Peacemaker gets down to business and suffers serious casualties
Christopher Smith’s daddy issues come to a head in “Stop Dragon My Heart Around."
TV Reviews Peacemaker
In the world of James Gunn, music is our path to understanding. Star-Lord’s “Awesome Mix” tapes in Guardians Of The Galaxy were maps that charted all the hurt and loneliness he felt growing up in outer space, his beloved mother dead and never coming back. Last week’s episode of Peacemaker capped off a vicious Butterfly invasion with a soft piano rendition of Mötley Crüe’s “Home Sweet Home” (played nimbly by the ’Maker himself, John Cena). It was a moment of melancholy for the series, but as we discover at the beginning of “Stop Dragon My Heart Around”, it was also a moment of reflection and sad memory. That bitchin’ anthem jam lays hard pavement that leads all the way to Christopher Smith’s own silent hurts. Leave it to James Gunn to find a way to get us to sob to Crüe.
Peacemaker generally works itself to a funny stinger before needle-dropping Wig Wam’s “Do You Really Wanna Taste It?”, making damn sure we’re already smiling before the series’ now-legendary opening title crawl widens our grins and pushes us ever closer to comic nirvana. This week, it sucker punches us with a reveal we’ve been dreading for seven episodes: The discovery of how Chris could have ever been responsible for the death of his brother, Keith. The truth of Keith’s death is terrible, and tragic, and it could have been totally avoided had Chris’ monster of a father not forced his young boys to beat each other into a stupor for the enjoyment and profit of his shitheel friends.
Family is a sore subject for Peacemaker, doesn’t matter if it’s biological or found. Feelings and understanding haven’t been a part of Chris’ thinking since the day he threw the punch that sent Keith foaming to an early grave, but he’s been working on that. At least now we know why he puts up with Vigilante’s bullshit all the time: Vig could be Chris, and to Vig Chris is the cool older brother Keith used to be. Right now none of that matters. The 11th Street Kids are pulling apart at the seams, Peacemaker is now a fugitive, and the Butterflies are wise to their operation. This is no time to go rogue, not when the White Dragon has rallied his armies and the Butterflies have full control of the Charlton County Police. But running shiny-dome-first into danger is just what Peacemaker, Vigilante, and Economos (plus Eagly!) do. They’re off to kill the Cow, the only source of the Butterflies’ precious amber fluid, before something else goes desperately wrong for them.
They’re rocking out as they do this, so they may not be totally aware of what they’re actually doing in the moment: They’re sacrificing themselves for their team, their family. After all, holding on to family requires a sense of duty and sacrifice. Clemson Murn knew that, even as his hotel room door blasted open with the full force of the CCPD behind it. “I was proud to have you on my team!” he tells Leota and Harcourt, just before Butterfly-Song arrives to finish him. Squashed, the rebel Butterfly known as Ik-no-bloke says his own goodbye to Harcourt, the only human who ever accepted him for what he was. Jennifer Holland stretches out her index finger and has her own emotionally fraught moment with Ik-no, E.T.-style, and, good god, is this weirdo tv show great. “How the fuck are we gonna do this without him?” she asks. How indeed.
Murn’s last words to his team—”Kill the fucking cow!”—they’re an order. Unbeknownst to Leota and Harcourt, Peacemaker, Vigilante, and Economos are already hauling ass to Coverdale Ranch dead-set on putting the kibosh on the gargantuan Butterfly cow. (When we finally get our first look at the immensity that is the Cow, you have to wonder how the hell they’re going to go about that.) Problem is, “Stop Dragon My Heart Around” has two x-factors to contend with: Judomaster, who is quite alive and pops in for a scrap with Harcourt just when she and Leota have hit their lowest as colleagues; and the White Dragon, who’s out to murder his only living son with an army of white nationalist hillbillies behind him and a ding-dang jetpack strapped to his back.
The reckoning between Auggie Smith and Chris has been brewing for decades. Auggie hates Chris for killing Keith, he makes that abundantly clear during their jail time visit back in episode four. Watching Chris confess time and again that he loves his dad no matter what, even though we know Auggie’s responsible for a lifetime of hate and agony and abuse, has always been a hard, if sadly relatable, thing to accept. (We all have complicated feelings about our parents, but… yow.) This week Auggie puts his boot on Chris’s chest, and in his preposterous metallic finery raves about all the ways Chris is impure, unworthy of his love and respect. Look at the way he tosses Keith’s death into his rambling list of grievances like it was just one more thing Chris did to disappoint him. Auggie clearly never put any thought into Keith’s death, least of which where he should really place the blame. Instead he lauded the one boy he never got to warp and break as the perfect fallen son. Chris has had to eat that most of his life.
No more. Vigilante takes his opportunity during Auggie’s rant to exploit the vulnerable gaps in the White Dragon’s armor and renders his blaster gauntlets impotent. Economos mows down his feeble army. (Perhaps John’s middle name is “Rambo?”) And here comes Peacemaker, Auggie’s true legacy, bearing down on him, teeth clenched, fists ready to explode decades of pain all over his sneering face. The White Dragon is defiant to the very last, believing he can twist Chris around to sparing his life. Auggie’s last ugly words might fuck with Chris for a long time after this, but at least he’ll know he did the right thing and finally put down the sadistic demon who made his life hell.
