‘Peacemaker’ S2E03 Review | “Another Rick Up My Sleeve”
To quote the Simpsons' Comic Book Guy: "Best. Universe. Ever."
[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 3 of Peacemaker.]
The first two episodes of Peacemaker Season 2 functioned as almost two parts of an introductory story about the characters, plots, and themes that showrunner James Gunn and his team of creatives, including director Greg Mottola (Superbad), would focus on. The premiere wisely centered on Chris Smith and his life since defeating the Butterflies, the death of his father by his own hand, the beginning of a romance with Harcourt, his friendship with Adebayo, and his slow journey toward healing his trauma and defining his role as Peacemaker as aligned with the goals of a true superhero. The second episode widened its lens to explore the lives of the entire 11th Street Kids and the tangled webs they weave, including Adebayo’s failing marriage, Vigilante’s animal obsessions, Economos’s dual loyalties to his friends and A.R.G.U.S., and Harcourt’s self-destructive behaviors as she wrestles with losing her job and denying the feelings she has for Chris.
With all the table-setting established, including the introduction of a seemingly-perfect alternate universe (referred to here as DC2) where Chris could potentially live out his greatest fantasies, it seemed like a sure bet that Episode 3, “Another Rick Up My Sleeve,” would launch our characters into the kind of messy, violent, traumatic, and bottomless struggles that Peacemaker has become known for. And, in many ways, it does. But, it also shifts Episode 2’s broader focus back to Chris Smith and uses his unique perspective and journey as a way to frame the critical worldbuilding that has to be done to establish what his new, stolen life might be like in the DC2.
For that reason, amongst others, “Another Rick Up My Sleeve” might be Peacemaker’s most unusual episode yet, while still retaining all of the qualities that make it a uniquely thoughtful, fun, dark, and hilarious show. Director Greg Mottola returns after directing Episode 2 and delivers the whipsmart character-oriented comedy that he made his name on, but continues to establish that he’s also got the chops for crafting dynamic action sequences. Sure, his Keeping Up with the Joneses didn’t light the world on fire when it released in 2016, but even then, I’m glad that Gunn saw the potential for how Mottola might expand his directorial brand. I must admit, as much as I love Superbad and Adventureland, Mottola will always hold a place in my film nerd heart after he was revealed to be the combative “Student 1” from David Mamet’s film school essential, bestselling book/lecture, On Directing Film.
I detailed in my previous piece/theory about this episode and “What’s Going On in Peacemaker’s Alternate Reality, Exactly?” just how cleverly written and deceptive I found Gunn’s script for “Another Rick Up My Sleeve,” where the sudden inclusion of a DC2 Rick Flag Jr. (Joel Kinnaman reprises his role from The Suicide Squad) is the least of this show’s surprises. Still, putting those theories aside, the most unusual and potentially unsettling thing about this latest episode is just how well everything goes for Chris Smith.
Not only has John Cena showcased his incredible and growing range as an actor across this season’s three episodes (including a remarkable moment in this episode where Chris shakes off his heightened emotions upon stopping a bomb from exploding), but he’s proved that only a man of his size and musculature could withstand all the physical and emotional body blows that this series has directed at his character. And yet, here, for one brief episode, Chris is allowed to taste a form of victory, even if we know it is thanks to a reality that seems built to reward his worst instincts and set back his healing journey. As such, “Another Rick Up My Sleeve” is perfectly bittersweet, especially for those of us who know that the potential for redemption lies within the abused and traumatized Chris.
That all starts at the beginning of the episode, where we begin with another flashback that recontextualizes everything we know about a member of the 11th Street Kids and their particular relationship to Chris. In the previous episode, we learned about the details around Economos’s dual loyalties, but Episode 3’s reveal changes everything we thought we knew about Harcourt all the way back to her debut in Peacemaker Season 1. First comes the reveal that Kinnaman has returned to reprise his role as Rick Flag Jr., but that revelation is quickly dwarfed by the context: he’s in bed with Harcourt. In my review of Episode 1, I suspected that the “jarhead” that the DC2 Harcourt, who goes by Milia, was dating would end up being Rick Flag Jr., but I never suspected that the twist would go quite this far.
