When we last saw Peacemaker, he was in ARGUS custody, seemingly content to let himself spend the rest of his life in prison, or whatever horrific vengeance Rick Flag Sr has planned for him. His friends are safe, but he’s given up on any hope for his own future. It’s a pyrrhic victory at best, but it’s more than Chris himself feels like he deserves.
“Full Nelson,” the season finale of Peacemaker Season 2, written and directed by James Gunn, opens with a flashback to one month ago, to Chris and Harcourt’s night out. It’s an event we’ve heard them discuss over the season, but now we get to see what actually happened. After food and (way too many) drinks at Big Belly Burger, Chris narrowly talks Harcourt out of beating the tar out of a “fu*kin’ freckly fu*k,” not to protect Harcourt, but to protect their night together. It works, and they find themselves wandering towards a rock-and-roll theme cruise headlined by none other than Nelson. Peacemaker literally begging Harcourt to check them out on the boat transitions us to the opening credits. We’ve heard them talk about what happened on the boat, but we won’t get to see it for ourselves just yet.
Meanwhile, back in the present, Chris is in jail and the 11th Street Kids are trying to pick up the pieces. Harcourt and Economos are working with Rick Flag at Argus, investigating the various doors in the Quantum Unfolding Chamber, looking for… Something. Grunts like Harcourt, Fleury, and other soldiers sent into the doors are on a ‘need to know’ basis while risking their lives, while Flag and pretty much Lex Luthor’s whole crew, are celebrating each interdimensional incursion like frat boy peas in a pod. Lex Luthor might still be in jail, but he’s essentially made Flag his proxy, and Flag doesn’t even realize it.
Harcourt, Fleury, and his gang of poorly-nicknamed soldiers open one of the doors and find themselves in what appears to be the Imp dimension mentioned by Auggie-X and Keith-X earlier in the season. Despite the candyland-inspired aesthetics, the imps are not friendly and nearly kill the whole team. While Fleury and Harcourt make it out alive, poor Kewpie Doll isn’t so lucky and is mauled to death by the freaky little monsters. The scene is tremendously effective, played for bits of absurd black humor and genuine terror. Later on, we get an extended montage of the teams going into alternate dimensions, losing more and more agents in the process while Flag and Luthor’s goons celebrate the scientific discoveries. Luthor doesn’t make an in-the-flesh appearance, but leaves a written note expressing particular interest in a door that leads to a black hole. I wonder if it’s the same black hole that appeared in Metropolis that Ultraman got thrown into?
While happy to have her job back, Harcourt is confronted by Economos, who knows that what they’re doing can only lead to a bad end. Harcourt tries to rationalize, saying that they’re probably looking for resources to plunder or a place to deal with inevitable human overpopulation, but Economos cuts through her with a single line: “When has anything we’ve ever done actually been for the good of the people?” Meanwhile, Eagly is depressed, hiding in the corner, waiting for Peacemaker to return.
Adebayo visits Vigilante, hoping to use some of his giant stash of drug money to bail Chris out of jail and get him a good lawyer. Vigilante is depressed, trying to distract himself by playing Princess Peach Showtime on Nintendo Switch, a fun bit of product placement. While he doesn’t want to use any of his “blood money,” since he believes it will make him “blood cursed” and he’d rather do a jailbreak or threaten a judge’s family, but Adebayo uses Vigilante’s obsession with being Peacemaker’s “best friend” to make him do what she wants. After all, she’s willing to take on a “blood curse” in order to save Chris, and he’s not? It softens him up, and then she seals the deal with words we should all live by: “Take something bad and make something good out of it.”
…And no, Manta doesn’t mean “blanket” in Spanish.
They bail Chris out of jail, but he doesn’t want to be saved. He takes Eagly, packs his stuff, and goes on the lam, hiding out in a crummy motel. With their clearance revoked, Harcourt and Economos have no way of tracking him… At least, not without help.