“Stop Dragon My Heart” is an all-business episode that racks up a dramatic body count, the bleakest installment of Peacemaker yet, but it is not without a touch of sweetness. There’s the moment where we find Peacemaker praying over Eagly, who lunged at the White Dragon and paid a price for it, the only one besides Keith who ever loved Chris for real. Leota watches this tender moment, witnesses Eagly’s miraculous recovery, and with an embrace of hero and sidekick she recalls Chris’ joyous words from episode one: “If you don’t want to believe in miracles, that’s on you.”
Leota, who is all messed up over her betrayal of Peacemaker, apologizes to him, but Chris’ growth has yet another rung in the ladder. “I just can’t wait ’til this is all over so I don’t have to see your stupid, dumb face ever again.” She’ll figure out what she wants out of this mercenary’s life her mother’s foisted upon her soon enough. Ugly and violent though it may be she’s really quite good at her job, even Harcourt can admit as much. It’s here where we leave Leota with her thoughts as she zooms down a lonely highway alongside her fellow 11th Street Kids. Ready to face their destiny, this motley crew is about to make one last suicide run.
Stray Observations
- First, let me begin by owning up to totally biffing the Goff Butterfly/Butterfly Leader reveal last week. Helpful commenters pointed out how completely wrong I was, and I have been stewing in my wrongness for a full week now. Apologies for any confusion/frustration this gaffe may have caused.
- R.I.P. Clemson Murn. I’ll miss Chukwudi Iwuji when I watch the finale next week; his Butterfly reveal unearthed all sorts of vulnerability and kindness and strength that would have been essential to this show’s final covert op. All the evil things Murn ever did before Ik-no-bloke lodged itself inside Murn’s cranium have been set right by Ik-no’s valiant sacrifice. Truly a rebel to the anti-Butterfly cause.
- This week’s director, Brad Anderson, is the director of the properly fucked psycho-thriller Session 9 and is also the guy who made The Machinist, the movie what made Christian Bale lose weight until he resembled a demonic scarecrow. He shot the heck out of this episode, good stuff.
- “Pretty random rule, that the only lives that matter are the lives of the ones who fight beside us?” For Harcourt, the answer is yes. For Leota, perhaps not so much. We’ll see where she lands on this next week.
- “Economos, are you insinuating that there is a wrong time and a right time to rock?”
- “Who the fuck feeds their bird chips?”
- “I can’t pee when clothes are touching my butt.” Vigilante was (South Park’s) Butters when he was a kid, I swear.
- So who’s to lead the 11th Street Kids now that Murn is dead? The answer is clear: Harcourt. Her stirring words even inspire the veterinarians, who are locked in and loaded for bear. “No, you’d just die.” Chris says.
- Vigilante’s concern over duct tape hurting the veterinarians’ skin after threatening to kill them sure is something.
- So what did you think about “Stop Dragon My Heart Around”, group? Are you mourning Murn as I am? What did you think about the big Cow reveal? Do Cheetos have secret health benefits, or something? (Probably not?) Let’s pour one out for fallen comrades in the comments below.
167 Comments
In my headcanon , Eagley is Keith reinarnated as a bird of prey.I mean …weirder things have happened in comics!
That’s a wonderful idea.
There’s still another shoe to drop with the butterflies, right? We still have that Judomaster tease about the butterflies not being what we thought, along with the queen signaling peace and ostensibly saving Peacemaker last week (Detective Song had Chris at gunpoint). Without Murn around though it would be hard to parse out any more info we get from them.
Totally believe it. I don’t think this conclusion is going to be as simple as “the good guys roll in, kill all the baddies, blow up the cow, all is right in the world”. There could well be something more complicated going on with the Butterflies, a motive for their actions that makes this whole mess more complicated.After all, they’ve got an entire episode for the finale, and the good guys are already on their way. Lots of time for complications.
I still think the Butterflies want peace… like Chris wanted peace in The Suicide Squad: by any means necessary, no matter how many men, women, and children they need to kill to get it.Which would be a nice dovetail to Peacemaker realizing… that’s probably not the best way to go about it, with his character growth.
That’s what I’ve been thinking too
Peacemaker realizing… that’s probably not the best way to go about itI thought he already dropped that credo, to be fair. Didn’t he say so in one of the previous episodes? It’s funny, this show is basically making the character we saw in The Suicide Squad as the version of Peacemaker people would perceive from the outside. Which is also a bit weird, because we had insights on basically everyone else in the (second) Squad at the time.
There better be a twist with Judomaster in the finale because he has felt like the biggest waste of time to me and I’m still wondering why he didn’t just die when Economous beat him.
God DAMN is this show great.
Definitely, and even more so as I just finished watching Reacher,which started ok, but basically became a cookie cutter action movie by the last episode. Peacemaker is something special. Hope they stick the landing next week.
to me the appeal of reacher was the cookie-cutterness. they don’t make as many cookies with that cutter anymore!
Reacher wasn’t bad, I just felt diminishing returns by the end. If it gets another season, I’d be willing to give it another try.
Second season already greenlit.And it will remain a relatively low-cost venture for Amazon in terms of actual production costs at least for another season beyond that, so expect more.It was definitely enjoyable in a “well done, but nothing groundbreaking” sort of way – dropping all episodes at once probably helped more than had they done weekly, as interest would have waned halfway through the season. Reacher was short enough for a weekend binge and the pacing was ok for that as well. But ya, it was incredibly predictable and by-the-numbers and obviously that made the finale more of a whimper.
it definitely started stronger than it ended, but i also watched the whole thing in one day so i was tired.