It seems that both characters never expected it either, as this seems to be the first time that their friendship entered the realm of the sexual, particularly because, as Harcourt notes, Rick should be with his sorceress girlfriend, June. But it’s the timeline that’s of primary importance here because, at the end of the scene, we learn that Rick is about to ship off to Corto Maltese and the events of The Suicide Squad, where Peacemaker will kill him. With the knowledge that this burgeoning romance was kept under wraps, and Harcourt’s role at A.R.G.U.S., we can only assume that she’s known that Chris murdered Rick the entire time. Not only does this explain her entirely justified, outright hostility to Chris during Season 1, but it also underlines why she’s fearful of pursuing another relationship with a work friend that unexpectedly became romantic.
After the episode’s title sequence – which, I must admit, has grown on me – we rejoin Chris as he wakes up from the drunken stupor that led him to reenter the DC2 and assume the life of his now dismembered and cremated counter-Chris. I’ve covered many of the details of Chris’s journey through the DC2 and the playful deception I believe it’s attempting in my previous piece for Decoding TV. However, putting those theories aside, I still think there’s a beautifully tragic character story for Chris that plays out across this episode. It starts with Chris’s slow testing of the waters with his brother, Keith, as he attempts to learn more about the DC2’s life and how he might be able to assume his identity. But, let’s be clear, Chris is primarily in the DC2 so that he can pursue a version of Harcourt who is now sending him text messages that indicate an interest in pursuing the kind of relationship the DCU’s Harcourt just denied him.
He quickly learns about the DC2 Chris’s taste in elaborate, expensive clothing, like-minded interest in heavy metal, bizarrely specific taste in featuring ornate British crests in his bathroom, secret pill addiction, and the existence of a fully-armed, star-spangled, bass-boosted, rocket-propelled Peace-Cycle. Chris dons his Peacemaker helmet, hops on his bike, and races off to A.R.G.U.S. headquarters to meet up with Milia, where, along the way, he’s cheered on by the public, watches a kid cry in adoration (or is it fear?), smiles at a patriotic mural featuring the Top Trio, and is flashed by young woman in the passenger seat of a nearby car. Chris declares it as the “Best. Universe. Ever.” and maybe he’s right, but I couldn’t help but notice that the DC2 doesn’t seem to include a single person of color. That can’t be right, can it? Seriously, if you haven’t read my previous theory about the DC2, now’s the time to read it!
When Chris finally arrives at A.R.G.U.S., he’s met by a friendly guard who addresses him with reverence as “Mr. Smith.” The respect throws Chris off, enough that he’s unprepared for the guard’s follow-up question: “How did Mr. Grant’s test turn out?” “Positive,” Chris stammers out. The guard withdraws, “Oh. I was hoping it wasn’t cancer.” Well, that was awkward. I’m not quite sure who this Mr. Grant is, other than perhaps a reference to the Arrowverse’s The Flash actor, Grant Gustin, whom Gunn has previously offered public admiration for. Either way, Chris gets sweaty as the guard scans his eye, but he passes and is allowed to enter the building.
Chris arrives at an upper floor where he meets DC2 Milia, who definitely doesn’t go by “Harcourt,” and this universe’s Rick Flag Jr., whom she is definitely dating (as I suspected in my previous review). There’s a strange tension between Milia and Chris, which underlines our knowledge about their breakup after a serious relationship. There’s even more tension between Rick and Chris, as the jealous boyfriend awkwardly watches from around corners and unsuccessfully feigns disinterest. Regardless, Chris ignores him to focus on this Milia, who couldn’t be a more direct opposite of the DCU Harcourt, which demonstrates actress Jennifer Holland’s incredible range.
The DCU Harcourt is emotionally guarded, rigid in her posture, plays down her femininity, and is spring-loaded to fight anyone who gets too close to her. This Milia is immediately warm, wears a colorful blouse and skirt, and openly speaks about her emotions with Chris. The two are so dissimilar that it calls into question Chris’s interest in Milia, other than that she looks like Harcourt and is open to pursuing a relationship with him. Gunn has explored a similar scenario in Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, when Peter Quill fell in love with an alternate version of Gamora who hadn’t softened during her time with found family and was instead sharpened like a knife by her abusive father, Thanos.
