‘Peacemaker’ S02E04 Review | “Need I Say Door”
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[Welcome to Decoding TV’s coverage of Peacemaker Season 2! For each of Peacemaker’s eight episodes, we’ll run reviews by Dan Gvozden. If you’d like to support what we’re doing here, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. The review below contains major spoilers for Season 2, Episode 4 of Peacemaker.
The past three episodes of Peacemaker have been an exciting mix of mind-blowing revelations about the show’s core cast of characters, as well as our fundamental understanding of the DCU, now that James Gunn has taken full control of its future. The previous episode, in particular, was a dazzling blend of worldbuilding—which may not have revealed the entire truth—and a deep dive into the thematic ideas that have been central to Peacemaker from the very beginning. The joy of tuning in each week has been in trying to understand where the show and its characters are heading, given that the game pieces get reset with new rules added almost every half-hour.
James Gunn’s decision to steer the show away from a mostly straightforward, hyper-violent superhero action comedy has led to an elevated Season 2, avoiding the repetition and familiarity that many shows of this kind tend to develop over multiple seasons. Peacemaker Season 2 has, so far, focused less on the procedural details of how its story unfolds—such as fights between super characters, new powers, or characters moving from one location to another, etc.
To that point, as exciting as each episode's events are, the most thrilling part of tuning in weekly is Gunn’s choice to start each episode with a flashback that dramatically shifts our understanding of the universe and its characters. I feel like every time the show’s elaborate title sequence appears, my mind rewinds through the show’s entire history to consider how each new revelation alters what I thought I knew about the show.
The same is true for “Need I Say Door,” but for the first time this season I felt the show’s pace had begun to stall, focusing more on the procedural machinations of the plot and the comedic, physical, and fantastical spectacle rather than making a full step forward with its characters and themes. For the most part, Chris Smith’s feelings about the consequential events of episode three remain unchanged by this episode’s end, and the threat of A.R.G.U.S. coming after him for his door technology persists, although it has been literally transferred to a new location.
Yet, true to form, “Need I Say Door”’s cold open is another flashback to events that completely reframe our understanding of Peacemaker’s characters and world. This time, we are transported thirty-five years into the past on a hunting trip with the mullet- and rifle-toting Smith family—Auggie, Chris, and Keith. When the family hears movement in the forest ahead, Auggie lines up his sights on a deer-sized creature and fires. It’s a hit, but the animal’s wounded cries are a strange mix of a bird and a much larger creature. However, when they reach a clearing, they find neither; instead, a bug-like alien tries to flee, its blue intestines trailing behind it.
There’s a lot to speculate about regarding the nature of this alien and what it means for the new DCU (see my stray observations below for more). Still, even considering Chris Smith’s history, it’s clear he had encountered aliens before Starro appeared in Suicide Squad. However, there’s no time for further thoughts because Auggie raises his rifle to finish off the creature, despite Keith’s protests. Auggie blows off its head and then scolds and brutally slaps Keith for being too soft-hearted. Next to the alien’s corpse, they find what looks like a silver helmet, resembling that of the final Peacemaker design, which is later revealed to be a control panel. But, behind the clearing, the trio finds the doorway to the quantum unfolding chamber that we’ve come to associate with the Smiths’ closet.
The implications of this revelation are significant enough to explore here, as they influence the rest of the episode’s events. It’s important to note from the start that we have no indication of which universe of Smiths discovers the doorway. Since both versions of the family we’ve seen have access to the quantum unfolding chamber, it's entirely possible they both found it in the same way shortly before the events that led to Keith’s death in the primary DCU. It also fundamentally changes what we thought we knew and were told about Auggie Smith in Season 1. But, more on that later.
After the title sequence, “Need I Say Door” returns to present-day events of Peacemaker, as the A.R.G.U.S. team races toward the Smith house to confront Chris and Eagly, and to stop whatever multiversal disruption they’ve detected behind the closet in his home. I distinctly remember the team arriving at his house at the end of last week’s episode, but maybe I’m just feeling the effects of some kind of dimensional warping.
Inside their tactical van, the A.R.G.U.S. team discusses their grievances, including the lingering hatred Judomaster feels toward Economos after he was run over by his car and then beaten with a lead pipe. It’s a fair complaint, but let’s not forget that last season Judomaster was working with the Butterflies to take over the world and destroy A.R.G.U.S. I’m trying to imagine how his recruitment to A.R.G.U.S. went during the years between seasons. To distract from their feud, Economos informs Bordeaux about Fleury’s subversive behaviors and then uses their argument as cover to text Chris a warning about their impending arrival.
Chris relaxes in his bed, like Captain Willard reflecting on his time in Vietnam, when he notices bullet holes in his ceiling. In that moment, he realizes that the destruction of his home wasn’t just caused by Eagly going on a rampage, but something much more sinister. A text from Economos confirms his suspicions, and he quickly searches through his closet to find the alien control device from the cold opening, then lures Eagly out the back door with some spare baloney. Their escape comes just in time, because as they step into the forest, A.R.G.U.S. knocks in the door and spreads out through the house.
