{"id":153845,"date":"2025-09-19T07:16:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T07:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/153845\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T07:16:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T07:16:07","slug":"season-2-episode-5-back-to-the-suture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/153845\/","title":{"rendered":"season 2, episode 5, “Back To The Suture”"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a hell of a thing, walking a mile in another man\u2019s leather pants. At first, it\u2019s squirmy, warm, and deeply uncomfortable. But give it a few lunges, dive through a closed window or two, and mow down a militia group<\/a> and suddenly those flashy trousers start to feel like a second skin, a snug fit. Christopher Smith (John Cena) shows up to his fateful rendezvous with Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) dressed in the duds of his deceased doppelg\u00e4nger from that conspicuously cheerful alternate dimension<\/a>, too busy to change but prepared to make his choice: to stay in this crummy reality or depart for greener pastures. Doing so in those pants is Peacemaker tipping its hand. The big ol\u2019 dope has already decided; he just needed Harcourt to push him away one last time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We return this week to Kupperberg Park, where a trap for Chris has been set. Harcourt, having led him to a public space where the A.R.G.U.S. fugitive might feel safe, sits benchside and ponders her next move. The cold open revealed a bit more about her relationship with the Flags before Rick Jr. (Joel Kinnaman) met the porcelain edge of Peacemaker\u2019s blade in The Suicide Squad<\/a>. Rick Sr. considers Harcourt family, and Jr. loved her both as a friend and lover (a big deal for the younger Flag). Then there\u2019s her vow, made at Jr.\u2019s flag-draped casket, that the man responsible for his death would pay. Did she mean it?<\/p>\n

Context matters here. As the molten landscape of the DCU has cooled post-reboot, Harcourt\u2019s character has become more complex. James Gunn, series creator (and Holland\u2019s hubby), has drawn her into a knotty and nigh-unwinnable scenario where any forthcoming happiness seems like a sucker\u2019s bet. She\u2019s unemployable (thanks to Amanda Waller), furious at the world, and starts nightly barroom brawls with the biggest, stupidest lumps she can find. Harcourt is projecting someone\u2019s face onto her targets: either Chris, who killed Rick and with whom Harcourt has since hooked up (and regrets it), or Rick Jr., who was about to leave his sorceress girlfriend for her just before fate intervened. Either way, despite those bruised knuckles, Harcourt is vulnerable and open to exploitation\u2014and Rick Flag Sr. is turning the screws.<\/p>\n

The gnarly pleasures of Peacemaker thrive in these tricky character moments where yearning is an unknowable, pushy son of a bitch that clouds choices and often makes them deadly. Take Harcourt\u2019s coded warning text: \u201cCopacetic,\u201d a cool 11th Street Kids signal for when the shit\u2019s about to hit the fan. It means \u201crun.\u201d Chris knows this. But, love-struck dope that he is, he struts into the park in those pants anyway, ducking and weaving through soccer players and Italian-ice patrons as Judomaster (Nhut Le) watches from a sniper\u2019s nest. His latest mission? To confirm Harcourt\u2019s feelings, who responds through clenched teeth, \u201cYou\u2019re so fucked!\u201d Then A.R.G.U.S. makes its move, Chris initiates a standoff, and Harcourt saves him from catching a bullet by administering her latest ass-whipping on Peacemaker, subtext-free. It\u2019s a messy victory, but Rick Flag Sr. takes it. After all, Harcourt has just won him his prize. (More on Flag\u2019s ultimate goals shortly.)<\/p>\n

Economos gets his due in an otherwise meandering Peacemaker<\/a>A surprising Peacemaker gives Harcourt’s despair a new dimension<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, we pivot to Peacemaker season two\u2019s wait station for languishing talent\u2014Grandpa Smith\u2019s cabin\u2014where Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) and Vigilante (Freddie Stroma) await Chris\u2019 return. Ads gets a call from a potential client responding to her ad in Pro Soldier Magazine, but they\u2019re more interested in her silhouette than her credentials. They also inquire about her interest in going \u201cGreek,\u201d which she adorably misreads. As faintly amusing as this story beat is\u2014Vig, seemingly fluent in \u201cGreek,\u201d now thinks Ads is a prostitute\u2014it\u2019s mercifully cut short by the arrival of Red St. Wild (Michael Rooker), whose recently opened third eye has led him to his target: Eagly. Later, Ads and Vig abruptly ditch the scene to pick Chris up from A.R.G.U.S. (for reasons we must piece together due to the messiness of the episode), freeing Red to aim his laughably enormous rifle at America\u2019s top eagle.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

We pause now for a visit to A.R.G.U.S. HQ, where Agent Bordeaux (Sol Rodr\u00edguez) seethes over Harcourt ruining her shot at killing Chris. The tension of their awesome office spat lingers during Harcourt\u2019s debrief from Economos (Steve Agee), who reveals that Bordeaux is a cyborg. (\u201cI hate her so much,\u201d he says. \u201cI used a pre-op photo of her mangled body as the screensaver on my phone for a while.\u201d) The reckoning between Harcourt and mecha-Bordeaux will keep. For now, the urgent matter is that Chris is in Flag\u2019s clutches. Harcourt urges Economos to officially book Peacemaker in the A.R.G.U.S. database\u2014otherwise, she fears, Flag will \u201cdisappear\u201d him.<\/p>\n

