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With Superman in the books, the time has finally come to see how DC Studios’ rebooted universe will continue with the second season of James Gunn’s John Cena-led TV series, Peacemaker. Even before the show’s release, Peacemaker existed in a unique transitional phase between the old and new DC Universes, leading fans to wonder which elements would carry over and which would be left behind.

The answer to that, as gleaned from trailers and the occasional Gunn interview about its premiere being not safe for work, will have something to do with pocket universes and Peacemaker contending with himself in some capacity. So without further ado, let’s see what Gunn and DC Studios have been cooking up.

During a season one recap that brings us up to speed, noting Christopher Smith, (a.k.a. Peacemaker)’s relatively normal upbringing with his racist father, Auggie Smith (Robert Patrick), we’re reminded that his dear old dad has a pocket dimension in his house. Unlike Lex Luthor’s pocket dimension, which he uses as a prison for those who slight him, Auggie (a.k.a. the White Dragon), utilizes it as a storage facility for all his gadgets, including Chris’ many Inspector Gadget-coded helmets. The explosive finale of season one saw Auggie killed, yet still present as a ghost haunting Chris in his pursuit of being recognized as a legitimate superhero. Surely, the show’s focus on pocket dimensions will prove to be a valuable narrative device later this season.

Why focus on the recap, you ask? Well, it’s already done some retconning on the season one finale. Famously, the finale saw the Justice League’s Wonder Woman, Superman, the Flash, and Aquaman show up late as hell to the party. However, Peacemaker season two’s recap is already showing its hand in taking creative liberties, changing how it incorporates its superhero cameos. Now, instead of the Justice League showing up, it’s silhouettes of the Justice Gang’s Mister Terrific, Hawkgirl, and Green Lantern, with Superman and Supergirl in tow.

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Just like the Peacemaker finale, the recap only features Hawkgirl and Green Lantern actors Isabela Merced and Nathan Fillion. Appropriately, they barb back at Chris, with Hawkgirl calling him a meathead and Fillion’s Guy Gardner taking issue with Peacemaker spreading rumors that he’s a puke freak.

From here, the first episode, “The Ties That Grind,” begins with Chris rolling out of bed, awakened by Eagly on a cold winter night. After a reflective glance out his window, Chris quickly punches in a code and stands at the threshold of a pocket dimension doorway, wearing nothing but a shirt and his tighty whities, as he witnesses an aurora borealis light show as whatever cosmic mumbo jumbo morphs into his Peacemaker lair.

Peacemaker’s lair apparently doubles as a communal garbage incinerator; a “crypt-keeping looking” alien guy appears, shrugs off Chris’ “good morning,” incinerates a giant rat, and then waltzes back through another interdimensional door like he strolled right out of Rick and Morty. But we’ve no time for interdimensional pleasantries, because Eagly discovers there’s another door, equipped with the same keypad, as Chris’ inside the pocket universe. What’s more, just outside of it is a pile of off-brand-looking Peacemaker helmets.

After punching in the same door code as his own, Chris stumbles into a well-furnished trophy room with eerie villain music, and something is amiss. This adversarial alternate reality has a newspaper clipping of Chris, his father, and what can only be assumed is his brother in the Evergreen Sentinel, showing them being awarded them the key to the city for being a top superhero trio. To add more credence to his strange discovery, Chris is greeted by an alt-version of his father, who wonders if he’s been sleepwalking again. Chris, overwhelmed by this reunion not being a ghostly haunting of his father like in the season one finale, runs away in terror.

There’s a pocket dimension inside Chris’ home, and it leads to a world where he didn’t kill his dad and wasn’t a raging racist and homophobe (as far as we know). All things weighing on Chris’ mind that he’s, like a man, trying to push down as he drives on the passenger’s side of Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks)’s ride as she tells him about her apparent breakup with her girlfriend.

Instead of blindly parroting Adebayo, he suggests that her ex was probably concerned about her safety. Adebayo counters this by pointing out that Chris seems to think he’s invincible and immune to danger during their missions, despite her concerns about his bravado. Their conversation steers into Chris asking about his crush, Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), and whether she has spoken with Adebayo since the season one finale, which saw her hospitalized. Naturally, Chris is only concerned with whether or not Harcourt has talked about him, which she hasn’t. Womp womp.

