Peacemaker scorches earth as the Butterflies make their move
“Murn After Reading” marks James Gunn’s return to the series as director, and is the most cinematic installment yet.
TV Reviews Peacemaker
That terror and confusion Leota Adebayo feels at the beginning of this week’s episode of Peacemaker is but a fraction of what we’re supposed to feel by the end of it.
“Murn After Reading” is 47 minutes of revelations and Revelation. Last week Leota discovered what we already knew by the end of episode four—Murn is a Butterfly—but when we pick up on Leota’s bad night (already in progress) another piece of the puzzle walks into frame. Emilia Harcourt, currently enjoying human life sans Butterfly, is not only in on Murn’s subterfuge, she is totally on board with whatever he plans to do with Amanda Waller’s resources.
That’s where the “revelations” part of “Murn After Reading” kicks in. The thing about the Butterflies is that they are, yes, similar to the Starro threat from The Suicide Squad, but they are a decidedly more elusive and far more cunning breed of alien mind-controllers than that gigantic, stompy starfish. (I’ll try not to insert a post-Trump political strongman analogy here.) A Butterfly is more subtle about its motives, and not knowing what Murn’s been up to with an alien fluttering behind his eyes has been a primary source of dread for Peacemaker. This week Chukwudi Iwuji finally lets his hardassed Murn mask slip as he confesses to Leota: He is indeed a Butterfly (its name is something like “Ik-stak-ik-ik”), but he fights on the side of humanity. What a relief…?
Iwuji is terrific in this scene. When he shifts into Butterfly mode he’s almost bashful, ashamed to tell Leota he’s been lying to her all this time. Ik-stak sought out the worst person it could find to combat the “Goff” Butterflies. (The late Senator Goff’s now very dead wife, it turns out, was the vessel for the Butterfly Leader.) In its desperation it found Clemson Murn. Just don’t go shedding any tears for the dude: Peacemaker’s initial misgivings about working for the notorious mercenary proved correct, at least as far as Ik-stak is concerned. “This man, Leota, he’s… he’s a murderer,” it tells her, the eyes it controls searching for understanding.
So here’s what we know: Ik-stak plans to infiltrate a hidden Butterfly ranch which houses the entity known only as “The Cow,” the one source for the viscous amber fluid that feeds the Butterfly race. Kill The Cow, win this secret war. Its logic is sound (after all, Harcourt only works with logic), but there remains one peculiar wrinkle in Ik-stak’s crusade—Christopher Smith has to remain in the dark about Murn. Like Economos, who jams his fingers in his ears and feigns ignorance whenever the subject comes up, Leota has to make like a statue when it comes to the truth. In effect, she’s doubling down on her betrayal of poor, dopey Chris. (Making matters worse: Her “Peacemaker’s Diary” plant bears fruit this week in a big, bad way.)
Keeping Peacemaker out of the loop about Murn is a frustrating story choice but it makes a twisted sort of sense. Despite all his innumerable flaws, deep down Chris is a reasonable man. He’s taken care of the “Goff” Butterfly for no clear reason (unwittingly enabling the enemy to avenge its Butterfly Emperor, sure, but still!), and his sidekick Eagly soars ferociously to his rescue this week plucking out the eyes of those who would dare put a-hurtin’ on his best friend. Someone who adores animals but is also bad with people at least deserves the smallest benefit of doubt, right? Apparently not: Chris steps into Henenlotter’s Video and finds everyone acting even more dodgy than usual. The look he gives Leota when he realizes that everyone (even Economos!) is lying to him—and the lack of eye contact he gets in return—underscores the very shaky earth on which The 11th Street Kids are currently standing.
It’s a story beat that’s meant to further rip at Peacemaker’s shifting worldview. Chris makes a confession of his own this week to Harcourt: It’s not the lack of a Dove Of Peace on his weapons that stunts his zeal for slaughter, it’s just that he doesn’t want to kill people anymore. Revelatory. The only thing keeping him out of Belle Reve right now is doing murder on behalf of Amanda Waller, and don’t forget there is still the not-insignificant matter of the other tiny threat living inside Chris’s head: That tiny brain-bomb Waller injected into him at the beginning of The Suicide Squad. He’s torn between his duty to his country and a desire to live a life of peace, and right now the only people he can call his friends are lying right to his face.
For Peacemaker, hope is at a low ebb. And just when things are looking their grimmest here comes Auggie Smith, grossly refreshed (after a grody meeting with a skinhead subordinate), fitted with his heinous White Dragon armor, ready to do a filicide with his Aryan army. Robert Patrick looks absolutely terrifying decked out in Auggie’s hate gear, and the way his lackeys drop to their knees in awe of their overlord is yet another terrifying hint at what he could be capable of. Set to Reckless Love’s “Monster,” Auggie begins his apotheosis.
Whether he and his racist cronies are little more than soggy whitebread fodder for the Butterfly threat or a sharp dagger in the ribs for Chris and his team remains to be seen. With but two episodes left in its tank, Peacemaker takes the scorched-earth approach with “Murn After Reading,” an array of worst-case scenarios that spell certain doom for the 11th Street Kids, not to mention crush the hopes, dreams, and future that was once laid before Detective Sophie Song.
That’s where “Revelation” comes in. This week we’re finally allowed to see exactly how the Butterflies prefer to enter their hosts on a scale that is both harrowing and really, really gross. (It’s not as breezy as Economos’ PowerPoint presentation.) The first victim to succumb to the, er, “docking process” turns out to be Annie Chang’s Sophie Song, whose dogged pursuit of Peacemaker leads her to a dead end in vicious fashion. (Her bloody convulsions after Goff jumps into her mouth evoke Chris’s memories of his brother’s bloody seizure, interestingly enough.) Sophie’s gone. All is Goff. Woe betide those who stand in their path.
