Peacemaker hits a new dramatic height as Chris visits his awful, awful dad
James Gunn wrings a stunning amount of character growth from Peacemaker's terrific fourth episode.
TV Reviews Chris
When we last thrilled to the grody exploits of Peacemaker, there had been whispers surrounding the history of Clemson Murn, moody tough-guy mercenary and tactical leader of Project: Butterfly. “I’ve heard plenty of stories about how you treat people with respect, Murn,” Christopher Smith said as he patiently awaited a plate of zoodles. “Plenty.” Once Leota Adebayo, the rookie of this black-ops outfit, got a moment alone with Peacemaker she asked him what he meant by that line. “I know I don’t trust his ass,” Smith said. Murn’s shadiness hasn’t been subtle. But being a good soldier means that Smith will follow Murn into the murky, morally dubious morass of Project: Butterfly anyway, without once being debriefed on what a “butterfly” is or why he has to kill every man, woman, and child who comes across his path on this particularly violent op.
As of episode four of Peacemaker—titled “The Choad Less Traveled” for reasons we’ll get into—Murn’s past remains a mystery. We do know a couple things about him: He’s learning to open up more to his colleagues (he shares a feeling with Economos in episode two), and while he has a hair-trigger temper, he is noticeably tolerant of insubordination. Just before the credits roll on this dramatic installment, we learn at least one more thing about Clemson Murn: The man in charge of Amanda Waller’s Project: Butterfly operation is himself a butterfly. Behind that steely gaze is a small winged alien tweaking away at his synapses, and his team is none the wiser.
Murn’s honey-slurping secrets will have to keep for now; last week’s mission ended disastrously and everyone’s on edge. We’ve entered the halfway point with “The Choad Less Traveled”, which in most any other show would mean it’s time to slow things down to get some much-needed character work in before the cannonball run towards the finale. This episode of Peacemaker does that, but the character beats and personal reveals don’t come from an absence of chaos, but the doubling down of it.
You can lay a lot of this newfound havoc at the feet of Freddie Stroma’s Vigilante, who joins Task Force Hacks in an unofficial capacity this week. His penchant for casual violence and ceaseless jabbering is designed specifically to amp up the mayhem, and Vigilante—a character who is probably one season away from becoming a regular guest star on HBO Max’s Harley Quinn animated series, I swear—doesn’t require much prodding to do precisely that. Leota finds this out when she oh-so gently suggests that life for Chris would be so much better if Auggie Smith, The White Dragon and Chris’ belligerently racist father, wasn’t around anymore. Like a good friend, Vig springs into action: “I gotta go do something,” he says, his chipper tenor dropped to monotone. *shivers*
Stroma has been a strong comedic presence in Peacemaker but this week he truly steals the show. Early on Vigilante, aka Adrian Chase, makes a big scene over almost having his pinkie toe sawed off by the now-very deceased Senator Goff as Peacemaker looked on. “I never had a friend like you before,” he says to Chris (a line delivered with so much stank on it I’m surprised nobody cracked a window in that Sebring). When Vig and Peacemaker finally bury the hatchet and Adrian has an opportunity to help out his best friend, Stroma’s rubbery face shifts into a mask of grim determination, and later, bloody satisfaction.
Chris and Vig’s blossoming friendship, chaotic and unhealthy though it may be, serves as the only stable ground Peacemaker has at the moment. “The Choad Less Traveled” (directed by Jody Hill), cracks open Chris’ horrifying history with his father and finds all sorts of best-forgotten shit rattling around inside Peacemaker’s shiny domed helmet. Intriguingly (and distressingly), there is some discussion about Chris’ older brother, who died under mysterious circumstances that involve Chris himself, which later triggers drunken memories of Peacemaker’s first brutal kill under the supervision of his old man. In one of the episode’s more revealing detours, Chris and Vig spend some time in Auggie’s disorienting workshop (we are told that it is a “quantum unfolding storage area”) where we get our first look at the White Dragon armor, a stunningly comic-accurate monstrosity that visually articulates Auggie’s violent legacy. Vig observes that there are vulnerabilities in the armor, a fleeting moment of foreshadowing that promises a reckoning between Chris and dear old dad is on its way.
