That Peacemaker Season 2 Cameo Reveals A Shattering Detail You May Have Missed

The following article contains spoilers for season 2, episode 7 of "Peacemaker." 

The second season of James Gunn's hit HBO Max series "Peacemaker" has had some seriously fun cameos, like Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) being visited by Rick Flag, Sr. (Frank Grillo) at Belle Reve Correctional Center in the sixth episode to get a little help hunting down Peacemaker (John Cena) and his dimensional portal technology. Peacemaker using that technology to visit an alternate Earth also means that characters who were killed in season 1 can appear in season 2, like Peacemaker's dad Auggie Smith (Robert Patrick). And in episode 7, "Like a Keith in the Night," Evergreen police detective Larry Fitzgibbon (Lochlyn Munro) makes a reappearance. While it was kind of fun to see Fitzgibbon again after his takeover by alien butterfly parasite and eventual death in season 1, there were also some pretty disturbing implications involved in his appearance. 

You see, there are quite a few similarities between the Earth "our" Peacemaker is from and Earth-X, like both Vigilantes (Freddie Stroma) being obsessed with the same Pokémon (Infernape). But there are also some pretty major differences — caused by the fact that in Earth-X, the Nazis won World War II. So while Fitzgibbon is still a cop, his partner from our Earth, Sophie Song (Annie Chang), is conspicuously absent, and the implied reason is crushing. 

Earlier in the episode, we learn from Judomaster (Nhut Le) that anyone who doesn't fit into the whole Nazi dream gets shipped off to labor camps — any people of color, LGBTQ people, disabled folks, and more. Since Sophie Song was an Asian-American woman, the reason she's not Fitzgibbon's partner on Earth-X is because she's likely being held captive in one of those labor camps. Sophie was honestly one of the best side characters in season 1, and thinking about her enduring forced labor just because of her ethnic background is heartbreaking. Even if Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) wanted to meet her Earth-X doppleganger, she couldn't, because she's trapped in a freaking forced labor camp. Peacemaker may not have realized it to begin with, but Earth-X is definitely the Bad Place. 

However, Adebayo tells Judomaster over their game of Scrobble: "I'm not so sure this Nazi world is as different from our own world as we wish it was." And she's onto something. When you read the daily headlines about the various crises engulfing the United States and the rest of the world, it's not hard to see shades of Earth-X in our own modern landscape. "Peacemaker" hasn't exactly been subtle about its messaging, but Sophie Song's absence is a nuanced touch that really drives home just how horrible the institutionalized bigotry of Earth-X really is.

"Peacemaker" season 2 is streaming on HBO Max.