While it was clearly, and understandably, spliced together, the shot where Vigilante jumps on the Dragon’s back was just glorious. There was just something magnificently dynamic about it while really managing to make it a logical out-of-nowhere feeling of the action. I’m also curious will the show ever address that this once again a moment where Peacemaker was saved by Vigilante.As for the restraint comments, those were completely unreasonable. Vigilante is not a monster, so of course if he isn’t going to brutally and cold-bloodedly mow down a vetenarian staff that just helped save his best friend’s eagle, then he will want them to be tied down as comfortably as possible. Having written that, the pause from Vigilante before he answered Economos’s question was a delight.At this point, heading into the finale, out of all the great things in this show, I’m perhaps most amazed that they pulled a character like Vigilante off. He’s basically somehow the most lethal member of the team, which is saying something, as well as an utter psychopath, but the show keeps managing to find new ways to hit the comedic beats due to his simplistic, naive worldview.
Yeah. I’m no psychologist, but it seems like they took care to make his weird brand of thoughtful psychopathy consistent. It’s just a lot of fun.My initial reaction about this episode was that everything that happened seemed kind of obvious. I felt kind of disappointed until I realized that setting up consistent characters, building up plot points over time, and then paying them off in logical ways is just good writing? This show seems to be so competently-written, it reveals other shows’ laziness in the process. Having an unearned, out-of-nowhere twist isn’t “fun” or “smart”, it’s a cheap trick to spice up story after your audience is bored. (Because your script and characters are boring.)Like, I knew there had to be some sort of confrontation with Auggie. And part of me wondered if there would be some sort of convergence between the White Dragon and Butterfly storylines, such as the butterflies taking over the white supremacists and the butterfly leader taking over Auggie in his suit kind of thing.And that’s probably what would have happened in another show. But this one didn’t need to do that. We’re still just as invested in the Butterfly cow storyline even without Auggie. And Auggie’s clan dying pathetic, small deaths at the hands of Ekonomos feels like a more worthy end for those pathetic, small people. Auggie didn’t deserve a big, exciting death because his whole thing (like all loud white supremacists) is pathetically LARPing how much power they actually have . . . despite having very little actual power.Yeah, those types of racists can make the people in their immediate vicinity miserable. They can murder and terrorize individuals. But they’re ultimately impotent to bring about the change they say they’re going to bring. Fucking nazi bastards are just weak, insecure cowards who are too small to have the empathy needed to make something of their miserable lives.
(That doesn’t really apply to institutional white supremacists, which should probably be dealt with the same way Auggie was resolved. But hey the last thing I need is a visit to my front door based on an internet comment, so I’ll leave the rest redacted.)So good on Gunn & co for writing a character-driven story that’s easy to care about. And for having enough faith in the audience that we don’t need everything to be pandery and dumb.
A rare example of good Kinja anymore. Well said.
Agreed. I pledge allegiance to Bonerland.
What irks me about this show, and it isn’t much, is that everything feels like it needs another rewrite.The overall plot is great. I’m constantly amazed that I actually care about the plot and characters of a Peacemaker show (or that John Cena would go from the guy that annoying people keep making stupid memes about to, honestly, a hell of an ensemble lead and an actor I now massively respect.) My wife, who incorrectly thinks the first SS may be better than the second SS, adores this show. That’s good writing.At the same time, every episode has a handful of jokes, or maybe “jokes,” that really fail to land. Half the time they come from Vigilante. The one liners feel very Troma, in that they’re frequently crude without being witty. The show clearly rises above one or two really bad jokes that land with a thud every episode, but I can’t help but think this would be an all time great if they just polished those. Regardless, I adore this show.
Yeah, I’ve felt this at times. It’s too well-written to feel on the same level as most TV shows, but it’s not quite *there* on the level of, like, Verhoeven’s best action satire (which it seems to be heavily influenced by, right down to Peacemaker’s Robocop-style gunplay in the opening credits). It’s so close sometimes, just needs a bit more THERE-there. What big-T truths can we explore about our world through the lens of a psychopathic, zero-sum driven government organization without any real accountability? What does that say about the nature of unlimited power… and how the people who end up with it tend to immediately get in their own way? (Thank God Trump’s administration was full of so many fuckups.) Like I don’t need a fucking moral to the story or any pat nonsense like that. But like, doesn’t the US government tend to reward and even incentivize people like Peacemaker? He’s the kind of guy who would canoe Osama Bin Laden’s skull. Our entire society wants to champion people like him, but they would actually fuck things up for everyone very quickly if they had fewer checks.I think having strong undercurrents would then naturally lead to funnier jokes. Still fun, still the only show I’ve found myself excited for in years. (I’m rewatching each episode more than I want to admit lol.) But fun to think of it as a screenwriting lesson too.
I think it’s a feature of them not *having* to cut anything down. It’s the nature of the TV production beast to have weaker lines, or lines which seemed funny on set but don’t actually play in the edit, etc; a lot of shows have these jokes, it’s just that when the edit comes in at 46 minutes, they’ve got to get it down to 40, so they cut the weakest elements. But a show which can have its runtime be whatever they want from week to week, doesn’t have to make those calls, so all the jokes stay, even the shite ones.
