In opposition to the misanthropy of Zack Snyder’s vision for the DC Universe, James Gunn’s Superman established light, hope, and humanism as the core tenets of the new DCU. That puts Gunn’s Peacemaker in an odd place, as it has to connect the bloody, misanthropic streak of the Snyder era with the more optimistic worldview of the DCU inaugurated by Superman. The series may admirably connect the dots, but the results are patchy.
Peacemaker’s main cast is full of broken people who are in direct conversation—and direct conflict—with the very idea of the post-Superman DCU. Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), for one, is now an unemployed drunk starting bar fights to feel alive, and Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) has broken up with her girlfriend to start a security firm that’s doomed to failure.
This conflict comes into sharp relief early on, when Peacemaker, a.k.a. Chris Smith (John Cena), has a disastrous audition to be part of Maxwell Lord’s Justice Gang, his violent past now an active detriment in a world that requires less compromised heroes. Relapsing on about a half-dozen vices all at once, Chris wanders into his father’s gateway dimension and finds a door to a much happier multiverse, where Peacemaker is an uncomplicated hero, the public respects him, and his family is still alive. Meanwhile, in Chris’s original universe, everyone he knows is worse off for having met him, and the world at large still hasn’t forgotten about him killing Rick Flagg Jr. in 2021’s The Suicide Squad, particularly not Rick Flagg Sr. (Frank Grillo).
Gunn clearly adores these characters but recognizes how much they make for an awkward fit within the new status quo. Much of the first half of Peacemaker’s second season reads like a frustrated scream, with the characters seemingly begging for some way to redeem and rehabilitate themselves, and becoming more and more aggravated that there isn’t one.
Part of that is Gunn’s own doing. Peacemaker falls back on fun-dumb running gags and physical comedy, particularly from Tim Meadows’s ridiculous take on a government agent, and Michael Rooker’s eagle-hunting pseudo-shaman. It’s hard to deny how effective that comedy often is, especially as a pressure valve when things get too heavy, but it does often run counter to the overall complexity that Gunn has introduced into the narrative.
Season one of Peacemaker was already a tense balancing act between Gunn’s violent sense of humor and a kinder narrative about a family of misfits supporting each other. Now that family now has mouths to feed, and watching them navigate what parts of themselves can be sacrificed just to exist in a world that has trouble forgiving or forgetting is both fascinating and messy.
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Why is a gaming critic writing a review of a TV show? Peacemaker is getting rave reviews and was sitting at a perfect 100 on RT, but you had to get some clicks with this review, which I suspect was what you wanted.
No reviews for Sinners, Weapons, or Superman but a 4/5 for the Lilo & Stitch remake? You reviewing this as mid might be more convincing for me to watch it than any of the positive reviews! Love that, thanks! Hoping this is positive enough for moderation to approve this time :
you guys are genuine idiots