Hey, what do you know, I’m actually out here getting the episode breakdown out relatively soon after the episode came out. What a novel idea.
But seriously, I don’t know what you thought was going to happen this week. I sure as heck did not have Super Saiyan Eagly on my bingo card.
Let’s discuss. Spoilers, obviously.
What an episode. You’ve got two stories running, and strangely enough, the one that had my attention for most of the hour is not the one you might think.
Harcourt Is Grabbing for Things to Be Mad About
We pick up literally where we left off. The ARGUS team is waiting where Harcourt is, and Peacemaker shows up anyway. She is not happy about it.
This is what you get when you let James Gunn cook. I’m not trying to put James Gunn over, you guys understand that, but when it comes to the way he characterizes people and the way he stacks his characters into their various emotional states, it always pays off in the right way. Where somebody else might not handle it with as deft a hand, he doesn’t shy away from any of it.
The word she used in the text last week was copacetic. I thought it was weird when I saw it. Turns out that’s their code word. That’s the word that means don’t come. Chris shows up anyway.
“I said copacetic.” “Yeah, I know you did.” “It’s the warning word.” “I know. I need to know the truth about something.” “Get out of here, Chris.”
The episode actually opens with a flashback to Rick Flag Jr.’s funeral, where Rick Flag Sr. asks Harcourt what happened and she tells him she really can’t say. And honestly? To me it was unnecessary. It didn’t make me believe any harder that she had reason to be upset, and it didn’t thread the needle any tighter on whether she might betray Peacemaker. I could have taken it or left it. I could have jumped straight into the episode where I started this review and had no issue at all.
Because the only reason Chris risked all of it was to ask Harcourt if he ever meant anything to her.
If you listen to the Peacemaker podcast, you’ll hear Jennifer Holland, who plays Harcourt, talking about how mad her character is at him. Why would he do this, blah blah blah. And I can only take what they put into it, but what I got out of that scene was a combination of things. On the surface, yes, she’s upset because he showed up. Then she starts in with the “your ego” stuff, and those landed as hollow insults to me, because I don’t know that I’ve ever really seen this version of Peacemaker be that way. Back in The Suicide Squad? Absolutely. He was self-centered, he was all about himself, he had an ego. But he has come so far since then that when she was reaching for those insults, it felt like the character was grabbing for things to be upset about.
Harcourt has to wrap herself in self-righteousness. In her frustration. In that I-am-dynamite-about-to-explode personality. It felt performative for the character, not the actress. I think Holland is doing a great job.
The Cyborg Nobody Planted
I fully believed he was going to find a way out of there. Fully. And then Flag gives the order, and we get the reveal that Bordeaux is a cyborg.
“Have a clear shot, but it’s fatal. Point-zero-two percent chance of error.”
Have we ever known that? Was it ever implied anywhere? I don’t think so. On the podcast, James Gunn just casually goes, and we’re introduced to the idea that she’s a cyborg. Okay.
My problem with Bordeaux being a cyborg isn’t that she’s a cyborg. As Mrs. Know-It-All pointed out while we were watching, in a world where we’ve seen variations on Cyborg the actual character, and where we just got finished with the Engineer, who is basically a nanotech version of the same idea, it’s not implausible at all.
My issue is that it felt super convenient for something that was never seeded. That’s like having a photographer named Peter hanging around, and then three episodes before the end he goes “don’t worry about it, I got this” and starts climbing the walls, and you go, wait, is that Peter Parker? I don’t mean that as a DC thing. I mean it as a general storytelling thing. It’s a strange go-to in that moment. I went “huh, okay, whatever,” and rolled right past it.
And of course that’s when Harcourt saves Peacemaker by beating the ever-loving pee out of him.
My question: do any of us actually believe she takes that guy down? It isn’t that she isn’t skilled. But Peacemaker walks around in a superhero suit, the colorful clown suit he calls it, doing incredible things. He’s arguably one of the greatest marksmen alive, he doesn’t miss, and he’s a wrecking ball of a character. Enough to be considered a superhero. Does she ever get a suit of any kind? Because she is going toe-to-toe with him at that level.
She’s gone from monitoring people in The Suicide Squad to standing on this field, and I’m okay with her changing. Season one was a nice evolution. I just have to relearn who this character is, and it isn’t quite sitting, because now I look back at the older material and go, who are you? Why weren’t you more this back then? I could have seen this version walking right in with the Suicide Squad, standing next to Rick Flag on the team. It’s a minor hang-up. But it’s a hang-up.
