For each of Peacemaker’s eight episodes, we’ve run reviews by Dan Gvozden. If you’d like to support what we’re doing here, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.
I went into the Peacemaker Season 2 finale hoping for the best, given Gunn’s track record of landing his films and shows with aplomb, while preparing for the worst, actively acknowledging the vast quantity of plotlines, character arcs, and themes the season had set up. In the time since writing my review of the previous episode, “Like a Keith in the Night,” my expectations for what the show was interested in exploring with Earth-X’s racial politics had been significantly dampened. Still, I also found that time brought me some clarity regarding Gunn’s thoughts and political posturings concerning the status quo-maintaining perspective of the Earth-X Auggie Smith, and his faux-heroic final speech.
So, when I opened up HBO Max and saw the finale’s episode title was “Full Nelson,” I knew we were in for something bold, for good or for bad. A “full nelson”, if you don’t know, is a semi-illegal wrestling hold where one wrestler grapples the other from behind, pinning them face down on the mat, and twists both of their opponent’s arms behind their back while applying the pressure of the hold onto their neck. The full nelson is often considered disqualifying because it risks injury and it cannot pin the opponent on their back, thus ending the match. Practically speaking, it’s used to fully control one’s opponent, apply maximum pressure without pursuing a win, and to humiliate. Applied to a show like Peacemaker, I couldn’t tell if the title was a commentary on the position that Chris Smith found himself in, entirely at the whims of A.R.G.U.S., or Gunn and his writing team, who left themselves exposed, with an impossible number of goals to achieve in this final episode, but not yet at the conclusion of the metaphorical wrestling match.
And so, before clicking play on my ad-supported HBO Max presentation of the finale, I made a list of all the various elements of the show that I hoped/expected would be wrapped up. Here it is in its unvarnished form:
Chris and Harcourt’s “will they, won’t they” will be explored/concluded, including her self-destructive behaviors, fear of companionship, and what allowed for her acceptance and embrace of him in the previous episode, as well as his pursuit of a woman who looks like Harcourt, but was fundamentally a different person (and a Nazi)
Maybe even some clarifying details on what happened between Chris and Harcourt on the night of the boat cruise
A resolution on what it meant for Chris to choose to abandon the 11th Street Kids in favor of an alternate version of his family
A resolution on Chris’s admission that everything he touches falls apart
An exploration of what it meant for Chris to to be ignorant of the fact that the world he chose to be in was run by Nazis, when everyone else saw the reality of that world immediately
Additionally, some kind of condemnation from Adebayo, Chris’s “second best friend,” for not acknowledging his comfortability within a white supremacist universe
The reveal of Rick Flag Sr.’s true intentions with the doorway portal, and some sort of fallout from his manipulations of both Harcourt and Bordeaux
A final note on Adebayo and Keeya’s relationship, spurred on by Judomaster’s comments in the previous episode, as well as her private investigation dreams
An opportunity for both Economos and Harcourt to reflect on how their work for A.R.G.U.S. has impacted their lives, with the former being asked to work against his friends, and the latter building her entire self-worth around her employment with the government
The return of Earth-X Keith, who holds Chris responsible for the death of his Chris and father (and maybe, even, the return of the Sons of Liberty)
A possible hero moment for Eagly, as a payoff for the time spent with Red St. Cloud and the whole “Prime Eagle” plot, and perhaps even a “bird blindness” pay-off that justifies the addition of Fleury to the cast
Some big, spectacle payoff to all the various animal facts that Vigilante has been rattling off all season. Surely, that can’t have been for nothing?
I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t expect the final episode to include any or all of the items listed above; these were simply the expectations I brought in. And perhaps, with expectations like these, I was bound to be disappointed by “Full Nelson,” and in some ways I was. Still, I must admit that I was genuinely moved by how much Gunn and his team tried, not always successfully, to touch on as many of these setups, ideas, and themes as they possibly could in a single episode of superhero television, all while also trying to meet the needs of a major motion picture studio and contribute to the early formation of a new universe of storytelling.
But, it is that ambition that also dooms this finale and makes it one of the least satisfying episodes of Peacemaker so far. I have criticized the pacing of this season, particularly around its bloated middle episodes, and I’m far from alone. So, it was especially frustrating to watch “Full Nelson” blaze through what should have been significant, season-defining character moments with the use of admittedly fun rock montages, heartfelt dialogue, and even more rock montages. Seriously, there are at least three status quo-altering montages that easily could have been explored in greater detail over the events of full episodes, not to mention an entire season. There were so many montages that one of mine was even interrupted by commercial break, only for the show to come back on and the music to be continuing! Some might call it economical storytelling, but to me, the results were unsatisfying and unearned.
