'Peacemaker' S2E06 Review | "Ignorance is Chris"
"Siri, get me directions to the nearest fireworks factory."
[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 6 of Peacemaker.]
Since the start of Peacemaker Season 2, the show’s marketing has repeatedly hyped the significance and universe-changing events of the final three episodes. James Gunn has stated multiple times that Peacemaker Season 2 will play a key role in shaping the future of his DCU and that the final episodes will directly lead into his next Superman film, now scheduled for 2027 and titled Man of Tomorrow. With the release of episode five, “Ignorance is Chris,” we have entered that final phase where we were promised that we would be “getting to the fireworks factory,” to quote The Simpsons’ great poet, Milhouse Van Houten.
“Ignorance is Chris” lives up to those promises: it finally puts Chris and Harcourt in a room together and forces them to talk out their season-long relationship problems; it features an all-star cameo from a Superman actor that meaningfully moves his character in a new direction; and it ends on a twist so huge that only the “world’s greatest detective” could have seen coming. No, not Batman. Just your humble Decoding TV recapper, Dan Gvozden. “Hi. That’s me!”
But even at roughly thirty-three minutes long, “Ignorance is Chris” feels almost as padded as the previous two episodes of the season. Granted, that padding is often what makes Peacemaker so enjoyable; no one delivers sharp insults and nicknames that hit like heat-seeking missiles quite like James Gunn. Still, I frequently felt impatient for the next firework to go off as the characters, exploring another dimension for the first time, embarked on another extended verbal riff, this time about the proper greeting to extend to a xenomorph-esque alien. We’ve all seen how many themes, ideas, needle-drops, and characters Gunn can deftly weave together in his film narratives, while still maintaining a relaxed, shaggy nature. So, I can’t help but wonder if this season of Peacemaker would have been best condensed into a feature film, with most of its fat and wheel-spinning trimmed down.
Some shagginess aside, Peacemaker’s focus on its characters and themes remains as unwavering as those previously mentioned heat-seeking missiles. As the various members of the 11th Street Kids cross the threshold of the quantum unfolding chamber and into the seemingly utopian alternate universe, I had some fear that their individual stories would be lost in the contours of a universe that, at least on its surface, seems tailored to Chris’s unique fantasies and foibles. However, Gunn finds clever ways to give most of the gang something interesting to do, except for Economos, who is essentially told to stay put and deal with the spiraling nausea he experiences in this new and unfamiliar universe.
I felt a similar vertigo during the episode’s cold open when I realized that, unlike the show’s previous five episodes, “Ignorance is Chris” wasn’t opening with a flashback. Instead, we join The Top Trio enjoying a well-deserved lunch after their defeat of a city-crushing kaiju, or so we are told (seriously, where’s all the collateral damage?). This one change felt like the show was properly acknowledging that it would be transitioning to nothing but forward movement from this point forward.
The heroes enjoy their appetizers until a shy fan approaches them and asks for their picture. Auggie, who we now know isn’t the tech wiz he was portrayed as last season, passes on taking the selfie, so Milia takes the picture. The faces of The Top Trio, frozen in time, then begin to melt and warp—like a bad Snapchat face filter or the lingering effects of my ongoing non-flashback-induced vertigo. I thought I could literally hear Gunn shouting from outside my home, “Don’t you see! There’s something wrong with this picture… this universe is not what it seems.” Regardless of whether he was actually outside my house or not, I shouted back, “I get it!”
Back in the prime DCU, the 11th Street Kids arrive in a car outside Vigilante’s mother’s house, where he lives in the basement, to the surprise of no one. They plan to use the home as the stage for the quantum door Chris left them, as Vigilante isn’t yet on A.R.G.U.S.’s radar. But first, they’ll have to get past his mother, who Vig warns is nothing but a “be’atch.” But, of course, she turns out to be the sweetest of sweethearts in the DCU, a mother so doting that it would make Ma Kent blush. She even joined in on Vig’s D&D game when he “didn’t have enough players, so I became a 40th-level cutpurse.”
Despite cutpurses having natural proficiency in Observation, I wouldn’t count on Mrs. Chase (Taylor St. Clair) to pull off an active d20 roll on a Perception check, because she’s failed to notice that her son, Adrian, has millions of dollars in “blood money,” and untold riches in illegal drugs that he’s acquired from busting up drug rings, stored in his basement bedroom. The piles of drugs are so voluminous that he’s been forced to store his mint Beanie Babies collection in his closet, waiting for the market to bounce back, and his bed is nowhere in sight. Where would he take his girlfriend, Harcourt, after a hot date?
