Peacemaker episodes 1-3 dropped on HBO Max the premier day, giving this spin off from The Suicide Squad a good beginning. James Gunn is responsible for both series. Both are over the top bonkers. Here’s what we learned in the first episodes.
Peacemaker begins with some clips from The Suicide Squad to remind us what happened there. Christopher Smith AKA Peacemaker (John Cena) has been in the hospital recovering from that film’s events.
Chris and a bunch of other misfits have been assigned a crap job as punishment by Amanda Waller (Viola Davis). (No spoilers, just a hint that Amanda Waller is related to this crew in a way you don’t expect.) They are to work under the direction of Clemson Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji) to assassinate all the butterflies. Not the flighty butterflies, but people Murn calls butterflies.
Also in this group are tech whiz John Economos (Steve Agee), a Peacemaker stan named Vigilante (Freddie Stroma), the outstanding badass Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), and the total greenhorn Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks). Leota brought her wife Keeya (Elizabeth Faith Ludlow) and their three dogs to the butterfly killing party.
Chris drops by his dad Auggie Smith’s (Robert Patrick) house to pick up his pet eagle, Eagly, and a fresh helmet. Auggie is a Hitler clone with a huge armory in his very large basement and makes some of the most offensive jokes in the series. There’s no shortage of offensive remarks, but Auggie is alpha dog at it.
John Cena spends much of the first episodes in his underwear showing off his dance moves and other attributes as well as his bad taste in women.
By episode 3, “Better Goff Dead,” the team is organized and on their first assignment: kill Senator Goff and all his family because they are probably butterflies. Being an assassin is harder than it looks for this team.
I was mostly interested in Peacemaker because it puts a favorite of mine, Danielle Brooks, into the DC Universe. I was afraid she’d have a small part but she actually has a huge part. Yay. Happy to see her face in the DC Universe; long may it remain there.
Overall, the jokes in this series are gross, offensive to everyone, stupid, lame, and disgusting. Or to put it another way, it’s very funny if you can enjoy the politically incorrect without getting all huffy about it. Everything is silly from the opening credits to the closing credits. (Oh, right, be sure to watch all the closing credits.)
If any of this sounds enjoyable to you, catch the first 3 episodes now and wait week by week for the remaining 5 to complete season 1.