REVIEW: 'Peacemaker' Season 2 Episode 7 Lands A Little Short
- Christopher Mills
- Oct 3
- 5 min read
This article contains spoilers for 'Peacemaker' Season 2 Episode 7.
The finale for Peacemaker Season 2 is almost among us, possibly teasing the future of storytelling for the DCU. First, though, let’s talk about the penultimate episode, which leaves conflicting thoughts as it was a great episode but is ultimately brought down by its short runtime, fast pacing, and scene choices.
When we last left off, Christopher Smith (John Cena), alongside the 11th Street Kids, discovered that this alternate earth was indeed Earth-X, a world where the Nazis won World War 2. Chris and Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) trapped in A.R.G.U.S., Vigilante (Freddie Stroma) with his Earth-X counterpart, Economos (Steve Agee), being discovered by Auggie Smith (Robert Patrick), and finally Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) being chased down the street by Keith Smith (David Denman) and a gang of hate-filled racists. For a twist that we saw a mile away, it was handled extremely well and left room for discussion, but does this episode live up to the expectations?
It’s quite unbelievable just how ignorant Chris actually is, as it’s revealed to us that every desk has a copy of Mein Kampf on it with a huge mural of Adolf Hitler himself on the wall behind him. It’s hard to get into his head and understand how lost in this world he was to miss out on the clear cues that this Earth wasn’t of any good, but the episode throws us straight into the action as Chris and Harcourt fight their way out, once again delivering some badass action with Harcourt.
This is an episode that’s only just 33 minutes long, less than that if we don’t include the credits, and while James Gunn is known for his humour, there’s a time and a place where that is welcomed. We’re met with some sweet moments as Judomaster (Nhut Le) comes to Adebayo’s rescue, and we get a small bonding moment between the two. Not only do we get to finally learn more about the type of person Judomaster is, but we also finally return to Adebayo’s problems that she first mentioned at the start of the season.
Instead of getting more between the two or even more with the repercussions of Auggie and Keith trying to figure out the truth, we’re cutting back to Eagly (Dee Bradley Baker) misbehaving and failing to free Economos. We dealt with our Eagly storyline for this season, and Economos already provides humour to this episode with his constant failure to try to be oblivious to the serious situation at hand, but yet, we find ourselves stuck in this predicament that takes away from the already short episode.
A.R.G.U.S. continues to seem like a rather incompetent organisation in the grand scheme of everything. Last week, Lex Luthor gave Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo) some information on where he could find the information he desired, and to no one’s surprise (thanks to the trailers), we get the return of Sydney Happersen (Stephen Blackehart). He’s Lex’s expert when it comes to dimensional rights and technology, but it’s rather underwhelming and criminally unfunny how quickly he finds out where the open portal is. This easily seems like a job that A.R.G.U.S. could’ve done themselves with access to the same technology. From a cameo last week which served the story to a quite tasteless cameo this week which held no purpose except for a creepy and unnecessary post-credit scene joke.
That’s not the only cameo this week, though; Larry Fitzgibbon makes his return, unfortunately without his trusty partner Sophie Song due to Earth-X’s unfortunate rules. He arrives at Auggie’s house trying to find Chris after the incident at A.R.G.U.S. but is refused entry. The last 15 minutes of the episode are its best, as we get the reveal that Auggie doesn’t agree with the Nazis and, unlike his son who hasn’t learnt from him, isn’t actually a racist, as we originally thought. While it may be doing more harm to stay complicit and allow for the world to continue in such a hateful way when he could possibly step in and do some good, it warms Chris’s heart nonetheless knowing that his father might actually be the father of his dreams.
Unfortunately, the Vigilante duo arrive and slaughter Auggie, which sets off a brawl in the house. If every episode could include two Vigilantes fighting alongside each other like they’re a Ghostface duo from Scream, Peacemaker would easily be 10x better than it already is. It’s an emotional rollercoaster till the end, with Chris witnessing the death of his father again and almost witnessing the death of his brother as the 11th Street Kids and Judomaster hold him back, ready to kill him in defence of Chris.
Last week gave us an outstanding performance from Jennifer Holland, and now John Cena brings out all the stops in a chilling and emotional scene as he screams at them to stop killing his brother, bringing out that childlike innocence from all those years ago. It’s easily going to go down as one of his best performances as the character and probably of his career. We return back to Prime Earth with Chris surrendering the Quantum Unfolding Chamber and taking all the blame for his team, with Keith barely hanging on back in Earth-X.
It’s likely we’re going to see one final return in the finale next week with A.R.G.U.S. poking their heads around where they don’t belong. Peacemaker Season 2 Episode 7 delivers some of its best writing and performances in the last 15 minutes, but unfortunately the rest of the episode before that fails to reach that same level. The previous episode gave us the perfect cliffhanger, but it’s hard not to think that this episode wouldn’t have been better off combined with Episode 6. With it feeling extremely fast-paced, which leads to some moments not lasting long enough as they should, James Gunn manages to still pack a lot into a tight 33 minutes.
Rating: ★★★1/2
About Peacemaker Season 2
Premiere Date: August 21, 2025
Episode Count: 8
Executive Producer/Showrunner: James Gunn
Writer: James Gunn
Director: James Gunn, Greg Mottola, Peter Sollett, Althea Jones
Production: DC Studios, Troll Court Entertainment, The Safran Company
Distribution: HBO Max
Cast: John Cena, Danielle Brooks, Jennifer Holland, Freddie Stroma, Steve Agee, Robert Patrick, Frank Grillo, David Denman, Sol Rodriguez, Tim Meadows
Synopsis: In season 2, Peacemaker discovers an alternate world where life is everything he wishes it could be. But this discovery also forces him to face his traumatic past and take the future into his own hands.
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