Booking Him Was the Right Call
When Chris is in custody, he takes the beatdown of a lifetime. Rick Flag beats the tar out of him, and by the way, that was amazing. There’s one scene where the guy kicks him and he ragdolls so hard they had to have brought in a body double for a single take, because it looked unreal. The hit looked so real.
Then Economos gets his moment. He has a choice: leave Chris anonymous so nobody officially knows he’s there and he can quietly disappear into the system, or book him into the local police, which forces him into the record and forces at least some semblance of due process.
That’s a cheap conceit, because clearly ARGUS is ARGUS. Although maybe they are under tighter scrutiny after everything that happened with Waller. Fine. Either way, Economos does the right thing.
And then we get the most telling moment Tim Meadows has had on this show. After Economos and Harcourt have their moment, Meadows’ character looks over at him and says:
“It’s good you did that.”
No comedy. No funny. No haha. Dead serious. And in that moment you find out he is very much about making sure they follow the rules and do things the way they’re legally supposed to be done. I immediately like that character better.
There are people online predicting he becomes one of the 11th Street Kids. I don’t know that they’ll go that far. Somebody posted on X that we’re all in agreement he’s going to die saving Economos, aren’t we. And I went, you know what? That feels logical, and it also feels like a James Gunn-ism. So what’s the over-under on that character giving up his life for Economos? Tell me in the comments.
Judo Master Is Being Set Up
Chris gets released, talks it out with Adebayo and Vigilante, and he is over it. He believes without a shadow of a doubt that Harcourt did him wrong, that she betrayed him and turned him in.
“I’m done. I’m out. I’m out of here.” “What do you mean by that?” “Nothing.”
They drop him off. He leaves a note, deactivates the portal, and goes through. And hot on his heels, Judo Master goes through before it closes.
I’m predicting the worst here, because we’re going to get that reveal, and man, I feel bad for him already. I have a feeling he’s being set up as the sacrificial lamb of this story. His sacrifice is going to be the thing that shows how serious all of this is. Either Chris saves his life and earns his loyalty, or that extremity is what finally makes Chris realize he made the wrong decision.
And the real problem is that Chris can’t get back. He left the device there. They are the ones who have to open a door to let him back into their world. That is the crux of the next couple of episodes.
We do also get Harcourt’s line about going after him:
“Maybe I can meet another me in there.”
The Show Goes Full Comic Book
Okay. Let’s talk about Super Saiyan Eagly, because that was one of the most unbelievable moments this show has ever done.
Apparently that is a real duck hunting gun. James Gunn describes it as the equivalent of throwing dynamite into a lake. You load a string of 12-gauge shells and it fires a cloud, a barrage of pellets that kills however many ducks are out there.
So this guy is hunting, and he shoots what looks like Eagly. Then he goes to collect, and he gets attacked by an eagle. And another one. And then he’s surrounded by eagles, and Eagly lands in front of him, and Eagly looks at him, and there’s this whole moment.
The prime eagle.
I sat there going, what am I watching? Not because it was bad, but because it came out of absolute left field. Mrs. Know-It-All had to bring me back down to earth and point out what was actually happening: they’re going comic book. Full comic book. And I went, oh my gosh, you’re absolutely right.
Your mileage may vary. Mine did not.
Meanwhile, the team is going after Chris. Peacemaker has gone through with Eagly, and there’s a great quick beat where even Keith goes, hey, what’s with the bird? Eagly’s going to be his sidekick from now on.
“Chris, make it fast.”
And it ends with them going to fight a kaiju, which turns out to be the kaiju from Superman. Again, we’ve got cameos from Superman all over this thing. I don’t know if they all count, but that could totally be the big one. And if that was the big cameo, well, you ain’t funny. That’s all I’m saying.
The Verdict
Now you know, and knowing is half the battle to being a know-it-all yourself.
Without a shadow of a doubt, I absolutely think this episode was good. It really set some things up. So I’m giving it a solid 9 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.
For my money they’re doing the Lord’s work here, telling a solid story that makes a lot of sense and carries its emotional weight forward. I don’t think we get this resolved in an episode or two. I firmly believe it carries over into a season three, at least from where I’m sitting. But James Gunn is a pro. He could absolutely turn this around, and suddenly we’re looking down the barrel of an amazing finish. Or he finishes it right after all the action, and next season becomes the fallout of these events.
We’ll see. I can’t wait to find out one way or another.
Never forget, everyone loves a know-it-all.
Am I right, am I wrong? Are you happy with the way James Gunn seems to be cooking, and if you’ve got concerns, tell me explicitly what isn’t working for you. What’s the over-under on Tim Meadows’ character dying for Economos? The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