She agrees to go to lunch with Chris, which quickly turns into a date. On the elevator ride out of A.R.G.U.S., Chris starts to make a dirty joke, but swerves at the last second to something cleaner. Is our Chris learning how to control himself? The two head out to a plaza in Evergreen and have the sort of idyllic date that you’d only find in the sappiest of rom-coms. They make jokes about hot dogs, Chris is normal and even charming, and they even pet a golden retriever puppy (all set to Ozzy Osborne’s “Dreamer,” R.I.P.)! Things couldn’t be going better for Chris! Is this still the same Peacemaker that I’ve been watching for a dozen episodes?
Chris then presses Milia about the texts she sent him that implied that she was potentially interested in dating him again. She tells him that Rick is a good guy who won’t “fuck around on me,” as we learn that DC2 Chris did consistently throughout their relationship. Chris tells he that he’s trying to change, to which she replies, “Yeah, you seem less arrogant.” This resonates with Chris, who has actually become less arrogant as Peacemaker has continued. Is it possible that the DCU Chris is the better of the Chrises? Perhaps, but I don’t think he’s prepared to enter the “best Chris” competition that’s been raging between Pine, Pratt, Hemsworth, and Evans for the past decade.
Then, we see something from Chris that showcases a tremendous amount of growth for him; he opens up to Milia about his lifelong trauma and his work to heal it. Unaware that this is an entirely different Chris, she remarks, “You really are different,” but “the last thing I need is getting my heart broken again because you are curious. You really hurt me.” The other Chris was so thin-skinned that even though he was cheating on her throughout their entire relationship, he broke up with her because she criticized his driving. Regardless, she is moved by Chris’s growth and is open to seeing if it could work if he weren’t as impulsive.
But, just as things seem to be going well for Chris, the background actors start to run away from the camera, and a man trips on the ground in front of them and instantly explodes. Milia and Chris are thrown back, but are only lightly harmed. Moments later, a group of armed soldiers who identify themselves as the Sons of Liberty invade a DMV and demand that if they don’t receive the data they’ve asked for, they will continue to bomb one governmental agency per week. Their demands sound an awful lot like a certain memecoin-named initiative that’s currently laying waste to America’s governmental infrastructure and seizing its citizens’ private data.
Chris leaps into action, while Milia and a local cop desperately try to figure out how to pronounce “cefanalolol,” which isn’t a real thing. Chris runs through a “Fairy Tales” pet shop, climbs up onto the roof of the building, and leaps into the upper floors of the DMV. He then works his way through the building, this time in his civilian attire, and kills all of the Sons of Liberty in a particularly brutal fashion: axing one in the head, stabs a man with his own knife, crushing a guy with a printer before drop kicking him and using his gun to kill both him and his allies, drops down from the ceiling to stab a man in both of his ears with #2 pencils, and guns down a half dozen others while they attempt to board an escape helicopter.
As they are being killed, the Sons of Liberty members offer brief exchanges of humanity between each other, but for Chris, his violence is devoid of any care for humanity. To him, the Sons of Liberty are standing in the way of peace, and he’s vowed to use whatever violence is necessary to safeguard that peace. As Chris dismantles their bomb with only a microsecond to spare, he shudders and snaps out of his trance. It’s a massive moment of regression for the character, despite his actions “saving the day.” Across Peacemaker Season 1, we witnessed Chris start to unpack how he was using violence, sex, and drugs to blunt his trauma, rather than to deal with it. He justified his violence in the name of “peace,” but that word was only ever a shield that he used to avoid having to look in the mirror.
This regression for Chris is further reinforced when his brother Keith, appearing here as Captain Triumph, flies onto the scene and promptly destroys the helicopter in one big fireball, with no concern for any civilians who might have gotten caught up in the violence. Keith approaches his brother with a big smile, “You stop the bomb?” Chris nods. “Fucking Krisper!” Then Milia runs over to Chris and embraces him, as Chris whispers to himself, “Best. Dimension. Ever.”
