Spoiler Free
The season 2 finale of Peacemaker just aired this past Thursday on HBO Max and there are a lot of ways you can take this episode. First off, I loved episodes 1-7 and thought that they were some of the best written episodes of superhero content that I’ve seen since The Boys, and I was hoping that the finale would continue to capitalize on this. Well, I was certainly mistaken, as this was one of the longest, most unnecessary episode in the entire show, with a watch time double the other episodes yet providing next to nothing for the actual story and continuation of the series to come. Ignoring the bland finale, Peacemaker season 2 was absolutely phenomenal, and while I believe that the ending to a story is truly what makes or breaks a story, the majority of the show was outstanding with amazing acting from everyone. John Cena’s performance as Peacemaker added depth and emotion to a character who was originally portrayed as emotionless and unempathetic. This season is definitely John Cena’s best acting performance yet and can possibly be used as a reference for directors to cast him in more serious roles now that they see what he can do with a good script. Despite the finale lacking substance, the show’s redeeming qualities prevent it from being completely unwatchable.
Spoilers and Predictions
The biggest part of the finale that disappointed me was the feeling that it set absolutely nothing up for the immediate projects that would follow. James Gunn, the writer of the series, was saying that this episode would set up a lot of stuff for the DCU, yet most feel like that wasn’t the case and felt he overhyped the finale. Now the main thing that it set up was a different world referred to by ARGUS as Salvation; in the comics, this is a planet that they send various metahuman villains to, and then later find out it is the testing ground for the Parademons of Darkseid, the biggest villain for the Justice League. I believe that it is too soon to be setting up a Darkseid storyline, as most of the main members of the Justice League haven’t even been established yet in Gunn’s universe, so this leads me to believe that they could be going for a similar storyline but with a different villain. The next Superman movie, titled Superman: Man of Tomorrow, has been described as Superman and his archnemesis, Lex Luthor, teaming up to take on a larger threat. Gunn revealed the cover of the script on social media, which depicted a diagram of a human brain, leading many fans of DC, as well as myself, to believe that the villain of that movie will be the alien Brainiac. Gunn could possibly be doing the same Salvation plot, just substituting Brainiac in for Darkseid, which would make sense for the current trajectory of the universe as well as other plot points in Peacemaker. One of the major plot points of the show was that Peacemaker was in possession of a device that allowed him to travel to alternate universes, and the technology was described as advanced and alien. Now this all could be a coincidence, but I don’t believe so. I believe that Gunn will most likely use Brainiac as the villain for Man of Tomorrow and have him appear defeated at first, giving time to develop more of the universe. After developing more of the universe, Gunn could bring back an angry, more developed Brainiac to set up a genuine Justice League movie without rushing such a powerful villain like Darkseid while there still are many heroes needing establishment prior. Take this theory with a grain of salt; although this could definitely happen, I could also be completely wrong. Only time will tell what James Gunn has in store for the audience.
