After last week’s serious low point of the season, Peacemaker comes back swinging in one of the series’ absolute best episodes. Directed by Alethea Jones, Peacemaker Season 2 Episode 5, “Back to the Suture,” moves all of the series’ ongoing plot lines forward in a momentous, satisfying manner. Bolstered by an emotional turn from John Cena as Christopher Smith/the title character, Peacemaker has been teed up for an unbelievably exciting final three episodes.
Like the previous couple of episodes, Peacemaker Season 2 Episode 5 opens on a flashback. This time we’re in the immediate aftermath of The Suicide Squad. Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) mourns quietly at the funeral of Rick Flag Jr. (Joel Kinnaman), not realizing that none other than Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo) is sitting right behind her. Flag is comforting towards Harcourt, urging her to get more familiar (“Call me Rick”), and claims that she was more to his son than one of his flings. Harcourt responds by insisting they’re going to put the man who killed Rick to justice.
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Frank Grillo’s performance is immediately better this week. In the episode’s opener, he puts on a calm charm that nearly works on the audience. I say nearly because there’s an undertone to his interactions with Harcourt that suggests he may be manipulating the situation. For a character that’s been a drag to watch the past few episodes, and on Creature Commandos, it’s exciting to actually feel something towards Rick Flag Sr. Before we can ponder that too long, the obligatory intro dance takes us into the episode proper.
John Cena reaches great emotional heights in Peacemaker Season 2 Episode 5.
Present Day. Emilia Harcourt is waiting in a park to lure Chris into ARGUS’s trap. The area is surrounded by undercover agents, including Flag himself, Langston Fleury (Tim Meadows), and Sasha Bordeaux (Sol Rodríguez). Rip Jagger/Judomaster (Nhut Le) has a sniper ready to fire a tranq dart into Chris when he arrives. Chris does arrive and, unluckily for ARGUS, seems to be very aware he has a sniper on him.
He walks through a stable of puppies, walks next to civilians, and positions himself on the bench next to Harcourt in a way where shooting him would mean shooting her, ripping out Emilia’s com mic for good measure. Emilia seems mad that Chris has arrived. She reveals that she had texted him the word “copasetic” as a code for Chris to stay away. Chris reveals in turn that he knows.
He’s here for one reason alone: to ask Harcourt if there’s anything between the two of them. Harcourt responds that hooking up at all was a mistake and that she can’t forgive him for killing Rick Flag Jr., as he was her only friend. Jennifer Holland and John Cena are just phenomenal in this sequence, Chris wearing his heart fully on his sleeve while Harcourt, in trying to save his life, has to put up a front of callousness.
Bordaux’s fate ties Peacemaker Season 2 Episode 5 into DC Comics lore.
We don’t get much time to sit in that delicious awkwardness, as ARGUS busts in, surrounding Peacemaker on all sides. Chris isn’t going to take this lying down, so Flag unveils his secret weapon: Bordeaux. One of Sasha’s eyes presents a technological overlay, and she claims she can get a fatal shot at Chris. Once again, writer/showrunner James Gunn does the magic trick he did with Rick Flag of suddenly making me care about a previously underdeveloped character.
Moreover, this actually ties in with DC Comics lore, where Bordeaux is transformed into an OMAC cyborg. It’s fair to note that a version of OMAC appeared in Blue Beetle, which has been suggested to be canon to this new DC Studios Universe. It’s more likely that Sasha’s situation is similar to that of The Engineer in Superman, as John Economos (Steve Agee) later clarifies in the episode that she was given this technology after a gruesome injury. It’s neat to see Gunn build out this little cybernetic corner of the universe, yet it’s dubious what it will all lead to, as the The Authority movie looks less and less likely every day.
To prevent the killshot, Harcourt tackles Chris and chokes him unconscious. He arrives at ARGUS headquarters, where they put him into an interrogation room. Emilia Harcourt quickly makes moves towards Economos, telling him that to ensure Chris/Peacemaker is safe, they need to officially book him into the system. Otherwise, ARGUS will make sure that Chris “disappears.”
Frank Grillo has several great moments to shine in Peacemaker Season 2 Episode 5.
In the interrogation room, Rick Flag Sr walks in, asking for Smith to be uncuffed. Chris starts to apologize to Flag, though before he can get more than a few words in, Flag starts wailing on him. This is another standout moment for Frank Grillo this week, who brings an animalistic rage as he absolutely pummels Chris.
His revenge for his son’s death doesn’t last long, as Flag is soon informed that Chris has been booked in the system. He lets Chris go, as the dejected Smith walks out onto the steps where Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) and Adrian Chase/Vigilante (Freddie Stroma) are waiting for him.
Meanwhile, we get yet another great Frank Grillo moment as he cements himself as the episode’s standout. Rick reveals to Sasha that his over-the-top anger towards Chris was nothing more than an act, and he foresaw Chris getting booked and needed to buy the time to set up Judomaster to tail Chris to his cabin.
Flag Sr. is really coming to the forefront as an expert manipulator, something that’s cemented when he asks Bordeaux to call him Rick in a similar way that he did to Harcourt, clueing the audience in that the people around him are simply tools to get what he wants.
The Eagly plot comes to an excellent conclusion in Peacemaker Season 2 Episode 5.
Before we jump back into Christopher, the Eagly versus Red St. Wild (Michael Rooker) storyline finally, mercifully comes to an end this week. And wouldn’t you know it—like Sasha Bordeaux and Rick Flag Sr.—James Gunn makes it interesting! While Rooker’s performance and the character still don’t work, despite the amusing sight gag of an eight-foot musket, how the character is dispatched really, really works.
Eagly reveals himself to be the Prime Eagle of Indigenous myth that is able to control other Eagles, who absolutely maul Red to death as a psychedelic purple aura appears around Eagly. I was more than ready to say goodbye to this storyline, and Gunn made it worthwhile in the end.
Alright, now it’s time to get into the home stretch. A dejected Chris rebuffs Adebayo’s attempts to cheer him up, flat out ignoring Adrian in the process, who looks like a sad puppy. He requests to be dropped off alone. He walks into the portal, closing it behind him, leaving a note for the fellow 11th Street Kids.
Peacemaker Season 2 Episode 5 sets things up for a huge reveal on the alternate Earth.
Judomaster manages to sneak in behind him. Chris and Eagly make a new life in the alternate world, as Peacemaker joins his brother and his dad to defeat a Kaiju that looks similar to the one from Superman. And, of course, Chris gets to embrace the alternate Emilia.
Back on regular Earth, Adrian is especially heartbroken by Chris’s departure. Emilia, however, is not about to take this lying down. She reveals her true colors as she leads the charge to somehow, someway, find Chris and get him back. And with that, we are ready to embark on the much-hyped, mysterious episodes 6-8.
Peacemaker Season 2 Episode 5 is a home run. It’s intense, deeply detailed in terms of character, and sets up a generational arc of episodes to conclude the season. James Gunn and his team of directors are firing on all cylinders, and when the eventual truth of the alternate Earth is revealed, I hope that they can keep this up.
Peacemaker Season 2 Episode 5 is now streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes released every week.