Best critique of anything I’ve read in a very long time. Kudos!
“Vigilante is not a monster”
Have you not been paying attention?
I love Vigilante, love love him. Whatever the original actor was or wasn’t doing, Gunn totally made the right call replacing him.
I kind of get the feeling that the character of Vigilante was written with a 20 years younger Sean Gunn in mind.
Not knowing the source material, when Vigilante was introduced, I assumed he was just a lame, wanna-be copycat. Some guy who grew up with Chris, and wanted to be like him, but badly, as comic relief. The way they took him from the kid hiding behind a dumpster to the badass taking down all of Auggie’s thugs in jail was one hell of a ride. And, yes, Freddie Stroma selling the hell out of the “weird brand of thoughtful psychopathy” (thanks for that, USoB.)
My dog always stares at the screen when Eagley is on.
That’s awesome!
Even odds between your dog thinking “I want to eat that” and “I want to be that”
Dark horse candidate: I wish I had a friend like that myself.
I woke up at 5:45 AM eastern to walk and Feed my dog to then watch this at 6:30AM. Mother fucker was this great!I fucking cried when Chris prayed over Eagly (I had to put my dog down last Summer and he was my son to be for 15 years) and was so happy they flashed back to the line about “if you don’t believe in mircales thats on you”. Fucking great.I cried when I realized he was gonna beat his brother to death, his brother even says “fuck white power” when they throw up the horns! Fuck that poor kid.I’m so glad they didn’t give his father any good traits, sometimes bad people are FUCKING BAD,EVIL, WASTE OF AIR PEOPLE. And man is his father the worse. No feeling sorry for that Dick!VIG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I said last week in the comments that Vig would be the one who took advantage of the gaps in the armor! So happy he did so then Peacemaker could take the fucker out! Sorry for the long post, I can talk about this episode and this show for hours!
I was pretty worried in the early episodes that they were going to try to give White Dragon a redemption story where he teams up against the butterflies. Nice to see James Gunn is smart enough not to do that.
Same here, I was worried he would come in with his Armor and save them from the Aliens but Gunn is way to smart for that. The Aliens are Bad but one of them was able to be a hero, the white power dorks are the true monsters of this story.
“but Gunn is way to smart for that.”
Yeah, I guess he IS too smart to do something unbelievably stupid. Good on him.
is it possible that a butterfly can get in there after he’s been shot in the head and he’ll have to kill him again?
I don’t think so. It looks like the Butterfly’s need a living host. Every time a Butterfly host was killed, the Butterflies get out.
Checkov’s gaps in the armor fucking delivered! Same here, I was sobbing over a CGI eagle hugging a crying John Cena. Cena has been amazing.
Right! It’s a CGI Eagle and I’ve been thinking about it at work and trying not to tear up! What a moment! And heck yeah, bless Vig, what a nice hint early on and then the payoff is great.
This show has made me cry several times. I think John Cena is just fucking extraordinary.
I can’t believe I use to hate going to see him wrestle (my younger cousin loved him so much) and even then he gave me a great moment for her when he showed up at a show no one knew he would be at and made her so happy.I can’t believe the range he has as an actor, his pain feels so real and he plays such a macho dick that I can believe he does have these moments of pain no one sees. And even with the ugly/happy cry moment with eagly, he make a quick and great comedy moment by grabbing his phone and that look on his face was great.
It was the earlier episode, where he was trying to say “I never thought I’d have friends” and couldn’t because saying it made him overcome, that just made me go, wow. Holy cow. So real. And in this episode him apologizing to Eagly for being a bad friend, and praying and bargaining with God. And earlier, right after he killed the White Dragon, and a tear came out of his right eye and went down his cheek. Crying isn’t acting, but man. He just brings it.
He really did, that prayer got to me because I felt it, realzing he left his best friend with his monster of a dad finally hit him. Cena really is amazing in this.Well Peacemaker will never have to worry about that again because if he gets sent to Jail again, Vig or one of the other 11 street kids will treat Eagly great.
He’s a great comedic actor, but terrible in dramas. I’m glad he found his niche.
I woke up at 5:45 AM eastern to walk and Feed my dog … I had to put my dog down last SummerHopefully it’s a new dog and you’re not Norman Batesing the thing.
More than one dog you cunt.
I had to put my dog down last Summer
My condolences.
I really loved Vigilante for a while, but this episode I hit the point of “Okay, we get it. He’s dumb. We get the joke. We get it. We’re not going to forget he’s dumb if he doesn’t randomly say or do something dumb every twenty seconds. We get it. We get it.”
He’s not dumb, he’s a psychopath. Details that don’t matter to him don’t register in his brain.
“Okay, we get it. He’s dumb. We get the joke.”
Yeah, I’m thinking maybe you DON’T get it?
Vigilante is a classic comic-relief sidekick. He is actually unusually fleshed out and has his own moments, but nonetheless a big part of his purpose in the show is to keep the comedy beat steady.And personally, over time I have come to appreciate shows and movies using classic plots and characters and such well. They are classics for a reason—they work—and the innovation can be in the execution and such rather than the basic elements.
Wonder if Augie was just throwing out what he viewed as insults randomly or if this actually confirms that Chris is bi/pan.
Chris almost flat out says it in the first episode when he’s trying to pick up Harcourt. He tells her “I haven’t been with anyone- with any woman, in four years.” It’s definitely a comment about sex in prison, but she doesn’t react to it like it’s supposed to be a punchline.