“Murn After Reading” marks James Gunn’s return to the series as director after passing the baton to Jody Hill and Rosemary Rodriguez for the last two episodes. The result is the most cinematic installment of Peacemaker yet. Watching Chris and Vigilante haul ass through a forest with Song’s armada of cops hot on their heels, the episode has a visual sweep to it that shames other action tv shows. It moves, shifts, leaps to thrill you, powered by a devil-may-care affect that makes me wonder about the other insanities Gunn has in store for the remainder of the series.
“People don’t realize that smiling is different for every head,” Butterfly-Sophie tells Fitzgibbon before the hammer drops and all goes to hell. Chang is remarkable in this episode (it can’t be said enough how impeccably cast this show is), cracking a rictus/confused grin and speaking in a grim monotone that forebodes dark things for humanity in the few short hours it has left. “I feel she was fond of you,” she tells her former partner as an alien toys with her brain, looking for apocalypse and finding it. “Just enjoy the moment.”
Stray Observations
- It’s interesting that Ik-stak refers to Murn in the present tense. Is it possible for the Butterflies to, er… dislodge themselves from their human hosts without killing them?
- “Unlike humans, we don’t name our genitalia.”
- The students’ word of the day: “Moistly.”
- An innocent question from Jamil the Janitor’s daughter—“Do you have an origin story?”—sends Chris spiraling down repressed memory lane once again, and we get a better idea of what happened to his brother: Chris socked him so hard he gave him the seizure that killed him.
- Peacemaker’s nicknames for the children: Kid with the sad eyes, Chubster, Gender-swapped Alfred E. Neuman, Urkel, Canadian Tuxedo, Rubik’s Cube World Champion 2025 (who can see right through Chris and thinks he’s a loser!), and my personal favorite: Spaghetti Arms!
- Peacemaker & Vigilante’s “Yes/No” question battery with the Butterfly known as Goff yields answers: Yes, Goff drew a peace symbol. No, the Butterflies are not here to eat human flesh like the aliens in Pitch Black. No, they are also not here to impregnate humans like in Alien. (That one bums Vigilante out, somehow: “How else am I going to experience motherhood?”) No, they don’t want the humans’ help getting back to their home planet, like in E.T. (Goff’s pause before tapping “no” is a chilling giveaway that their plans are just as fucked up as Murn fears.)
- Of course Vigilante’s ringtone is Aqua’s “Barbie Girl”. Of course it is.
- The “shit” that flits out of Vigilante the second he falls out of the tree is priceless. Priceless.
- Song’s raid on Peacemaker’s trailer doesn’t nab our hero, but it does net an edition of Peacemaker’s Journal, an elaborate, John-Doe-from-Seven-lookin’ forgery courtesy of Amanda Waller, stashed by her daughter, Leota.
- “How do you know my password?” “I know my own birthday, dude.”
- Leota lives in Gotham, it turns out. Wonder how she feels about The Joker.
- Captain Locke, to Murn, as Det. Song leads a horde of police to Peacemaker’s trailer: “I think we have a problem.” Well, no shit, Locke, when were you planning on dropping a dime?
- Christopher Heyerdahl’s facial contortions, as his Butterfly tries to find the right kind of smile, are truly harrowing to watch.
- So what did you think about “Murn After Reading,” group? Here’s a question: Is Amanda Waller, herself, a Butterfly? Who else is a secret Butterly? (My money is on Economos, the poor dope.) Will Auggie wreak havoc or will the Butterflies pull him into their deadly trap? Go nuts in the comments below.
179 Comments
Really hoping for a Mr. Mind appearance.
Thought it was a great episode. I loved the Monster montage toward the end. I’m gonna guess that Butterflies can’t dislodge themselves considering how violent and bloody it looks when they hop in. It seems like they do a lot of damage during the process. They also seem to be really strong since several people had a grip on them and couldn’t stop them from forcing their way down their throat.White Dragon looks like a badass in the trailer for next week.
It may ultimately turn out to not be the same but going by precedent, once you were Starro’d (in The Suicide Squad movie at least versus the comics), trying to un-Starro people had notably disastrous results (add to People Who Died montage).
Not just strong, but tough. Vigilante fell out of the tree onto Goff and it was still in plenty good shape to jump into Song. Plus, you have to assume at least a few of the people who had them jumping into their mouths would have tried to bite down on them, and it had apparently zero effect.I did appreciate how bloody it was, having a parasite that big work its way into the brain. One of the central premises of the tv show Stargate SG1 was snakelike aliens that parasitized human brains in a similar fashion as the Butterflies, only they could basically hop in and out of people’s heads with essentially zero trauma done to the host. (I may be misremembering about how easy it was for them to leave, but there was definitely more than one instance of one of these foot+ long critters jumping into someone’s head and there being essentially zero visible evidence that they’d done so.)
In the bottling plant, when Peacemaker was blowing everyone’s head off, it was pretty obvious that the butterflies occupy most of the space where your brain would normally be. Seems pretty clear that the hosts are gone & never coming back.
That and the GEYSERS of blood that came out of everyone’s fucking HEADS when the butterflies gained entry.
I was thinking the same thing. And it was confirmed when we saw inside Murn’s head. I think the present tense is more because the Butterflies absorb part of the person they go into as they eat their brain. Which would explain why they have all taken over humans yet. It may change them as they are exposed more and more to other beings.
I was cracking up over Peacemaker’s interrogation rules and Vigilante’s correct assessment that he would not be able to follow rule #2.