And what is to be done about Auggie? He now has proof of his innocence thanks to Chris’ jailtime confessional and he promises to drop a dime on the entire operation the first chance he gets. This is going to complicate Project: Butterfly and it is certainly going to make Auggie a liability for Murn (who tosses Economos a silent “fuck you” for putting everyone in this ridiculous situation to begin with). A man as violent and hateful as The White Dragon by rights should find himself in the crosshairs of the righteous Peacemaker, reasons Vigilante, but Chris doesn’t see it that way. “Look, my father and I, we both hate crime,” Peacemaker says. “And he makes me stuff!” Chris loves his dad, a lifetime of abuse notwithstanding. The poor lug.
So when Leota meets up with Chris and Adrian at the Charlton County Jail and makes sure to mention that she knows all about the horrible stuff The White Dragon did to Chris when he was younger, he isn’t fazed. “Your dad is not a good man. Not to the world and especially not to you.” (Danielle Brooks is terrific in this scene.) Leota is right: Auggie is not a good man, and definitely not a good father, which he confirms with venom when Chris goes to see him. “I should have slit your throat [the second you were born],” he tells his only living son. What does Chris do when he hears this? Does he get up and walk out on his father? Does he reach over the table and do the one violent thing Leota believes is best for him? No. He shakes his head and tosses the hurt away.
“Maybe I’m a grower, not a shower,” says the blob of flesh for which Auggie has never felt a thing. “You know, a person you like more as time goes on.” Chris’ arrested development has let fly some choice lines in the past (his “butt babies” diatribe was golden) but the way he likens an erection to his evolving maturity is astonishing. Not just because it’s absurd, but because of how much drama and character growth James Gunn wrings out of it.
“You’re comparing yourself to a choad!” Auggie protests—and he’s right, Chris absolutely is—but as Leota points out later, there are the good kinds of choads and the bad kinds of choads, and Chris falls decidedly in the former category. (At least being a choad is better than being an incompetent dingus, as Murn later points out.) Leota and Chris’ growing trust in each other is the purest thing about Peacemaker, a show that presents every form of relationship as a potential battlefield for acrimony and sarcasm. All that choad talk only strengthens their bond.
“The Choad Less Traveled” is a dramatic peak for Peacemaker, especially in its final moments where Chris gets wasted with Eagly and the butterfly he plucked from Senator Goff’s sci-fi basement last week. Chris seems to dance when he’s feeling overwhelmed, it’s how he copes with the insanity that is his life, but this dance (set to Faster Pussycat’s aptly-titled “House Of Pain”) feels like a penance march, a ritual he undergoes to bury all the hurt that’s been done to him and the guilt he feels over the death of his brother. The flashbacks we see during this sequence are a reverie of despair, images of murder and happier times and helplessness that topple Peacemaker and send him crashing to the floor. When Eagly and the butterfly (who rolls up to Chris inside his new jar home) lean in to see if he’s okay, the crushing reality of Christopher Smith’s broken life stands revealed. If this choad is to survive Project: Butterfly, he’s got a lot more growing to do before it’s done.
Stray Observations
- I genuinely struggled with the show’s spelling of “choad.” I always thougt it was spelled “chode.” Am I having my very own Berenstain (-stein) Bears moment?
- “Ever since I had a team-up with Matter-Eater Lad, my sense of what’s normal is a little fucked up.” That would mean that the Legion Of Super-Heroes exists in this bug-nuts DC Universe, which suits me fine.
- I definitely botched the White Dragon in last week’s Stray Observations: There have been a few iterations of the DC character, which isn’t what I said! Put simply, I meant that as an amalgamation of two DC characters (Chris’ dad, Wolfgang Schmidt, an ex-Nazi officer blended with the White Dragon persona), August “Auggie” Smith is an entirely new villain made for the show.
- Leota: “God, there are so many secrets!” Harcourt: “Yeah, that’s what black ops is, dude.”