After seeing all the death of (relatively) innocent ARGUS agents from exploring the alternate dimensions, as well as Flag’s complete disregard for this loss of life, Fleury, Judomaster, and Bordeaux are increasingly disillusioned with Flag, ARGUS, and the whole system. After Bordeaux learns about Flag’s plan for one particular dimension, “Salvation,” she decides she’s had enough and switches sides, joining with the 11th Street Kids.
Meanwhile, Flag is able to sell Salvation to the Secretary of Defense (James Hiroyuki Liao, reprising his role from Superman) by pitching it as a prison from which no one can return. While ostensibly only for the worst of the worst meta-humans, it’s clear that a prison like this can be used to eliminate any and all “undesirables,” and maybe even the entire meta-human population. Beyond that, the fact that it’s Lex Luthor’s plan means Flag and all the rest are being played on a level they can’t even comprehend.
It’s here where the episode picks up the pace and barrels towards its ending, but not via violence and killing, but with full-on music videos, emotional catharsis, and the clear communication of feelings. Cracking skulls and punching bad guys is one thing, but sometimes you simply need to talk things through.
First, Harcourt finds her ticket to the Nelson boat cruise, which triggers a flashback to the boat. While they play “To Get Back To You,” Harcourt finds she actually enjoys the musical stylings of Nelson, and enjoys a close, romantic dance with Peacemaker, a dance that ends with a sweet and tender kiss… Until Harcourt snaps back to reality and runs off, afraid of her feelings towards Chris. Chris, frozen and confused, doesn’t follow her. Neither of them know what to make of what just happened.
Next up, it’s Adebayo’s turn to do what she has to do. One of the showstopping sequences of the episode sees Adebayo choose her destiny and resolve her relationship with her wife, Keeya. Their initial dream, back in Season 1, was for Adebayo to work as a spy for her mother, Amanda Waller, to raise some money so she and her wife could open a pet store. But as she realized just how good she was at spycraft, Adebayo developed a dream of her own, to create a spy/detective agency. She’s spent the whole season trying to figure out how to reconcile her new dream with her old dream, but the truth is, she can’t. They love each other, but they’re just “not for each other.” On divorce papers, they would call it “irreconcilable differences.” The two women break up, and Adebayo has to move forward without Keeya and their two beautiful dogs.
With Bordeaux’s help (and a pathetic, but hilarious, distraction from Economos), the heroes are able to find out where Peacemaker is hiding, and they confront him, explaining what he means to them. He’s initially dismissive, believing himself to be genuinely cursed. After all, he killed his brother, his father, Rick Flag Jr, and when he went to Earth-X, he got a much better version of his father killed all over again. But Adebayo steps up and explains that Peacemaker, and by extension, the rest of the 11th Street Kids, “aren’t tools of the government or anyone else,” to quote Metal Gear Solid. Chris killed his brother because he listened to his father. He killed Rick Flag Jr because he listened to Amanda Waller. He went to Earth-X because he was running away from himself. It’s time for the gang to stop following orders and to go into business for themselves.
That’s it. Each character has their own emotional heart-to-heart with the group, and that’s the climactic setpiece of the episode and, indeed, the season. The gang declares their love for one another, and that’s the emotional climax of the season. Even Harcourt admits that what happened on the boat meant everything to her. She loves Peacemaker. She still needs to learn to love herself, but she loves Chris.
It’s enough to shake Chris out of his funk, and the episode kicks into its last party trick, a full-length music video set to Foxy Shazam’s “Oh Lord,” the theme song that played at the opening of every episode of the season. Cue an epic montage of the Chris and Emilia partying on a new boat cruise (with Foxy Shazam appearing as themselves, headlining the event), as well as a montage of the gang setting up a new agency, called Checkmate. Emilia decorates her desk with an Ultra Bunny figure, a tribute to her late friend, Rick Flag Jr. Economos and Eagly have a moment. It’s not a full hug, but Eagly extends one of his wings to embrace someone he now considers to be a friend. Finally, as the gang does a sick-as-hell power walk towards the camera, we see that the 11th Street Kids have grown to include Bordeaux, Fleury, and Judomaster. However, not seen among the group are Agents Titties or Mexicali or anyone else who might have survived from Fleury’s taskforce.
