The first season of “Peacemaker” was a pure expression of James Gunn’s arrested adolescent id. It left you cackling (or wincing) at the crazy sex, rage-celebrating violence and dumb/smartass jokes about everything from DC Comics references to paranoia, hatred and more of our nation’s deepest dysfunctions.
But not much else. The scarring traumas that haunted Chris Smith, aka John Cena’s homicidal title hero, were so bathetic they came off like sophomoric snark, even if that wasn’t Gunn’s intention.
That was 2022, though. Now showrunner, lead writer and occasional director Gunn is also co-head of DC Studios. The second season of “Peacemaker” is the next step in his effort to resuscitate Warner Bros.’ chronically self-kryptoniting superhero franchise following last month’s somewhat successful “Superman” movie reboot.
Does Gunn grow up and approach these eight new episodes with some sense of corporate responsibility? In the five chapters shown to critics, the answer is: sort of.
So far, there’s been an orgy sequence that extends beyond anything from the first season in length, variety and naked body count (although it still operates on a prom night level compared to similar scenes in “The Boys”). Speaking of body counts, Season 2 is on track to have even more gratuitous deaths than came before.
But Chris and his teammates’ deep state difficulties this time around are of a more down-to-earth nature; they’re character-based and smarter for it.
After Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) exposed her mother Amanda Waller’s rogue operation at the end of last season, the outgoing A.R.G.U.S. boss made sure most of the 11th Street Kids got blackballed from government work forevermore.
This has put a strain on Adebayo’s marriage as she tries to start up her own security business, which potential clients want to mistake for a call girl operation. Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), whose great but only skill is sanctioned kickassery, isn’t hired by another agency due to her “toxic masculinity.” Self-styled Vigilante Adrian Chase (Freddie Stroma) is back at fast food gigs, but still Peacemaker’s number one fanboy.
Sedentary yet surprisingly lethal tech geek John Economos (Steve Agee) still works for the Advanced Research Group Uniting Super-Humans, but at the cost of his soul. Rick Flagg Sr. (Frank Grillo) is the organization’s new head, and he’s understandably obsessed with bringing down Chris for killing his son in Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad” movie. Forced to spy on his friend, poor Economos also has to deal with an obnoxious direct supervisor, Langston Fleury (Tim Meadows, whose horny martinet is consistently hilarious). A running gag about Fleury’s bird blindness — he can’t tell Chris’ pet eagle, Eagly, from a parrot — is immensely stupid, but Meadows not only sells it, he makes viable plot points out of it.
Another uproarious bit that advances both plot and character comes early on when Peacemaker goes to a humiliating job interview for the Justice Gang, the hero group introduced in “Superman.” Chris is even more frustrated by his failure to convince Emilia that the thing they did on the boat that time was not a drunken mistake. She’d rather start fights in biker bars than entertain that notion.
Anyway, A.R.G.U.S.’s electronic surveillance of Peacemaker’s humble abode picks up strange energy surges, which trigger the season’s most satisfying story arcs. The blasts come from his dead dad’s alien quantum unfolding chamber. Chris keeps it locked in a closet, and it contains doorways into 99 other universes. When Chris inadvertently stumbles through one of those, he discovers a world much like ours — except everything, for him anyway, is infinitely better there.
Chris’ terrible childhood wasn’t. His house is nice. The public adores Peacemaker. And that world’s Emilia even smiles — plus, they apparently shared more than one night of drunken lovemaking in the past and she’s willing to give him another try.
If he can prove he’s a better man now, that is. Which the Chris we know may have a hard time doing, but he’s more than properly motivated. He may not be who anybody in this universe thinks he is, but damn, if one whopper of a cover-up is the main thing between you and your dream, you’d be a fool not to go for it.
Having indeed played Peacemaker as a fool in earlier shows, pro wrestler Cena nails this season’s emotional and moral complexities with the aplomb of an Actors Studio graduate. That hangdog face, so purpose-built for looking stupid, now expresses longing, regret, determination and ever-so-tentative joy in subtle yet unerring ways.
As a consequence, all of the ridiculously tragic experiences Chris poorly coped with before — his hateful father (Robert Patrick), the death of a brother he blames himself for, killing Rick Flagg Jr. — are revisited with powerful dramatic impact this time. Cena’s bruising action moves and tossed off one-liners are still impressive, but the most thrilling part of this performance is the way he makes this Super fully Human. Can’t wait to see how he plays it when the house of interdimensional cards Chris/Peacemaker has built for himself inevitably comes crashing down.
When was the last time we anticipated character development in a Gunn project? Maybe something with “Guardians of the Galaxy’s” Nebula (if your answer was the talking raccoon, sorry, you’re beyond help). While I hesitate to say it about scripts that bring back the annoying likes of Nhut Le’s Judomaster and introduce a Native American wannabe eagle hunter (if you’ve longed to watch Michael Rooker ghost dance in a loincloth, now’s your chance), Gunn displays a new level of maturity with his second season writing.
Practically all of the characters, from profoundly conflicted Economos to still silly Adrian, have new depths and poignance that makes them the season’s most memorable elements. The gags and gore remain plentiful, but they’re not the dominant takeaways this time. Gunn even finds emotional resonance in the multiverse concept — something Marvel, for all its efforts in that dimension, has so far failed to locate.
Maybe this was how Gunn planned to revive the DC Universe all along.
“Peacemaker” Season 2 premieres Thursday, Aug. 21 on HBO Max.