- Vigilante keeps a bunny on his dash, which holds a sign that says “Obstacles are Opportunities.”
- News Update: Charlie, the silver-backed gorilla, has been stolen. Feels like that might be important further down the way.
- Note Vigilante’s swagger as he walks through the maddening hordes of Charlton County Jail. He knows he could kill every last one of them and they don’t. More than a cool character moment (which it is) it removes any doubt one might still improbably have that Adrian Chase is a psychopath.
- Adrian provokes Auggie’s racist brethren with a glorious array of rapid-fire insults. “Which one of you dumb, sister-fucking, tiki torch-carrying Sloths-from-The–Goonies-lookin’ pieces of shit wants to go next?” Wowzers.
- Judomaster and Peacemaker’s rematch livened things up in a surprisingly downbeat episode, though I’m feeling sorry for the guy. First he gets taken out by the schlubby Economos, then he catches a bullet just as he’s about to offer his enemy some elucidation, possibly against his better judgment. Regardless, Nhut Le is awesome in the role, and his fury during this scene rocked.
- The latest clue in the Butterfly mystery leads Leota to the “Glan Tai Bottling Company”. So what’s Glan Tai actually bottling and what does it have to do with the butterflies?
- So what did you think of “The Choad Less Traveled”, group? Is Judomaster long for this world? What do you think is going to happen once Auggie is let loose into the world, angry and betrayed? Did that butterfly actually get stoned? Let’s sort this out in the comments below.
106 Comments
Pretty sure John says the thing about black ops to Leoto, not Harcourt. It’s when they’re talking about Harcourt.
Aha so my “Dancing like a Puppet in the intro= Butterfly” theory has at least been proven 50% right so far. Also it might explain his whole “I have never shared feelings before” conversation in the third episode.Also the after credits scene is glorious for dig at (70s stalwart and GoTG movies side character) Howard the Duck.
Ooooh OOOOOHHHHH!!
“That idea is offensive to me, because I have a soul.”
Don’t laugh at me, but this show is introducing me to the playlist i never knew i needed. All bangers, all the time.
I get it. “Would You Love a Creature” is already near the top of my Spotify On Repeat Playlist after I heard it for the first time last Thursday
The show introduced me to Bang Camaro’s Push Push (Lady Lightning) which is excellent and worth it for that alone.
YOU’RE THE GUY WHO NEVER PLAYED GUITAR HERO II.
Guilty as charged!
Gunn seems to always bring it in the sound tracks. Both Guardian movies and The Suicide Squad have excellent sound tracks.
I’m saying this as someone that enjoys them, but Pretty Boy Floyd (who was playing while they were in the car early in the episode) might be the epitome of 80s hair metal cheese
I can’t come to full-hearted defense of second-tier hair metal, but it does warm that heart to see it get defended by somebody.
The dashboard bunny is the same bunny character on Rick Flag’s shirt in Squad (but his sign was Spanish). Chris seemed to stare at it a second or two.
Vigilante is such a blast to watch, although now I’m shocked that there would be someone claiming he isn’t an absolute psychopath. The actor, though, does such a great job with him as there is that inept air to him which is this great mask of what an absolute terror the dude truly is.Also when Leona manipulated Adrian to kill the White Dragon? That was some grade A Waller there.
I’m not sure psychopath (or sociopath) is the right word for Adrian Chase. A sociopath wouldn’t show regret or caring/compassion, where he does both this episode. He cared enough about Peacemaker’s life to attempt killing Peacemaker’s father, and when he admits to Harcourt that he might have made things worse Vigilante looks like he’s about to break into tears.
Yeah, I don’t really get what psychopath or not would even mean within the context of this show. Every character we’ve met is off in some way. There are alien body-snatchers, best friend eagles, and violence is pervasive. There’s really nothing normal about any of it.
The look on his face when he was trying to process the idea that Peacemaker loves his father and thus doesn’t murder him was great.