I liked how Peacemaker randomly tries to be woke without having any idea why saying certain things is badI am pretty sure Vigilante’s off hand comment about the white dragon armor weakness is going to come into play in a later episode
I don’t think that was really an offhand comment about the armor, it was more of a Chekhov’s weak point.
agreed on part 3, I almost feel like Vig is going to be the one to kill him because he knows that and will have to save Peacemaker.
You know, I realize I’m watching a TV show that is both intentionally comedic and fantastical. I also get that requires certain suspension of disbelief, honestly I get that. But even with that in mind, there are just boundaries that cannot be crossed or else all the structures come crashing down as too much accept.Seriously, who in their right mind would utter the words ‘Let’s go back to Gotham’? Sure, you’re in the middle of an invasion of body-snatching butterfly aliens. Yes there is also a bunch of white supremacists running around getting prepared to enact some brutal violence. However, the other option here is Gotham. I wouldn’t be shocked if the alien infiltration zone had a big empty spot around that city as even they don’t want any of that insanity.
My working theory about people wanting to live in Gotham is: Low taxes, low housing costs, job openings and few regulations/high corruption , think about it, one billionaire is more or less keeping all the services running on an acceptable level , sure some of the other rich people donate a bit at all those fundraiser events but pretty much everything from offanages to the police have a sign thanking the Wayne foundation. If you are a poor luckless man not liking the Florida heat, Gotham is a good bet, housing is cheap and not smashed by Brainiac or Giganta on a weekly basis, the paycheck looks bigger and there is always jobs in the security sector.If you are a rich herbicide magnate branching out in toys, with twin girls: Alice and Wendy, with a collection of bird themed jewelry, there can only be one reason you live in Gotham: Low Taxes and ease of business
nicer than blüdhaven, too.
Makes me think, if Gotham is New York at night , Metropolis is New York at day and Blüdhaven is Gothams New Jersey, what is Metropolis New Jersey?
Opal City.
Coast City. Just watch out whenever a yellow-skinned alien with a purple bodysuit pops up.
Apokolips?
Metropolis was originally based on Cleveland!
Fawcett City.
Gotham is what happens when libertarians run a city!
“offanages”? I know what you mean to say, but Jesus, “offanages”?
Everyone knows that Metropolis is a far better city than Gotham.
But likely far more expensive both to live in and move to, superpowered fights is murder on the housing mass and Metropolis likely also see more well off and recourseful people move there because you are more likely to be saved in a catastrophic event and well its a better city which creates a bigger demand on housing.You can wish to live in Metropolis, but Gotham is what you can afford, oh look 35 new jobs opened up on Giggles toy factory
Look, at least it’s not Hub City.
Ooof
By the way, when Adebayo’s wife mentioned they live in Gotham, in the moment it struck me as something we already knew from the first Suicide Squad movie, but upon checking, that was actually Midway City. Which is some weird choice, isn’t it? The city of Hawkman?
Yeah, and we’ve seen how their Batman is so it’s a tossup over which lunatic kills you.
I think it was quite a cynical, and almost British sounding joke. Like when I say I’d rather live in Mogadishu than the rough area of my town.
My partner said the same thing. “Gotham is a place where people get stuck. Why would you want to go back?”
“My partner said the same thing.”
You partner is a fucking cunt.
“‘Let’s go back to Gotham’”
Do you think nobody has ever left Detroit and subsequently returned? Or Chicago?
I didn’t even notice that in the episode, but it does kinda make sense within the show. Their whole thing is that they’re shit-ass broke and this job is a way to get on their feet. So the whole point of taking Waller’s job offer was to get the fuck out of Gotham.
Something that did take me by surprise in this episode was how hard the show was willing to be unflinchingly brutal and upfront about it. Just the carnage enacted on those cops during Peacemaker’s escape, which he looked by on, was stunning and that invasion of the police district was pure nightmare fuel.On the other side, just how clear they are about the racist association of White Dragon’s faction feels somewhat rare. Having them just wear those white hoods was blunt, but it left out no doubts about what this group was.
It wasn’t until they put White Dragon’s helmet on that I realized their hoods were shaped like his helmet, and not just regular Klan hoods.
Was there ever any doubt as to what the group was? They’ve been pretty clear from the outset that Peacemaker’s dad was a racist, homophobic piece of shit. The way he talked to Peacemaker in the pilot, the way he talked to the cop when she first went to his house. When he went to prison, the very first thing we see is him intimidating a young black guy and literally every single white guy in there standing up & backing him up, immediately followed by them taking a knee, giving Nazi salutes and repeating “Hail!” There was never any doubt.
What I found surprising in this episode is that his followers know about his secret room and his tech. And I think that the butterfly taking over one of his white supremacist cronies who was in the local jail is going to come into play. The camera seemed to be focusing on him for a second during the slow-motion hallway group walk.
I love how there is no middle ground with the Nazi’s like they are the worst and fuck that we aren’t going to try and say “well maybe they are misunderstood” nah fuck that, they are trash. Good for Gunn.
So a butterfly can also possess an already butterfied person?
I assume you mean Captain Locke, and I’m pretty sure this confirms that he wasn’t yet a butterfly, just an associate of Murn from his old murdering days. Certainly an odd duck and a psychopath, but just the standard human variety.
Yeah, dude was just very, very off and got things done as needed, but he wasn’t lepidoptery at all.Also, damn, just how good was that actor during the post-credits button?
I didn’t really love Hell on Wheels, but Heyerdahl turned a character that could have been pretty one-note into a much more interesting find (until I stopped watching)
Seconded. The charisma vacuum that is Anson Mount’s performance in that show made it a hard slog (and frankly Common wasn’t much better) but Heyerdahl and Colm Meany kept me fitfully engaged long enough to finish it out.