The episode then shifts between two simultaneous scenes: Judomaster handflips after Chris until they brawl, and the bird-killing Red St. Cloud uses his unique “skills” to track down Eagly. The former sequence concludes with Chris getting a lucky, crushing win on Judomaster, whose Power Rangers-like fighting style nearly overwhelms Peacemaker. The latter sees Red eating Eagly’s four-day-old droppings to figure out his diet, with incredible accuracy, before aiming his rifle at Eagly as he flies overhead. It’s only because of Economos’ bravery that Eagly is saved. Just like at the end of the previous season when he defeated Judomaster, we see Economos step up with a rare act of heroism to protect his friend, this time by knocking Red to the ground.
Inside the Smith house, Fleury, Bordeaux, and their team try unsuccessfully to open the door to the quantum unfolding chamber. Outside, Red recovers from being knocked out but doesn’t remember how he became unconscious. Economos invents a story in which an extra eagle attacked Red, which unintentionally pushes Red into a deeper eagle-themed hysteria. Red now believes that Eagly is the “primal eagle,” a legendary king of eagles that has been prophesied about and can now be tracked through his “third eye”—a wound in his forehead from when Economos pushed him down. Economos doesn’t buy it: “I think you are just making up a bunch of stuff to rationalize your desire to kill eagles!”
Meanwhile, Adebayo remains blissfully unaware of these events and enjoys receiving the latest issue of Pro Soldier magazine in her mail. She tears open the packaging, flips through the pages, and finds an ad she placed for “Adebayo Security Consulting.” Just as she’s about to send a photo of it to Keeya, she gets a text with Chris’s location and a message encouraging her to pick him up. It’s another example of Adebayo prioritizing the members of the 11th Street Gang over her wife, even if it seems unlikely that Keeya would react positively to seeing the ad. Then, minutes later, her car skids to a stop in front of Chris and - after Eagly flies into the backseat — they speed away.
In the car, Chris quickly messages Vigilante to go to Lowe’s to pick up some door frames (product placement!), calls Economos and asks him to stall the A.R.G.U.S. team’s access to the quantum unfolding chamber for as long as possible, and updates Adebayo on all of his actions this season. Where’s a “Previously on…” when you need it? As refreshing as it is for the characters of this show to openly ensure that they are all operating with the same information, this was the point where the pacing of the episode started to fall apart for me. Up to this point, “Need I Say Door” had provided several comedic scenes of Gunn’s signature banter, but spending several minutes rehashing story details we already know felt like the team was stretching to fill the episode’s runtime.
We do learn a few key pieces of information from their exchange, especially the confirmation that Auggie Smith isn’t a supergenius who created the doorway to the quantum unfolding chamber or the Peacemaker helmets. However, on that point, Chris tells Adebayo that “it’s complicated.” In the previous season, the show was pretty explicit that it was Auggie making the helmets for Chris, but it was also vague enough that this admission from Chris just barely fits into the established lore.
But the implications of this story change, especially regarding the shift in leadership at DC Studios and Peacemaker’s role in the new lore, prove the most interesting element of their conversation. One has to assume that in Season 1 of Peacemaker, the quantum unfolding chamber wasn’t intended to let Chris access the multiverse, but was just a quirky plot device you might find in a supervillain’s home. Additionally, the ending of Season 1 suggested that the next season would feature a psychological “ghost” of Auggie haunting Chris and his actions. When Chris explains himself to Adebayo, she suggests he might be seeing that same hallucinatory vision of his father inside the quantum unfolding chamber, but Chris dismisses her just as quickly as that plot thread was dropped from this season. I imagine Gunn, while reevaluating Peacemaker’s place in his DCU, saw an opportunity to use the quantum unfolding chamber and Auggie for something much bigger than what was shown in Season 1. The result: an expanded role for the multiverse and no more ghostly apparition of Auggie Smith. (More on this in my stray observations below.)
Chris and Adebayo arrive at his grandfather’s cabin, which looks like it might contain the last copy of the Necronomicon, to move the location of the quantum door—something he’s done twice before in his youth. Chris opens the alien device to reveal a control panel with several strange sliders that light up with yellow electricity as he activates it. Then, it becomes a race against time to make the door rematerialize in the cabin while Economos tries to stall the A.R.G.U.S. team by awkwardly pretending to be utterly incompetent. In their exchange, we learn how Economos ended up working for them after being caught trying to hack into the CIA at the age of fourteen. No wonder he’s so emotionally stunted.
But just as it seems Chris has failed, the door is successfully transferred to the cabin, but not before it sucks all the air into it and then releases it with a blast that knocks Chris and Adebayo to the ground. Confused by her failure, Bordeaux calls Rick Flag Sr. to inform him that they only found a closet full of sweaters. So, Flag switches to his backup plan and decides to visit Harcourt.
We rejoin Harcourt in an alley behind a bar fighting someone twice her size. She seems to have learned a lesson about taking on an entire biker bar alone and has instead set up her own personal fight club near the dumpster. She beats the guy up and knocks his teeth out, as they float through the air in slow motion, Superman-style, then returns to her apartment to patch herself up. That’s when her apartment’s doorbell rings, and she opens the door to find Rick Flag Sr. standing there. She greets him as “General” and invites him in, but he insists she call him “Rick.” It’s unclear if he knows about her secret, short-lived relationship with his son, aside from alluding to something she said at Jr.’s funeral.