There’s a weird Tom Cruise energy about him. Specifically ‘Collateral’ Tom or Litigious Couch Jumping Scientologist Tom
If Tom Cruise had a baby with Paul Rudd
I have a feeling that, whatever’s going on with the Butterflies here, it’s not as simple as an “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” type plot. Between Judomaster leaving Economos alive despite having every single opportunity to kill him and Murn leading the efforts to seemingly hunt down his own kind so sincerely (and bypassing so many easy ways of sabotaging the efforts, note how easy it’d be for him to object to Vigilante joining the team when Vig makes the team stronger), something more complex is almost certainly going on here, and I’m really fascinated to learn more.But, woof, that final montage is where the episode really knocked my socks off. Not just that Chris was pushed by his scumsucking piece of shit father to murder a man when he was, what, eight? But also that brief snippet of his brother dying to what looks like a seizure after getting punched by someone, probably Chris……John Cena’s turning in one hell of a performance with this show, and James Gunn is going all out in the best of ways.
Yeah. I also assume he could just infect Peacemaker, Vigilante and whoever else if he wanted. I’d guess from what Judomaster was trying to say there are good Butterflies and bad Butterflies and we’re actually on the wrong side?Though who knows the “good” butterflies may still want to take over humanity to save it or something that they consider good and we would not.
Considering the ease with which that senator butterfly resorted to torture, I wouldn’t call him good. Torturing one physchopath in the hope that the other one will start talking isn’t even smart.
True. But they’re aliens! (I assume) so I dunno maybe they don’t value testicles not being electrocuted as much as we do. Also like if one group wants to blow up the earth or enslave humanity and the other is trying to stop them* I’m comfortable calling the latter ones “the good ones.” It’s relative. *And maybe mind controling senators and CEOs who were perpetuating climate change or something? Like taking drastic action because they’ve detected that out planet will be ruined if we don’t change.
I knew something was up with Murn given how he went from seemingly killed by that explosion to that look on his face when he was then standing up seemingly unhurt and then he tossed his gun away. I actually thought he was taken over just from seeing that.I like the idea that there’s competing factions among the aliens. It’s so boring when fiction writes an antagonist and especially alien races as all thinking exactly the same thing with the exact same motives (even when they’re a hive mind!).As a side note, multiple competing factions (machine and human) and continually shifting alliances among them made The Sarah Connor Chronicles so much more interesting than just about anything else the Terminator IP put out as a result.
It was definitely a weird shot of him getting up there but I think he was throwing his phone away in frustration because it didn’t work and it almost killed him. After reweatching the first 4 episodes again they set this reveal up pretty well. I’m thinking that Murn volunteered to house this butterfly as a way to atone for his past. Everyone seems to know he has a very dark past and he claims to going through a lot of emotional growth. He’s also the one that brought the butterflies to the table so I’m thinking that maybe some of the team (at least Waller) knows what he is.
Random guess: Murn is a “good” butterfly and the ones they’re taking out are bad. Or vice versa. Butterfly Alien Civil War. Definitely more complex than all Butterflies are bad like Judo Master said “the butterflies aren’t you think they are.” Once again, hard to picture Waller putting a butterfly in charge that she didn’t already know and control in some way.
my guess is murn is a bad butterfly taking out “good” butterflies. it will make the killing of the butterfly children a bit harder on peacemaker and vigilante.
Nailed it.
This episode is more like it, we seem to have left the have-it-both-ways misogyny-parody of misogyny behind.Jody Hill directed this episode. Observe and Report is incredibly underrated, and as soon as I saw his name I knew both Peacemaker and Vigilante would be well-served in this episode: impotent feeling violent man children who would have a lot of work to do to redeem themselves if they ever had the self-awareness to know they should get on that? A great marriage. His White Tail Deer Hunter movie got bad reviews and he mostly directs episodes of Danny McBride movies, but I hope Jody Hill gets another feature soon. Extra kudos to Robert Patrick. Aside from just being great in this show and making a one-note character varied strictly through his performance…Robert Patrick used to be kind of clean cut, almost…posh? Having him be so convincingly rough and tumble (and that haircut helps) is a great transformation.
would love to see cena and hill work on something completely new.