Maybe he knew about the threesome he had with Vigilante. I could totally see peacemaker as bi. He has this sweet naivety about him and he does things that make him feel good or happy regardless of what people think of him….regardless of the horrible things hes done because of how he was forcibly shaped as a person.
The reveal of Chris’ cut-up face after tying the helmet to the raccoon was great, as was Economous’ line. 😀
I was surprised the post credits wasn’t the racoon shooting laser beams from the helmet or something.
I legit LOLed at that.
It is “bonus” layers like that which distinguish the best shows and movies. And the courage to reference it without actually showing it.
So are we ignoring the revelation that Chris is bisexual? When auggie tells him how awful he is for sleeping w whores and men he doesn’t refute any of it. Its not like Chris to miss the opportunity to defend his masculinity. Idk, bi /pan peacemaker is pretty mint.
I am not even sure if that really is a revelation of anything. We saw that in the 2nd episode that Peacemaker slept with that woman who covered for him with the police along with Vigilante. For all we know something like that is what his dad was referring to. Dude was a super religious zealot so anything could set him off.
See also Peacemaker’s take on glam rock: “This was back when men were real men because they weren’t afraid to be women.”
Was that the woman who covered for him? I think they flirted, but the woman with him and Vigilante was someone else.
Nope, definitely the same woman.
“So are we ignoring the revelation that Chris is bisexual?”
Yes, because a person’s sexuality should not define them. Have you been in a coma for the past decade or so? Anyway, it’s nice that you’re severe head trauma wasn’t fatal.
Well he had a 3 way with Vig earlier in the season. Even if they didn’t “touch” there was still another man there so maybe his dad was saying stuff like that. Plus his dad has always accused him of shit he didn’t do and he doesn’t talk back to his dad much. But yeah it could total be that he is Bi.
I am so happy that after teasing it, they finally confirmed it (when he meets Hartcourt at the bar, he says he hadn’t been with anyone in a while, then corrects to women)!!
I noticed that too, during the bar scene with Harcourt. I need to re-watch it, but I think it was also hinted at in The Suicide Squad.
I thought the show was fairly overt in acknowledging that Chris has had sex with men, both from the 3 way scene and that line at the bar. The revelation for me was that his father knew.
To me, it more or less glosses over it as to not make a big deal about it. Something is said or done and it just moves on just like everything else without a reaction. Which is how someone’s sexuality should be. Just a normal, everyday thing in tv and movies. No one double takes or makes a comment, they just keep talking or doing what they were doing.
Yeah, I think a lot more is made of the fact that Peacemaker’s approach to sex and relationships is adolescent— due to his traumatic upbringing— while who he is having sex with is handled matter-of-factly.
Loved it. I was like oh yeah, he and Vigilante totally didn’t ignore each other during that threeway. His asshole dad listing “Men.” as categories of people he’d had sex with was great – and totally don’t think he’s just saying that to be an asshole. Same with calling him “faggot”. And SO GLAD that word is only said by the character who’s objectively repulsive and hateful, and used as a conveyor of hate.
And SO GLAD that word is only said by the character who’s objectively repulsive and hateful, and used as a conveyor of hate.
I agree. I was a little surprised to hear him say it the very first time, since it’s been a long time since I’ve heard it in any context, but then I realized that’s the point. It’s a way for the writers to make the audience automatically despise a character.
I heard the word a lot when I was younger (a LOT), and the fact that I had no reaction at all to hearing it, other than to think “God, I hate that guy”, really says something to me. Well, it may also have had something to do with my screaming at the TV “SHOOT HIM! KILL HIM!”, and cheering uncontrollably when…he fucking shot that fucker right in the head. It was a good feeling.
There was also a line early on where he said something like, “I haven’t had sex in 4 years. Well, not with a woman.”
I just kinda shrugged that off as a mildly regrettable prison rape joke at the time.
For all his crudeness, Peacemaker seems to understand the concept of consent and there are few normal humans — even dangerous convicts — who could force themselves on him. I didn’t take the line as a rape joke as much a confirmation that when males are confined with other males — whether the a naval ship, boarding school or prison— there is likely going to be gay sex.
Yes, the thing is, for a lot of people who make these kind of jokes, and enjoy them, and who just automatically associate “sex in prison” with “rape” and find it hilarious, it’s a distinction without a difference. I guess I mean that it’s always going to be a “prison rape” joke to a lot of people. BUT, in this case, I called it only “mildly regrettable” because it wasn’t played for laughs – basically not a joke. I thought it was just a thoughtless association (prison=man/man sex), made in passing, mildly regrettable because the writing is generally better than that. But, in light of what we’ve come to know since of Chris’s character, I see my assumption to have been simply erroneous: and Chris was just stating a factual clarification. I don’t know if any of this makes sense.
You do make sense. It’s perfectly valid to assume that some people would jump to a prison rape joke rather than a prison sex joke. As good as this show is, a lot of the audience is going to gloss over that one liner. But if they don’t, I think the context makes Chris’s meaning clear. I also think Gunn, who got in trouble for offensive social media posts, is not likely to drop in a prison rape joke on purpose. In fact, he sets up a context that allows him to avoid that connotation, though admittedly Chris’s comment is still bordering on the offensive.
