Boom, there it is.
For the last couple of weeks, it really felt that Peacemaker had started to plateau as it spun it’s wheels about the nature of the alternate universe while trying to pad things out with an Eagly subplot that kind of went nowhere and doubling down on the whole love triangle that Christopher Smith had going with Emilia Harcourt and – another Emilia Harcourt. It was still funny, and still interesting, but while the inevitable twist continued to dangle over our heads like the Sword of Damocles, it also felt that the core group of the show was being held back by the very nature that this was a more intimate Chris and Emilia story than the ensemble piece the first season was. Characters like Danielle Brooks’ Adebayo and Freddie Stroma’s Vigilante were pushed to the side to twiddle their thumbs while the multiverse plot took its time to build and it just felt like so the last couple of episodes something was missing.
Well, it’s weirdly fitting that the very episode that sees the absurdly busy James Gunn return to the director’s chair also has the show finally making ground after two weeks of frustrating stasis.
Peacemaker has made his peace with the decision to go to the alternate universe and live the rest of his life there in bliss. He has a father and brother who are still alive and who love him; a population who adores him as a true hero; a relationship with another Harcourt that’s way more receptive and a sick motorcycle in addition to the fact that ARGUS isnt trying to kill him. However, Chris’ friends do not accept that and in an effort to get him to return to his own dimension, the remaining 11th Street Kids transport their side of the portal to the basement of Adrian’s house and reopen it in order to gain access to it.
Of course, what with the group being famously dysfunctional, no one can agree on how to proceed next and while Adebayo is by far the most rational, Economos can’t stop retching at the weirdness of the whole concept, while Adrian just wants to run off and meet his alternate self as quick as possible, possibly to exchange more incorrect manta ray facts. However, their bickering is halted when Keith, Chris’ brother, arrives and mistakes our Emelia for his Emelia and agrees to take her to ARGUS to meet Smith while the others hide. From there, things start to get nicely fucked up…
While Chris and the original Harcourt finally manage to get their feelings out in the open once and for all, certain discoveries are made to heavily refute Peacemaker’s claims of “best dimension ever” and the fact that Emelia noticed that there’s no people of colour around whatsoever is explained by thus universe’s stars and stripes is actually the swastika and stripes! Meanwhile, Adrian finds his other self and discovers that this Vigilante considers Peacemaker his most hated enemy while Economos is attacked by Auggie Smith and verbally spills his guts in a panic. However, in the deepest shit is Adebayo who has decided to take a walk through an alternate neighbourhood without knowing that she may be the only free black woman in a deeply racist United States…
OK, let’s be honest. If you’d read the odd article online (or if you just used your fucking eyes), the secret that there were only white people populating this “perfect dimension” isn’t that much of unpredictable twist, especially considering that a sizable subplot from the first season dealt with Smith’s father being a superpowered white supremacist. However, the beauty of Ignorance Is Chris (great fuckin’ title, by the way) is that even if you clocked that twist coming weeks ago, the fact that the payoff occurs as the absolute worst time means that it still carries a huge amount of weight. For Chris, it’s the fact that he’s been here numerous times and never actually realised what was going on around him, for Adrian it’s the realisation that something has to be wrong for his alternate to despise Peacemaker so much, but for Adebayo is the frankly terrifying experience of having the entire population of a town suddenly start screaming and chasing after you like you’re in a more racially charged version of Phillip Kaufman’s Invasion Of The Body Snatchers remake. However, while it make sound a bit reactionary to claim that the season is back on track purely because what occurs in its last five minutes, the most reassuring aspect of episode 6 is that the entire episode manages to match up to it’s ending.
For a start, the fact that the 11th Street Kids now have purpose again as a group means that a lot of that missing energy from that ensemble has kicked back in, giving floundering characters such as Adebayo (surely the heart of the fucking show) something to actually do other than be trapped in a dead-end plotline involving posting ads for her private investigator firm.
Also, now that Vigilante has also been given clearance to escape his fate of just hanging around and being annoying, we not only get to meet his overbearing and loving mother (whom he naturally can’t stand), but there’s the genius revelation that Adrian has been keeping all the drugs and money he’s ever taken from criminals in his basement just in case the police are corrupt. Not only does this mean he’s technically a millionaire (despite the fact that he has no intention of actually using any of it), but it also means that the violent reopening of the portal means everyone has to make their journey into a messed-up new world vigorously dusted with cocaine.
However, the other major headline here is that it’s also seismic cameo time and in a desperate attempt to get allies to help him with this dimensional portal business, Rick Flag goes to Belle Reve to strike up a deal with none other that Nicholas Holt’s Lex Luthor. We’d been warned that Peacemaker would take its cue from James Gunn’s Superman, but while the appearance of the Justice Gang in episode 1 felt like a fun goof, the joy of Lex means that we’re seeing legitimate seeds sewn for the future of the DCU, plus hearing the notoriously anti meta-human arch villain complain about having to live in a cell and overhearing a “bear sized man with dragon skin butt-fucking a glowing twink with cartoon eyes”. While that’s a classic bit of Gunn dialogue right there, it also smells out than since getting busted in Superman, Lex is literally in Hell as he’s now literally surrounded by non-humans in a prison, which probably means that when he gets out, he’ll loathe the Man Of Tomorrow even more.
After a slow couple of installments that admittedly lined up everyone’s threads to this point, Peacemaker Season 2 finally slams things into gear and delivers all the messed up multiverse stuff that you’d hoped it would.
From the ghastly reveal about an alternate America’s history, to the sight of two Vigilantes recreating the dual Spider-Man meme, we now have a clean run for the last two episodes in which it genuinely feels like anything can happen. Can the show manage to sustain it though? Well, they’ve got two remaining episodes to play with a genuinely nightmarish canvas, so I feel that Gunn and the gang have got things well in hand.
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