{"id":76745,"date":"2025-08-18T06:08:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T06:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/76745\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T06:08:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T06:08:07","slug":"peacemaker-season-2-review-fascinating-and-messy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/76745\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Peacemaker’ Season 2 Review: Fascinating and Messy"},"content":{"rendered":"

In opposition to the misanthropy of Zack Snyder\u2019s vision for the DC Universe, James Gunn\u2019s Superman<\/a> established light, hope, and humanism as the core tenets of the new DCU. That puts Gunn\u2019s Peacemaker in an odd place, as it has to connect the bloody, misanthropic streak of the Snyder era with the more optimistic worldview of the DCU inaugurated by Superman. The series may admirably connect the dots, but the results are patchy.<\/p>\n

Peacemaker\u2019s main cast is full of broken people who are in direct conversation\u2014and direct conflict\u2014with the very idea of the post-Superman DCU. Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), for one, is now an unemployed drunk starting bar fights to feel alive, and Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) has broken up with her girlfriend to start a security firm that\u2019s doomed to failure.<\/p>\n

This conflict comes into sharp relief early on, when Peacemaker, a.k.a. Chris Smith (John Cena), has a disastrous audition to be part of Maxwell Lord\u2019s Justice Gang, his violent past now an active detriment in a world that requires less compromised heroes. Relapsing on about a half-dozen vices all at once, Chris wanders into his father\u2019s gateway dimension and finds a door to a much happier multiverse, where Peacemaker is an uncomplicated hero, the public respects him, and his family is still alive. Meanwhile, in Chris\u2019s original universe, everyone he knows is worse off for having met him, and the world at large still hasn\u2019t forgotten about him killing Rick Flagg Jr. in 2021\u2019s The Suicide Squad<\/a>, particularly not Rick Flagg Sr. (Frank Grillo).<\/p>\n

Gunn clearly adores these characters but recognizes how much they make for an awkward fit within the new status quo. Much of the first half of season two reads like a frustrated scream, the characters seemingly begging for some way to redeem and rehabilitate themselves, and becoming more and more aggravated that there isn\u2019t one.<\/p>\n

Part of that is Gunn\u2019s own doing. Peacemaker falls back on fun-dumb running gags and physical comedy, particularly from Tim Meadows\u2019s ridiculous take on a government agent, and Michael Rooker\u2019s eagle-hunting pseudo-shaman. It\u2019s hard to deny how effective that comedy often is, especially as a pressure valve when things get too heavy, but it does often run counter to the overall complexity that Gunn has introduced into the narrative. <\/p>\n

Season one of Peacemaker was already a tense balancing act between Gunn\u2019s violent sense of humor and a softer, kinder narrative about a family of misfits supporting each other. But that family now has various mouths to feed, and watching them navigate what parts of themselves can be sacrificed just to exist in a world that has trouble forgiving or forgetting is both fascinating and messy.<\/p>\n

Score:\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u00a0Cast: John Cena, Jennifer Holland, Danielle Brooks, Steve Agee, Frank Grillo, Sol Rodriguez, Tim Meadows, David Denman, Robert Patrick, Michael Rooker
\nIf you can, please consider supporting Slant Magazine.<\/p>\n

Since 2001, we’ve brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we\u2019re committed to keeping our content free and accessible\u2014meaning no paywalls or fees.<\/p>\n

If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon<\/a> or making a donation<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In opposition to the misanthropy of Zack Snyder\u2019s vision for the DC Universe, James Gunn\u2019s Superman established light,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-76745","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\/76745","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=76745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}