Peacemaker is proving to be far more political than expected

James Gunn has gone above and beyond to make Peacemaker season 2 timely and political. More thoughts on that below.  Warning! Contains HUGE spoilers for Peacemaker season 2 episode 6 and 7.  We knew there had to be something wrong in the world Chris Smith aka Peacemaker (John Cena) had found in the first episode ... Peacemaker is proving to be far more political than expected

James Gunn has gone above and beyond to make Peacemaker season 2 timely and political. More thoughts on that below. 

Warning! Contains HUGE spoilers for Peacemaker season 2 episode 6 and 7. 

We knew there had to be something wrong in the world Chris Smith aka Peacemaker (John Cena) had found in the first episode of Peacemaker season 2. Chris ventured out into another universe early on in the season and discovered his brother Keith (David Denham) and father Auggie (Robert Patrick) alive and well with the trio acting as this world’s beloved, admired heroes.

Think the Avengers with less superpowers but with Iron Man’s tech abilities. 

One last warning to say major spoilers for Peacemaker season 2 episode 6 and 7 follow.

Rarely, though, do these things end well and episode 6 sure did end with quite the reveal, even if it was one that some fans had guessed correctly. Turns out that this new, seemingly much better universe is one where the American flag is decorated with a Nazi swastika. 

That’s right, the United States – and perhaps the rest of the world too? – is under Nazi power as discovered by Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) as dozens of white people, including Keith, run after her, screaming and trying to catch her with intentions that we can’t imagine are good. They are racists after all and Gunn isn’t exactly known for being subtle or trying to appeal to everyone.  

Thankfully, Judomaster came to Adebayo’s rescue in episode 7 and electrocuted the racists in a swimming pool, bragging about how this was the most people he’s ever killed in a swimming pool with a telephone wire. Good for him!

Eagle-eyed fans had already been suspecting that this new universe, now confirmed to the Earth-X from the comics, might be racist due to the fact that none of the scenes set there contained any extras of colour. There’s also the fact that Auggie was a far-right, white supremacist in Chris’ own universe too, making it very clear why he’s a hero in this one. 

Except, in this universe, Auggie isn’t a complete arsehole. Instead, he describes his counterpart, having once encountered him in the space between the dimensions, as cruel and like he came from a “world that was a dark version of ours.” Then again, even a mild Nazi is still a Nazi and unfortunately, we don’t get to know just how much of a one this Auggie was before he is stabbed to death by Vigilante later in the episode.

Episode 7, one of the best of the season, toes a very delicate line between politics and comedy. Earth-X seems to have a lot of surprises up its sleeve and Gunn is clearly having more than a little fun with it. It’s a line not completely foreign to Gunn, but the writer-director-co-head-of-the-whole-studio has never been this dauntless with it.

It would be a bold move at any time in history to represent America under Nazi power, but it seems painfully, piercingly relevant right now. The twist got some pushback “from various sources within the structure” as explained by James Gunn to GQ and no wonder. 

After all, the episode aired not too long after Donald Trump criticised London Mayor Sadiq Khan, falsely claiming London wants Sharia Law. The UK capital was also the location of a far-right protest which was attended by over 100,000 people, many of whom heavily criticised the country’s policies on immigrants. Some days it seems that any news outlet you look at, the news are filled with disappointingly cruel stories of discrimination on a daily basis.

As director Nadia Fall and I discussed, empathy is something we need desperately more of and art has real potential to bring change to the world. If Fall evokes strong empathy with her film Brides – which is in cinemas now and well worth your time – Gunn looks to be summoning pure rage as we find our favourite characters stuck in a barbaric, backwards universe at the beginning of episode 7.

Gunn also has no issue being seen as “polarizing” by the racists of our own world. Gunn did however send the script of the episode to Danielle Brooks ahead of time to make sure she was okay with everything in it. 

“We’re dealing with racism and at the same time, there’s humor in this episode. And so, you’re dealing with something very delicate and yet we’re not being delicate about it—but I don’t think we’re not being delicate in a non-thoughtful way. I think we’re being thoughtful about it,” the director explained about his approach to the sensitive topic. 

The revelation has also caused a bit of a stir after Fortnite recently removed a Peacemaker emote from the game following the release of Peacemaker season 2 episode 6. The emote featured some dance moves from the new season’s opening credits which features the cast dancing to Foxy Shazam’s Oh Lord. Now that we know the other Peacemaker was a Nazi, it’s painfully obvious that the character’s dance moves, which do bear a striking resemblance to a swastika, were a hint all along. 

Epic Games released a statement on one of its social media accounts, saying it was going to issue refunds to players who paid for the emote, which was ironically named Peaceful Hips. Clearly, Epic Games had no clue about episode 6’s twist and that those hand moves were perhaps a reference to Nazis rather than just John Cena having a boogie in the Peacemaker costume. 

As I’ve explained in many of my Peacemaker season 2 episode reviews, this season has proven to be a far more emotional affair than the series’ first season. As Gunn remarked to GQ, the director’s signature style won’t be the house style of DC Studios and the filmmaker and co-director even admitted that the style of Superman isn’t the same as his style in Peacemaker. Clearly there’s room for both and it certainly teases that we’ll be seeing a lot of different takes on DC characters as the studio continues to evolve. 

Episode 7 ends with Chris and the rest of the 11th Street Kids back in their own universe, with the portal closed and with only one episode to go, it’s unlikely we’ll return to Earth-X anytime soon. It’s still pretty remarkable that a show like Peacemaker, something that has been considered more of a comedy than a serious drama, was willing to do something that outlandish without playing it for laughs. Sure, there were laughs, but there was also real stakes here and the connections to our real world conflicts were uncanny.

If Peacemaker is bold enough to tackle racism and literal Nazis this head on, we can only hope that later DC projects showcase similar courage. Hey, maybe this Gunn guy knows what he’s doing…

Peacemaker premieres new episodes every Friday on NOW and Sky.