It’s hard to make sense of this Peacemaker finale unless you think about the broader goals of James Gunn’s rapidly expanding DC Universe. By the end of the episode, Checkmate, a new agency aimed at “making the world better,” has been hastily introduced in a montage — but if you don’t feel like reading this Wikipedia page, it’s probably safe to assume you’ll learn all about it in an upcoming Peacemaker spinoff series. Salvation, a far-off planet discovered in the Quantum Unfolding Chamber, is also borrowed from the comics, and will clearly play a larger role in an as-yet-unrevealed DC project. Just take it from James Gunn: “That’s going to be an incredibly important thing in the future of the DCU,” he says in the promotional documentary that plays after the conclusion of the episode.
Okay, great news about the future of the DCU — but what about the present of Peacemaker? “Full Nelson” does its best to close out the season’s emotional arcs, but it’s hard not to feel like this episode is an extended teaser for whatever Gunn is cooking up next.
The episode begins by revealing, at last, what happened between Chris and Harcourt during the much-discussed party boat incident. After a drunken night out at Big Belly Burger, Chris and Harcourt stumbled onto a rock cruise fronted by hard rock duo Nelson and ended up sharing a dance and a kiss.
Back in the present, Chris is rotting in prison in self-imposed exile, refusing any visitors as he grapples with his belief that anyone close to him is doomed to die horribly. Meanwhile, A.R.G.U.S. sends a task force into the Quantum Unfolding Chamber in hopes of finding a planet that can support human life. It’s a mission that results in the deaths of more than a few agents, and Gunn has fun, at least, teasing a few of the many alternate universes in the Peacemaker-verse, including a Candyland-esque paradise full of homicidal imps and a zombie dystopia.
What’s lost here, strangely, is the alternate dimension that formed the backbone for Peacemaker’s second season: Earth-X, the universe in which the Nazis won World War II and took over the United States. I didn’t expect the 11th Street Kids to singlehandedly lead a heroic resistance against the Nazi regime on Earth-X, but someone could have at least mentioned feeling guilty about having fled to the safety of their own universe, leaving behind untold millions of people in concentration camps.
Instead, “Half Nelson” finds the 11th Street Kids embarking on their version of one of Gunn’s pet themes: A group of troubled misfits coming together to form a found family. After bailing out Chris with Vigilante’s hoard of recovered drug money, Adebayo convinces Chris that the problem isn’t him — it’s when he ignores his own best instincts. His life has been warped by influences as diffuse as his father and Amanda Waller, but now that the 11th Street Kids have found each other, they have the chance to create the lives they choose.
The result is Checkmate, which will be led by a grab-bag of characters from Peacemaker’s second season. And while the show has at least hinted at redemption arcs for Judomaster, Fleury, and Sasha Bordeaux over the course of the season, it’s still a little jarring to see these onetime enemies join Chris, Harcourt, Adebayo, Vigilante, and Economos over the course of a single rushed montage. It feels, frankly, unearned.
The other major bit of business the episode finally handles is the same question Chris has been insistently asking all season: Did that moment on the party boat with Harcourt mean anything? At long last, Harcourt drops her defenses long enough to give him the answer he’d been hoping for: “Of course it did, you fucking asshole. It meant everything.”
It’s a moment that gives Gunn the excuse to needle-drop “Oh Lord” one last time, as Chris dances for joy in the privacy of his room. But it’s also, sadly, probably the happiest moment he’s going to get for a while. In the season-ending cliffhanger, Rick Flag Sr. grabs Chris in the middle of the night and dumps him through the door A.R.G.U.S. discovered. He is the first prisoner on Salvation, which will soon be populated by all the metahumans A.R.G.U.S. didn’t want on Earth. But that might be the least of his problems: As the episode ends, Chris hears what the subtitles describe as a “monstrous howl” and “otherworldly growling.” At least it’s not a Nazi universe.
Stray bullets:
• No sign of Alt-Keith in this finale, but it seems unlikely the show is done with him altogether. I guess we’ll find out in season three (which hasn’t been formally ordered, but seems awfully likely, despite the number of projects Gunn is currently juggling).
• I’m not sure how many Peacemaker fans were clamoring for closure on Adebayo and Keeya’s failing marriage, but their breakup is beautifully written by Gunn and acted by Danielle Brooks and Elizabeth Ludlow.
• Much like the rest of the season, this finale was fairly light on comedy, but all credit to Steve Agee for the extremely funny bit where Economos awkwardly improvises office small-talk in an effort to keep A.R.G.U.S. off Harcourt and Sasha’s trail.
• I’ll be curious to see how Creature Commandos season two squares its flawed but basically good-hearted take on Rick Flag Sr. with the vindictive, power-abusing tyrant that appeared in Peacemaker’s second season. I can buy that Rick is uncharacteristically mad with grief, but it’s still hard to come back from turning a government agency into a tool for a convicted war criminal, or from kidnapping Chris and dumping him onto a far-off planet without anything even resembling due process.
• The finale’s song choices include Hardcore Superstar’s “Someone Special,” a stripped-down riff on Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” and Steel Panther’s “Fucking My Heart in the Ass” — as well as two lengthy on-screen performances by Nelson, belting the soft-rock ballad “To Get Back to You,” and Foxy Shazam delivering a rousing rendition of “Oh Lord,” season two’s grower of a theme song.
• Big Belly Burger, an homage to Bob’s Big Boy, has its own rich history in DC Comics.
• Harcourt’s new desk statuette is a direct reference to Rick Flag Jr.’s shirt from The Suicide Squad.
• “I’m just getting really far in Princess Peach: Showtime. And it’s not easy just because it’s about a girl.”
• And that’s a wrap on Peacemaker’s second season! The introduction of Salvation may have been a little rushed and schematic, but it opens up many, many interesting opportunities to introduce new villains into the DCU. Who would you like to see show up? Sound off in the comments below.