Anson Mount is better on ST:Disco, and I have some hope for his longer form turn as Christopher Pike in the spinoff series they are getting. As Pike, I know we have plenty of white male captains, but he gives some serious “good boss” vibes that work well in the show (especially because his character listens, while Michael over and over just runs off to save the day)
True, I didn’t mind him as much as Pike either. And while I kind of wish the producers of Star Trek would just leave the past the hell alone and stop putting Spock (or Data) in every damn project — trust that your audience is interested in the WHOLE Federation, not just the characters from 50+ years ago, and give us something new! — I’m sure I’ll wind up watching the spinoff too, at least until there’s an egregious retcon that happens for no reason and pisses me off. 🙂
It is a little too much spock (especially because they have to keep developing and then undeveloping the character), but they left themselves room for the rest of the crew, I’m not sure how many of the Strange New Worlds crew appeared in Disco, but I don’t even recall them giving Rebecca Romijn a name. They do apparently have a Nurse Chapel who looks like Phoebe Bridgers or the girl from iZombie
I think they gave Number One a name in the Strange New Worlds preview, but I can’t be bothered to look it up. In the end, I was OK with the Pike Enterprise getting shoehorned into Disco. But when that registration started popping up in that Season One finale, I was so hoping it was a head fake and the Defiant showed up instead, with prime Lorca at the helm, having fashioned an escape. Yes, I wanted more Jason Isaacs, and just leave the Enterprise on its own as a stand-alone series.
It was “Pasghetti Arms”.
“Pasketti”, according to credits. Urban Dictionary says it’s “the word children use for spaghetti up until the age of 4.”
It’s true. I and all my sibs did.
The grown-up version is how 90% of computer hardware reviewers on Youtube mispronounce the word “peripheral” as “per-IFF-ree-ul”. No, they’re not being ironic.
The HBO Max subtitles say “skinny arms,” which seems to make all of us wrong. But “Pasghetti Arms” is definitely funnier.
Pretty sure Goff’s butterfly is the leader, not his wife’s. Accordingly, she is able to summon reinforcements in the person of Detective Song.Best laugh of the episode was definitely Adrian’s “Barbie Girl” ringtone.
This show inexplicably just gets better and better, and I say this as someone who wasn’t all that amused by Gunn’s The Suicide Squad (with the concession that it is tons superior to the first Suicide Squad movie). I was genuinely bummed out about Det. Song’s Butterfly assimilation – I had her pegged as the smart cop who figured things out and became Peacemaker’s ally. And the piano scene shows that there is a genuine actor in John Cena. He carried off the wordless scene wonderfully. You could read everything on his face.
As he went to sit down at the piano, for some reason in my head I thought “he’s going to play a ballad by Cinderella”, yet the song I was thinking of was “Home Sweet Home”. I need some sleep.
I was hoping for Cinderella’s “Don’t Know What You Got (Til It’s Gone)“ but I guess “Home Sweet Home” is more recognizable.
the piano scene shows that there is a genuine actor in John Cena.In the ideal race between former wrestlers turned actors, Cena has just pulled ahead of both Johnson and Bautista, at least acting chops-wise. Johnson has charisma and Bautista has range, but Cena now seems to have both. It took me by surprise, even after watching The Suicide Squad, where he was mostly one-note.
Gunn has done a great job with both Bautista and Cena. Maybe he needs to come up with a movie that involves all three (clearly outside of the MCU/DCU because of copyright).
What’s particularly nice about the piano scene is that Cena actually plays piano so they didn’t have to do those weird cuts between the actors face and someone else’s hands. Cena playing The Pixies Where is My Mind for the Bella Twins on YouTube five years ago mostly went under the radar.
I was trying to see if the cuts were to mask Cena’s inability, but as far as I could tell it was him at least 90% of the way through. There were still tons of jarring cuts, though, albeit not for that purpose.
I loved the fact that it was specifically “Home Sweet Home,” and that he didn’t play it too perfectly. The mistakes made it feel all the more genuine and in-character.
I doubt Waller is a butterfly. Planting the journal to put everything on Peacemaker so she can get him back under her thumb in Belle Reve is a typical Waller move.
Does she even need to do that though? We’ve been told since the first episode that Peacemaker still has his bomb/tracker in his head. Assuming that is true, he is still completely under the control of whoever has their finger on that button as long as he has a vested interest in staying alive.
I don’t put anything past the comics industry generally, but, given how high-profile this particular property is, I’m not sure WB/DC would let Gunn make Waller a Butterfly. The fact that she’s “just a human” is important to her character and role, similar to how it is for Batman and Lex Luthor.She’s supposed to be the ultimate deep state agent of human governments, as they deal with gods and aliens and metas and monsters (and the occasional billionaire vigilante. Kind of an “only two nickels, but still weird it happened more than once” situation there.)Frankly, I’m kind of on the edge of my seat wondering if Waller will choose her daughter over some mission (or saving her own skin again.) And I’m not saying that to slag on Peacemaker as a show. It’s just that Waller is that compelling, tap-dancing all over the line between anti-hero and villain. I’m genuinely invested in seeing how Gunn tries to stay true to her character while presenting her with that kind of a choice.
Maybe, but also when it turns out everything he said was true he will be exonerated and potentially a major hero…also, it makes him look like the main anti butterfly threat, meaning Waller could easily have another team actually dealing with the problem on the side that the flies won’t see coming.
Great stuff as usual, that whole sequence of the butterflies taking over the police station was beautiful.Did Butterfly!Locke make up the bit about the diary detailing Peacemaker’s personal war against alien invaders, or was that something Waller actually planted in it to begin with?
I was disappointed that none of the butterflies chose an alternate portal of entry. It would have been sweet vindication for John and his kickin’ PowerPoint.I don’t think Locke forged anything new in the planted diary, but it is interesting that the butterflies could use Waller’s cover story for their own ends. That doesn’t mean that Waller is a butterfly, but I think it’s the best evidence so far that she might be one.
