Full spoilers follow for Peacemaker Season 2, Episode 7 - “Like a Keith in the Night.”
After last week’s big episode, which gave us a Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor cameo and the reveal of what’s really going on in the Best Dimension Ever, Peacemaker’s second season is finally firing on all Peace-Cycle cylinders. James Gunn, who scripted the whole season (Alethea Jones directs this episode), also proves that he’s still got a twist or two up his super-suit sleeve, reminding us that the fans can’t always predict where things are going.
Sure, the theory that John Cena’s Chris has been living a fake life on the Nazi planet Earth-X wound up panning out. But who saw Robert Patrick’s alt-Auggie Smith being an actual hero rather than a Nazi monster? It’s hinted at early in this episode when he recalls seeing what we can only assume was Auggie Prime years ago inside the Quantum Unfolding Chamber, describing him as “something cruel, like he came from a world that was a dark version of ours.” But right before things go to hell at the alt-Smith house in the episode’s climax, with the unlikely team of Ads (Danielle Brooks), both Vigilantes (Freddie Stroma), and Judomaster (Nhut Le) invading the place to save Chris and Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), alt-Auggie even gives a speech about fighting “the madmen, murderers and monsters in front of me, because that’s all I can control.” I for one sure didn’t see that coming.
Of course, alt-Auggie is unfortunately killed moments later by one of the Vigilantes, and it’s played as sort of a gag. But the odd thing about this season has been how it’s felt like a lot of running in place was going on for the first five weeks, and given how short the episode runtimes are, we’re now rushing to the finish line with only one week left after this. I wouldn’t have minded a bit more time with alt-Auggie to figure out what Gunn’s point was with this twist. Good can exist even in dark times? You’re still a collaborator, even if you think you’re fighting the good fight, as long as greater evil remains in your midst? I dunno.
Still, “Like a Keith in the Night” is one of the strongest segments of the season so far, and it’s full of not just humorous bits (“His favorite Pokemon is also Infernape!”) but also some real emotional moments as well. Harcourt laying her head on Chris’s back, and him taking her hand while they’re riding on the Peace-Cycle while a rock ballad plays on the soundtrack – despite being pursued by the cops at the same time – is just great, and certainly Cena continues to prove his acting chops, particularly when Chris later breaks down over all the death that he has caused.
In the past couple of episodes since the reveal of the Nazi planet – yes, they won World War II, which led to this whole mess – Peacemaker Season 2 has had to walk a funny sort of line between the crazy notion of a fascist world while also maintaining the show’s generally funny and wacky tone. The series, and pretty much Gunn’s entire body of work, has always been able to sew together great characterizations, insane and silly scenarios, and real emotional throughlines, but having a Black actress chased by a mob of white supremacists while still keeping things “light” is quite a feat. Of course, it helps when you can end the scene by electrocuting that mob in a swimming pool.
But even look at the start of the episode, which picks up exactly where we left off last week. As Harcourt points out all the obvious “Nazi planet” signs – copies of Mein Kampf everywhere, a mural of Hitler on the A.R.G.U.S. wall – Chris tells alt-Harcourt that he thinks they should break up. It all could’ve been depicted as dark, foreboding, scary, or all of the above. Instead, it’s hilarious.
This week we do spend a lot of time with the 11th Street Kids getting out of all the jams they found themselves in at the end of the previous episode, so some other characters are short-changed. Frank Grillo’s Rick Flag Sr. meets Lex’s assistant (Stephen Blackehart's Sydney Happersen, from last summer’s Superman, in a far less exciting cameo), who immediately locates Peacemaker’s dimensional portal for him. But the Rick Sr. scenes this week do nothing to advance what his agenda really is or why he cares so much about the portals.
Alt-Harcourt is a mystery now in the wake of alt-Auggie’s heroic reveal. Is she a Nazi too, or just living among them? And again, as with alt-Auggie, is there a difference? With only one week left, I wonder if we’ll ever find out. But David Denman’s Keith/Captain Triumph, on the other hand… his rage over the death of his real brother is certainly justified, and now that the tempering force of alt-Auggie is no longer around – and that Harcourt didn’t manage to take Keith out before heading back home – one can’t help but wonder what the final showdown between him and Chris will be like.
Thoughts From the Quantum Unfolding Chamber:
Io e l’hardware