I’m curious if Hill and Gunn have worked together before this because that pair makes a whole lot of sense.
I love that Robert Patrick is playing Cena’s father, given that Robert Patrick was the main antagonist in Cena’s film debut, The Marine, back in 2006.
Judging by his recent talk show appearances Robert Patrick seems closer to this guy (though hopefully not a racist) than you might think.
I’m leaping to the conclusion that the zoo’s missing ape was a former resident of Gorilla City.
Batman’s rogues gallery is known to the public in this universe (The Joker, Riddler and Mad Hatter are mentioned) as well as the neighbor knowing that Batman has a code of not killing. However, I don’t think that’s consistent with Affleck’s Batman, since we saw him kill in Batman v. Superman, and the way the media covers him and Superman’s/Clark’s view of him surely doesn’t seem to see him as non-murderous. Although, maybe after the events of Justice League the public has learned more about Batman.
The DC honchos have pretty much given up on MCU-style strict continuity, which is great because the Snyderian pomp of yesteryear’s DC would never allow for a show like Peacemaker, and would especially forbid the inclusion of wacky comics characters like Bat-Mite, Matter-Eater Lad, or The Detachable Kid.
Which is ironic, since Snyder himself all he was about was introducing the big characters and letting other directors and writers decide what their versions of the characters will be like, at least that was the plan when he was actually “helming” the movies. It’s WB that have no idea what they’re doing.
On the other hand, I love the idea that the overly serious Snyder/Affleck Batman would have to deal with Bat-Mite.
I learned this when discussing Doom Patrol that DC has given most of their shows their own universe number which is why the Doom Patrol in the show is not the same as the one shown earlier in Titans. So at this point if it isn’t directly stated that two things are in a shared universe in DC (like The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker), it’s best to just assume they’re not.
they do things a little differently in charlton county.
“since we saw him kill in Batman v. Superman”
Does that automatically mean that the general public knows he kills?
They’re rebooting Batman as we speak. WB isn’t currently concerned with continuity right now, especially not with the Snyder stuff. They’re basically letting anyone do whatever they want, and so far, that’s produced some good stuff, so I won’t complain.
“WB isn’t currently concerned with continuity right now”WB?!? Since when has DC EVER been concerned with continuity?? When contradictions arise they’ll just make up another earth. What are we up to these days, earth 379?
I was about to ask if we ever did see Batlfeck kill, then I remembered he basically used a car full of goons as a hammer to squash another car full of goons in that nonsensical scene where he fails to rob Luthor of kryptonite, only to succeed offscreen two minutes later. Man, BvS is such a mess, it’s a wonder DC properties are so interesting and/or successful these days.
God I love this show. It’s just a friggin’ party.
He knows he could kill every last one of them and they don’t.“I’m not locked in here with you; you’re locked in here with me!”
almost lost my mind when i saw jody hill’s name in the credits. forgot he was involved.really enjoying the show and this might be my favorite bit of DC content since…the nolan movies? definitely like it more than any of the DCEU movies (including shazam or aquaman or wonder woman). it feels like reading a good comic.
Having an actual comic book AF show feels really different, I’ll give you that. None of the “comic book shows” so far, from either DC or Marvel, really manage to capture the comic book AF-ness of comic books. It’s hard to put it into words, but it just feels like reading issues of comics.
Never seen Doom Patrol eh?
ah um – Doom Patrol?
To those mentioning Doom Patrol, no, I didn’t forget DP. I just feel like they’re still held back by certain limitations, like their budget, or who they could really use. They don’t feel like they’re allowed the same freedom Gunn seems to have been given here.
Vigilante keeps a bunny on his dash, which holds a sign that says “Obstacles are Opportunities.”Ultrabunny. Just like on the shirt Rick Flag had on when Peacemaker killed him.
Good catch!
Vigilante vs. the Nazis was the most cathartic five minutes of television I’ve seen in over a year.
That scene was the most glorious segment of television I -as a human person -have witnessed in lo, these my many days.