You know what I realized, I’m the one who assumed that it was a mild rape or gay panic joke. I guess because I remember when it totally wouldn’t have been anything else. Oh man, some things are so much better now than they were forty years ago…
It’s sad how to a certain category of viewer, this stuff is literally all they care about.
I noticed it too, though I doubt anything will ever come of it in terms of the show but it would be really cool if it did.
we saw him in bed with Vig already
He specifically says in the first episode that he has not had sex WITH A WOMAN in four years, correcting his earlier statement that he has not had sex in four years. He had sex with men in prison. (Yes, he also had a three way with Vig and Ashley.)
i’ve been hot and cold on vigilante throughout the series but he showed the fuck up in this episode.
Kinda dirty pool that they didn’t pick the names of any of the established Waller kids, but I’ll let it slide because Leota was the best part of this one (and that’s high praise).
Easier to have her killed if she isn’t mentioned anywhere else, or even if you don’t the lack of plot armor adds to suspense.
If you know anything about Amanda Waller’s family, you know that they are the FURTHEST thing from plot armored.
Shout out to the background actors trying to not lose their shit as Locke detailed his cleansing ritual in the end clip.
The actress playing Song reacted to him completely in character without so much as breaking a smile — I was very impressed.
I just rewatched the episode and the dude on the right had to look down a lot to hide his smile, it’s amazing.
I really want to know if those lines were written or totally improvised. Either way, impeccable delivery by Heyerdahl.
I would say def improvised
They definitely sounded like improv. In fact, they sounded like a small selection of all the weird shit Heyerdahl ad-libbed take after take for that scene.
Someone last episode said he was born to be the Joker. He’s a new actor for me, but oh my god that man was born to be the Joker.
I think many people immediately thought of him as Joker during that precinct walkout scene. I know I did, too.
An older Joker, so The Dark Knight Returns
It was delightfully very Reno 911
This is a genuinely (and often surprisingly) great series.They actually manage to move the plot forward a little bit each episode, sometimes not by much, but while keeping you so entertained you don’t even care.
Also, it looks cheap on the face of it, but then you realize how much CGI they stick in the middle of places you wouldn’t expect it but which is so seamlessly well done, it’s actually gotta be pretty costly.
P.S.: I thought one of the other teammates was also going to turn out to have an alien riding shotgun inside them in additional to Murn, since they dispensed with the x-ray helmet so quickly without checking EVERYone over (which would’ve been the first thing I did with it), but it looks like they aren’t going that way…
it also weirdly thematically makes sense that C-lister like peacemaker would have a show that looks sort of cheap.
Nobody looked at Eagly. Just saying.
Exactly — that’s the exact same though I had when Eagley started pecking at Economos for no reason in this most recent episode…
Eagly looks pretty damn good.
“Squashed, the rebel Butterfly known as Ik-no-bloke says his own goodbye to Harcourt, the only human who ever accepted him for what he was.”
WTF? So Adebayo, Economos, Peacemaker and Vigilante aren’t human?
I love how even the veterinary staff was ready to join. That’s a proper pep talk!While boring, the proper thing to do at this point would be to call Waller and ask for an airstrike at that barn. She seems like the kind of person who would do it to be safe, even if she wasn’t completely sure she trusted the team or that they knew what they were doing.
But then how would she pin it on Peacemaker?
You never just call in the authorities. I think it is a rule of some sort.
If you assume Waller really wants to stop the Butterflies.
Except that even for Waller that would require commands to personnel that could be overridden, or at least confused, by Butterfly infiltrators. There’s no way to call in a surgical strike team, or even a Suicide Squad, within the timeframe required, that would be guaranteed free of interference and doesn’t reveal to the Butterflies as a whole that Waller is onto them.
MVP this week had to be that one veterinarian who was ready to join the crew against the butterflies.
me during the last 5 minutes of the episode: but i want to see the cow!!!me after seeing the cow: i want to unsee that!Good luck to the 11st Street Kids, they’re going to need it. I love this show so much!
I’m still wondering when we will get why Judomaster is in this show. Or if that is the joke. He just appears. Get beaten. Returns later on.
Judomaster rules. Who else can look that confident and threatening while eating Cheetos?
He was about to say something regarding the butterflies to Chris before Leona shot him. This show has been great about its economy of characters, so I expect whatever Judomaster knows about the butterflies will come into play in the finale somehow.
Maybe he is secretly working for Waller separately to take down the Butterflies.
So far it does seem kinda repetitive. Which I can appreciate as a running joke, and his fight scenes are all awesome. But I do hope there is some significant payoff coming. Maybe even in a post-credits context, like we only learn what he was hinting about after the Butterflies are defeated.
The real gag is that that isn’t judo. And that it’s a comic book thing to shout “kiai,” but that’s the word for the shout to psych yourself up; you don’t literally shout the word.
Or when he will actually do some judo as opposed to MMA. Judo is real big in this household. Actual quote from my husband “well, that was sort of an arm bar right there, I guess.” (We still love the show.)
Anyone else think Adrian is styled after the kid with fly on his face from Troll 2?
The big square glasses and the weird wide-eyed stare make me think of Jeffrey Combs in Re-Animator, a film that I am very confident James Gunn has seen at least 50 times.
Unlike Grunkle Stan, White Dragon isn’t allowed to punch bald eagles!
