The Best Characters In Peacemaker, Ranked

As the "Peacemaker" first season finale drew to a close, my first thought was, "It was always about that intro." For six weeks, the neon-lit dance that opened James Gunn's "The Suicide Squad" follow-up dominated social media. But, in the end, it was more than just a meme-able credits sequence. More than anything else, the finale revealed that it was a declaration of artistic intent.

All of the major "Peacemaker" characters appear in the Wig Wam-synched dance number, but they're not alone. The show's deep bench of supporting players gets in on the action, too. Jamil the janitor jetés with his mop mere seconds before Auggie's elderly neighbor cuts a rug, and Eagly brings the whole thing home. It's obvious that Gunn cares about each of these characters equally, even if their time on "Peacemaker" is brief. 

This devotion is what separates HBO Max's hit show from so many of its comic book TV brethren. In a world where every new superhero show feels like a soft-launch for the next series and "surprise" cameos are all but inevitable, "Peacemaker" works because it builds its own universe out of the characters its creators want to focus on, not the ones the studio has bigger plans for, and it clearly loves them in all their messy, awkwardly dancing glory. Yes, we've ranked them here, but really? All of the characters on "Peacemaker" are important. Every single one.

The wacky next-door neighbor is a well-worn trope. The history of television is rife with them. "WandaVision" knew this when it gave us Agatha Harkness, and James Gunn knew it when he created Auggie's neighbor, the cranky geriatric played by Mel Tuck of "Legends of Tomorrow" fame. But Auggie's neighbor is less of a riff on Fred Mertz or Eddie Haskell than he is a thorn in Peacemaker's side. In his most memorable scene, he eviscerates Peacemaker's confidence. "Do you have a coterie of supervillains?" he sneers. "My coterie of supervillains is six-feet f***ing under!" Peacemaker retorts. Auggie's neighbor replies, "There, you see? Batman doesn't kill people." 

Yes, this conversation leads to a miraculous riff on the Caped Crusader's flaws, but its primary function is to stack the deck against poor Chris Smith. Smith's path to the dark side began at home. Every time he returns, his journey grows longer. As this conversation with Auggie's neighbor proves, Peacemaker's dad does not need to be present to prolong his son's trauma. That's what wacky neighbors are for.

Before Larry Fitzgibbon is murdered and taken over by a Butterfly, Goff, possessing Officer Song, reveals who he really is. "I do feel that she was fond of you," Goff says. This comes moments after Fitzgibbon pleads with Song to seek medical attention, and mere hours after he valiantly tries to save her life. It all adds up: Larry Fitzgibbon is a good person trying to do his job well, and supports Sophia Song with unwavering stability. 

Have we seen characters like Fitzgibbon before? Yes, absolutely. In a lesser show, both Song and Fitzgibbon would serve as basic copaganda, or would be as dull as a JC Penny ad.  Here, both have strong personalities. Fitzgibbon specifically comes across as a quietly progressive lifer at the Evergreen Police Department. He's happy to josh it up with Song, and equally quick to combat the bigotry around her. He's overworked. He's remarkably devoted. Those qualities get him killed, but not before we grow as fond of him as Sophie Song was.

"Show, don't tell" is a classic piece of writing advice, but I'm sure that whoever coined those words didn't imagine they'd apply to a martial artist wearing a lime costume who wolfs down Cheetos after casually smashing two racists' windpipes. But that's just one of the many memorable things that Judo Master does without uttering a word. Like many of the fights the character picks, it speaks volumes about him.

As we learn during episode 8, "It's Cow or Never," Judo Master has allied himself with the Butterflies because he believes, like they do, that humans are no longer able to care for the planet or themselves. He doesn't see himself as a mercenary, but rather a bodyguard for the Butterflies and a noble champion of their cause. He survives all manner of violence to further their agenda. That he doles out punishment to the hate-speech spitting meatheads mentioned above is further proof that the character has a moral compass, however wildly it's spinning when we meet him. "Peacemaker" shows  us about Judo Master while telling us very little, resulting in a funny and fascinating character.

James Gunn hasn't been shy about praising the "Peacemaker" cast, but when tweeting about Annie Chang, Gunn offered a particularly incandescent compliment: "When @Itsanniechang auditioned she had to audition as TWO characters – Sophie & Goff. Some actors were great at one or the other but only Annie was great at both."

That lede buries the key to appreciating Sophia Song, who's a memorable character well before the Butterflies take her over. Song is the opposite of Goff. Goff breaks the rules in order to ensure humanity's existence. Song follows them until her need for justice takes precedence, pushing her to free a white supremacist she loathes in order to catch the criminal she's after. Song is steadfast in her approach to policing, while Goff is quick to act, even approaching recklessness. And Song is quietly affectionate, while Goff beams with compassion and, at times, loathing. 