On the subject of alternate portals of entry … don’t worry. It’s been covered!
I don’t think Waller is a Butterfly, because she’s a character who has been unseen (except for the opening flashback) — I think – the whole series, and also she’s a big part of the existing DCU lore, and it would be weird if this series did something like that.
Also, I don’t think Viola Davis will appear in any major capacity. At most I expect another cameo in the last episode.
I’m not convinced that Waller doesn’t know that Murn is a butterfly. She knows Bruce Wayne is Batman. The mean lady knows everything.
Yeah, if for no other reason, Amanda Waller is a great villain as just her human self. It’d be a waste to make her a butterfly.
I think they’re saving the alternate entry for Economos.
The ear?
It’s interesting, beacuase they say the dairy links him to Annie Sterphausen, but Leota had the diary before all that went down.
Locke could have made that up to reinforce the accusations. The entire police department has been taken over anyway, he could say whatever.
The diary was a bunch New World Order conspiracy mongering from the pages shown. You can read them clearly and it’s all racist and fascist nonsense against Jews, liberals, Democrats, Black people, non-Christians, etc. There’s no mention of aliens.Locke is lying about the contents of the diary. The diary Waller wanted planted was another failsafe so she could publicly disavow Peacemaker as a nutjob like his dad. As you note, it existed before Annie was even killed so there couldn’t be anything about her in it.
“As you note, it existed before Annie was even killed so there couldn’t be anything about her in it.”
She is the person who CREATED THE TASK FORCE, you think she doesn’t know who’s on the list of butterflies? You think she didn’t have Annie on the list of people who have to be killed?
WHAT DO YOU THINK THE POINT OF THE FUCKING DIARY WAS IF NOT TO FRAME PEACEMAKER?
For Christ’s fucking sake. Use your god damn brain for half a millisecond, please.
I still don’t totally get how it is a failsafe at all isn’t the suicide squad pretty much public knowledge pretty hard to cover up everything that happened in the movies she could just blow up his head
I think the butterflied captain just said that we didn’t really get to look at the journal close enough it was just said in the press conference.
I’m pretty sure the Butterflies are just saying that the diary said that so that no one would believe Peacemaker when he said they were all aliens pretending to be humans. But then what does it actually say that made the one cop kind of freak out about it?
that whole sequence of the butterflies taking over the police station was beautiful.And the song in that sequence was clearly referencing Detective Song (no pun intended), not the White Dragon. This review was particularly perplexing.
She absolutely had all the stuff about aliens in there. It was so she could throw him under the bus for killing a bunch of people (who actually were aliens) after the op was over.
If you pause you can clearly read the diary pages and there’s nothing about aliens. It’s all super racist and fascist New World Order conspiracy nonsense. There’s nothing about aliens, so Locke is seemingly lying. Waller planted a diary that would make sense, given Peacemaker’s background, in case she needed to publicly throw him under the bus.
“If you pause you can clearly read the diary pages and there’s nothing about aliens.”
Are you honestly pretending you could freeze-frame EVERY SINGLE PAGE of the fucking diary and declare it alien-free? You’re an idiot.
I am fairly certain that Butterfly/Locke made up what was in the diary to suit the Butterflies’ own ends
I assume the Butterfly’s used the diary for their own purposes (“If Peacemaker tells you we are all aliens pretending to be humans, well he’s crazy, we saw that in his diary”). It seems doubtful that Waller would happen to provide a prop that was so useful to the Butterflies. From the way that it was hidden, I always felt it was for Chris to find and to trigger him.Looking at the next two episode titles (“Stop Dragon My Heart Around,” “It’s Cow or Never”) I am assuming that the next episode will deal with Auggie and then set up the finale with the assault on the Bug farm. I wouldn’t be surprised if Auggie gets bugged, but I would think that in interest of another series/Suicide Squad III, that their is a good chance that Auggie and Walker will make it through the series alive. I’m curious what Walker’s actually up to (her motivations are very unclear at this point), and if Gunn is going to set up a second season, or mostly come to a conclusion and look more at doing an anthology where each season would have a new main plot line.
Did Butterfly!Locke make up the bit about the diary detailing Peacemaker’s personal war against alien invaders, or was that something Waller actually planted in it to begin with?I doubt it, just because it’s a perfect Amanda Waller plan. Yes, we have to destroy the alien butterfly infestation of Earth. But, we’re going to have to kill a bunch of pretty high-profile people to do it while keeping the whole thing under-wraps. So, we’ll get a big, attention-grabbing lug with a gaudy costume (who’s already a known killer) to be the trigger-man and plant a whole crazy-sounding manifesto as a cover for the actual alien invasion. He takes the fall for all the murders and nobody will believe him when he tries to tell them what’s really going on. They’ll just think he’s a murdering nutjob. It’s really a great plan, and explains why she’d tag Peacekeeper for something this covert in the first place. It’s also completely devoid of any sense of morality or ethics, which is right up Waller’s alley.
