Episode 6 of Peacemaker season 2 has some big moments. To talk about the episode in its fullness, we’ll need to spoil those. We’ll keep the big spoilers in the second half of the review and put in a warning just in case you want to nope out before the bit stuff.
This review will definitely contain some spoilers for Peacemaker Season 2, Episode 6.
When last we left the squad, they were heading to the Best. Dimension. Ever. to find Chris. Now they’re there, and it’s time for things to get weird.
I’m working overtime to figure out what the deal is with Vigilante this season. Last week I talked about how it seems like they’re flanderizing him–making him dumber and sillier over time to accentuate the characteristics that viewers seem to like. Now I’m not so sure. When the crew goes to Adrian’s house to drop the dimensional door, we learn that Adrian misunderstands his own life, but also that his chosen superhero name, while dumb, is quite warranted. As a vigilante, he’s super effective.
That’s before we meet his doppelgänger, too. This other dimension’s Adrian is, of course, similar in all the important ways you can imagine. he has a sense of morality that is simultaneously nuanced and starkly black and white. He talks and behaves like a precocious (and overly confident) child. Is he just comic relief? Is he meant to be a fully three-dimensional character? I’m just not sure.
The star of this episode, though, is Jennifer Holland. Things get weird almost immediately when the crew runs into Chris’ brother, who is long dead where they come from. Harcourt tries to play off how different she looks and why she’s there, instead creating a deeply awkward interaction. Harcourt is an excellent field agent, but she’s apparently not someone who should be deceiving people. I love how Holland plays this. We’re so used to her being hyper-confident in dangerous situations that seeing her stutter is a big twist.
Later, at Argus, she ends up in a room with Chris, and the two of them finally talk about some of the stuff between them. Harcourt lets her walls down enough for her to essentially tell Chris that she’s protecting him from herself. Holland nails this whole scene. It shows her range, and it grows Harcourt from what is often a one-dimensional portrayal where she’s just angry and punchy.
Meanwhile, Holland is also playing Emilia, a third and very different version of this character that Harcourt would simultaneously want to be and would utterly loathe.
Stop here if you haven’t yet seen this episode. You’ve been warned!
This episode gives us two huge twists. WB didn’t give us screeners for this episode, so we knew something was coming that they didn’t want getting leaked. Having seen the episode, it kinda makes sense.
Nicolas Hoult makes a guest appearance as Lex Luthor, and that’s not even the episode’s biggest moment. Much like Marvel, the DCU has to make good on this move. In the last couple of years we’ve had things like The Marvels and Thunderbolts that make a bigger bid to cross the two. This is the DCU’s first bid. They have to make good on it. This could be a one-off thing that they never do anything more with, it could be the only time a movie character appears in a show–and Peacemaker’s cameo in Superman could be an equally unique thing. We’re hoping that this will become more commonplace, though, and we’re excited to see it.
The other big twist is that, as many fans have predicted, the Best. Dimension. Ever. is in fact Earth-X (they don’t call it that, but its the only place in DC that makes sense here), the dimension where the Nazis won WWII and turned America in to a racist, fascist hellscape.
Hmm.
Some fans have doubted this, since everywhere we see in this new dimension is a shiny, bright place full of happy people. Happy people who happen to worship Peacemaker and his dad who, on the primary Earth is an unrepentant racist villain. DC does typically depict Earth-X as a dingy place, but we’re mostly seeing it from the persepective of freedom fighters, who will usually be in the most militarized places. But if you’ve ever been inside a gated community–even just seeing one on television–you know how different they can be from the front lines of any war.
But here we are. Harcourt caught on to the fact that there were no people of color around right away. Unfortunately, Adebayo didn’t get the chance to do so before people were chasing her down in the street. It seems like the show is going to get real dark real fast, and I’m finding myself wondering if they’re going to try to wrap this all up neatly in just two episodes or if this is a cliffhanger for a third season. It’s a big swing. If you’re going to visit Earth-X, you have to treat it with the right tone. I think depicting an idyllic setting was a great move, showing another side of this dark place, and I hope they can make good on it.