I’m not surprised that they killed Auggie, but I was surprised that it was Peacemaker who pulled the trigger. I kinda expected Vigilante to do it, in a call-back to when Peacemaker couldn’t kill the family in episode 3, or even Economos. As necessary as it was for Auggie to die, I really didn’t think it would be Peacemaker that did it.
As fucked up as it was, when Vigilante took over in episode 3 was probably the most touching moment of the season, in a “It’s ok, I got this” kinda way.
I wasn’t sure it was going to be him either, but at that moment it became clear that if it had been anyone else, him being unable to do it would have weight heavily on Peacemaker’s mind. Remembering how last episode he said he doesn’t want to kill anymore, it’s also tragic that he ends up having to do that anyway, to his own father no less.
I’m not demanding this, but I think it would be cool if the show didn’t make this a costless decision for Peacemaker, even if it was obviously the right thing to do.
I love how Auggie’s minions are listed in the credits. “White Power Shithead”“Asshole referee”“Racist thug”“Skinhead girl” “Whitehood wanker”
I was laughing like a goon when the closed captions described them. Kinda fish in a barrel, but still damn funny.
Imagine those credentials on someone’s resume when they go for their next casting call or IMDB.
I really wanted to like this show, but it’s like every character has a disorder where they can’t stop blurting out “comedic” non-sequiturs. There’s no situation so dangerous and critical that someone won’t just randomly go off on three minutes of rejected Comedy Cellar material about genital nicknames.It’s just exhausting. Every character can’t be the comic relief. There needs to be some drama and tension and stakes for there to be relief FROM.
I’ve enjoyed the show, but I definitely get that take. The banter can be a bit much, and every episode has a moment where things get a bit too wacky. This week that was the veterinarians being ready to arm up and help our heroes take on the butterflies.
I liked the veterinarian part, but there was a part when Leota and Harcourt were arguing where I rolled my eyes like, here we go again. I can’t even remember what Leota was saying but it was a tangent and yeah it happens every episode.
I feel you, although I’ve enjoyed the show more and more as I went. Generally a little James Gunn goes a long way with me. Which isn’t to say I don’t enjoy his stuff but his shtick can easily wear on me after a while. Sometimes when you let a bit of banter go on and on it becomes funnier and sometimes it doesn’t. Gunn doesn’t always know the difference.
From my perspective, you might be a bit of a victim of how great some of the writing and actors have been at making us feel real drama.This show is at least closely adjacent to spoof comedies like Super Troopers or Austin Powers or Airplane! and such. In terms of modern TV shows, I would suggest a parallel in tone to What We Do in the Shadows.And like WWDITS, it is so well executed you actually find yourself caring about the characters, the story, and so on, even though it is also a joke-a-minute spoof.So I can kinda understand why you want the show to be even MORE of that good dramatic stuff. But a given show can’t be all possible good things, and I for one am happy to get a show which is a lot more light in overall tone than, say, The Boys or Doom Patrol. I like both of those shows too, but it turns out I was really in the mood for something like Peacemaker.
it’s a bit overwritten for sure.
It often feels like a 13 year old boy helped with the script
I agree. I generally really enjoy this show, but Vig’s stupid quip after Peacemaker killed his own father was so undermining to the power of the scene.
Also some of the “comedy writing” is like bad first year UCB improv, like Adabyo thinking Harcourt was refering to a “weird medical condition” in the middle of an argument. It feels like they just won’t commit to drama, when they absolutely can and should.
This is what I said elsewhere. I love the show, love the overall plot, but every episode has some comedy that lands with a thud. It’s not funny. Some jokes land well, don’t get me wrong, but the ones that don’t just feel so out of place. And, they’re typically Vigilante, but sometimes Economos, and honestly, a bit from everyone.Someone said overwritten. To me, more underwritten. Stuff that should have been workshopped and either polished or cut.
Still love the show, but every single episode has about a minute that makes me feel the show would be stronger had it been cut.
Given the show’s love of hair metal, it’s probably no accident that the season finale’s destination is called Coverdale Ranch. (Perhaps one of the 11th Street Kids will mention that the Cow looks kinda sorta like a white snake.)
Sometimes I’m over Vigilante and then he just cheerily says a line like “hashtag me too” and I’m all in, again.If Eagly had died, me and James Gunn were gonna have words.
Other than I knew someone would die, I applaud the internet in letting me wait until after work to watch this. And actually Murn didn’t cross my mind. I will miss him, but I think since last week I was also assuming he wouldn’t make it if the team was successful. He needed the stuff too and would have died like they are aiming for the rest of them to.I am kind of actually anticipating the Cow will have a very similar story to Starro in that it didn’t seem happy. So the Butterflies captured it.
I still can’t quite believe how I care so much about these characters, but I do. This is the best show on TV right now and it’s kinda amazing.
This show is fucking amazing. I can’t predict what’s going to happen next, and that makes me so happy.
As predictable as a Nazis vs butterflies battle would have been, it would also have been equally entertaining. This was good though.
Has anyone said if there’s going to be a soundtrack album? Because my god. The Hellacopters!
The Hellacopters drop definitely got me out of my seat. Who am I kidding? It inspired a head-nod while in my marital bed zonked out on a variety of sleep-inducing intoxicants. Don’t judge me, what else would you expect from a Hellacopters fan?
Are you saying someone had to…carry you home?