It wouldn’t be fair to call the finale a “disaster,” or even use it to suggest that this season of Peacemaker isn’t worth watching. That said, I think it is fair to say that its ambitions exceeded its grasp, and it probably wasn’t wise of James Gunn to write 650 pages of scripts in a year and the entirety of Peacemaker Season 2 while on vacation in Hawaii. Still, compared to many of its contemporaries, this season concludes in a place that is far more coherent than it has any right to be, and was ambitious enough to tackle concepts like white supremacy, self-destructive behavior, the complicity of centrist politics to the maintenance of fascist regimes, and so much more. With companies like Apple and Ubisoft changing their future plans in the wake of threats from the Trump administration towards ABC, there’s something to be said about James Gunn and Warner Bros.’ commitment to the potentially controversial and “triggering” ideas that formed the backbone of this season. And, surprisingly enough, Gunn seemed to escape a metaphorical full nelson with his and the show’s backbone fully intact.
“Full Nelson” is both written and directed by Gunn, who wastes no time by throwing the audience and his production budget into another “one month ago” cold-open flashback, which finally reveals the full story behind the much-contested boat cruise courting of Chris and Harcourt. They start with a flirty burger date at Big Belly Burger, whose mascot looks so much like Economos that I began to suspect he might have a secret ongoing side hustle as a restaurateur. Harcourt draws Chris’s face on the table with water and straws, while Chris publicly embarrasses her by standing in front of hungry diners and singing “Someone Special” by Hardcore Superstar. To him, she’s the “someone special,” as he puts on a show, but she clearly states, “I don’t want to be anyone special, Chris.”
They do twelve shots with their waitress, Maeve, and stumble out of the restaurant when a passing “Yosemite Sam” lookalike makes a catcall toward Harcourt, which triggers her instinctual fight response. Chris steps in to stop the escalating altercation and shows not only how charming he can be, especially after the healing he experienced by the end of Season 1, but also how well he understands where Harcourt’s reaction comes from. “What, you think you’re fucking protecting me?” Harcourt protests. “No, I’m protecting him,” Chris plainly retorts.
The two then wander past art vendors along the Evergreen waterside, discussing their friends, where Chris reveals that he’s the center of Adrian’s obsessions because his older brother wasn’t good to him. It’s an interesting twist, considering that Chris accidentally killed his own older brother. But, there’s no time to delve into this relationship further because Chris spots the entrance to a “Rock Cruise - Featuring International Superstars: Nelson,” and pulls Harcourt along, excited about this favorite musical act.
Then, it’s the final rendition of this season’s title sequence, once again set to “Oh Lord” by Foxy Shazam. I know there has been some debate about how this intro wasn’t quite as strong as the one from the first season. So, I think its important that, with this final review, I plant my flag and declare that I believe the Foxy Shazam version has proven itself to be the better—and more memeable—version in almost every way. I suspect, with a deeper analysis than I can do here, we will continue to find hidden meaning in the specific movements of the dance choreography in the days to come. I already suspect there is a good reason Auggie’s the only member of the Top Trio to unmask himself, just as the moment where Chris and Harcourt freeze and are pulled apart takes on visual prominence later in this very episode.
We rejoin Chris in a federal prison, held in solitary confinement and rejecting every visitor from the 11th Street Gang who has attempted to visit him. When his guard, Durwitz (Alex Klein), questions why he’s doing this to himself, Chris’s only explanation is that he views himself as “the angel of death” with a stone-cold sobriety that suggests he’s not being metaphorical.
Meanwhile, A.R.G.U.S. uses its newly acquired doorway portal device to fully explore the quantum unfolding chamber (QUC). Harcourt and Economos have rejoined the team, after going rogue, and have joined with Fleury and his agents, in full hazmat suits, to catalogue everything they find. They close off doors, secure equipment, loosely greet the cremation alien, and explore the worlds they find. The entire operation is monitored by Rick Flag Sr.,and managed by Sydney Happersen and his cocaine-addled team, provided by Lex Luthor. The secret goal of the mission is a subject of conversation amongst the subordinate team members, as well as Fluery’s wholly inappropriate story about Agent Kline/Kewpie’s vomit-filled adventures into a strip club.
The team encounters their first of many obstacles when they discover the ornate Door 22, which is revealed to be unlocked and a portal to a violently red version of Candyland. The team crosses through and are attacked by hundreds of tiny imps who violently swarm the team, fatally bash in Kline’s face, sever their connective tethers, and attempt to close the door on them. The team barely escapes, squishes all the remaining imps, and starts to have serious questions about the tasks they’ve been set upon. Even Bordeaux seems apprehensive that the juice is worth the squeeze, so to speak.