Still, there’s just enough room for Adebayo to open the quantum unfolding chamber control device and use it to tear open the fabric of space-time (I’m still sticking by my “Mother Box Theory”), as if she’s done it a million times before. Some might say that it was “super easy, barely an inconvenience,” but I’d say that these are the kind of skills you pay top dollar for when you hire her as a private investigator or hooker. In either scenario, as the 11th Street Kids experience here, everyone ends up covered from head to toe in cocaine. And so, moments later, they enter the quantum unfolding chamber, walk past the cat-cremating alien, find the alt-Peacemaker helmets, and, with Vig’s help, enter the DC2 universe to find Chris.
With eyes wide, the crew wanders through the alt-Smith house, marveling at and understanding the immediate appeal of this universe. Just as Harcourt discovers a photograph of her alternate self and alternate Chris, Keith unexpectedly shows up. The rest of the crew manages to hide, as Harcourt attempts to distract him with a lame excuse about a snowglobe, which turns out to have been a gift that Chris’s previously unmentioned mother gave to him on her deathbed (“Rosebud…”). Keith offers her a ride back to A.R.G.U.S., which she eventually accepts, and comments on how he’s never seen her wear black or pants before. Meanwhile, Economos nearly vomits from the universe being “too fucking weird,” and Vigilante runs away from the group, despite their pleas, to find his alternate self, “Vigilante 2.”
The show finally returns to Chris as he’s lying in bed with the DC2’s Milia. It’s safe to assume they had sex sometime between the previous episode’s almost-kiss cut to black and this moment, though Chris’s appreciation of Milia later in the episode casts some doubt. She showers and he shaves, but he has a strange moment of reflection in the mirror, which we aren’t fully privy to because seconds later he’s back on the Peace-Cycle heading to A.R.G.U.S., where he’s sure to run into Harcourt and his brother.
Speaking of which, the two arrive at A.R.G.U.S.’s headquarters, and the guards immediately detain Harcourt, snowglobe and all, when the police dog detects her cocaine-laden jacket. Chris shows up just as she’s being taken away, and they exchange a glance that says more than words could in that moment.
Never one to be at a loss for words, Vigilante arrives at his alt-home and exclaims his delight over the minor differences he finds, including a box of “Cheeri-ohs!” and the revelation, upon seeing his mother and father watching TV together, that “my Dad’s not gay here!” But his biggest surprise comes when he enters his basement bedroom, unlocks the door with his keys, and finds a normal-looking toolshed with an alt-Adrian who is his exact mirror from head to toe. Heck, they even recreate the Spider-Man pointing meme!
The show then rejoins Rick Flag Sr., ever plotting how to exact his revenge on Peacemaker, at Belle Reve prison — the same high-security, metahuman correctional facility that operated as the headquarters for Task Force X and imprisoned Chris at the start of The Suicide Squad. It is here that Gunn makes good on his promise that Peacemaker Season 2 would operate as a bridge between Superman and Man of Tomorrow by introducing Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult), now using a cane to walk, into the show’s narrative. Lex complains to Flag about metahumans taking over the world, and his distaste for being jailed alongside them, including “a bear-sized man with dragon skin butt-fucking a glowing twink with cartoon eyes.” Whoa, Lex, jail has really given you a potty mouth. You wouldn’t have dared say something like that in your PG-13 movie debut!
(I believe this moment could be Exhibit A about why it might not have been wise to give James Gunn complete creative control over developing the new DCU, especially after giving another idiosyncratic filmmaker full control over the previous DCU. I know he’s capable of delivering a series of excellent movies and shows if he maintains consistency, but will families trust this guy after a fairly violent and crude Superman and a show that’s very adult but is being promoted as “important” to the DCU’s future? Anyway, I digress…)
Luthor has been sentenced to 265 years in prison and offers Flag a device that will allow him to scan for Chris’s portal in exchange for his freedom. Flag shoots him down, but instead offers him “an opportunity for redemption,” which seems pretty on-brand for Peacemaker. He accepts. It’s a small moment of connection to the larger DCU, but I’ll admit that it was neat, but not really unexpected, to see Luthor stroll onscreen for a couple of minutes.
