’ll confess that it is a little disappointing that this has happened twice. Nevertheless, the DCU is still young and has plenty of time to course correct. Peacemaker season 1 was great, so he definitely can make a great show.

Setting Up the DCU

The finale did have some good elements. For one thing, it neatly resolved a lot of the character drama that had been a key seasonal focus point, though not all of it. There should have been some more interactions between Peacemaker and Vigilante, since the latter was taken for granted this season. To reiterate, though, the episode did seemingly pivot to a different, faster-paced story that failed to deliver on the show’s promised conflicts.

The strange whiplash can probably be explained by DC’s wanting to set up the next instalment of the DCU. Indeed, we already know that this season will inform the next Superman movie: The Man of Tomorrow. The shape of the overall DC story is becoming fairly clear now: the rich and powerful are becoming suspicious of Metahumans and are willing to do dangerous and problematic stuff to maintain their authority. That does have the potential to be a great story, but it’d be a shame if individual projects get derailed to further it, especially since James Gunn wanted to avoid that.

In the show’s defence, however, the final episode does kind of make sense within the show’s overall story, especially in the case of Rick Flag Sr. (I’ll talk more about that below). That is, the finale could have worked. The problem with pivoting to a DCU set-up in the way that they did, I think, was that they skipped several beats and didn’t do a sufficiently good job of integrating the DCU’s story (suspicion over Metahumans) into the overall body of season 2. It’s regularly mentioned, but it didn’t get enough attention to justify it pulling focus in the final episode.

To compound matters, there was a lot of filler in the early episodes that could have probably been cut. For instance, we didn’t need to see A.R.G.U.S. repeatedly failing to capture Peacemaker only to immediately let him go. It gave Tim Medows a lot of screen time, and I’m grateful for that because he was a great addition, but the repetition ultimately wasted a lot of screen time and made A.R.G.U.S. seem incompetent. The Sasha Bordeaux and Rick Flag Sr. relationship plot line also didn’t go anywhere. That time could have been spent developing the Metahuman storyline instead and, crucially, Rick Flag Sr.’s concerns about it.

Indeed, Flag Sr.’s suspicion of the Metahumans is rooted in the events of the Superman movie rather than the show, and we don’t really see it develop. The show is more focused on Flag Sr.’s other goal: revenge on Peacemaker. This would have been fairly easy to fix, I think, whilst also creating character drama.

There could have been an episode in which Flag Sr. has an opportunity to capture Peacemaker but gets called away to deal with a Metahuman threat, forcing him to choose between his two goals. Better yet, the Metahuman in question could have been a recent escapee from Arkham of Belle Reve, perhaps imposing vigilante justice on some corrupt politician or official. That is, taking the law into their hands and causing significant collateral damage. This would have furthered Flag Sr.’s belief that Metahumans are an uncontrollable threat.

A Missing Story Beat

As mentioned, I’d also hazard that the show skipped an important story beat that would have made the final episode feel less jarring.

I got the impression from episode 7, and I’m not alone in thinking this, that Keith was going to lead a Nazi invasion of our universe to get his own revenge on Peacemaker. It was heavily implied and could have led to some pretty cool action sequences. It could have also enabled some good character moments: between Peacemaker and a defeated Keith, and between Rick Flag Sr. and alt-universe Rick Flag Jr. (they could bring in G.I.Robot as well!).

None of that happened. Instead, the show dropped the Nazi universe storyline and did its hard pivot to the LuthorCorp takeover of A.R.G.U.S. and the creation of an alternate universe dimensional prison for Metahumans. Again, I actually did like the finale, but more as a stand-alone episode than as a finale. The sudden pivot and change in pace were jarring, and it was disappointing that we didn’t get to see said invasion. I’m not suggesting, however, that the actual finale should have been dropped in favour of a Nazi invasion episode. They should have done both.

A Nazi invasion episode between episodes 7 and 8 could have properly informed the finale. Flag Sr.’s apparent turn to the dark side and budding friendship with Luthor is a logical endpoint of his character arc this season (his growing suspicion of Metahumans and desire for revenge). But, again, the show missed a beat. If the show had given more screen time to his growing suspicion of Metahumans, a Nazi invasion episode could have then served as the final push that causes him to join forces with Luthor.

That is, if Keith’s invading Nazis had themselves been unstoppable Metahumans, it would have seemingly confirmed Flag Sr.’s worst suspicions about Metahumans (they’re an authoritarian threat), at least in his mind. At the episode’s conclusion, this could be used to explain his sudden partnership with Lex Luthor’s cronies. Better yet, stopping Keith could require Flag Sr. to release Peacemaker from prison, thereby costing him his revenge. LuthorCorp could take advantage of this. They’d gain Flag Sr.’s cooperation by promising to imprison both the Metahumans and Peacemaker within the parallel universe, everything Flag Sr. wants but had been previously forced to choose between.

Final Thoughts

This review has, so far, been a little negative. T’was not intentional. I keep saying this, but I do actually really enjoy the show, and I have a lot of faith in James Gunn. I just think this season had some problems, which became very apparent in the finale. In all, I’m still very enthusiastic about the DCU. Its creator-led approach (as opposed to Marvel’s executive-led approach) also means that when something doesn’t work, it’ll be for creative reasons instead of a studio mandate. Again, I think the DCU set-up in the final episode could have worked really well and made narrative sense; they just skipped past the beats that were needed for that. They told us about the beats but never showed them.

To my knowledge, there isn’t a third season in the work at present. That is a little unsettling given the season’s cliffhanger: Peacemaker marooned in the alternate universe. But I’m not overly concerned. Going forward, I suspect that Checkmate will be a major player in the DCU, with its characters appearing in various projects (Sasha Bordeaux is a Batman character in the comics, so they may also tie into any Gotham storylines). The alternate universe prison, for its part, is definitely going to appear again, and probably fairly soon. It might even appear in Man of Tomorrow. And when it does show up, we’ll likely see Peacemaker again.

-Dexter