PEACEMAKER: S2

First Look Review (Episodes 1 - 5 Review)

Peacemaker returns for its second season with its signature blend of goofy comedy and character driven storytelling, delivering a hilarious and emotionally stirring character piece featuring excellent performances from John Cena, Danielle Brooks and Jennifer Holland that makes for a strong entry in the new DCU.

Audiences were first introduced to Peacemaker and his relentless quest for peace, no matter how many people he had to kill, in 2021’s The Suicide Squad, before he took the spotlight in his own television spinoff, Peacemaker. And even with DC Comics being rebooted with the new DCU, John Cena’s Peacemaker and his merry band of misfits have made the jump to the new shared universe, continuing the chaos, laughter, bloody violence and heartwarming character study that made Peacemaker’s small screen debut a smash hit. After viewing of the second season’s first five episodes, it is evident that this is still the same Peacemaker that audiences have come to know and even fall in love with, but with a more character centric story and spectacular performances from John Cena, Danielle Brooks and Jennifer Holland, his small screen return makes for one engaging season of television on an intellectual level that we have not seen from DC Comics in quite sometime… on top of the beloved zany humour that has always defined this iteration of the character.

Superhero cinema and television often gets a bad reputation for being all world ending stakes, colossal CGI driven battles and superpowered individuals, but recently audiences have been treated to some truly emotional and human centric stories with projects like WandaVision, Thunderbolts* and Loki. While making a drastic departure from the story of its highly successful first season, Peacemaker evolves into something that transcends the superhero genre and delivers a far more impactful story. While the wacky James Gunn humour is still infused in the show and characters DNA, and when necessary there are some great laughs as well as a new opening dance number that is a worthy successor to the first season’s dance set to Wig Wam’s Do Ya Wanna Taste It,” this season grapples with far more nuanced themes of loneliness, past trauma and looking for human connection, delivering something far more intelligent and emotional than we have seen from the other projects in the new DCU. In his writing, Gunn has crafted an emotional character study that is insightful, deeply affecting and continues Peacemaker’s arc from the dangerous villain in The Suicide Squad to a man that viewers can relate too, trying to find his place in the world and the family he has always wanted. The same can be said for the supporting characters of Emilia Harcourt, Leota Adebayo, Adrian Chase and John Economos, each of them dealing with a different form of trauma and grief from their past, creating this lovable cast of misfit characters that will no doubt work their way into viewers hearts once again.

While at its core the series’ second season is an engaging character study, Gunn is still building his new shared DC world and uses this series to further its development. While this iteration of Peacemaker was initially introduced in the now ended DCEU, Gunn takes this series as an opportunity to clarify what elements from the DCEU have been carried over to the new DCU and to rewrite some moments of the character’s past in the first season to align it with the new direction for DC Comics on screen. Though it is not surprising what elements of Peacemaker’s past have and have not changed, as the elements necessary to continue his character arc are maintained while the mention of any of the DC heroes originally cast by Zack Snyder need to be removed from his past, there are some surprises that fans will be surprised to see resurface that helps to develop the character studies in this season in unexpected but meaningful ways.

At the same time, the shared world continues to expand with Frank Grillo’s Rick Flagg Sr. returning after making his big screen debut in Superman earlier this summer, as well as some other characters that work well with Gunn’s sense of humour. Even with the five episodes that were given to press for review consideration end on a massive cliffhanger that leaves more questions than answers currently, it is clear from the second season of Peacemaker that stylistically different stories of various ratings can unfold in the new DCU while still maintaining storytelling and character development at the forefront, signalling that there is a promising future in store for DC Comics fans on both the big and small screen.

Matching Gunn’s writing at every turn is the performances of the cast. Yes, the comedic banter and comradery between this rag tag group of character comes naturally and is infectious from the second the cast fully reunites on screen, especially Freddie Stroma’s comedic moments as Adrian which always land perfectly; Tim Meadows and Sol Rodriguez fit in perfectly and play well off Gunn’s sense of humour, and Grillo gets to truly explore his character after a few fleeting moments in Superman,  it is the lead performances of Cena, Holland and Brooks that carry the season. Each of these actors is grappling with rich thematic material of grief, loss and loneliness, and in developing these themes within their performances, create a raw vulnerability that is both heartbreaking and relatable to the audience. From Cena who balances Chris’ masculinity and strength with a quiet heartbreak as he tries to break free from his past persona and find what he has always been missing in his life, Holland who finds a destructive quality as Emilia battles her conflicted feelings while being prevented from doing what she knows best to occupy herself, to Brooks who tries to find a way forward for Leota who has to live with the consequences of her decisions in the first film while trying to keep her new found family together, there is no shortage of stellar performances on screen.

Despite not having seen the full season, with three crucial episodes still to come that these first five episodes of Peacemaker’s second season have been building towards, there is no hesitation in declaring that James Gunn and DC Comics have another successful season of their hit television series on their hands. Trading in alien world domination invasions for critical character studies, James Gunn gives one the DC Comics’ most unlikely heroes a caring, riveting and deeply moving evolution as Peacemaker continues to push the newly minted DCU in exciting directions with an emphasis on character development that makes for riveting television. With the outstanding performances of John Cena, Danielle Brooks and Jennifer Holland leading the season, combined with the signature laugh out loud humour and bloody, mayhem inducing violence of the character, Peacemaker returns in all his glory in the series’ second season that once again creates addictive television that goes beyond the roots of the superhero genre to deliver engaging, thoughtful, hilarious and rewarding television.