Speaking of incarceration, Chris convinces a guard to let him into the holding room with Harcourt while they conduct a drug test on her. He’s angry that she’s come after him and that she denied his letter, which she calls “bullshit.” She corrects him, saying she never double-crossed him, that Bordeux is a cyborg, and that what hurt her the most was that he would even think she was capable of backstabbing him. Chris doesn’t know how to feel, and he presses Harcourt again about her feelings regarding their night on the boat. Not only did he not know about her and Rick Flag Jr., but he finally admits to her that he’s in love with her. And, in Star Wars style, Harcourt responds, “Yeah, I know.” Chris can’t leave it alone and adds, “Yeah, I figured.”
With two more episodes left in the season, I wouldn’t call this a truly climactic moment for either character, mainly because Harcourt still refuses to drop her guard and let Chris see her feelings. However, I appreciated how Gunn captures the expressions of these characters’ truths and the complicated dance they perform, especially with actors like John Cena and Jennifer Holland, who have genuinely come to embody these roles and have found ways to make even a silent look carry significant narrative and emotional weight.
Chris argues that he can’t go back with her because of the love he has for his father and brother, whom he now has a second chance to be with. But most interestingly, he says about the other Milia, “she’s nice, but she’s not you.” I hope we get a chance to unpack what he means here, because so far, I don’t think Gunn’s script has explored this idea deeply. Instead, it portrays Chris as eager and wide-eyed about building a relationship with someone who resembles Harcourt but is very different in character. He tells Harcourt, “I can’t just run out on these people,” even though he also just ran out on his found family, the 11th Street Kids.
The episode rejoins the Vigilantes as they quiz each other about their likes and dislikes. Likes: animal facts and Pokémon. Dislikes: “the touch of human skin.” It turns out they are identical in every way except for the one thing most central to the DCU’s Vigilante: his love of Chris Smith. Vigilante is at a loss for how to respond when Vigilante 2 tells him, “I’ve dedicated my entire life to tearing down everything he stands for. He’s my fucking archenemy. He’s the reason I joined the Sons of Liberty in the first place.” By this point, I was ready to get on my couch and cheer; if this wasn’t proof that my theory about the Sons of Liberty and the DC2 being a white nationalist utopia would be proven true, I was prepared to eat my hat.
After Adebayo and Economos clean up the mess Eagly makes on his quest to eat baloney, she decides to go for a walk through the Smiths' neighborhood (as one does when exploring an alternate universe...). She then notices that everyone in the neighborhood is looking at her strangely. Huh? Could that be because this universe is a white nationalist utopia?
Then, we join Keith as he drives home and sees Adebayo outside his window. He skids his car to a stop and runs after her, shouting, “One got out! A black!” There’s not enough time in the world to unpack those two sentences. However, I’m imagining that just off-camera is a super-prison resembling Alligator Alcatraz that’s committing the worst hate crimes ever seen by man. He’s joined by all the suburban neighbors, who drop everything they are doing to chase after Adebayo, as if she’s Indiana Jones running from the Hovitos.
Then, right on cue—because everyone must have the identical narrative revelation at the same time—Chris finds an American flag on an A.R.G.U.S. agent’s desk that, when turned around, reveals a swastika instead of fifty stars. If that’s not enough, Auggie goes home, finds Economos, and stabs him through the hand until he spills the beans about their entire operation and Chris’s true origin. Meanwhile, Milia arrives at A.R.G.U.S. and warns the guards about Harcourt’s deceptions.
And, if you’ll excuse me, I have to cut this short. I’m heading out to pick up some marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate because, baby, I’m ready to watch some fireworks!
Stray observations:
Perhaps it’s not worth mentioning, but was anyone else waiting for the restaurant in the cold open to be revealed as some sort of twisted alt-universe take on Applebee’s, like “Pearfly’s” or something? It seemed like a no-brainer, given Applebee’s enormous ad buy, featuring Peacemaker’s Jennifer Holland and Steve Agee, which has preceded every episode on the ad-supported version of HBO Max. Everyone is gushing about how Gunn has managed to integrate the Superman actors into this season of Peacemaker. Still, I’ve been equally impressed by Applebee’s marketing team’s integration of the multiverse plotline into their “Ultimate Trio” advertisement.