In keeping up with the soundtrack, I only caught “House of Pain” by Faster Pussycat, and the Bam Margera song in the credits. Did I miss anything else?
The soundtrack is fried gold! Really wasn’t expecting to hear Pretty Boy Floyd in a DCU jawn. Peacemaker grabbing all the vinyl & CDs from his butterfly hookup was a hilarious character beat.
It’s just such an amazing show, absolutely perfect so far. Peacemaker having the Batman argument with the neighbor was fantastic. Amazing drama and character moments without forgetting how absurd the world they inhabit is but also treating that world as normal; no wink and a nod type thing.There are few shows where everything just works, it all comes together just the right way and that’s Peacemaker at the moment.
grrr… I just want to binge it all nooowwwww
“Ever since I had a team-up with Matter-Eater Lad, my sense of what’s normal is a little fucked up.” That would mean that the Legion Of Super-Heroes exists in this bug-nuts DC Universe, which suits me fine.I’m conflicted. On the one hand Matter-Eater Lad is one of those weird D-List characters that is a perfect canvas for Gunn. But on the other hand Gunn — whose work I love — is one of the last people I would want creating the live action version of the Legion of Superheroes.To me that is like Garth Ennis writing the main Superman comic. Ennis is great, but Superman is a bad match for his cynical, satirical sensibility. Likewise, I think Gunn’s sensibility imo is a bad match for LSH. There’s a certain amount of earnestness necessary for that franchise — it comes with its ethos. Hopefully I’m reading too much into an offhand line. I would love, however, to see Gunn’s vision for Bat-Mite.
Man, have you never read Ennis’s Superman stories?Ennis unironically loves Superman, because he’s an ideal, rather than a character who creators try to portray as “realistic” or “edgy.”
Yeah, Ennis seems to shit all over superheroes in general but Superman seems to be the one exception to the rule.
I also just disagree with the idea that Ennis is cynical. Hellblazer, Preacher, and The Boys are all ultimately love stories, while his war comics and Rover Red Charlie are earnest as hell. Even his Punisher has scenes like this:
The guy loves blood and guts and dick jokes, but his stuff wouldn’t work without its beating heart.
I happily concede that there is a lot of heart and sincerity in Ennis’s work, and the same is true of Gunn. I believe that compassion is also blended with cynicism about human nature and that sincerity with an ample portion of irreverence. Ennis and Gunn are, quite simply, masterful storytellers, who use irreverence, violence, satire, crudeness and scatological humor as part of their creative tool box. I don’t think that is all they can do, but its these artists themselves who chosen to make these elements well known aspects of their sensibility. I don’t think that Ennis is incapable of writing great Superman stories, I’m suggesting the tone of that work is not where he lives creatively most of the time. He’d rather do one offs than a long run on Action Comics. And perhaps that is the flaw in my framing. I’m thinking of Ennis sustaining the tone of his one off stories for two years in a comic or a couple of seasons of a series.
I think both Gunn and Ennis have shown they can be great even when restrictions on the violence, crudeness, etc. are placed on them. (Ennis doing mainstream comics, Gunn doing PG-13 Marvel stuff.) I do think Ennis, completely unshackled, can go a bit overboard at times, but Gunn has always been a big softy at heart, even in his more irreverent and violent R-rated stuff. He definetely has a soft spot for the misunderstood, the abandoned, the abused, and them trying to find people that accept them.
I’m not claiming that Gunn and Ennis can only tell stories with crudeness, violence etc., I’m noting that a sensibility with those elements seems to be their preference and that they find a lot of nuance in that tone. So that, given the option, they are going to lean towards utilizing those elements (though not always at once) in their work. I don’t expect a show like Superman and Lois to come out of Ennis. The Legion of Superheroes’s sensibility imo can be seen in a lot of existing shows: The Clone Wars, original Teen Titan’s cartoon, Young Justice, the JL cartoon, Star Trek franchises, Avatar: The Last Airbender and Korra. These shows have humor and nuance, but play their stories and characters a little more straight than Gunn usually does. That doesn’t mean I think Gunn’s (presumed) version would be bad, but it would disappoint me if it was the only live action version that existed. Its not really how I want to see the characters.
