Peacemaker S2 (Now TV)

Peacemaker Season 2 is an entertaining, fast-paced new adventure in the lives of

Peacemaker (aka Chris Smith, played by John Cena) and his friends. It does

however suffer from being overly busy and simply too short to give anyone outside of

Chris much of anything meaningful in terms of character work.

Watching as someone who had not watched the first season (being reliant on friends

to tell him the gist of things), the show reintroduces returning and new viewers to the

core characters very effectively. This season is essentially a story about depression,

regret and guilt, and, in typical James Gunn fashion, how your chosen family can

provide a light around those dark emotions. As Chris discovers a portal to another

dimension where he is a celebrated superhero alongside his father and brother (both

dead in his home universe by Chris’ own doing), he gravitates more and more

towards this fantasy world as his real one relentlessly closes in on him for his past

mistakes.

Cena continues to excel as a performer capable of balancing comedy and dramatic

moments near-flawlessly, more so than ever before in this season. He imbues Chris

with this forlorn snark towards the traumatic past that has led to him becoming this

rather ridiculous, but still emphatically human, hero figure. Episode six sees an

especially compelling, soul-spilling argument between Chris and his romantic interest

Amelia (Jennifer Holland, also excellent) that is the series’ high point, and a clear

example of Gunn’s very empathetic character writing abilities. All the supporting cast

is a lot of fun, but sadly have little room to breathe given the often bafflingly short

(circa 35-minutes) episode runtimes. Vigilante (aka Adrian Chase, played by Freddie

Stroma) for example is a hilarious figure throughout, yet we are never given the

chance to sit with him and understand him as personally as we do Chris and (to not

quite the same extent) Amelia and Chris’ best friend Adebayo (Danielle Brooks). The

same can be said of essentially every character outside that core trio.

The group’s adventures together are often very funny, and the big reveal as to the

true nature of the alternate universe Chris spends so much time in is utterly mad.

The way this found family comes together to support Chris in truly desperate times is

very moving, especially so in a tear jerking scene in the finale. It is such a shame

though that the season abandons so much of the goodwill it has created to deliver a

bafflingly rushed, underwhelming finale that really does end things on a whimper,

and an unsatisfying cliffhanger too. If the show had allowed itself and the larger

ensemble more room to breathe, it could have achieved something a lot grander and

perhaps more filling in its emotional resonance. However, in the moments it does sit

still in amongst the silliness to let two people talk about how they feel, it excels. What

is here is very good, but the truly bafflingly poor finale and the overall rushed pace

makes it hard to not reflect on what could have been.