‘Peacemaker’ Review: Season 2 Tells a Smaller Story with Bigger Emotions in a Stirring, Studied Pivot

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Aug 22

***Courtesy of Jessica Miglio / HBO Max***

John Cena’s Peacemaker dials down the spectacle and leans into heart, proving James Gunn’s antihero can survive—and thrive—inside the new DCU.

Three and a half years is a long time to wait for a return, even in the ever-shifting landscape of superhero television. When Peacemaker premiered in 2022, it was an unexpected phenomenon: a crude, violent spin-off from The Suicide Squad that somehow managed to become one of the smartest character studies in the DC canon. Now, Season 2 arrives under entirely new circumstances—James Gunn is co-chair of DC Studios, the “DCEU” is being retooled into the “DCU,” and the streaming wars that once made Peacemaker a buzzy Max breakout look a little more desperate.

The new season acknowledges that turbulence immediately. In a clever bit of retconning, the Season 1 recap swaps out the Justice League cameos for fresh faces Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion) and Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), while excising the Butterfly arc entirely. It’s a wink to viewers who have tracked DC’s messy continuity, but more importantly, it’s a signal: this series isn’t just a relic of the old era. It’s a cornerstone of the new.

What’s striking about Season 2, though, is how little it feels like corporate repositioning. Yes, the world around Peacemaker is shifting, but the series is most interested in the man himself: Chris Smith, the oafish brute who once believed “peace” was worth any body count, is now trying to become someone worthy of belonging. He wants to be accepted by his peers, to be loved, and to leave behind the toxic legacy of his father. He’s not there yet—but for the first time, he seems to believe it’s possible.

John Cena remains the series’ greatest weapon. His performance walks a fine line between buffoonery and heartbreak, playing a man who still fumbles social cues yet carries scars that can’t be hidden under his silver helmet. This year, the story threads are smaller and more intimate: a failed Justice Gang interview that sends Chris spiraling, a budding yet complicated romance with Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), and an alternate-universe vision of his abusive father Auggie (Robert Patrick) as a hero rather than a monster. These are personal dilemmas dressed in superhero drag, and Cena grounds them in painful, hilarious truth.

The rest of the 11th Street Kids also get their due. Leota (Danielle Brooks) struggles with heartbreak and self-worth after a brutal breakup. Vigilante (Freddie Stroma) hides his loneliness under more absurd antics. Economos (Steve Agee) remains the office sad sack, tethered to an agency that neither values nor trusts him. Even Harcourt’s stoic armor begins to crack in flashbacks that reveal her own trauma. Together, they resemble less a team of warriors than a dysfunctional workplace comedy—where every inside joke hides something rawer.

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Stylistically, Peacemaker hasn’t lost its flair. Charissa Barton’s choreography gifts the show another instantly iconic opening sequence, a reminder that the absurd can coexist with the sincere. The violence remains bloody and excessive, but it’s never gratuitous; the laughs still come at rapid-fire pace, but they’re balanced by a new, aching melancholy. Gunn’s direction embraces contrast, cutting from elaborate fight scenes to hushed, vulnerable exchanges without apology.

The risk in pivoting from a broad, alien-invasion arc to something more introspective is obvious: will audiences miss the scale? But Season 2 manages to make its smaller frame feel bigger in emotional weight. By asking whether Chris can truly change, the show raises the kind of questions superhero TV rarely dares to. Can a man shaped by abuse, failure, and rejection reinvent himself? And if he does, will the world allow it?

Five episodes in, Season 2 suggests that Gunn and Cena are playing a long game, one where the real heroism isn’t about saving the world but saving yourself. It’s a gamble, but it works: Peacemaker proves that the loudest, raunchiest series in the DC stable also has the most heart.