Peace Made

I finished watching the second season of Peacemaker a couple of days ago and it was terrific. Viewers can expect lots of violence and heavy metal music and good comedy. Only three episodes were directed by the now very busy Mr. James Gunn but he wrote all of them and I assume he chose all of the songs. I like to think of myself as someone who knows a little about music but I'd never heard of a single one of the many metal bands Gunn has used in seasons one and two. But they all rock. Maybe the context has a lot to do with it. I wasn't as thrilled with the new choice of theme song by a band named Foxy Shazam at first--the first season's song by Wigwam was a decadent delight, somehow raunchy and charmingly corny at the same time. But the Foxy Shazam song grew on me fast and I could see how it fit the more emotionally progressive tone of season two.

A lot of the comedy isn't so much about punchline but about concept. Michael Rooker plays the greatest eagle hunter in the world in this season. See, just let that sink in. John Economos' (Steve Agee) incredulous reaction to the very existence of such a man is made even funnier by a new character played by Tim Meadows whose obliviousness to his own lack of decency is so complete that he sees nothing wrong with nicknaming the only female member of his task force "Tits."

The plot of the season focuses on Peacemaker (John Cena) entering an alternate universe where his father and brother are still alive. He does so via a portal that had been in his father's house all his life but he'd been using only to exercise his pet eagle on cold mornings. He finds life so much better in the alternate universe that he wants to switch to living there permanently. However, there's a twist revealed later in the season that seems to have been borrowed from a Ncuti Gatwa era Doctor Who episode. I thought it worked fine but I thought it worked fine on the Doctor Who episode, too, though no-one else seems to be bringing up the episode fondly--I'm not saying which one it was because I don't want to spoil the season of Peacemaker for you.

Anyway, the series was a blast and I hope there's some future for the characters and for James Gunn with the DC movie universe.

Peacemaker is available on HBOMax.