Peacemaker is one of HBO Max’s best originals this year. Including plenty of one-liners and graphic violence, James Gunn never shies away from leaving a lasting impression on the big screen or the small screen. The cast under his employ also proved very capable of creating emotional moments that resonated with viewers.
John Cena would get plenty of opportunities to prove his depth. While Peacemaker’s appearance in The Suicide Squad (2021)was primarily focused on his testosterone-fueled agenda for world peace, in his spinoff series, we look into the character’s personal relationships. The ensemble at play delivers moments that get audiences excited, reflective, and tearful throughout the series’ eight-episode run.
6 Adebayo Witnesses Eagly hug Chris
One of the earliest moments of the series sees Chris reunite with his best friend, Eagly, a bald eagle. During this moment, Eagly would wrap their wings around Chris, bringing Chris immense joy as he asked his father to take a picture. When Chris tries to explain this moment to his new friend, Leota Adebayo, she meets him with disbelief. As the series continues, Adebayo is reaching a crossroads in whether she wishes to stay with the team or return home to her fiancée.
During the build to the final battle, Adebayo is preparing to leave when she comes across Chris having an emotional moment with Eagly. After Eagly suffered an injury during the fight with the White Dragon, Chris tearfully apologizes, stating that he should never have left Eagly with his father while he was imprisoned. Eagly would rise up and hug Chris, confirming their strong bond. As Chris finally takes the picture he wanted, Adebayo informs her fiancee that she had just witnessed something amazing and that she was taking it as a sign to stay and finish the mission with her team.
5 Economos’ Dye-Beard
Throughout the span of the show, Chris makes fun of John Economos’ beard, calling it a “dye-beard.” John repeatedly denies this, growing angrier with every snide remark Chris throws in his direction. Even though other members of the team would ask Chris to lay off, John’s feelings would still be hurt on numerous occasions. This would all come to a head when Economos would be sent into the field undercover, acting as a butterfly-controlled person. As Economos would attempt to leave the field after planting Chris’ sonic-boom helmet, a butterfly would come up to him and ask him why his “host did that to his beard?”
To maintain his cover, John would have to admit that he did dye his beard in an attempt to look younger. He had grown insecure and wanted to make himself more appealing, but had become lazy with keeping up appearances. Thus, his roots would grow, revealing his graying color. He had convinced himself that no one noticed until Chris repeatedly reminded him of his failures and insecurities. After almost being brought to tears from having to admit his deepest insecurities, John would be hit while he was down, with the butterfly simply stating that “Humans are pathetic.”
4 Detective Song’s Death
Throughout the course of the show, Peacemaker is being hunted down by police, led by two detectives, Sophie Song & Larry Fitzgibbon. While the two detectives worked together to first arrest Chris’ father, they began digging deeper into the corruption affecting their case. Detective Song would reach out to her uncle, Judge Willaim Judy, to help her get the proper arrest warrant needed to go after Peacemaker.
While Detective Song and her team were pursuing Peacemaker & Vigilante, the butterfly known as Goff would escape containment. Goff would be revealed as having grown grateful to Chris for not killing him and treating him with kindness during his captivity. Because of this, Goff would protect Chris by taking over Detective Song’s body, killing her in the process. The moments during the transformation were agonizing, with Detective Fitzgibbon calling out to his partner as she suffered during her final moments. As Larry tried to comfort her and tell her of incoming medical help, Goff would fully take over. What makes the moment even more emotional is that later on, Goff would tell Fitzgibbon that Detective Song did care greatly for her partner, meaning she had died listening to the voice of someone she had strong feelings for.
3 Peacemaker’s Origin
Peacemaker would initially come off as a man who commits to peace in a delusion that justifies his intense desire for violence. As we dive deeper into the character’s history, we find that Chris wishes to avoid thinking about his past, let alone talking about it. We would get small glimpses of Chris as a child, but shortly before confronting his father, Chris would reflect on the events that set him on his dark path.
Growing up with his older brother, Chris would learn to appreciate rock music. The boys’ abusive father would recruit the boys to participate in fights where he would run a gambling ring with his friends. During one of these fights, being instructed by their father, Chris would punch his brother in the head, sending his brother into a seizure and death. Their father would place all the blame on Chris, refusing to take responsibility. Burdened by this responsibility, Chris would make a vow to do anything to make up for this senseless death, beginning his turn of listening to his father’s every word in a personal struggle to escape his guilt.
2 Ik Nobe Llok’s Death
Murn would be the team’s operations manager, strategizing every mission and preparing them for the battle against the butterflies. What the team didn’t realize was that Murn was actually a butterfly all along, albeit one that was opposed to his species’ plans of taking over the world. Agent Hargrove would learn of Murn’s secret sometime offscreen, but Agent Adebayo would discover his secret by using Chris’ X-Ray helmet. This would lead to an intense conversation where the butterfly, Ik Nobe Llok that took over Murn’s body would admit that Murn was a terrible man that murdered a lot of people. But Ik still regretted taking away Murn’s ability to become a better man.
After Goff leads an army of butterflies to infect many police officers and prisoners, they go after the team, with Ik taking a final stand to buy time for Hargrove & Adebayo. After Goff and his men shoot Murn’s body down, they discover that one of their own had been working against them. Without a second thought, Goff crushes Ik and tosses him aside. This death would be agonizing and dragged out, as Ik would die, being cradled by Hargrove, his final words being unintelligible to the team.
1 Chris Kills his Father
While the final battle against the butterflies was action-packed, the fight that carried the most emotional baggage was the one between Peacemaker & The White Dragon. The majority of this fight is one-sided, with Auggie hunting Chris alongside his gang of Aryan supremacists. Chris tries to continue running away from his father’s influence, but after his friends’ lives are put at risk, he finally begins to fight back.
While his father stands across from him, Chris is taunted. Auggie tells his son that he doesn’t have it in him to kill his own father. As Auggie begins to proclaim that he owns Chris, Chris takes the shot, murdering his father. This moment and our reflection moments show that murdering his father isn’t a one-stop fix for Chris’ mounting emotional break. Chris is visibly distraught after murdering his father, and as the show continues, he continues to see visions of his father, constantly at his side. What this means for the future of Peacemaker is a question that viewers look forward to seeing answered.