No, it isn't fair to discuss Song through the lens of Goff alone but, in the words of The Rolling Stones, "You don't know what you got 'till it's gone." The depth of Song's character is revealed, both by "Peacemaker" as a show and Chung as an actress, in her absence. Both deserve glowing praise.

In the penultimate episode of "Peacemaker," Emilia Harcourt decides that Peacemaker is only "85% an a**hole." It's a lovely moment, made all the more poignant because Harcourt herself is 85% a you-know-what, even if those around her won't say so out loud. 

No, really. Emila Harcourt is not a nice person. She is as likely to hurl insults someone's way as she is to break their wrist in a bar fight. Her anger is born of institutionalized misogyny, the stress inherent to spycraft, and the general unpleasantness in her soul. But Emilia Harcourt is also a kind person. Underneath her harsh exterior is a genuine desire to be good. That's why the team makes her leader when Murr falls. That's why the 11th Street Kids' text thread makes her emotional defenses collapse. Harcourt is proof that people can be great without being agreeable, and both the show and its characters cherish that dichotomy. 

So, when Harcourt tells Peacemaker that he's become just a little bit less of a jerk, it isn't an act of forgiveness. It's game recognizing game — and there's almost no one you'd rather play with on the field of superheroics than Emilia Harcourt.

Clemson Murn was a bad man. Everyone knows it. Even Peacemaker, who casually slaughters a camp full of freedom fighters to show up his teammate in "The Suicide Squad," expresses reservations about working for Murn. But the person who understands the depths of Murn's evil better than anyone else isn't a person at all — it's a Butterfly.

By the time that we meet Murn, he is actually Ik Nobe Llok, a rogue Butterfly out to stop his compatriots' enslavement of our planet. Now, Llok has a moral compass. When he admits to Adebayo that he's been lying to her the whole time, he practically shrinks. In his final moments of life, he sacrifices himself for a race of people not his own. As a vessel, the body of Murn is proof that change, however unlikely, is always possible; Murn was a mercenary and a murderer, but Llok makes him an extrodinary leader.

But it's not all about the old Murn. As a character, Llok is one of Peacemaker's most beautiful creations. The Butterfly believes in what's best for this world, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. When he passes, it's no wonder that Gunn lets us see him in his Butterfly form. As we knew him, Murn was a great man. Ik Nobe Llok, though, was a great Butterfly — and, by extension, a pretty decent human, too.

Even before Leota Adebayo comes to realize that she was, in her own words, "made for this s***," we can see that she was born for it. She is the daughter of Amanda Waller, whose morally gray actions have both saved the world and cost many, many lives. Adebayo's legacy is global conflict. There's nowhere she belongs more than on the frontlines of a fight against hostile alien invaders.

So, what's notable about Amanda Waller's offspring, then, is how not like Amanda Waller she is. Adebayo does not excel at deception. Despite planting false evidence on Peacemaker and manipulating Vigilante into making an attempt on Auggie Smith's life, Adebayo is at her best when she's being transparent. She is nakedly honest with Peacemaker and finds a loyal friend and teammate as a result. She pushes her wife away, only to save the world with her in mind. When the dust has settled on the Butterflies' attempted takeover of Earth, she exposes Waller's covert operations for what they are, holding the proverbial smoking gun during a televised press conference.

Adebayo is more than a fierce spirit and loveable goof. She blazes a new trail forward for herself, the 11th Street Kids, and her mother's cynical brand of espionage in every single episode. She truly was made for this.

John Cena is becoming a very special performer, but nothing he has done before — heck, nothing James Gunn has done before — prepared me for the journey that Peacemaker takes in this show. When "A Whole New Whirled" begins, the Peacemaker identity is how Chris Smith escapes from himself, the man who was raised by a white nationalist and accidentally killed his brother. By the time the show closes, Peacemaker and Chris Smith are one and the same. That silly helmet no longer obscures the man as much as it reveals the person he really is.

And who is that, exactly? No less than a well-meaning lug. No one would call Chris the brightest guy in the room, but he's sharp as a tack when he has to be, and he's more soulful than he'll ever let on. He believes in miracles. He plays the piano. To see Chris for all the great, awful, silly, and endearing things he contains means reconsidering with how we look at others in our lives, be they friends or those we encounter on social media. Peacemaker is more than a character. He's a reckoning for anyone who encounters him. It has been a long time since any persona non grata in the comic book media space carried that kind of power. Because Peacemaker does, he's easily the show's best character.