Romantic pining aside, Chris gets vulnerable about his own insecurities, admitting that metahumans have apparently been bullying him, saying they make fun of him for his Jersey Shore haircut and “wearing a disco ball” on his head—conveniently forgetting he’s also said some not-so-nice things about Aquaman sleeping with the fishes.

“I know it’s cause my muscles are bigger than theirs, but jeez, right?” Chris remarks.

Adebayo reminds Chris that, despite the online trash talk, Peacemaker is a superhero who saved the world from a hivemind of alien bugs. Still, Chris seeks validation from his would-be peers as well, saying he no longer wants to be taken as a joke. This brings us to our first trial in legitimizing Peacemaker as a superhero: his job interview for the Justice Gang in a derelict strip mall. Things didn’t go so well for a lady ahead of him, storming out in a huff, clad in a full bunny get-up, but she’s not played by 17-time WWE world heavyweight champion John Cena, so Chris’s luck might be better.

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Chris’ interview is officiated by Hawkgirl, Gardner, and LordTech owner and Justice Gang financier, Maxwell Lord (Sean Gunn). After some mic issues, Chris overhears Hawkgirl and Gardner shit talk him between asking questions. But instead of popping a lid like he usually does, Chris swallows his pride and recites his bona fides as one of the best marksmen in the world with virtually any weapon and his hand-to-hand prowess. All of which only translates to Gardner as Chris being a violent dude who kills first and asks questions later.

Ironically, Lord emphasizes that the Justice Gang does not kill—this prompts Hawkgirl to scrunch her face as she recalls her act of pancaking a genocidal world leader who allied himself with Luthor in Superman. Regardless, the events of Superman have raised doubts about trusting metahumans, so they’d like to be extra cautious with screening who gets to be part of the team. 

Lord cuts to the chase, bringing up Chris’ background check, noting he’s served time for first-degree murder and his killing of “dozens of people”—all of whom Chris says were for good reason. But Lord wonders which ones weren’t. While spilling his guts metaphorically about reckoning with his indiscriminate violence from the trauma his father gave him and the death of his brother, he overhears Hawkgirl and Gardner babble on about butts and how Peacemaker sucks. Instead of being embarassed that the mute function on their microphones isn’t working, Gardner laughs in Chris’ face—despite being the guy in charge of this not happening all day with every other interivewee.

By the time Lord looks up to apologize, Chris has already stormed out of the building in a similar huff as the bunny lady, telling Adebayo that his only talent, according to the Justice Gang, is “sucking dick.” Incensed, Chris retorts, saying sucking dick isn’t a put-down, but a compliment. All the same, Chris is fully disenchanted with the idea of joining the Justice Gang.

Turns out Chris wasn’t the only person getting a harsh grilling. While he was getting the worst superhero interview of his life, Harcourt was receiving hard truths from an interviewer from the NSA, saying that despite her “having a vagina,” she suffers from toxic masculinity. Proving his point, Harcourt has a shouting match with the interviewer about her “maintaining a hard appearance” and burying he feelings. After trying to walk back and calling him a “see you next Tuesday,” Harcourt claims her black-balling is a result of Amanda Waller’s own wrath.

After punching the dashboard of her car in a rage, Harcourt meets up with Chris, who asks about all the bruises, which she candidly admits to having caused by bashing her fists against it.

While nursing her bloody hands and remarking about how virtually every intelligence agency rejected her, Chris plays housekeeper, wrapping ice in a towel to place on Harcourt’s knuckles, all while noticing her pile of overdue bills. The romantic sparks between Chris and Harcourt are pretty undeniable in this touching scene, but they’re trying their damndest to keep things strictly business. And what better way to do that than airing out their grievances with Amanda Waller?

