Peacemaker Season 2 Review: James Gunn's Misfits Tackle Their Trauma In A Stellar Second Season

"Peacemaker" is kind of a miracle. The HBO Max series started as a sequel to James Gunn's 2021 comic book movie "The Suicide Squad," starring the one character nobody really wanted to see more of, and yet it worked. Actually, it didn't just work — it rocked. The first season of "Peacemaker" followed John Cena as a version of the old DC Comics character Peacemaker, a deeply patriotic superhero with a silly silver helmet and a pet eagle named Eagly for a sidekick, and it showed him fighting his inner demons just as much as it showed him working to save the world from alien brain bugs called "Butterflies." 

The audience got to know his alter ego, Christopher Smith, a deeply insecure but ultimately good guy with a traumatic past and a white supremacist supervillain dad (played by Robert Patrick), and we got to see him grow from being a miserable jerk at the end of "The Suicide Squad" to working through some of his trauma, making real friends, and becoming a more whole human being. He saved the world along with his new crew, the 11th Street Kids, and that could have been a satisfying and tidy ending. Nothing in Gunn's new DC Universe has been that neat and clean, however, just like real life, and "Peacemaker" season 2 drops us off after the high of saving the world has worn off and the realities of their actions over the first season have set in. All of the brutal fight scenes, killer needle-drops, and gross jokes of the first season are still here, but Chris's inner turmoil has spread to the rest of the 11th Street Kids, leading to a sophomore season that feels darker and more mature than the first.

Based on the first five episodes of "Peacemaker" season 2 provided to critics, the series is going to places few other superhero stories would dare, and it's doing it with all of the style and humor we've come to love from creator James Gunn. 

The first season of "Peacemaker" was an unconventional platonic love story between Chris and his new friend and co-worker, Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), with most of the interior drama focused on Chris. But in season 2 the rest of the Kids are all dealing with their own trauma in big ways. Stopping Project Butterfly had consequences for everyone, ranging from Leota being fired and on the outs with her girlfriend, to former special agent Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) being unable to find work pretty much anywhere, and they're not all handling it great. Adebayo is trying to stay positive while working a minimum wage gig, John Economos (Steve Agee) is secretly working for A.R.G.U.S. spying on Peacemaker under his new boss Rick Flag, Sr. (Frank Grillo), Harcourt is starting bar fights for fun, and Vigilante (Freddie Stroma) is still pretty much the same. No one thanked them for saving the world, and worse, they keep getting laughed at or treated like garbage at every turn. 

So when Peacemaker discovers a doorway to another dimension in his dad's secret closet unfolding chamber, one where he could potentially start over, it forces him to question how much he wants to fight for a world that doesn't seem to want him there. Instead of trying to convince super-jerkwad Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion) to let him join the Justice Gang or feeling totally rejected by Harcourt, he could be living it up in an alternate universe that seems on its face to be a whole lot nicer, and it starts to look pretty enticing. 

The whole reason Economos is spying on Peacemaker for Flag, of course, is because Peacemaker killed his son, Rick Flag, Jr. (Joel Kinnaman), on Corto Maltese during the events of "The Suicide Squad." Fresh off of "Creature Commandos" duty and heading up A.R.G.U.S., Flag is ready to kick ass and take names, and he wants Peacemaker's to be the first he crosses off his list. That means there's a whole bunch of A.R.G.U.S. agents making Peacemaker's life hell, including Tim Meadows as the hilariously rude and deadpan Langston Fleury, who gives everyone working for him demeaning nicknames.

Aside from Harcourt's thirst for violence, most of the action in season 2 is centered around the A.R.G.U.S. agents, providing a good counterbalance to the more dramatic story beats. Meadows is great and he and Agee spitting venom at one another is a blast, even if none of the agents are quite as fun as Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji) or Agent Song (Annie Chang) from season 1. The soundtrack is still phenomenal and there's a new opening dance sequence, so all of the "Peacemaker" pieces are in place — though this season seems to have even more on its mind than the first.

Instead of a big bad alien invasion, Peacemaker's main antagonist this season is Flag, who honestly has somewhat justifiable reasons for wanting to bring Chris to justice. There's alien technology, a weird guy from another dimension that hangs out in the closet, and dimension-hopping portals, but the most important part of "Peacemaker" season 2 is ultimately human. 

If the first season of "Peacemaker" was about Chris shaking free from the toxic tendrils of his past, the second season is about him looking for real forgiveness. Sure, he killed his white supremacist dad and saved the world, but he also did a whole lot of terrible things before that, including killing Flag Jr. and accidentally killing his own brother as a child. He has to learn to forgive himself but feels like no one will ever see him as anything but his misdeeds, which makes the whole thing more difficult. He's wracked with guilt that's only compounded by the way he's treated, which is the kind of thing that could easily turn him back toward a path of destruction. "Peacemaker" asks us how a person is supposed to forgive themselves when no one else seems willing to forgive, and what that kind of isolation can drive us to. Can Flag Sr. ever forgive him? Can the world?

What makes "Peacemaker" so great is that even in these moments, the kinship and love of the 11th Street Kids feels real. No matter how dark things get (and they get pretty dark), the bonds between these seriously screwed up sorta-superheroes run deep. Gunn has been telling stories about found families of misfits his whole career, but the 11th Street Kids might be the crew that matter most. We'll have to see how he sticks the landing and where things go after the rather large cliffhanger at the end of episode 5, but for now, "Peacemaker" is back, baby, and it still kicks major ass. 

/Film Rating: 9 out of 10

"Peacemaker" season 2 will premiere on Thursday, August 21, 2025 on HBO Max.