There are parts of Murn’s story that I just don’t find believable. Like the idea that Waller doesn’t know he’s a butterfly. Waller is cold, but I don’t think even she wouldn’t put her daughter under the care of the real Murn unless she knew there was some sort of control to it. I don’t believe the Murn butterfly’s story of saving humanity from the butterflies dominating the planet. There’s something about it that doesn’t ring true about him being willing to basically suicide himself and kill his entire species by doing this.Also, there’s still Judomaster’s attempt to tell Peacemaker that we don’t understand what was really happening with Goff. That could of been bullshit, but I wonder if there’s another twist coming and (police station parasitic mind rape notwithstanding) Goff’s forces are the ones that are really trying to save the world. I thought that might be a direction the story was headed when Goff drew the peace symbol on the jar.-Peacemaker claims he met the Flash and everyone thinks he’s an asshole. Seems like a legit take on Ezra Miller.-In Waller’s forged diary, there’s a bunch of the usual Freemason imagery paranoid conspiracy stuff, and in large bold letters “Demoncrats take over America.”-Tin-foil hat theory: Adebayo’s wife is a butterfly. The reason Waller put Adebayo on this mission was because she knows her wife is one of them, wanted to make it easier for when the time came to put Adebayo’s wife down so she understands, and it’s the reason why the wife continually tries to pull her away from the team and pushes to go back to Gotham.
I had that thought about Adebayo’s wife as well. She’s way too understanding about the situation they’re in now. She really does feel like a plant (in the espionage sense) at this point.
What good could the butterflies get from taking over Adebayo’s wife when at that point they could just take over Adebayo?
Adebayo is Waller’s daughter! (So she probably has a bomb in her head she doesn’t know about but the butterflies do)
Dark! But sadly something I wouldn’t put past Waller. She’s one stoooone cold shut yo mouth
“(So she probably has a bomb in her head she doesn’t know about but the butterflies do)“
Yeah, that’s how getting a bomb implanted in your fucking head works, you can have it done and not know about it.
Possibly that Murn would spot it coming? Just a guess. I’m not terribly committed to my random speculations about the Peacemaker plot.
So instead they take her wife, whom Adebayo tells nothing about her job to, and she’s not asking.
Maybe it’s to influence, not gather intelligence. Whatever. You seem to have more commitment to me being wrong than I have to being right. That’s perfectly fine.
“She’s way too understanding about the situation they’re in now.”
I mean, they’re broke and it’s been made pretty crystal clear that they’re relying on Waller giving Adebayo this job to LIVE on, so I guess I find it reasonable that her wife would be understanding.
To be fair(er?) to Ezra Miller, not only does he know that Grant Gustin plays his TV counterpart (and that he even has a TV counterpart, never mind his name) and is so complimentary about him interviews is nice.Also, the idea of a studio executive to do that scene between the two of them is actually a rare example of good studio interference for once?
There are many examples of good studio interference, we just don’t hear about them as much.
After the conversation in one episode about the dog that likes to wear little outfits, Vigilante’s joke about whether a chihuahua can get taken over, and the gorilla getting butterflied and talking, I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens to one of their dogs.
“Like the idea that Waller doesn’t know he’s a butterfly.”
You don’t believe something that literally NOBODY on the show has said or even hinted at?
Um, ok. Do you also not believe that the show will end with Robert Pattinson crawling out of John Cena’s open anus and revealing that it was Bruce Wayne wearing a Peacemaker suit the whole time?
I kept expecting a little more ambiguity with the Butterflies given Judomaster’s line “It’s not what you think,” and the fact that I didn’t think we can trust Murn. Maybe Judomaster was setting up an Archer like joke (“They are not here to body snatch us and take over our planet?” “Oh, I guess it is exactly what you think.”), but that seems unlikely. I sort of thought that we would have the Queen take over a person and continue to push in the other directly as Murn (“We are the good guys, we want peace.”) but the attack on the police station makes it hard to see that happening any more. And to think that Peacemaker shared his weed with the Queen.
Seems there was some confusion on Goff/Murn stuff here. Goff was being taken over by Ik-stak, who is also the Queen, and is now in Sophie. Murn never shared their alien name.
Corrections: the one in Goff is the emperor (not the one in Goff’s wife, it just happens to be a female butterfly) and ik-stak-ik-ik or whatever is Goff’s real name, not Murn’s real name.The woods sequence was pretty awesome, as was the butterfly attack and butterfly smile bit, but the first half of the episode involved a lot of Cena shouting (noted by the buffoon). I won’t belabor it further, I rewatched Suicide Squad and liked it even more the second time but I don’t think Gunn gets the tone quite right comedically in this project yet…maybe cut some of the swearing and let the jokes breathe…and the “teal” part was just ugh, I’ll never find Vigilante funny.I was really sad to see Sophie go, I really liked that character.If I was going to go fight a butterfly army I’d wear something over my mouth (but not like a dragon hood). I am wondering if the Cow will throw back to Michael Rooker in Slither.
Corrections: the one in Goff is the emperor (not the one in Goff’s wife, it just happens to be a female butterfly) and ik-stak-ik-ik or whatever is Goff’s real name, not Murn’s real name.Thank you for this. Felt like the reviewer was almost watching a different episode with some of the mistakes/misinterpretations and wild swings of (il)logic they made (why exactly would Waller or Economos be a Butterfly? The show hasn’t even seeded even the slightest thought of that, nor would it add anything or make any narrative sense).
you should read the Yellowjackets reviews and comments, people come up with the wildest most nonsensical stuff.
as a yellowjackets fan, can confirm, guilty. But I never bought into the “Jackie is a time traveler” theory.
There was a Rolex that acted as a plot device on Hawkeye. The Polygon review talks about how “it opens a secret entrance to Avenger’s Tower”. Literally nothing like that was ever said or implied in the show. Literally just an engraved watch. It’s really wild sometimes to see what people imagine they see/hear.
The watch does SOMEthing…if it opens Avengers’ Tower that would be weird considering apparently Tony sold the one building and the other one might not have existed when Mockingbird was active…I remember them saying it does something, they weren’t just like “don’t lose my Rolex, that shit costs money!”
“The watch does SOMEthing”
Yes. But. The. Rolodex. Doesn’t.