Back at Economos’ apartment, he searches for a hiding, forlorn Eagly, while he and Harcourt discuss his suspicions about Flag Sr.’s mulitversal expeditions. Harcourt has heard that he is looking for an uninhabited planet with food and water, but doesn’t know more than that. The muti-million dollar project even got the approval of the Secretary of Defense (War?), so Harcourt wonders if it’s actually a benevolent project after all. And, in a real moment of clarity, Economos reflects back across their journeys through The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker Season 1, Creature Commandos and this season and ponders aloud, “When has anything we’ve ever done been for the good of the people?” Good thinking Economos. Hold onto that thought.
Adebayo shows up at Vigilante’s house, just in time for him to verbally berate his innocent mother. He’s clearly in a bad place without Chris around, but isn’t willing to accept that Chris’s imprisonment and rejection of their visitations isn’t a part of some larger plan. Adebayo implores Vigilante to use his vast sums of “blood money” to help bail Chris out, but this idea crosses the moral line for Vigilante. Instead, he suggests that they threaten the judge’s family, or find a way to break him out via a prison heist. As always, Vigilante continues to confound. But, Adebayo smartly pulls a Bugs Bunny-style reverse psychology trick, convincing Vig that if he wants to prove himself Chris’s best friend he would be willing to endure a blood money curse for him. “Adrian, take something bad and make something good out of it,” she says, simultaneously asserting that “subtext is for cowards.” It’s been happening all season, but when was Adebayo appointed as James Gunn’s thematic text regurgitator?
And so, with that, Chris makes bail, despite his resistance to leave prison, and later shows up at Economos’ house to pick up Eagly before skipping town. The rest of the 11th Street Gang show up, but not soon enough to stop Chris from clearing out his house and leaving Evergreen.
Then, we get the first of the major montage sequences of this episode, set to :checks notes: “Fucking My Heart in the Ass” by Steel Panther. Cool. :checks the liner notes: Nope. James Gunn didn’t write this song. Anyway, the show breezes through a sequence of the A.R.G.U.S. team navigating the QUC to open doors and report back what they find. Amongst the doors they find are: a black hole, a planet full of giant, screaming skulls with spider legs (which may be from Creature Commandos, if you look at the poles in the image), a zombie world, and more. Bordeaux and Fleury’s team slowly dwindles in size, with each door claiming another life, as Flag’s administrative team parties back at the control deck. Chris checks into a motel, where he and Eagly each claim a twin bed. On the other end of the spectrum, we see Bordeaux dissociating while sharing a bed with a very satisfied looking Flag Jr. Did he have the risotto?
Eventually, they discover a world that seems entirely safe and full of abundant life. The team all takes off their helmets to breathe in the fresh air. Could this be the end of their deadly journeys through the multiverse?
As it turns out: yes. Harcourt delivers the news to Flag who is so excited about their discovery that he drops all of his manipulative pretenses, and doesn’t even respond when Harcourt calls him “Rick,” as he insisted in earlier episodes. He got what he wanted and is closing the metaphorical door behind him and refuses to further clarify his intentions with the new portal they’ve established, which puts Bordeaux on high alert.
Later, in a secretive governmental meeting, Flag lays it all out. They’ve found a planet that they are calling “Salvation” and have established a direct connection to it that skips over the QUC. The plan is to use the door and planet as a way to create a prison for metahumans that won’t have the limitations of Belle Reve or Arkham Asylum. They don’t plan on building a physical prison but instead they will toss metahumans through the door, close the portal behind them, and then move the physical location of the portal in the DC prime universe, so as to prevent any superhumans from ever identifying its location and escaping. Flag admits that, as uncomfortable as it makes him, he’s implementing Lex Luthor’s plans, but he assures himself that this plan makes it so that their imprisonment of metahumans isn’t about punishment, but about removing dangerous individuals. Sure, keep telling yourself that Rick.
Bordeaux isn’t particularly happy that her team was all sacrificed in order to build an alternate dimension prison, and so she meets up with Harcourt at the Big Belly Burger to tell her the news. Two things:
What’s up with Big Belly Burger? Is this really the place you go to have a secret meeting about a top secret government organization’s extrajudicial prisons? Or are the burgers just that good?