I definitely agree that Ennis would hate to do an Action Comics run…but I think he could write a fucking amazing Black Label limited series starring Supes.My favorite Superman story is “Letter to Superman,” from the second Adventures of Superman trade. I feel like Ennis is almost uniquely brilliant at capturing the childlike wonder of a perfect Superman story…largely because he never read Superman comics as a child, and has a dim view of humanity’s impulses.He doesn’t take the fact that Superman can do anything he wants, but only wants to help people, for granted like we do.He sees it as the magical and fucking beautiful thing it is.
I think its interesting that Ennis, Alan Moore and Grant Morrison have written some of the most quintessential Superman stories. They treat his compassion and moral clarity with respect. My favorite Superman story is “Superman vs Muhammad Ali” by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams. I love that story for many reasons, but the most important aspect of Superman it highlights is even without his powers he is still a courageous hero — he gets whooped by the Greatest but refuses to go down.
i dunno, during his deadpool run i would have thought joe kelly was a bad choice for superman but he wrote by favorite superman story of all time. and now he co-created ted lasso which is even weirder!
I’ve been wondering that for a while, is that the same Joe Kelly? There’s another Joe Kelly in some other show I can’t remember right now, I also wondered if that’s the same one.
There is a Joe Kelly that is a co-developer and writer for Ted Lasso, but that is different from Deadpool comic writer Joe Kelly. Deadpool comic writer Joe Kelly is part of Man of Action group that created the animated series Ben 10.
Speaking of Garth Ennis , I could see DogWelder or Sixpack fit in on the show .Well ….maybe Dogwelders more Doom Patrol territory
I think that DogWelder could be hilarious, but I also think that a lot of audiences have issues with animal abuse, even faked abuse in the service of a joke. Gunn has killed a lot of make believe creatures, if anyone could make that work he could, but he’s also a guy who flew home during the middle of a recent production to be with his dying dog in its final moments.
I hadnt thought of that . Change him so he welds taxidermied dogs to people rather than live ones, not sure ifvthats better or worse.
I’m not sure welding dead dogs instead of live dogs has a bigger payoff.
The problems with Ennis is a) he desperately needs a decent editor to reign in his worst impulses which is why something like Hitman worked so well and some of his other stuff is just so much indulgent offensive for the sake of it bollocks, and b) he can be rather repetitive. Hell 2000ad took the piss out of his constantly used and re-used writing ticks all they way back in their 25 year anniversary issue, that event is now over two decades old, and Ennis has if anything regressed as a writer since then.
As you might have gathered I find Ennis rather frustrating as he is at once written some of my favourite comics of all time, and also some of the worst shit I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter. Son of Man especially that starts off with Constantine converting a lesbian by fucking her and it manages to go down hill from there.
It’s a very specific reference, but the butterflies creep me out the same way the mutated Mr. Mind ABSOLUTELY CREEPED ME OUT at the end of 52.So I don’t care if they’re good. Kill them all.
Typical human reaction. Kill everything you don’t understand.
So, it’s pretty obvious that Leota is Waller’s daughter, right? I mean, I can’t be the only one who’s had this thought.
It’s been confirmed in the text of the show, Leota’s phone call with Waller in the first episode.
I didn’t think it was ever a question they pretty much just flat out said it
Don’t feel bad you missed it, I’ve watched the episodes twice now and didn’t catch the exchange video call exchange the first time either.
“So, it’s pretty obvious that Leota is Waller’s daughter, right?”
Yes. When they show it in writing on-screen, you can probably bet on it.
Nice touch during the ending dance/flashback sequence how they matched up kid-Chris lunging in to stab to adult-Chris jerking his head and/or upper body backwards as he danced.
I still find Murn to be by far the weakest link in this series. I’m not sure if it is the writing, the actor or most probably a combination of the two but nothing he does ever works for me and I think he brings down every scene he is in. Him being a Butterfly could potentially be interesting but I really just wish they would kill him off and replace him with somebody who is even vaguely interesting.
a butterfly has to have taken over that silverback gorilla, right?
