By JJ Ledewitz, Arts and Culture Editor
In a world plagued with superhero fatigue, there’s a TV series that seems to rise above the others, subverting expectations while trying to be as different — and heartfelt — as possible. James Gunn’s Peacemaker stars John Cena as the jingoistic vigilante Peacemaker, whose real name is Christopher Smith, an anti-hero with a code and view of the world that seemingly parodies the idea of superheroes. The first season, which aired on HBO Max in 2022, follows the titular character as he is forced by the Advanced Research Group of the United States (A.R.G.U.S.) to work with a black ops team to stop parasitic aliens from taking over the world, all while making friends and trying to mend his relationship with his father. The season is vulgar and bloody but also sweet and emotional. It is funny when it needs to be and serious when the script calls for it.
Season 2, which was released episodically between August and October of this year, followed up the first season with a solid premise that wasn’t quite sure where to go. This season begins with Chris finding an alternate universe where his life is awesome, where he is the hero he has recently tried becoming. It has everything he’s missing in his own life, so he decides to go there and live out the life he has always wanted. Meanwhile, former black ops agent Emilia Harcourt, Chris’ close friend (and possibly more), must deal with being blacklisted from government jobs. Other members of the team from Season 1, including Leota Adebayo, John Economos and Adrian Chase, deal with their own issues. The team comes back together as they learn that Rick Flag Sr., the new director of A.R.G.U.S., is searching for Chris, having recently learned that Chris killed his son, Rick Flag Jr., before the events of the first season.
This season, unlike the first one, is too bloated, meaning each episode is overstuffed with unnecessary scenes and plotlines, while also feeling incredibly slow. At only eight episodes, the series feels like a drawn out, poorly paced movie; sometimes, entire episodes go by where almost nothing progresses. Chris lives in the alternate universe, completely oblivious to the many signs that this new world is not as innocent as it seems. Back home, A.R.G.U.S. searches for him, while Adebayo tries to help but doesn’t really get anywhere, Economos cracks a few jokes and is the butt of a few jokes himself and Red St. Wild, the greatest eagle hunter in the world, tries to kill Chris’ pet eagle for three episodes straight. It’s all stretched paper thin to last eight short — and unsatisfying — episodes.
However, this season does follow up well with its characters, both returning and new. John Cena shines as Peacemaker, bringing emotional depth to a character that isn’t used to it. Jennifer Holland gets to flex her acting skills as Emilia Harcourt and does (most of) her own stunts in some of the best action choreography in recent television history. Steve Agee’s John Economos is just as great as in the first season, and Danielle Brooks as Leota Adebayo nails some of the most emotional scenes in the entire series. Frank Grillo kills it as Rick Flag Sr., and Tim Meadows’ portrayal of Langston Fleury, an A.R.G.U.S. agent with “bird blindness” — a condition restricting him from being able to differentiate different kinds of birds — proves to be the funniest character in the show. The cast, overall, is superb, which makes the mediocre writing all the more disappointing.
The season — and series — finale is the biggest letdown. The entire season leads up to what should have been a huge, mind-blowing finale. Two different antagonistic parties search for Peacemaker while all of his friends are on a mission to protect him — and it seems like they may not be able to reach him in time. The last episode, however, completely ignores what has been set up, forgetting about one of these two parties and wrapping up the other’s story in the most anticlimactic way possible. Meanwhile, Chris goes off on his own and gets a happy ending where all of his friends clarify that they care about him for the millionth time. There is no climactic fight that the season had seemingly been leading up to, no battle between good and evil or even an ounce of superheroics. The entire episode just feels like a slow copout poisoned by bad writing. Also, the episode has two separate, unrelated scenes where characters go to a concert and sing along to an entire song played in full. In the series finale. It was a disappointing ending to a disappointing season filled with baffling choices.
Although the first season of Peacemaker stands out as something truly fantastic, the series’ second season quickly becomes too messy and slow for its own good. Its first couple solid episodes are soured by a poorly written and very poorly executed finale, leaving a bad taste in the mouths of viewers, leaving them thinking, “Wait, was Season 1 really as good as I remember?”
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