None of this felt earned to me. Bordeaux has been so bought in on Flag’s plans all season, to the point of nearly murdering Chris, that it’s hard to accept this heelturn for her. Maybe if we had experienced her fondness for her agents or established her hatred for prisons I would have fully bought into this character choice. But as it is, even Harcourt seems skeptical, as she suggests Bordeaux is only motivated to turn against Flag Sr. because she’s a metahuman herself. I don’t know what to make of this. Maybe the sex was truly that bad? But this scene from Creature Commandos suggests otherwise.
Harcourt, who chooses to buy into Bordeaux’s turn, sees the nobility in her actions, particularly in how they contrast Harcourt’s desires to return to any government agency, no matter how corrupt, after being unemployed for two years. But, she has another idea instead, and introduces Bordeaux to Adebayo, as Gunn teases us with another montage set to “We’re Not Going to Take It,” but perhaps that song was just too on the nose to commit, and the montage stops just as soon as it starts. Don’t tease us Gunn! Plotline-resolving montages in the final episode of your slowpaced season are exactly what audiences want! Right?
But don’t worry, Gunn is committed to filling out Peacemaker Season 2’s Spotify playlist, and so we flashback to Chris and Harcourt’s musical adventures aboard the Rock Cruise. We join them as they filter into the Nelson concert, on the upper deck, as the band kicks off their song “To Get Back to You.” The camera fixes on Chris and Harcourt as the alcohol kicks in, the vibes lift them up, and they find themselves staring at each other, frozen in time, just as they have been during the season’s title sequence. Except, this time, as has been visually denied to us all season, the two share a passionate kiss. I’ll admit, this really worked for me and was an incredibly nice visual touch from Gunn, even as Harcourt hastily says, “I gotta go,” and races out of there. I must also admit, all season I assumed the two had slept together, but I have to admire just how raw this relationship is for them that all it took was a kiss to spark the tensions that have driven their conflict.
Speaking of a simmering relationship drama that we all can’t wait to resolve, Adebayo returns to Keeya to not only tell her about her business interests with Bordeaux, but also to let her go. If I had to list the one plot from this season that I was least interested in following, it was whatever was going on between Adebayo and Keeya. At the very least, actress Elizabeth Faith Ludlow, who portrays Keeya, is finally allowed a chance to do some acting that’s not just fulfilling the nagging wife role to Adebayo.
She cries during a genuinely heartfelt speech about relationships, delivered by Adebayo, wherein she expresses that she’s learned that “a relationship is about building a life together, where both partners can be happy and make each other stronger” and that she realized that neither of them could have the life they wanted without the other one feeling trapped. I mean this with complete sincerity, but I could feel the years that Gunn has spent on a therapist’s couch working on his relationships coming through in every line of dialogue here. The words were genuinely touching, even if the character arc that they tried to find for Adebayo this season was wholly uninteresting and unearned.
Meanwhile, Bordeaux, Harcourt, and Economos return to A.R.G.U.S. to distract the Luthor-appointed team of technicians, so that they can use Bordeaux’s “Peacemaker clearance” to track down Chris. Economos’ distractions, which take the form of discussing a Prawns game that never happened and an impromptu joke about lobsters, fall completely flat, but they are successful nevertheless. This leads the fully assembled 11th Street Kids team to Chris’s motel where they plan to confront him.
The minute Chris sees them approach he knows it is time to leave, but Vigilante doesn’t give him the option and instead tackles him to the ground and tasers him. Moments later, Chris has recovered and sits in his motel room, surrounded by his friends. They are trying to understand why he’s rejecting their friendship, to which he says he believes he’s cursed. John Cena’s delivery of this truth is so pained that I genuinely believed that Chris was utterly serious about being cursed and not just using a figure of speech. He rattles off the deaths that he believes he’s responsible for: his brother, his father, his alternate self, his alternate father, and his alternate brother.
But, Adebayo, sensing correctly that her role in the script is to fulfill the “Magical Negro” trope, finds exactly the right words to not only turn Chris back to his uncritical 11th Street Kids friends but to resolve his entire character arc for the season. She asserts that when Chris isn’t listening to the commands of someone else and is allowed to be himself truly, “You touch people, man. I believe in miracles because of you. I saw an eagle hug a human. I know who I am because of you. When I’m around you, I feel loved…” Wait, did someone dig up a script from the Season 1 finale?
No, seriously. We just watched a full season of television where Chris abandoned his new found family and romantic partner for a Nazi universe where the former doesn’t exist and the latter doesn’t remotely resemble herself, so that he could reembrace the family he lost in the first season, all so the show’s most prominent black, female character could uncritically offer her unwavering support of his role in her life, even as he is attempting to flee it yet again. I had so much faith that this show would use its alternate universe to really examine Chris’s choices and blindness to white supremacy, but instead it just has its lead black, female character handwave it away. Not great, Gunn. Not great.