This show is awful.Montages in place of character development, fat/dumb/ugly characters for the Harrison Burgeon crowd-pleasing effect, bad writing, bad acting, terrible action, and—probably the most egregious aspect of the show—trying to make us feel compassion for an idiot who kills innocents.None of this works. If HBO had spent the same budget filming ten episodes of badgers sucking soup out of a dead hobo’s ass, it would be a better show.
The superhero shit has gotten stale.
When it became apparent Vigilante was going to go to prison (that happened very fast, didn’t it? Did the police just go “fuck it, he really wants to go to jail so let’s dispense with the courts”?) I truly hoped we’d see him kick the shit out of people – so far there was a bit too much tell with him (“he’s a lunatic” etc) so to be shown just how capable he is was invigorating. Cena’s simple “I love him” when confronted with how shit his dad is, was perfect. Tells you a lot as quickly as possible.I’d have bet Murn is a bad butterfly, but that seems like it’d be too obvious/straightforward for Gunn, so who knows. Also, are these butterflies from the comics or are they a new creation?
When you’re arrested you don’t go straight to court…he was in and out same day
I guess he was in county lockup, not proper prison?I’ve never heard of butterflies, but they could maybe be a Wildstorm reference?
It was county lock-up, not prison. Dad just got arrested like a day or two before, so he’s being held pending trial. Sure, it looked more like a hardcore prison than a rural county jail, but maybe in a world where perps might have super-powers they put a little more oomph in their lower-level detention facilities.
“Did the police just go “fuck it, he really wants to go to jail so let’s dispense with the courts”?”
What do you think happens to people when they’re arrested? They don’t go to jail?
The butterflies are a creation for the show. There’s no direct correlation in the comics. I’ve seen people suggest this might end being some version of Insect Queen. She was an alien that came to earth to be queen of her own “hive.” She could possess people, but she just did it with her mind. She didn’t use insects that literally go into people’s skulls. She would instead encase people in cocoons and they would metamorph into giant insect beings under her control.
They sort of have faces like the Invasion! aliens and there was a lot of meta-human creating during that, too!
When it became apparent Vigilante was going to go to prison (that happened very fast, didn’t it?It seems more like this is a county lockup (i.e. jail pending trial), not a place where convicts are sent (i.e. prison). Except that there’s an awful lot of them in there, for what seems like an extended period, so I think they’re playing a little fast and loose with how the corrections system works.
Glad the world is seeing in Cena what us marks have seen for almost a decade.
My favorite meta-joke/one liner was from Leota toward Peacemaker:Leota: “why do all people that think that climate change is a hoax, think pro wrestling is real?”
Hey! Getting wasted alone and sad dancing with your pets? That’s MY thing!
2 small points: Im pretty sure chode has been spelled choad to emphasize the fact that its a riff on ‘the road less travelled’.And John Cena is doing some acting acting here… im impressed!
I still love Murn. One glance or moment of hesitation after someone says or does something stupid tells an entire story. He has that im so done Dad energy on steroids plus a butterfly.Safe to say John Cena has passed The Rock and Bautista.
It’s easy to tell why Gunn brought Chukwudi Iwuji in for GotG vol. 3. Murn is great.
I also thought it was “chode.” Maybe they changed it to be closer to road?
I don’t why this bothers me so much, but what did they do with Vigilante’s car?
Man, Vigilante really stole the show in this ep. Guy was so good in the jail scenes that I peeked up from my phone and just kind of grinned for a few minutes while watching him insult the fuck out of the white supremecists. That was golden.
Where did Peacemakers sudden ability to absorb a fall start? One whole episode plinko-ing his way down balconies, now he sticks the superhero landing?
Vigilante most definitely stole the show. I’m glad he’s getting more to do as the season’s progressed. That whole prison scene was my favourite from the entire series. And there’s been lots of competition. Glan Tai gotta be an anagram surely ?🤔