I think the only thing it did was confirm the Mockingbird identity. I’m pretty sure the only thing they ever said about it was that it would put someone at risk.
You’re right, I think at first there was speculation as to if the watch did something else and some people maybe went too far and “confirmed” that it did other things? I’m not going to rewatch to see the auction and how the watch was positioned, but maybe they said or speculated something about it?
Exactly, when Gurn was the most emotive of the butterflies (and he’s mostly been showing anger/annoyance other than the feeling chilly bit) there is no way it’d be Waller or Economos (or Ashcroft as others speculated).
I’ve usually liked Vigilante, but he was a bit ridiculous this episode with the Teal and random questions. The dumbness was on overload. Plus I get they want to show the actor but he was running around in costume without his mask?
I stand by my wild swings, but I definitely messed up that plot point this week.
Corrections: the one in Goff is the emperor (not the one in Goff’s wife, it just happens to be a female butterfly) and ik-stak-ik-ik or whatever is Goff’s real name, not Murn’s real name.Yeah, I was about to write the same thing. I’ll add the relevant quotes from the episode:MURN: The one in Goff, she’s our leader.ADEBAYO: Why “she”?MURN: Well, she had a vagina.(…)ADEBAYO: What was her real name?MURN: You can’t pronounce it with a human tongue. I suppose it’d be something like “Eek Stack Ik Ik”.Also, nobody ever talked about an “emperor”. It’s female, they’re insects, I’d say it’s a queen, if anything.Also, Chris doesn’t call that kid “spaghetti arms”, he says “pasketti arms” (credits confirm it), which is even more hilarious, since it’s a kids word.
MURN: The one in Goff, she’s our leader.ADEBAYO: Why “she”?MURN: Well, she had a vagina.This is good but I think this gag was perfected in the 80s on the Young Ones.NEIL: Dear Mr Bank Manager…RICK: Ah ha! And WHAT makes you think your bank manager is a man?!NEIL: [pause for reconsideration] …his beard.
I interpreted his Pasketti Arms appelation as being intentional because she was such a small kid and it’s the type of label a bully might give. Now I am thinking, maybe Peacemaker does say it that way.
maybe Peacemaker does say it that way.School wasn’t his bag. It’s for dorks.
I loved that in the credits all of the kids are known by Peacemaker’s nicknames. They finally get their SAG cards, and their first credit is “Canadian Tuxedo” or “’Pasketti Arms” or “Urkel.”
“Rubik’s Cube World Champion 2025″ is a role that’s gonna take that kid places. 😛
Corrections: the one in Goff is the emperor (not the one in Goff’s wife, it just happens to be a female butterfly)
Making Det. Song the Goff Queen — and yes I think that pun is intentional on Gunn’s part — not the Emporer.
Yeah, I fucked that one up. (Honestly, I can’t tell you how.) I’m sorry for that!
I’m feeling pleased with myself that the reason I first thought Murn was taken over (and before the reveal on the show too) was exactly the one that tipped off Harcourt.I actually missed the thumbs up the first few times I saw the scene and thought Murn was flat out dead from that explosion and the way he was just standing moments later as if nothing had happened and casually throwing his gun away seemed quite telling from the get go.
Is the similarity between Murn and Hank Henshaw from Supergirl intentional? Both are black guys leading organisations tasked with hunting aliens who turn out to be aliens themselves and have a similar attitude.
I chalked it up to something something TVtropes.
I forgot to add that both of them have taken over the identity of nasty people, by shapeshifting or eating the brain.
Christopher Heyerdahl looks like the platonic comic book ideal Joker. The face shape, the eyes, the fucked up smile.
And that end credits scene with him, with the jokes and laughs. He’ll do great as Joker.
He would be great as the Joker if they ever made a live-action Dark Knight Returns.
He was the best part of “Hell On Wheels,” the show I and maybe six other people watched.
Canada is packed to the gills with these amazing character actors. Julian Richings, for example, is just some bit part in Man of Steel, but he crushed it as Von Fuchs on Doom Patrol.
And Van Helsing.
He really did, I was thinking holy fuck this guy could play old man Joker! Let me not say that as we have way too many Jokers. But wow did he look the part!
So apparently James Gunn is one of the other five people on earth who saw and loved The Hidden.(Is that movie streamable? More people should watch that movie.)
I’ve seen it!And the sequel!
James Gunn is one of the other five people on earth who saw and loved The Hidden.Actually, James Gunn had already done the same “little bug-like aliens takes control of humans by crawling into their bodies” narrative in Slither. So it’s more like he’s referencing himself here.
Yes! I just watched Slither for the first time last week, and it makes this and The Suicide Squad seem like an obvious trend for Gunn. All that’s left is for him to remake Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
I want a horror remake of The Host (the YA one, not the South Korean one). But still with Saoirse Ronan.
This mind-bender alien bugs thread wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the fabulous (and tragically short-lived) BrainDead, starring a fabulous Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
Oh yeah, I mentioned it elsewhere but the way the butterflies take control of their host bodies is pretty much an exact copy of how the Slither space slugs did the same thing (though not quite a gooey).
a hidden gem you might say….I will get my coat. But seriously that is an under appreciated flick from the 80’s
Great Movie
I liked the hidden so much that I didn’t hate Jason goes to hell which was a Sequel to the hidden with Jason in it!
He has also apparently seen Slither.
1. Ik-Stak is the name of the Goff Butterfly, not the Murn Butterfly. Leota: “The one in Goff, what was her real name?”Murn: “You can’t pronounce it with a human tongue. I suppose it’d be something like “ik-stak-ik-ik”2. The Goff Butterfly, not the Goff’s Wife Butterfly, is the female leader of the butterflies. That’s why the Goff Butterfly commands the Butterfly army in this episode. Murn: “The one in Goff, she’s our leader”
This episode was too short!Is Judomaster dead? Last we sawr he wasn’t. But then we haven’t seen him since. Like no one seems to be watching him like before.