This scene offers some insight into Harcourt\u2019s mindset. She\u2019s pissed at Chris, sure, but she still cares about him. She also knows that the delicate path ahead\u2014rescuing Chris, reclaiming her A.R.G.U.S. gig, perhaps finding some purpose in her life\u2014was always going to be impossible to navigate. But two out of three ain\u2019t bad. Complicating matters is Flag, who has read her like an open book. He knew she was going to betray him and already had his next move in the chamber: freeing Chris from his custody and using the 11th Street Kids to locate the Quantum Closet, saving the world from its malign cosmic energy and ensuring that Peacemaker finally goes away for good. (If he\u2019d had this level of clairvoyance during Creature Commandos, maybe Flag could have avoided letting Clayface fold him in half.)<\/p>\n

So spare a thought, then, for Chris, who attempts to stall his performative interrogation beatdown from Rick Sr. with well-meaning but ill-advised diplomacy. \u201cI admired your son. I liked him. I just got caught up in a very dark way of looking at the world.\u201d In a matter of seconds, there\u2019s a hole in the wall, blood pooled on the floor, and Chris cowering in a corner. (That kick to the head sure meekened him; Peacemaker without his helmet is a sorry thing indeed.) Once Economos plugs Chris into the A.R.G.U.S. database, however, this confrontation ends: Chris is freed from custody, and Flag\u2019s fifth-dimensional chess game continues apace. \u201c[Peacemaker will] think I\u2019m sloppy and that I\u2019m motivated by revenge,\u201d he tells Bordeaux, who instantly develops the hots for her director, because why not.<\/p>\n

Back at Grandpa Smith\u2019s, Red St. Wild\u2019s hyped-up duke-a-roo with Eagly fizzles out fast. At least their showdown acknowledges the eagle\u2019s awesomeness: As Red discovers to his woe, Eagly is truly prime among all other eagles (or just a really cool eagle the other eagles are protective of). As a flock of feathered followers fly in to Eagly\u2019s rescue (as if he needed it), Red is pecked to pieces as he reflects on his fool\u2019s quest. (Thanks for swinging by Peacemaker, Mr. Rooker! It was fun and weird for the ten seconds we had you.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Chris licks his wounds in the cabin, \u201cBack To The Suture\u201d goes into triage mode, tying up most of the loose plot threads of this meandering season so that Peacemaker can launch into alt-reality overdrive, where an even more profound humbling for its hero awaits. It\u2019s funny to think there\u2019s still that mountain to climb, considering this week gave Chris his lowest and dumbest moment yet. \u201cIt was Harcourt, Ads. She fucked me!\u201d Chris laments as they drive away from A.R.G.U.S. He knew what \u201ccopacetic\u201d meant and showed up at the park anyway. Chris is clearly lying to himself, looking for the easiest way to mend his broken heart\u2014but it\u2019s all the justification he needs to leap willingly into the next dimension with his best friend in tow. \u201cReady for the next adventure, pal?\u201d he asks Eagly. There\u2019s no suture for denial that cuts this deep.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s hoping Peacemaker finds its footing during this misguided reality shift. It\u2019s been frustrating to see such a fun, clever series, which started this season so strongly with themes of regret and second chances<\/a>, tie itself in knots to play in an exciting subdimensional sandbox while also reestablishing itself within a new DCU. When Gunn took over as creative head of DC Studios, the possibilities felt endless. The expanse of story possibilities seems to have put Peacemaker in a corner. And yet, paradoxically, this week\u2019s frantic episode leaves Chris on an emotional high. That final shot, with him in his alt-reality suit, covered in kaiju gore and running to a beaming alt-Harcourt, bursts with dramatic potential. We don\u2019t see the embrace, but we know what it looks like: It\u2019s their new beginning. A snug fit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stray observations\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2022 The cabin scene with Ads and Vigilante drove me nuts. Stroma doesn\u2019t have anything to do as Brooks talks on the phone. Couldn\u2019t he be kicking some rocks? Sharpening his daggers? Considering some local fauna? He\u2019s just sitting there waiting to read his lines! (On that note, is Vigilante going to be allowed to do anything this season?)
\n\u2022 Who might portray Adebayo\u2019s randy client? Will their meeting send Ads running back to Keeya\u2019s arms?
\n\u2022 Judomaster ran out of chips! I didn\u2019t think that could happen. (Note his Flamin\u2019 Hot steering wheel.)
\n\u2022 Some horrific ADR here: \u201cOh god\u2014he\u2019s closed the portal behind him! He\u2019ll never get back!\u201d Thanks, Ads, we got that. (But also: The alt-reality door is still open, yes? He\u2019ll get back just fine.)
\n\u2022 \u201cThe Top Trio Kills Murderous Kaiju\u201d is the headline, and we even get a shot of the felled beast\u2014though it didn\u2019t look like the one the Justice Gang imploded in Superman<\/a>.
\n\u2022 Guns N\u2019 Roses\u2019 \u201cNovember Rain\u201d is a great choice for such a pivotal moment. It nearly rescues the episode.
\n\u2022 Honestly, it feels like such a waste to have Rooker show up in Peacemaker for the total of two (technically three) episodes and establish he\u2019s here to kill the series\u2019 beloved mascot only to get offed. I\u2019m glad he was here, but the Red St. Wild subplot ultimately amounted to nothing (Chris doesn\u2019t even know he exists, for one) and felt like it sucked precious air from other characters\u2014like, say, Vigilante. Or Adebayo!\u00a0 (Of course, Rooker could have an alt-variant. We\u2019ll have to see.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a hell of a thing, walking a mile in another man\u2019s leather pants. At first, it\u2019s squirmy,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-153845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}