Answering my own question, apparently James Gunn (or whoever manages his social media presence) is maintaining a soundtrack playlist on spotify, updated weekly with the songs from the newest episode:https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6k0Pd1cAC3pmdvO7NstFkq
The cow is absurdly disgusting. It reminded me of the bug brain from the end of Starship Troopers.
Now on deck: Chekhov’s Giant Teleporter!!
If Gunn let that angry raccoon join the team, I’d appreciate the reference.
Someone else mentioned that the post-credits scene should have been the raccoon running around, shooting lasers out of the helmet. Would have been extra funny if he was chasing around one of Auggie’s racist asshole buddies.
Is there anything unexplained power-wise to the whole eagley seemingly miraculous recovery? Or was it entirely just the end to the hug gag from the 1st episode?
As I was watching Harcourt saying goodbye to Murn, I thought for a second he way going to perk up and fly into har mouth. I was quietly begging the writer not to do that to us.
I thought about that too, and was glad he stuck to his story about only taking over a bad person, and only out of desperate need.
Yeah. I mean, as far as we can tell, when a butterfly takes over a person, they are effectively committing murder (the immense amount of blood spraying out of the mouth is a pretty sure sign that they’re digging violently through a lot of flesh and brain matter), and Ik surely wouldn’t want to murder Harcourt.
I re-watched it last night, and I noticed one thing: when they’re leaving the vets, Adebayo says they need to sequester the vets’ vehicle, instead of saying commandeer. I think it was a call-back to the first episode when Peacemaker got her name wrong, having confidence in saying something wrong & not knowing it’s wrong.
I thought it should have been “requisition” (mainly because of the “qu” in both words). The show didn’t play it like a joke, so either Gunn just wrote the wrong word, or Brooks said the wrong word and nobody noticed (or maybe that was the best take otherwise and they said fuck it), or it really was meant as a really subtle joke, because all four of us looked at each other in confusion after that line.
Everyone here has said everything I wanted to say already so I’ll just add: “Hell yeah.”
I was hoping this would have gotten an action scene instead of end credits.
Also, they went with a 1999 re-recording as opposed to the original
this motley crew is about to make one last suicide run.I just realized (probably later than I should have) that this was a Suicide Squad all along. The death of all the members of this outfit had to be seen by Amanda Waller as negligible, if not even desirable. Harcourt and Economos are the henchmen who disobeyed her orders during the movie’s events. Peacemaker was already marked as expendable, and knows that Waller is indirectly responsible for Rick Flag’s murder. And Murn was either already known to be a Butterfly, or was an evil piece of shit as a human mercenary anyway. Maybe Waller even has a secret grudge against her own daughter.
Did anyone else notice that Vigilante recovered from what appeared to be fatal injuries with a nap? I thought they were giving him the Aunt May treatment when he slumped over in the car apparently succumbing to his injuries. He was showing a lot of burns through the cuts in his suit and by the end of the episode they were gone.
The background sight gags in this show are great… What’s a white nationalist’s vanity by plate gonna say? “14 WRDS” of course.
We lost a couple main characters this week, but I feel like the body count was way higher last week. I guess it is possible that people can survive the butterflies, though we’ve never seen it. But given the way James Gunn kills random people in his stuff, I just assumed the hundreds of people that got butterflied were already dead.
Amazing episode but there was one jarring inconsistency. Peacemaker, John, and Vigilante are in their truck on their way to kill the cow, White Dragon stops them, destroying the truck. Vigilante uses a grenade to stop White Dragon and gets concussed by the blast, he then steals the 14WORDS car from the white supremacists and passes out while driving. Then the white supremacists track them down because he had taken all of the spare Peacemaker helmets and stashed them in the trunk of the car he stole. Was there a missing scene? Or lazy writing, which is rare for this show. Wouldn’t he have had the bag of helmets in the truck? When would he have been able to move them from the wrecked truck to the car?
IIRC we see Vig hiding behind the tree, half blown up, just a few yards from the truck, and then we don’t see him again until he’s getting into the racist car’s driver’s seat. He could have grabbed the helmet bag out of the truck as soon as the racist brigade left, then put it in the trunk of the car just before stealing it. Hard to do w/o getting noticed, but not impossible.
I thought peacemaker running away after the grenade had all the helmets, then figures out they are being tracked and dumps them. I assumed Vigilante found them and thought they were accidentally dropped. A little lazy, but I don’t mind it.
Vigilante was a more funny character before the helmet came off.
IMO The Suicide Squad is the best of all the comic book/super hero movies yet to be made. I am really prefer the anti-hero angle over the “rah-rah ‘Murika!” aspect of many of the Marvel franchises. The best of the Marvel stuff was definitely the first Guardians of the Galaxy which was as good as it was because of writer/director James Gunn. Oh, what do you know he is the writer/director behind The Suicide Squad and now this ass kicking HBO series. Gunn’s work is so good that my “lady friend” who has said many times that, “I don’t like comic book movies” actually really liked GOG 1 and both TSS and Peacemaker. I think that speaks volumes for the level of writing as well as JG overall vision.This DC comic book/super hero movie turned series is giving Marvel a run for its money.
It warms my cold, black heart that the same guy who directed “Next Stop, Wonderland” (a really excellent low-key, 90s indie rom-com with a joyful set of Phillip Seymour Hoffman cameos) directed this episode.
Seriously, when I saw his name in the credits, I had to make sure it was the same guy, I was that excited.