Harcourt congratulates Sr. on his promotion to Director of A.R.G.U.S. and offers him a coffee, confirming that they are familiar enough that she remembers exactly how he likes it prepared. When he notices a photo of the 11th Street Kids hanging in her home, he presses her about her friendship with Chris, who he knows murdered his son on Waller's orders. Flag Sr. admits how dangerous Waller can be but also acknowledges that many of her subordinates knew when to defy her, himself included (in the Creature Commandos show). So, why didn’t Chris? Nonetheless, he didn’t travel all this way just to drink coffee and reminisce about his son, so he tells Harcourt that she was black–booked by Waller, but he can get her back into A.R.G.U.S. if she brings him Peacemaker.
Back at the cabin, Chris and Adebayo sit watching the entrance to the quantum unfolding chamber when she tells him about her ad in Pro Soldier. He puts her on the defensive by saying it’s a scam magazine with no readership, so she presses him on how the doorway works, asking, “Is there a ‘you’ in there?” With that prompt, Chris can’t help but launch into another round of exposition in which he reveals that he murdered his alternate self and details his burgeoning relationship with the alt-Harcourt. Adebayo sums it up well, saying, “This is becoming some fucked up Twilight Zone shit,” and encourages him not to go back.
But Chris is armed with a growing and increasingly flimsy list of reasons to go back: the alt-Keith shouldn’t lose his brother, he needs to tell Emilia so she’s not stood up by him again (how considerate!), and, heck, he even shares the same DNA as alt-Chris! In a touching and convincing exchange, Adebayo tells him, “Chris, no matter how green the grass is over there, our biggest problems in life are the ones that we carry within ourselves. Everything else evens out. This is where God put you. You belong here.” Wow, Adebayo! Way to read the thematic cliffnotes! But Chris is unconvinced, retorting, “Maybe I don’t. Maybe the universe fucked up. So, I ended up in the dark dimension where I can’t catch a break.” And, maybe he’s right, but I think by now we, and the rest of the Internet, can agree that the alternate dimension is more than likely a white supremacist’s wet dream come to life.
Soon, Adrian arrives with the door frames, and Chris texts Harcourt about meeting up one last time because “I need her to answer a question before I know what to do next.” Meanwhile, Harcourt reluctantly decides to accept Flag Sr.'s offer and tells him and the A.R.G.U.S. team exactly where she’s meeting Chris. As if Chris didn’t have enough trouble, we join Red St. Cloud deep in the woods, culturally appropriating his version of an indigenous dance and using his “third eye” blood to draw an eagle in the sand around his campfire. Then, surprisingly, Red seems to enter a spiritual realm, as blue flames erupt around him and a blood eagle appears on his forehead. Shortly after, he’s floating through the sky, seeing visions of Eagly, which leads him directly to Chris’s cabin in Settlers’ Hills.
So, by the end of “Need I Say Door” we learned a few things about this world, the storylines involving Chris and the 11th Street Kids are finally starting to connect, and Chris is about to be caught by A.R.G.U.S. again. It’s one of the least substantial episodes of Peacemaker this season, but it still has the joys that make it one of the best ongoing works of genre television. If the trailer for the next episode is to be believed, it’s going to be a doozy!
Stray observations:
The park where Chris plans to meet Harcourt is called Kupperberg Park. Its name comes from writer Paul Kupperberg, who wrote numerous comics for DC, including stories for characters like Superman, Peacemaker, and Vigilante.
Let’s discuss the mysterious bug alien from this episode’s cold opening and the DCU in general. For anyone familiar with the different versions of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, you might remember that the main MacGuffin of that film was something called the “Mother Box.” In DC Comics, Mother Boxes are essentially miniature supercomputers created by the gods of the Fourth World (created by Jack Kirby), which includes the good planet New Genesis and the evil planet Apokolips. Their endless war drives the events of DC. The core of that conflict is the evil Darkseid, ruler of Apokolips, who seeks the Mother Boxes to develop the Anti-Life Equation, which will let him control all living things in the universe.
One of the unique attributes of the Mother Boxes, beyond just being magical plot devices, is that they can create Boom Tubes, which can essentially open teleportation portals through time and space in the DCU and even across the multiverse. So, I’m suggesting that perhaps the quantum unfolding chamber is one of these Boom Tubes, and the control device Chris took from the dead bug alien is actually one of the Mother Boxes. In fact, most of the non-god residents of the Fourth World resemble bugs, who also appeared as the soldiers of Steppenwolf and Darkseid’s army in Justice League.
Additionally, when Chris unfolds the device to move the door to the cabin, the various sliders are arranged in a way that resembles the different maps of the DC Comics’ New 52 multiverse. I’ll spare you the explanation, but check out the image for yourself:
Have I ever steered you wrong before?
Dan Gvozden is a film and comics critic who lives and works in Baltimore. If you enjoyed this review, check out his Spider-Man podcast, The Amazing Spider-Talk.