Alas, Rick Flag Sr has one more card left to play.
Peacemaker is abducted from his doorstep and brought to Flag’s ARGUS base by the aforementioned Titties and Mexicali. They push him through one of those quantum science doors onto Planet Salvation. Flag, in one last act of spite, has gotten revenge for his son. “This is for Ricky, you piece of sh*t.” With those words, the door closes and the portal disappears. The episode ends with Peacemaker stranded in the middle of nowhere, with heaven-knows-what surrounding him. The sounds of otherworldly creatures ring out as the camera cuts to black. Season over (barring two post-credits joke scenes). Shame on you, Titties! Kewpie Doll didn’t die for this!
Zak’s Thoughts (I’m Zak)
Holy cow, what a season! You know, I interviewed John Cena once. It was for his movie, Playing With Fire. It wasn’t him by himself, he was paired with Keegan-Michael Key. In hindsight, I felt so bad about it because I felt like all my questions were about how big and tough-looking Cena was and is. Right after the interview, I said how much I loved him in Ferdinand (I genuinely love that animated movie, and he did a great job as the title character), and he shook my hand. I’m a pretty big guy, but I felt like my hand was a little baby hand inside of his big ol’ ham hock of a hand. But I feel like Peacemaker, especially Season 2, works so well because of that preconception of John Cena as a big, buff, hunky guy. He doesn’t throw a single punch in the whole finale. He doesn’t even ‘suit up!’ Instead, he stops Harcourt from fighting in the flashback, he gets tackled and tasered by Vigilante, and he gets his groove back, not by finding an enemy and turning their face into mush, but by realizing how deeply he is loved by his friends, the 11th Street Kids.
I know Checkmate is a DC Comics thing, but I don’t think I’ve read any comics that feature the organization, so I can’t tell you anything about its history in print. However, I’m curious to see how they evolve next season. Will they be like Auggie-X and fight apolitical battles to protect the people, or will they be so bold as to take the fight to ARGUS, which is now effectively a front for LuthorCorp?
More pressingly, where the heck is Peacemaker? don’t know if Salvation has any precedent in the comics, but if the government and Lex Luthor are going to use it as their own personal Guantanamo Bay, I imagine the righteous heroes of the DCU will have a problem with that. I also wonder if we’ll see villains deposited onto Salvation in upcoming DCU projects, like Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, Creature Commandos Season 2, Lanterns, or Man of Tomorrow. It would be cool to see Peacemaker’s story continue in the DCU outside of his own show, stretching out the cliffhanger and turning Chris’s fate into a multimedia event.
Most pressingly, I have to admit, I don’t really know Nelson. However, I looked them up, and their dad was Ricky Nelson. I friggin’ LOVE Ricky Nelson! He’s one of my all-time favorite teen idols of the 1950s, and we went on to create some more incredible music before his tragic death in a 1980s plane crash. Now I guess I’m gonna have to listen to Nelson!
It wouldn’t have made sense for Peacemaker and Rick Flag Sr to have a full-on showdown just yet. Chris just hasn’t built up the nerve to fight back against Rick, since Rick’s grievance with Chris has been genuine. Chris killed his son, after all. But now, Rick needs someone to punch some sense into him. He’s an unwitting pawn of Lex Luthor, he’s a budding fascist with a cross-dimensional prison, and he’s helped turn ARGUS, a US Government agency, into a very bad place. And who better to do punch some sense into Rick Flag than Peacemaker? Pain can buy someone room to act out and misbehave, but Rick Flag Sr has gone too far, and someone needs to teach this guy a lesson.
Well, that’s it for Peacemaker Season 2… So… What the heck am I supposed to do now? I guess we have Lanterns to look forward to next year, as well as Creature Commandos Season 2, but neither of those have an official release date just yet. But fear not! I’ll come up with something in the meantime so we can keep chatting about the DCU.
Until then, go out and make some Peace! Ooh, that’s a great sign-off. Make some Peace! Don’t you just love that? I love it.
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