Also I’m constantly worried for Eagley’s safety. I swear, if any harm comes to that magnificent hardcore bastard….
After watching the opening credits dance like 10 times now, I finally caught Judomaster coming out of a trapdoor in the dance floor, before Chris hoists him in the air for the finale. *Trapdoor in the floor*Hopefully he’ll re-emerge in show the same way.
That’s more or less what I’d been assuming. He’s featured prominently in the dance number so it would be odd for him to be a relatively disposable character.
the preview for next week’s episode showed him
I caught that preview today! huzzah!
With respect to the diary, there are two high level options:(1) The diary planted by Leota either says what the butterfly controlled psycho guy said at the end, in which case, Waller is clearly aware of what Murn’s group is trying to do, or(2) The butterflies just made that shit up and nothing like that was in the diary planted by Leota. I was assuming 2.
I’m glad we get to keep Chang, she’s amazing, but sad to see Sophie go – the character worked really well.
I enjoyed this episode, but it felt a bit rushed at times in it’s setting up of the rest. Turning so many reveals into “duh, we already know” sapped some of it, and even some quips felt smaller for it.Looking forward to the next…finale? close to it anyway.I will say I don’t know if it’s Waller’s or the Goff’s plan revealed in press conference, but in that universe a costume says he’s been charged with stopping an alien invasion, that’s not super damning evidence of anything. You figure a very reasonable response is “Maybe?”
Gotta say, one thing more terrifying than a racist ringleader with muscle is a racist ringleader with muscle AND a brain. Smart enough to be a tech genius while CHOOSING the path of hatred. Holy Hell.
Stephen Colbert as Kite-Man season 2 cameo: Fingers crossed.
I’ve always (always?) thought that Andy Daly would make a fantastic Kite-Man.
Hell yeah! to Andy Daly as Kite Man.
That would be perfect.
Maybe Bill Hader, it helps he’s employed by HBO too.
Yeah, he’d be great too!
damn. yeah.
It’s not important, but I would like some backstory on Vig. Where he trained, and where he gets his equipment.
If Waller is a butterfly, it’s drastically out of character. She’s got more plot armor than Batman.
Did anyone notice that Murn-Fly was watching Chris at the end playing piano? He’s in a window reflection watching from John’s left.Makes me wonder if he’s going to reconsider not telling Chris about his situation.
The execution of that whole “oriental” bit had me cringing. It felt like something everybody should already know, but to the writers it was a big revelatory thing that they needed to inform everybody about, in an almost wikipedia-like fashion.
It doesn’t seem like big dumb racist Peacemaker’s gradual redemption arc really meets the rest of the show’s anti-racism messaging. If anything, that messaging seems shoehorned in to offset some of the more racist stuff they have to include, as part of his concept.
I was convinced Captaine Locke was a butterfly working with Murn. But then when Goff Sophie led the attack on the police station, a butterfly entered him, so thought, well, I guess not. But then in the post credits sequence, they showed him rehearsing how to be sad over the dead body of one of the cops from the raid on Peacemaker’s trailer, and I thought, maybe he was, but wouldn’t the rival butterflies have to fight it out in his skull?
Nah, he’s just a complete psychopath/sociopath that doesn’t understand normal emotions. Like the way Murn was talking to Economos earlier about how he’d never expressed feelings before, even “being cold”.
I think Locke is a fellow psycho-killer that human Murn used to know, former comrades-in-arms maybe. I don’t know Murn’s backstory, so I’m assuming they know each other from off the books black ops or something like that.
Gunn knows how to create tension. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time Vig and Peace were making their escape from the trailer.
The tension was more how many cops would get killed if their escape didn’t work out well. As it turned out: plenty.
I want to write something funny and cute about the show but all I have is that I fucking cried when Peacemaker played Home Sweet Home. Holy shit as a 48 POC I grew up loving Motley Crew and I’ve always felt like Home Sweet Home is one of the two songs I would hear as I pass on from this world. So well done.And then they flip it and we get all out war about to come To Peacemaker with the Butterflies making him enemy #1!Man, his dad is coming for him, the police are, the Butterflies are and his own crew sold him out with the Diary. Peacemaker and Vig are gonna need some fucking back up!
I’m mad they killed Song. Happy that that actress I guess is now the final boss or whatever but I did like her character. Ah well.
After that episode, maybe the dance for Peacemaker’s intro is foreshadowing a time when all of the main characters are taken over by butterflies and they are performing the butterfly ritual victory dance.
Vigilante’s dialogue is too cringe. It’s just not funny.
Pitting our heroes against alien invaders AND murderous racists means (I think) we’re in for a delightfully over-the-top violent finale with a regoddamndiculous body count.
When Murn told Economos he’d never shared a feeling before, was he being honest as a Butterfly or trying to mimic machismo to blend in?
I’m now of the opinion that Peacemaker is just Watchmen done as a comedy.
This week we’re finally allowed to see exactly how the Butterflies prefer to enter their hosts on a scale that is both harrowing and really, really gross. (It’s not as breezy as Economos’ PowerPoint presentation.) The first victim to succumb to the, er, “docking process” turns out to be Annie Chang’s Sophie Song, whose dogged pursuit of Peacemaker leads her to a dead end in vicious fashion. (Her bloody convulsions after Goff jumps into her mouth evoke Chris’s memories of his brother’s bloody seizure, interestingly enough.)I appreciate the self-plagiarism on James Gunn’s part: the way the butterflies enter through the mouth and violently, bloodily seize control of the host bodies is identical to the space-slugs from Slither.