1-1-1: Peacemaker Season 2

2025, 8 episodes - HBO
created by James Gunn

The What 100: Peacemaker Chris Smith, failing at love and rejected as a superhero, sinks into a deep depression when he discovers a gateway to an alternate reality where his father loves him and his brother is still alive. Rejected by Harcourt, Chris decides to leave his world behind and assume the life of his alt-reality self, except the 11th Street Kids aren't ready to let him go, and this other reality isn't as peaceful as it seems. Plus, Rick Flagg Sr., now head of Argus, seems to be putting all his efforts and resources into fucking Chris over.

(1 Great) Season two backs off of the conflicts among the core cast and instead delves deeper into Chris' traumas, his regrets, and his desire to be someone else. He's dug himself into a pit that he can't seem to climb out of. This season, despite some very big ideas and having to deal with being the immediate follow-up to Superman, manages to center itself around Chris' emotional journey, and highlight the impact Chris has had on his friends. John Cena, almost always a likeable comedic presence reaches deep for pathos and melancholy that shows what a strong actor he has become. He has gotten to the point where he can deliver multiple emotions at once, having his face express one emotion, his eyes another, his physicality another, and his voice yet another. I don't think 10 years ago when Cena appeared with a facecloth covering his junk in Trainwreck that we ever would have expected this out of him.

The foundation of Peacemaker as a series has always been about the character's guilt over killing Rick Flagg Jr. (Joel Kinneman) in The Suicide Squad. He's built a whole show and cast of characters around Peacemaker's attempts at reform, and this season really is about setbacks after saving the world last season. This season, that guilt starts to multiply, as Chris has to come face to face not just with other people from Flagg's life, but seeing and feeling for the first time the impact his rather extreme actions have had on other people. 

It has always been about a traumatized man confronting his trauma and how it's shape the person he has been on the path to reinvention if not necessarily redemption.

(1 Good) We'll get to the downside of James Gunn's scripting this season in a second, but the really good elements of Gunn's scripts this season is not falling into the Marvel trap of making everything so obviously a setup or callback to something else. My biggest worry for the season, following Superman, was that Gunn would be so obviously setting up tent poles for future DC movies or TV shows. And it's not like he isn't, as he has said as much on the official Peacemaker podcast, but it never feels like it's stepping outside the fundamentals of the show.

Rick Flagg Sr. (Frank Grillo) was seen in Superman and Creature Commandos before this, but here he is treated as cast, not simply relying upon past appearances. Gunn does call back to The Suicide Squad and Superman, among other DC references (there's a Lex Luthor cameo, and the character's presence is really felt in the endgame of the season) but Gunn makes all the actions and events a part of the show. Even if there are reverberations that might be felt outside of the series, Gunn primarily focuses on the immediate impact on the characters at hand.  The finale, which I was worried would be just a big tease for something in the future, never actually feels like it's stepping outside of the Peacemaker slice of the DC Unverse.

(1 Bad) Gunn's scripting this season, however, is far from perfect, and is a step down from both the previous season and Superman. I can't help but feel like Gunn, writing two TV series and a film to kickstart this new branch of DC on TV and in film, as well as being chief creative and producer of all things DC, has overextended himself. The Peacemaker season 2 scripts are not as tight as season 1, they're not as funny, and they don't manage to balance the characters out nearly as well as season one. The season largely focuses on Chris and Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) to the expense of Vigilante (Freddie Stroma), Adebayo (Danielle Broosk),  and especially the new characters like Flagg Sr., Sasha Bordeaux (Sol Rodriguez) and Langston Fleury (Tim Meadows). With many of the episodes clocking in at barely 30 minutes, it's not really a surprise the season feels a little under-baked compared to the series before. There's nothing *bad* here, but it's clear that Gunn is an incredibly busy man, and if the show struggles, it probably in his ability to commit his full energy to one project.

META: The highlight of Season 1, a damn entertaining season of superhero-based television, was absolutely the opening credits. The dance sequence to Wig Wam's "Do Ya Wanna Taste It" was an immediate sensation, and I looked forward every week to a new episode just to see the credits. (Yes, I know I could have watched them any time on YouTube or social media, but it was so perfect at amping me up for the episode that followed). This season Gunn selected a new song, Foxy Shazam's "Oh Lord", to open the show. Unlike "Do Ya Wanna Taste It", which is modern Euro hair metal at its most infectious, "Oh Lord" is an epic power ballad that feels much more serious than fun. It took me aback, and I didn't know what to think of it for weeks.  But with each episode, I warmed to it, especially how the production would overlay the start of the song in the cold opens, and the end of the song's "La la la's" acted as a segue into the main episode. It did have the effect of making the show feel at once more epic and more intimate.

Also, I keep forgetting that the main city of Peacemaker is Evergreen...like in the Hallmark movies, lol. Isn't it delightful to think of Peacemaker existing in the same reality as Christmas in Evergreen (of course it's much more like the alt-world there... *tugs at collar*)

Also also, it was hilarious and very disarming that the first episode of, well, anything DC-related following the almost-wholesome Superman includes a pretty graphic orgy scene. Tits and dicks and simulated sex everywhere. Gunn has never lost his provocateur nature, and this is very provocative.

[Poster talk... the main poster is the "painted billboard" version that appears in the back of comic books, while the bus ads I've seen have been the banner with Peacemaker and Eagly touching noggings. The latter is just kitschy while the former is kind of brilliant. The alt-reality that Chris finds himself in has "The Terrific Trio" (Alt-Chris, his father and his brother) painted in a similar mural in the town's square, so this poster recollects that, where it feels like a celebration of heroes admired by the people rather than propaganda. Here, it's got Chris, in his full regalia, looking up at the image of the 11th Street Kids, again they are like a group of heroes, and yet that small image of Chris is on the outside looking up, hoping to one day live up to that image. It's really really good, very effective act capturing the emotional journey of the season in a nutshell.]