3 ways Peacemaker season 2 was a triumph (and 1 big way it let us down)

The season 2 finale of Peacemaker, “Full Nelson,” just dropped on HBO Max, and the consensus is that it was…fine. Initial fan ratings on sites like IMDb are well below what they were for prior episodes, if still respectable, and I can see where those reviewers are coming from. The finale has some issues.

But before we get into that, I’d like to celebrate a very successful season of TV that invigorated my interest in superhero shows, which is no small feat considering how many have worn me down over the past several years. How has Peacemaker managed to stay fun and compelling in this overcrowded genre?

The show loves its characters

One big happy, messed-up family

Peacemaker is unique among superhero shows in that sometimes I forget it’s about superheroes. Very few people on the show have explicit superpowers; Peacemaker himself (John Cena) mostly relies on his gym membership and pet eagle. He doesn’t even wear his costume in the finale, which mostly focuses on the characters picking up the pieces after a very stressful trip to an alternate reality.

That almost feels like a bait-and-switch, but Peacemaker has so much affection for its characters that I don’t really mind. After losing alternate reality versions of his father and brother, Peacemaker—or Chris—has shut down emotionally. His friends track him down and talk him back to himself in a surprisingly emotional scene, with Danielle Brooks (Adebayo) crushing a tear-jerking monologue. I also enjoyed finally finding out what happened “on the boat” between Peacemaker and Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), followed by John Cena’s ecstatic little private dance when he learned he means something to her.

Plot-wise, “Full Nelson” doesn’t resolve much from the prior episodes and doesn’t push things forward nearly as much as fans would like, but at least these characters got a break, if only for a moment. When they’re this likable, that’s almost enough.

It actually made alternate universes interesting

Marvel could take notes

Sol Rodriguez, Jennifer Holland (Emilia Harcourt), Anissa Matlock in the Peacemaker season 2 finale in an alternate dimension

The most exciting action in “Full Nelson” goes down at A.R.G.U.S. headquarters, where Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo) sends beleaguered government workers into a strange liminal space to explore alternate realities. Writer-director James Gunn has a ton of fun giving us glimpses of these places, from a Candy Land-esque fairy tale world full of adorable killing machines to a Walking Dead-inspired zombie-scape to a door that opens onto a black hole. These sequences have a lot of energy, with assistance from Gunn’s always-punchy music choices and regular cuts back to Flag and company laughing it up while his employees fight for their lives. I do not like that guy.

At one point, Marvel Studios made alternate universes the cornerstone of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it never quite worked. Movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home and Deadpool & Wolverine got mileage out of the concept, but the idea of the multiverse was too big and ungainly to unite all Marvel shows and movies in the way the studio wanted.

What Peacemaker does right is use the multiverse idea in very specific ways. For instance, we learn that what Flag and company are looking for is an alternate reality in which they can imprison super-powered beings too powerful to be held in ordinary jails. That’s a clever, concrete use of the multiverse we can all keep comfortably in mind between entries in the nascent DC Cinematic Universe.

Peacemaker season 2 felt relevant and dangerous

But there’s a “but”

David Denman (Keith) with a mob in Peacemaker season 2 episode 7

Before the finale, a lot of the most interesting parts of this season took place in an alternate dimension where (SPOILER incoming) Nazis won World War II, and their descendants ran the world. The show played this both for drama, like when Adebayo ran from an angry mob in a scene so scary it almost turned the episode into a horror movie, and for laughs, like how Peacemaker is so dense he doesn’t notice what’s wrong with the world despite obvious red flags everywhere you look.

The final episodes spent in “Earth-X” (as it’s known in DC Comics) are easily the highest-rated of the season, and no wonder: they’re tense, funny, scary, and surprisingly heartfelt. And the season finale doesn’t spend any time there.

That is a big reason why “Full Nelson” is having a bit of a bumpy landing: it feels like the show moved on from its most interesting concept too soon. Instead, we’re left in a waiting room.

The finale was a blatant setup

Check back in some time, somewhere

The second season of Peacemaker ends with Rick Flag — who’s had a vendetta against Peacemaker this whole time — kidnapping Chris and shoving him into the prison world, called Salvation. And that’s where we leave him: abandoned in another reality with no prospect of returning.

He will return, of course, but probably not in the way most fans want. In an interview that runs after the episode, James Gunn says that the end of season 2 is important to “the future of the DCU,” which he and Peter Safran are in charge of building. We might get a spinoff featuring Peacemaker and friends fighting crime as part of their new organization, Checkmate. Or maybe these threads will be picked up in Man of Tomorrow, the upcoming sequel to this summer’s new Superman movie. Either way, this story very likely won’t resolve in a third season of Peacemaker, if we ever get one at all, and that makes me nervous.

Warning signs

With Superman, James Gunn seemed to be avoiding some of the problems that have plagued other superhero cinematic universes, but he could be walking into a trap here. Interest in the MCU started to wane when keeping up with the sprawling story started to feel less like fun and more like homework. And now we have Peacemaker’s story coming to a head in season 2 of his own show to be picked up … who knows where? I worry fans won’t want to chase a story across various movies and TV shows again, and that the DCU will die in its early days.

Hopefully, I’m overreacting, and Gunn’s team can craft stories compelling enough to pull us along. In the meantime, if you’re looking for something else to watch on HBO Max now that Peacemaker is over, we have lots of recommendations.