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As they’re commiserating, Chris inquires if Harcourt wants to talk about something that happened “the other night on the boat.” Harcourt doesn’t seem to remember much beyond it being a party boat and not wanting to be on it, but Chris begs to differ. Apparently, the two got drunk and bumped uglies, but Harcourt quantified their tryst as a fuckup. Chris, pained by her waving off whatever happened that night, tries to at least have Harcourt acquiesce to it being a fun mistake, but she leaves him out to dry.

In full mourning territory, Chris returns home, loads up his bong, and starts snorting lines of coke like he was listening to the new Clipse album instead of the diegetic musings of “Guestlist” by Swedish rock band Hardcore Superstar. Which then cuts to Chris throwing a nude orgy rager at his apartment, full of all the adult private parts danging about on screen with reckless abandon that would make any parent rush to cover their children’s eyes had they dove straight into Peacemaker after watching Superman, expecting the same kind of general audience camp.

While everyone is having sex around Chris, some fist-bumping him mid-act, it’s clear he’s not having a good time (but he does give a little smirk when being kissed by male and female participants simultaneously—a bi icon!). Still, Chris is having the definition of a bad trip, rubbing at his face in a dizzying sequence. At the same time, appropriately bisexual lighting of his living room goes full kaleidoscope as everyone at his party either dances or sexes their night away.

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In a stupor, Chris decides now’s the perfect time to bail on his party into the recesses of his pocket dimension. The camera then moves through space outside of his house to show John Economos (Steve Agee) has been outside in an ice cream truck, surveilling Peacemaker. Economos then answers a call from Adrian Chase (Freddie Stroma), a.k.a. Vigilante. Evidently, they’ve become close enough buddies since the last time we saw them that Vigilante will cold-call him, requesting Economos to quiz him on owl facts.

Echoing Chris’ question to Adebayo about Harcourt, Vigilante asks Economos if he has spoken to Peacemaker lately. It’s very sweet that everyone, despite not checking in on one another, seems to worry about how Chris is handling the whole not being accepted as a genuine hero thing. Just after Vigilante reluctantly returns to his restaurant job, one of the screens on Economos’ ice cream stakeout set up alerts him to something being missed.

Economos then gets a call from a newcomer to Peacemaker season two, Sasha Bordeaux (Sol Rodriguez). In the comics, Bordeux served as the bodyguard of Bruce Wayne—who we’ve yet to see in the new DC outside his appearance in Creature Commandos—and later served as the Black Queen of Checkmate. Here, her role seems to be that of a member of Belle Reve, which employed Economos at the end of season one, and she asks him to investigate. After hanging up on Economos, Bordeaux storms into the office of Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo), who’s busy massaging the bridge of his nose, watching the newscaster complain about Arkham and Belle Reve metahuman escapees.

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Here, we get the most consequential conversation in the episode that viewers have been wondering about since its opening. Apparently, in January, a “Christopher Smith” glitch similar to Luthor’s pocket dimension incident—which nearly consumed Metropolis in the final act of Superman—occured. This glitch has been happening more frequently at Chris’ humble abode, hence why Economos was stationed to surveil his house.

Flag Sr. and Bordeaux phone Economos, who spots Chris standing in front of his pocket dimension doorway. Flag Sr. decides to classify the situation as a priority one threat until they determine whether the Chris glitch results in another dimensional rift. Inside the portal dimension, Chris drunkenly stumbles through the room and punches the code back into the alt dimension as Foxy Shazam’s “Dreamer” plays in the background.

Inside the room once again, Chris gawks at the life his alternate dimension self appears to be having as a celebrated hero who, at one point, saved Gotham from an “ultra-humanite.”  Unlike before, Chris’s window shopping of his alternate dimension self extends beyond the trophy room as he starts galavanting about the rest of the house, which looks more like a lavish mansion than the humble suburban house he currently lives in.

After making his way to the front yard, Chris gawks at a pickup truck in the driveway; Chris’ brother, Keith Smith (David Denman), emerges. Bewildered, Keith asks what Chris is doing home, inquiring if his matters at Blüdhaven have been sorted out. Seeing one’s dead brother all grown up would send anyone, much less Chris, into a tizzy. But after the two hug it out, and are joined by dear old dad, also wondering why Chris is home, and the dudes decide to throw a party.