When Chris finished his interview with the Justice Gang during the season premiere, he told Adebayo that his goal was to be “a real hero.” And here, in this dimension, he’s getting to do it. But, I suspect not only is there something deeply wrong with this universe, but that being a hero there means something entirely different than what it means to be a hero in the DCU. What Chris has found, rather than the perfect universe, is one that promotes his weaknesses as strengths and threatens to undo all his growth from Season 1.
While Chris is off galavanting in the DC2, the 11th Street Kids are having their own minor dramas back in the DCU. After they all wake up in Harcourt’s apartment with powerful hangovers, Adebayo presses Harcourt about her relationship with Chris and what happened between them on the party boat. Harcourt tells her that, despite what she may have heard, she and Chris will never be a thing. Meanwhile, Economos, who passed out in the bathtub, is quizzed by Vigilante about spiders, when he gets a call from Sasha Verdeaux. She’s furious because Economos didn’t tell A.R.G.U.S. about Eagly, who Langston Fleury swears was some kind of “superpowered meta-duck.”
As a result of his actions and the interdimensional energy readings they are getting from the Smith house, Verdeaux informs them that they are sending every agent at A.R.G.U.S., including the world’s foremost eagle hunter, Red St. Wild (Michael Rooker), and “Rip Jagger” (a renamed Judomaster), to take down Chris. Red asks if he’s allowed to kill “every bird in the vicinity,” and… lord… if they don’t do a spinoff series with the bird-blind Fluery and the bird-serial killer St. Wild, we’ll have lost something as a civilization.
Back in the DC2, Chris returns to the Smith house and smiles as he reads texts from Milia that she’d like to see him again. He tells her that he will be out of commission for a while, but that he’d like to see her again. I’ll be curious what loose ends Chris feels like he needs to tie up in the DCU, other than bringing along his best friend Eagly, that he’s not immediately eager to accept a life as the other Chris. To put an even more definite point on things, Keith comes into Chris’s room, hands him a drink, and tells Chris, “You know I love you no matter what, right?”
They are the words that Chris has been dying to hear his entire life, after blaming himself for his brother’s death. All he can say is, “I really missed you. More than you can ever…” and collapses in his brother’s arms. Keith reassures him, “Love you, buddy, you did good today.” And with that, Chris heads back through the quantum storage to seemingly say goodbye to the DCU for the final time, unaware that all of A.R.G.U.S. is marching towards his house with violent intent.
It’s incredible that only three episodes into this season, it seems like Chris’s soul is on the line, with no clear answer and many more revelations yet to come. The stakes of this season might not be a Butterflies-sized global threat, but they’ve never felt so insurmountable.
Stray observations:
It’s a “blink and you’ll miss it” moment, but after the DCU-rewriting events of the “Previously on…” from the season premiere, it seems that Gunn has yet again pulled a movie-erasing retcon in this episode. It happens right at the beginning of the show when Harcourt tells Flag Jr. that he should get back to his girlfriend, “June.” The June she’s referring to is June Moone, the DC character known as Enchantress. Enchantress was the possessed chief antagonist of David Ayer’s Suicide Squad (2016), where Flag Jr. was first introduced. In the film, June fell in love with Flag, but lost her powers by the movie’s end when Flag killed her possessed form, and was never seen again. But here, Harcourt and Flag joke about her powers being so strong that she might burrow a hole through the Earth.
The first member of the Sons of Liberty that we are introduced to is referred to by his teammates as “Jerry.” He’s the guy who tripped and fell on his explosive vest and blew up the park near Chris and Milia. Without a doubt, Jerry was named after Jerry Ordway, a writer and artist for DC Comics who invented the Sons of Liberty. In the comics, the Sons of Liberty were an “ultra-patriotic” paramilitary organization that attempted to overthrow the American government because they felt it had drifted too far away from the core principles of the American Constitution. They were aided by a special operative known as Agent Liberty, who looks an awful lot like Keith Smith’s alter-ego, Captain Triumph, who isn’t an authentic DC Comics character.
Fleury calls Eagly a “meta-duck,” which is only sort of a thing in the DC Comics with the superpowered Lobo the Duck, from the amalgam universe, and Bryd Rentals, who is an elastic Rubberduck and a member of Captain Carrot’s Zoo Crew. #themoreyouknow
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.
Dan, if you want your theory on the best universe ever boosted, check out the shoulder armor on Keith👀