TL;DR – A very oddball second season filled with genuine earnest moments, topped off by a profoundly rushed ending.

Disclosure – I paid for the HBO Max subscription that viewed this series

Post-Credit Scene – There are end-credit scenes in each episode.

Peacemaker Introduction –

Back in 2022, one of the oddest moments in the modern comic era happened: in the midst of all of its serious problems, as the DC Studio was falling apart, film after film, they decided to put out a TV series around one of the less-liked characters from the Suicide Squad films. What made it even odder is that it kind of worked, with a level of charm that managed to undercut its many issues. Well, it may have helped get James Gunn the job in the big chair and changed the direction of a multi-billion-dollar media empire, but after a cameo in Superman, it is time to dive back into Peacemaker.  

So, to set the scene, in the time since the end of the first season of Peacemaker, things have not quite worked out for many of our characters. Many of them had been blocked and couldn’t get work anymore, and Chris Smith/Peacemaker (John Cena) is still working through the trauma of having to kill his very racist and unpleasant father, Auggie (Robert Patrick). But what happens when you are at your lowest and temptation strikes? Now, from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

Finding Your Family

One of the core parts of this season is all about how you find your family, especially when you are Chris Smith/Peacemaker and your biological family is gutter trash, and your first attempt to make a family ended up with you killing a good man to appease others. This is a rough pill for him to swallow, especially when he gets to see an idealistic view of his family, and then promptly kills the version of him from the other dimension. I do have to give full credit to John Cena here, because he brought an emotional range and depth that I was unprepared for. I did feel his pain, and that trepidation to build new connections when you think, from some clear historical precedent, that everything you touch turns to ash in your mouth. That drive to be seen for your strengths and not for your stuff ups.   

However, that bond and finding your family would not work unless you had a believable family to connect with. Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) becomes the core of the group, even though she is dealing with her own stuff. Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) is struggling to find her place in a world where she has been stopped from any job she wants to do. John Economos (Steve Agee) is going through some Wizard of Oz stuff to find his courage. I still don’t know what Vigilante’s (Freddie Stroma) deal is, but Freddie Stroma is giving his all. This is a show that almost devoted an entire episode to Eagly (Dee Bradley Baker) that might have been the tensest moment all season, juxtaposed with one of its most ridiculous elements, Red St. Wild (Michael Rooker). You care about all of these characters because you care about their family.

Multiverse

The primary narrative device this season was exploring the multiverse. A phrase that can cause much castigation, as the MCU has found in the last several years. We get a little bit of it in the opening episode of the season, The Ties That Grind, which could be viewed as a sneaky retcon, or as a dip of the hat to the fact that Season One’s DCEU might be in a different universe than Season Two’s DCU. However, the main thrust comes from exploring the pocket dimension that Peacemaker has, thanks to his father, White Dragon (Robert Patrick), murdering an alien.   

We don’t really get fully into the weeds of the new universe, as it is quite a localised exploration, so no Nazi versions of various DC characters outside of our cast. Setting the other Earth in a world where the Nazis won WW2 and then hiding it until the reveal towards the end of the season was such a wild choice. I know they straight-up foreshadow it in the opening titles, but then even Fortnite awkwardly missed the reference, and no one stopped them from adding it to the game. I know people picked up on it in real time by spotting the fact that there were no non-white extras. It was wild to see it all play out and how explicit they got with it. They balance all the forces to give us a different look at how characters could have been without falling into the trap of unneeded fanservice.   

Production

In a streaming world where things can start looking a bit cheap around the edges, I was glad to see that Peacemaker remained bright and colourful. Part of that was through some solid location work that helped ground the series in places where it needed. That grounding helps sell the more fantastical elements by creating a clear juxtaposition between the two. Thus, you get the horror of the candy dimension that works just as well as an eagle co-opting a flock of birds of prey to massacre a hunter. All the action scenes are solid, helped in part by John Cena’s natural physicality. Though, I think some of the best action moments are when Jennifer Holland works out Emilia’s issues through the lens of cracking the skulls of douchebags. The music always worked, and you feel that commitment was always going to be there given the opening titles go harder than they have any right to.   

Ending

Where things started to get concerning for me was when we got the Lex Luther (Nicholas Hoult) cameo, which put us on the path towards the end. Okay, we have put it off, and now it is time to talk about the ending of the season, well, more the ending of the finale episode, Full Nelson. I really struggled with how they chose to tie off the end of this second season, which is most likely the end of the series, at least for any time in the near future. I don’t have a problem with the gang deciding to join together and start a rival organisation to ARGUS. Indeed, that was a good combination of multiple story threads, and also the bonding the characters went through this season. However, it did feel like there was an extra episode during production, and its narrative got crammed into this because it is almost blink and everything is resolved. This is even more egregious for me, where Peacemaker is left at the end. In a way, it didn’t feel like a satisfying end from a narrative perspective, but much like Spider-Man: No Way Home, it felt like an end that needed to happen because of external mechanisms forcing an outcome.    

Recommendation

In the end, do we recommend Peacemaker: Season 2? Look, this is a niche spinoff of a DC universe that is still trying to prove whether you should watch it or not. Add to that the very mature subject matter, and there are not a lot of people out there that I would recommend it to. But for those whose Venn diagram does line up, then I think you will get a kick out of the second season. Have you seen Peacemaker: Season 2 yet? Let us know what you thought in the comments below.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Bluesky at @Tldrmovrev, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Feel free to share this review on social media and check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day. 

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Peacemaker
Directed by: James Gunn, Greg Mottola, Peter Sollett & Alethea Jones
Written by: James Gunn
Created by: James Gunn
Based On: Characters created by DC
Production/Distribution Companies: The Safran Company, Troll Court Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television & HBO Max
Starring: John Cena, Danielle Brooks, Freddie Stroma, Jennifer Holland, Steve Agee, Frank Grillo, Robert Patrick, Tim Meadows, David Denman, Sol Rodriguez, Nhut Le, Reinaldo Faberlle, Brandon Stanley & Michael Rooker with Sean Gunn, Nicholas Hoult, Joel Kinnaman, Nathan Fillion, Isabela Merced, Elizabeth Faith Ludlow, Stephen Blackehart, Terence Rosemore, James Hiroyuki Liao, Gunnar Nelson, Matthew Nelson, Lochlyn Munro & Dee Bradley Baker and Helen Huff, Keith Brooks, Alex Klein, Anissa Matlock, Natasha Halevi, Bonnie Discepolo, J.J. Farris, David Keith, Neil Zaza, Eric Nally, Alex Nauth, Schuyler White Teddy Aitkins, Devin Williams, Trevor Erb, Daniel Baldock, Victor Crespo Cardona, Taylor St. Clair, Dorian Kingi, Kellen Boyle, Myles Benson, Bryson Haney, John Nania, Vanessa Cater, David Flannery, Dan Norris, Ben Bladon, J. Carlos Flores, Elliot Frances Flynn, Patrick Logan, Anissa Matlock, Brey Noelle, Vince Pisani, Angela Ray, Klarc Jerome Wilson, Michael Ian Black, Richard Galinson & Savannah Koningen
Episodes Covered – The Ties That Grind, A Man is Only as Good as His Bird, Another Rick Up My Sleeve, Need I Say Door, Back to the Suture, Ignorance is Chris, Like a Keith in the Night & Full Nelson.