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At this point, the idea of leaving his old world behind for a second chance with his brother and father—who, in this version, don’t seem to be raging white supremacists (unless you’re a “knee-high imp”)—is as tempting to Chris as kryptonite is deadly to Superman. Elsewhere, Harcourt is getting harassed by dudes at a bar and shutting them down in typical Harcourt style. Beer bottles get smashed over some generous foreheads, balls get punched, and it’s safe to say feelings and orbital bones get hurt. Unfortunately for Harcourt, the numbers in her barroom brawl get the better of her, leading to her getting punted in the face and thrown outside.

Checking back in on Chris, the Smith patriarch stuns his befuddled son with an “I love you” before retreating to bed, leaving Chris and his brother alone while Chris is no doubt running the numbers on whether or not he should pull a page out of the doppleganger playbook of Jordan Peele’s Us and stay in the alternate dimension. Before he can think any further, Keith asks how things were with his ex. Reading the room, it’s clear that Harcourt is the ex, so at least we can figure that the grass isn’t as green on the other side of the pocket dimension either, at least when it comes to Chris’ love life. Still, Keith says Chris should try to win her back, whoever this (totally Harcourt) lady is, even if she’s with “some jarhead.”

Still keeping up the ruse that he’s this dimension’s Chris, Peacemaker nearly breaks down when he tells his brother he loves him, which his brother shrugs off with a laugh that he’s being too sentimental while drunk—not knowing all 251 pounds of Peacemaker can pack a lot of soft boy energy. While Chris is left weeping, we cut back to our dimension, where Economos is debriefing Adebayo about Peacemaker’s pocket dimension being a high-priority threat under the surveillance of Flag Sr. and his organization ARGUS (finally, a name, linking us back to Creature Commandos!).

And yes, Flag Sr. knows Chris killed his son, Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), in The Suicide Squad. Since the end of season one, Economos says Flag Sr. has been watching Chris in the hopes that he will mess up on a grand scale, so he’d have a reason to arrest him (or worse) for the betterment of humanity. Which brings us back to the anomaly inside Chris’s house, likely triggered by his dimension hopping and whatever is going on with his doppleganger, who is using their room as a shared storage closet.

After accidentally airdropping a dick pic to Adebayo, they hatch a plan to have her ask Chris what’s up with his pocket dimension instead of ratting him out to Flag Sr. Back in the alternate dimension, Chris is walking around the decadent Smith house once more and gawking at his bedroom and posters of bands like Hanoi Rocks (spelled Hanoi Roxx) on his walls. I’m sure someone more tapped into music tastes can note whether it’s in character with Chris’ raucous rotation.

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Here, it’s confirmed that alt-dimension Chris’ ex is, in fact, Harcourt, with the reveal of a vacation photo of them all booed up. But before Chris can continue to romanticize over how nice his life is here, he pulls a gun on himself. Or rather, the alt-dimension Chris finally shows up and threatens to exercise his Second Amendment right on the back of our Chris’s head.

Fortunately, or unfortunately for our Chris, this alt-dimension Chris is also a bit dense, wondering if our Chris is a shapeshifter. Alt-dimension Chris gives chase to our Chris, who tries to book it back to his dimension. Alt-dimension Chris activates “magic stars,” prompting the wings of his helmet to track Chris like heat-seeking missiles, scaring up his back as he tries to put the code back into their pocket dimension, where they do battle. After some rocket tackles into some expensive-looking columns, Alt-dimension Chris beats the brakes off our Chris. But before he can deliver the finishing blow, Chris activates Alt-Chris’ jetpack, causing him to get impaled on a spike in the ceiling, thus freeing me from having to type alt-dimension Chris ever again.

© DC Studios/HBO Max

We’re left with a shot of Chris holding the limp body of himself, wondering whether he should continue the charade in the alternate dimension or leave it be. Chances are, he won’t, and we’ll have more fun witnessing how he handles trying to pull double duty in his dimension or if he’ll leave it all behind to continue the chicanery in the alternate dimension.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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