The Eagles Come Home to Roost in the Most Screwball ‘Peacemaker’ Yet

Peacemaker season two is trucking right along, picking up from its last episode’s big cliffhanger, suspending the situationship of Christopher Smith and Emilia Harcourt for an entire week before viewers can see how the chips will fall. Will Eagly make it out okay? Does bird blindness have a cure? Will the shoe ever drop on the long-held fan theory that Chris’ “best dimension ever†is actually a Nazi dimension?

Seeing as how writer-director James Gunn has kept mum about every episode beyond this point, surely the answers to any of the above questions will prove to be watershed moments for the DC Universe moving forward.

Keeping in line with past episodes, episode five, “Back to the Sutureâ€â€”the shortest episode of the season so far—starts with a flashback from three years ago at the funeral of Richard Bill Flag Jr. (Joel Kinnaman). Everyone is sad-faced, including John Economos (Steve Agee) and especially Harcourt (Jennifer Holland).

Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo) laments the absurdity of the Suicide Squad being the mission that got his baby boy killed and asks Harcourt if she knows who killed him. Although Harcourt wasn’t at liberty to share the classified info, Flag Sr. reveals that his son loved her as a friend “and whatever else.†Nevertheless, she’ll always be family to the Flags, a sentiment Sr. punctuates with his insistence that Harcourt call him by his first name—ignoring how entangled the “whatever else†of it all would make that distinction.

Still, Harcourt promises that Jr.’s killer will pay, which brings us to the present and her sting-operated rendezvous with Christopher Smith (John Cena).

With ARGUS’s goons, including Flag Sr., Sasha Bordeaux (Sol Rodriguez), Judomaster (Nhut Le), and Fleury (Timothy Meadows), lying in wait, Chris enters the park and pets every dog to prevent them from shooting him on sight before throwing away Harcourt’s hidden microphone. Clever boy. His only question is asking Harcourt if anything that happened on their secret boat outing meant anything to her.

Flustered at Chris for coming despite her code word “copacetic†being a warning that their meeting was a trap, Harcourt says it meant nothing to her. Chris, in kind, punches his way out of ARGUS’s ambush. Before Bordeaux can take her definitive kill shot, Harcourt leg-trips Chris and chokes him out on some non-lethal takedown shit.

Back at ARGUS, Economos overhears Bordeaux arguing with Harcourt for ruining her shot, and they get all up in each other’s faces. Chris, being escorted into ARGUS, makes light of his situation. At the same time, Harcourt tries to rope Economos into helping her with their Chris situation that’ll end in either he or Flag Sr. killing each other.

Her plan: get Chris an official criminal record so Flag can’t cross the red tape of killing a man whose existence was wiped from official records. Elsewhere, at the Smith cabin in the woods, Red St. Wild (Michael Rooker) is fresh off his trippy spirit quest and is ready to kill Eagly. His plan: to inject a rat with poison and have Eagly eat it. Episode five is abounding with machinations.

Back at ARGUS, Flag Sr. orders Fleury and Bordeaux to turn off all recording equipment and leave. Flag Sr., fluent in talking with his fists, engages in a “dialogue†with Chris as he attempts to apologize for killing Flag Jr. His plan: provoke Chris to fight back. This goes on for some time. Meanwhile, Bordeaux takes umbrage with Economos registering Chris. Score one for the Peacemaker group’s scheme. Bordeaux interrupts Flag Sr.’s bloody law enforcement malpractice to let him know Chris is in the books. Yet another plan thwarted.

With one last plan left to be foiled, Eagly, head empty, nearly wolfs down the poisoned rat until Adrian Chase (Freddie Stroma) rouses the beaked symbol of America to inform him they’re going to “get his dad.†A fox runs off with the poison rat, bringing us to a one-for-two plan that worked this episode, as Eagly gives it chase.

In Primal-esque dialogue-less acting, viewers witness the fox eat the rat and die as Eagly watches. Gunn’s career plan to perpetuate uncomfortable animal harm is off the charts. Going back to the drawing board, DC’s Wile E. Coyote, St. Wild, pulls out a comedically massive gun to shoot Eagly with.

Being left in suspense over whether Eagly’s name will grace “did the bird die dot com,†we jump back to ARGUS as Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) and Adrian see a beat-up Chris being helped off the premises by Economos—all the while Judomaster tails the crew by order of Flag Sr.

Back in the car, Chris, broken-hearted, tells Adebayo and Adrian that Harcourt sold him out. Despite their protests that Harcourt wouldn’t abandon him for a job, Chris says he’s over it, hinting at him retreating to the hugbox of his pocket universe—which Adebayo clocks.

Back at the cabin, Chris tries to whistle for Eagly, who we delight in informing you wasn’t gunned down by St. Wild’s fuck-off-sized gun. St. Wild is promptly mauled to death by a flock of birds of prey. Primal justice sorted, Chris retreats into his cabin and pens a letter about leaving for the pocket universe with Eagly. Simultaneously, Judomaster and ARGUS have satellite eyes on the cabin, and Adebayo and Adrian drive back to stop him. Judomaster manages to follow in after Chris before the pair can get there in time. We might be homing in on whether the pocket universe is a shitty Nazi universe, reader.

Adebayo reads out Chris’s letter to the rest of the gang, informing them he’s going to try to stay in the alternate universe, and his plans to be with alt-Harcourt and continue to be a reformed man in the pocket dimension. He entrusts his alien helmet to them to get in the good graces of ARGUS, and Adrian takes the news, visibly at least, harder than anyone. We close on Harcourt hatching a new plan for the gang to go after Chris. Hell yeah.

Peaceful Peacemaker Pontifications

• Adrian informing Adebayo and the masses what “Greek†means in red-light district circles. The more you know 🌈
• The revelation that Bordeaux is some sort of cyborg lady. Neat.
• Fleury, frat bro sensibilities and bird blindness aside, stopped the buck at police brutality.
• Bordeaux not being immune to Zaddy Rick Flag Sr.’s effect on women from Creature Commandos.
• The Looney Tunes-ass outing Rooker was on this episode.
• Chris and Judomaster leave notes like video game characters would leave codexes to let people know where they are.
• Chris being able to kill the giant kaiju from Superman. RIP, little-big buddy.

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