Even still, I like where the show lands, with the remainder of the 11th Street Kids offering Chris an insight into the value he gives their lives, as they all assert, to contrast Earth-X Auggie’s final speech, that they are going to take a stand against A.R.G.U.S. and take command of their own destinies. I think this is a valuable lesson and arc to offer viewers, as unearned as it might be, especially in a time when the values of our authority figures are testing our allegiance as citizens to an idea that has been twisted and distorted beyond recognition.
For Chris, he’s not quite ready to rejoin his ragtag team, at least I assume that’s the case since we don’t see his response to their call to action onscreen. Instead, he questions Harcourt, yet again, “Did it mean something?” And she tries to obfuscate, but finally admits, “Of course it did, fucking asshole. It meant everything.” Which is a lovely sentiment, enough that it gets Chris to return to his room and dance to the show’s Foxy Shazam theme song in private, but again… I was hugely disappointed by this choice.
It’s not that I don’t want the two to get together, but after watching their courtship for two seasons, I wish that I knew what sparked Harcourt’s sudden disarmament. One could argue that she saw Chris display selflessness by throwing himself in jail to spare his friends the impact of the curse he believes has been placed on him. But, even if that’s the case, the show does nothing to highlight its importance to Harcourt. It simultaneously does nothing to address the underlying self-destructive instincts of these two characters, which have been playing out across the entire season. That’s not to even mention the absolute minefield of baggage the show set-up with Chris sleeping with Harcourt’s Nazi alternate as well as Chris’s ignorance of living in that Nazi world, which Harcourt sensed almost immediately.
Not content to slow down, the show then jumps to “One Week Later” as Chris and Harcourt snuggle up and dance to the show’s title song, as played by the actual Foxy Shazam on the same Rock Cruise from the episode’s opener. And it’s another montage, this time depicting the 11th Street Kids using Vigilante’s money to open up their own private investigation offices, alongside Fleury and Judomaster, and walking in an arranged line in slow motion towards the camera. Eagly and Economos patch it up, Fleury finds that Adrian’s gullibility regarding animal facts is a meaningful replacement for the joy he has giving all of his subordinates inappropriate nicknames, and, as the song ends, their company is revealed to be named “Checkmate.”
It’s an unusually clean and happy ending for Peacemaker, which means that something horrible is bound to happen. And happen it does, as Chris returns home and is aggressively kidnapped by Rick Flag Sr.’s team of A.R.G.U.S. soldiers. He’s taken back to the control deck, where Flag has the portal set up to send him off to Salvation as its first “volunteer” prisoner. “This is for Ricky, you piece of shit,” he shouts, as he pushes Chris through the portal and closes the door behind him. And as large, monstrous creatures roar from the shadows of the trees behind Chris, the scene cuts to black, and his fate hangs in the wind until Gunn sees fit to continue his story.
I re-read my list when the episode ended, only to find that many of the things that I wanted in this season’s conclusion were addressed in some way. But why did I feel so disappointed? I’ve tried to highlight a few of the reasons throughout this recap/review, but I am also left, a day later, considering how little Chris had to do in this episode. For so much of this season, we followed his decision to leave his friends and world behind, even if that meant throwing himself into jail. But, with the finale concluded, he’s never truly confronted with those choices, and rather than seeing him unbury himself with his friends and find self-worth from within, he’s handed the solution by Adebayo.
I have some sense of what Gunn wanted to say with this season, but the questions I have all come back to how he chose to spend his time saying it. The adventures on Earth-X felt like the meat of the season, but by the conclusion, they were rendered as relatively inconsequential. Was it essential that we spent so much time exploring that particular corner of the multiverse to make a statement about rising against authority, especially if the show wasn’t going to explore the specific politics of that universe and its impact on Chris?
Stray observations:
Big Belly Burger seems to be some kind of universal constant, as it has now appeared in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Zach Snyder’s Justice League, The Flash, Blue Beetle, and even in many DC Comics over the years. That, or the name is just too good not to embrace. And, as a quick Google search told me, there’s a Big Belly Burger not even half an hour away from where I live in Maryland…
The planet of Salvation appeared in the DC Comics during a George R R Martin miniseries called Salvation Run in 2007, where Lex Luthor used a Mother Box to create a portal to the planet. The plan was to use it to lock up supervillains and members of the Suicide Squad, just like in the show. However, it was eventually revealed to be a training ground for the gods of Apokolips, which is essentially what I expect will happen here.
“Checkmate” is also the name of a government intelligence agency that operates under Task Force X in the DC Comics.
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.