TV Review - DC's Peacemaker, Season 2

In what world are they heroes?

Peacemaker is a 2022-2025 superhero television series created by James Gunn, ran by James Gunn, produced by The Safran Company, Troll Court Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television, and DC Studios, and distributed by HBO Max. The series is based off of various comic books from DC Comics. It stars John Cena and Jennifer Holland. This is the second season of Peacemaker and the third project in the DC Universe. It acts as a sequel to the first season of Peacemaker, The Suicide Squad, and Superman and will be followed by Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, Lanterns, and Man of Tomorrow.

"This is all I've ever wanted, you know? To be a real hero." - Peacemaker

Plot

With Rick Flag Sr. hot on his trail to get revenge for his son, Peacemaker discovers an alternate reality where he is beloved by his father, his brother is alive, and he is a national hero...unaware of the consequences it will bring.

The Sweet

God. I'm so frustrated.

I was ready to rave about season two of Peacemaker. I was having a blast. I thought James Gunn was integrating the characters into the new DCU beautifully. It was really funny but also really emotional.

And then I watched the finale.

But we will start off with the positives. Season two of Peacemaker is very clever for much of its runtime. We've seen the multiverse so overused since Marvel introduced it as a concept in WandaVision, but this season finds a way to use it so that it isn't just a fan service gimmick. Peacemaker himself is a very insecure person who was broken by his father's emotional abuse when he was a kid, so using the multiverse to present to him a world where Auggie is a good dad, Keith is alive, and he is a true superhero. It allows for a really good exploration of Chris as a character and shows him trying to fix his insecurities in a way that you know just will not work.

But Chris isn't the only one dealing with his inner demons this season. Harcourt, Adebayo, and even Rick Flag Sr. are all trying to figure out how to handle their own brokenness and insecurity. Harcourt is refusing to let her emotions in. Adebayo is trying to make everything happen the way she wants it. And Flag is letting revenge get in the way of what he knows would be right.

The show also consistent laughs in every single episode. Peacemaker is an inherently funny character because of how idiotic he kind of is, but a major chunk of this season's laughs were due to John Economos (who has always been funny) and Tim Meadows's Langston Fleury. Both of them are able to just nail the oddball James Gunn humor that you've come to expect in his projects.

The show also really knows how to tug at your heartstrings when it needs to. A lot of the emotional moments were really handed to John Cena and Jennifer Holland this season, and they both knocked it out of the park. Cena has proven time and time again that he's actually a pretty good actor, and, although I haven't seen Jennifer Holland outside of any DC projects, she's really good in this role. They are able to give a lot of truly powerful moments the emotional impact that they are going for through their performance.

The Sour

I don't even really know where to start, because I am so much more negative on this season after its finale.

Let's start with the finale. After seven episodes of lolly-gagging around the multiverse and trying to solve Peacemaker's emotional problems, we basically speed run through the character and narrative resolution (which involves a ton more character development that is summarized in about five minutes of montaging) while also setting up Man of Tomorrow. In the span of an hour, Peacemaker is bailed out of jail and overcomes his insecurities because he's able to get together with Harcourt. The entire team starts their own intelligence agency because they don't trust ARGUS. Oh, yeah, and ARGUS investigates the multiverse and a bunch of their agents get slaughtered in various different universes. Rick Flag also turns fully villainous, not caring that his agents are getting murdered just because he has the ultimate plan to destroy Peacemaker. He basically becomes a pawn of Lex Luthor by creating this multiversal prison...which he throws Peacemaker into at the end of the episode. That is WAY too much plot for a final episode. And it exposes the problem of the season as a whole.

This entire season is paced terribly. The fact that that much plot is packed into the final episode of the season just shows that they did not do enough to develop the storylines they were going for in the first seven episodes. The first half of the season just drags out this multiverse plot line and keeps teasing us with Chris being happy. There's an entire episode and a half subplot about this eagle hunter trying to kill Eagly. James Gunn got a little bit too into himself and his storytelling techniques with this season, and it didn't pay off, because the entire season felt rushed.

Likewise, there's no real conflict this entire season. Like, you could say that Rick Flag is the villain, but he's not a villain that needs to be defeated. He's chasing Peacemaker and trying to get revenge on him...but that plot is entirely disconnected from everything going on in the multiverse and with Peacemaker's personal journey. The internal and external conflict are not tied together at all, and that makes for a very strange and unsatisfying season of TV.

I also think that this worries me a bit for the future of the DCU. I didn't love Superman. I liked it, but I thought it got a little bit too weird and cartoonish for its own good. Now, Peacemaker is weird and cartoonish, but it fits the character and the plot. However, I do not see a world in which this heavily R-rated character in Peacemaker could intersect with David Corenswet's Superman. I don't think these blend together at all. And I don't think they should. Why the hell would season two of Peacemaker, the spin-off show of The Suicide Squad, be the setup for the epic sequel to Superman that is rumored to have the Man of Steel teaming up with Lex Luthor to fight Brainiac? Like, what are we doing?

It feels like this season was an amalgamation of a bunch of great ideas that had no endpoint. Like sending Peacemaker to a world with everything he wants is a great idea. Having a plot twist where that world ends up being a world where the Nazis won World War II is a great idea. But that goes absolutely nowhere! All that happens is Vigilante kills Auggie and the entire group nearly kills Keith...but that doesn't really relate that much to the Nazi world. Like, there's no actual conflict. And the connection to the larger DCU with the multiverse portals and Rick Flag and Lex Luthor just feels forced.

Final Thoughts and Score

I am so, so frustrated by this second season of Peacemaker. I was loving it for most of the season, but the finale really killed any love I had for it. To be honest, it may have killed any liking I had for it.

Maybe it's a knee-jerk reaction, but I'm going Sour. Age range is 17+.

SWEET N' SOUR SCALE

Sweet (Great) Savory (Good)

Sour (Bad) Moldy (Terrible)

"Peacemaker"

Created by James Gunn

Premiered on August 21, 2025

Episode runtime: 40 minutes

John Cena as Christopher Smith / Peacemaker

Jennifer Holland as Emilia Harcourt

Danielle Brooks as Leota Adebayo

Freddie Stroma as Adrian Chase / Vigilante

Steve Agee as John Economos

Frank Grillo as Rick Flag Sr.

Robert Patrick as Auggie Smith / Blue Dragon

David Denman as Keith Smith / Captain Triumph

Sol Rodríguez as Sasha Bordeaux

Tim Meadows as Langston Fleury

Nhut Le as Rip Jagger / Judomaster

Michael Rooker as Red St. Wild