Wait! Top Trio… Ultimate Trio… I see what you are doing, Gunn and Applebee’s! I won’t rest until the DCU devotes an entire saga of movies to a war where these two Trios battle it out and only one is left to declare triumvirate supremacy!When Keith and Harcourt are driving to A.R.G.U.S., they discuss music and Keith drops a mention of The Beatles and Helloween. It turns out that Helloween isn’t some alt-version of an obscure metal band that only James Gunn knows, but is a German power metal band that’s often called one of the most influential European heavy metal bands of the 1980s, that only James Gunn knows. I swear, sometimes Europe feels like it’s on an entirely different planet.
As for The Beatles, Keith describes them as consisting of Paul, George, Ringo, and Mick, as in “Mick Jagger” from The Rolling Stones. My illustrious editor, David Chen, put forward the theory that it was the presence of Yoko Ono that split up the band even earlier than in our timeline, given that in a white supremacist society his relationship with her would have been frowned upon. I don’t even know if we have to speculate that far, but instead, we have to examine John Lennon’s entire “Imagine” peace-loving philosophy, which would have likely seen him shunned from the spotlight. Which isn’t to say that the other Beatles are warmongering xenophobes, but I’ve always had a suspicion about Paul after he wrote “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.”When Lex Luthor refers to his adjoining cellmates at Belle Reve prison, he calls them “a bear-sized man with dragon skin butt-fucking a glowing twink with cartoon eyes.” I suspect this is referring to Killer Croc, who was incarcerated at Belle Reve at the end of the original Suicide Squad, which may or may not be canon. As for the “glowing twink,” my best guess is that this is Doctor Phosphorus, who was also locked away at Belle Reve at the conclusion of Creature Commandos.
By now, anyone who has read this far has probably already seen the comic book image that Gunn teased alongside the announcement of Man of Tomorrow, which sees Superman holding a screwdriver alongside Lex Luthor in a LexCorp Battlesuit. During a major DC Comics reboot called “Flashpoint,” Lex suddenly found that he had acquired Kryptonian power armor, which he then reverse-engineered to enhance LexCorp’s technology. When the post-”Flashpoint” Superman died, Lex used his Battlesuit to take on the mantle of Superman to become Metropolis’ new protector.
I can’t say whether or not we’ll see Lex use this suit to battle or aid Superman in the upcoming film. Still, given that the characters are seen standing smiling back-to-back, I assume that Rick Flag Sr. is offering Lex a chance to work alongside Superman, in this Battlesuit, as a way to redeem himself. During writer Grant Morrison’s run on Action Comics, he told a story in which Lex Luthor then betrayed the government’s secret attempts to control Superman, leaked the information to Clark Kent, and then attempted to aid the villainous Brainiac in his efforts to shrink Metropolis.
It’s a complicated story, but given how much Superman was primarily inspired by Morrison’s classic, must-read All-Star Superman and our knowledge that Brainiac will be the primary villain of Man of Tomorrow, I am expecting a riff on that story and for Luthor to use the suit and his shifting allegiances to not only free himself from his imprisonment, but to upgrade himself so that he can take on Superman without needing to clone him.In the DC Comics, Earth-X is a parallel Earth from across the vast Pre-Crisis Multiverse, wherein Germany won World War II. It is the focus of many comic stories. It has even been adapted for television before, in the Arrowverse crossover event “Crisis on Earth-X,” which spanned episodes of Supergirl, Arrow, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow on The CW.
I suspect that this new universe of Nazis will be labelled Earth-X, though I was reluctant to do so in my theorizing, given that it’s hard to square what we know of this universe with one wherein the Nazis controlled America as far back as the 1940s. I’m still sticking with my theory that this Nazi America was the result of the rise of power of The Top Trio, whether by sheer, violent force and interdimensional technology, or by the slow creep of their fascistic, xenophobic, and racist agenda that they spread by performing “heroic” feats and leveraging nationalistic propaganda. Sound familiar?Lastly, I’m curious about how Peacemaker will explore the thematics, politics, and history of race in upcoming episodes. The show has always quietly featured a diverse cast, but it has rarely made race a central theme, except to highlight Auggie’s racism as a key part of what makes him such an evil person. However, with this episode, the topic of race has been brought into the spotlight, simply from its title. The “ignorance” it refers to is Chris’s ignorance about race and inability to recognize the disappearance of people of color in this new universe. It’s clear that Harcourt notices it almost immediately, even if she can’t put her finger on it. With only two episodes left in the season and so much still unresolved, this major character flaw in Chris seems like a lot to address and deal with, at least in a satisfying way, in such a short time.
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.