Peacemaker gets down to business and suffers serious casualties

Robert Patrick stars in Peacemaker Screenshot: HBO Max

In the world of James Gunn, music is our path to understanding. Star-Lord’s “Awesome Mix” tapes in Guardians Of The Galaxy were maps that charted all the hurt and loneliness he felt growing up in outer space, his beloved mother dead and never coming back. Last week’s episode of Peacemaker capped off a vicious Butterfly invasion with a soft piano rendition of Mötley Crüe’s “Home Sweet Home” (played nimbly by the ’Maker himself, John Cena). It was a moment of melancholy for the series, but as we discover at the beginning of “Stop Dragon My Heart Around”, it was also a moment of reflection and sad memory. That bitchin’ anthem jam lays hard pavement that leads all the way to Christopher Smith’s own silent hurts. Leave it to James Gunn to find a way to get us to sob to Crüe.

Peacemaker generally works itself to a funny stinger before needle-dropping Wig Wam’s “Do You Really Wanna Taste It?”, making damn sure we’re already smiling before the series’ now-legendary opening title crawl widens our grins and pushes us ever closer to comic nirvana. This week, it sucker punches us with a reveal we’ve been dreading for seven episodes: The discovery of how Chris could have ever been responsible for the death of his brother, Keith. The truth of Keith’s death is terrible, and tragic, and it could have been totally avoided had Chris’ monster of a father not forced his young boys to beat each other into a stupor for the enjoyment and profit of his shitheel friends.

Family is a sore subject for Peacemaker, doesn’t matter if it’s biological or found. Feelings and understanding haven’t been a part of Chris’ thinking since the day he threw the punch that sent Keith foaming to an early grave, but he’s been working on that. At least now we know why he puts up with Vigilante’s bullshit all the time: Vig could be Chris, and to Vig Chris is the cool older brother Keith used to be. Right now none of that matters. The 11th Street Kids are pulling apart at the seams, Peacemaker is now a fugitive, and the Butterflies are wise to their operation. This is no time to go rogue, not when the White Dragon has rallied his armies and the Butterflies have full control of the Charlton County Police. But running shiny-dome-first into danger is just what Peacemaker, Vigilante, and Economos (plus Eagly!) do. They’re off to kill the Cow, the only source of the Butterflies’ precious amber fluid, before something else goes desperately wrong for them.

They’re rocking out as they do this, so they may not be totally aware of what they’re actually doing in the moment: They’re sacrificing themselves for their team, their family. After all, holding on to family requires a sense of duty and sacrifice. Clemson Murn knew that, even as his hotel room door blasted open with the full force of the CCPD behind it. “I was proud to have you on my team!” he tells Leota and Harcourt, just before Butterfly-Song arrives to finish him. Squashed, the rebel Butterfly known as Ik-no-bloke says his own goodbye to Harcourt, the only human who ever accepted him for what he was. Jennifer Holland stretches out her index finger and has her own emotionally fraught moment with Ik-no, E.T.-style, and, good god, is this weirdo tv show great. “How the fuck are we gonna do this without him?” she asks. How indeed.

Murn’s last words to his team—”Kill the fucking cow!”—they’re an order. Unbeknownst to Leota and Harcourt, Peacemaker, Vigilante, and Economos are already hauling ass to Coverdale Ranch dead-set on putting the kibosh on the gargantuan Butterfly cow. (When we finally get our first look at the immensity that is the Cow, you have to wonder how the hell they’re going to go about that.) Problem is, “Stop Dragon My Heart Around” has two x-factors to contend with: Judomaster, who is quite alive and pops in for a scrap with Harcourt just when she and Leota have hit their lowest as colleagues; and the White Dragon, who’s out to murder his only living son with an army of white nationalist hillbillies behind him and a ding-dang jetpack strapped to his back.

The reckoning between Auggie Smith and Chris has been brewing for decades. Auggie hates Chris for killing Keith, he makes that abundantly clear during their jail time visit back in episode four. Watching Chris confess time and again that he loves his dad no matter what, even though we know Auggie’s responsible for a lifetime of hate and agony and abuse, has always been a hard, if sadly relatable, thing to accept. (We all have complicated feelings about our parents, but… yow.) This week Auggie puts his boot on Chris’s chest, and in his preposterous metallic finery raves about all the ways Chris is impure, unworthy of his love and respect. Look at the way he tosses Keith’s death into his rambling list of grievances like it was just one more thing Chris did to disappoint him. Auggie clearly never put any thought into Keith’s death, least of which where he should really place the blame. Instead he lauded the one boy he never got to warp and break as the perfect fallen son. Chris has had to eat that most of his life.

No more. Vigilante takes his opportunity during Auggie’s rant to exploit the vulnerable gaps in the White Dragon’s armor and renders his blaster gauntlets impotent. Economos mows down his feeble army. (Perhaps John’s middle name is “Rambo?”) And here comes Peacemaker, Auggie’s true legacy, bearing down on him, teeth clenched, fists ready to explode decades of pain all over his sneering face. The White Dragon is defiant to the very last, believing he can twist Chris around to sparing his life. Auggie’s last ugly words might fuck with Chris for a long time after this, but at least he’ll know he did the right thing and finally put down the sadistic demon who made his life hell.

“Stop Dragon My Heart” is an all-business episode that racks up a dramatic body count, the bleakest installment of Peacemaker yet, but it is not without a touch of sweetness. There’s the moment where we find Peacemaker praying over Eagly, who lunged at the White Dragon and paid a price for it, the only one besides Keith who ever loved Chris for real. Leota watches this tender moment, witnesses Eagly’s miraculous recovery, and with an embrace of hero and sidekick she recalls Chris’ joyous words from episode one: “If you don’t want to believe in miracles, that’s on you.”

Leota, who is all messed up over her betrayal of Peacemaker, apologizes to him, but Chris’ growth has yet another rung in the ladder. “I just can’t wait ’til this is all over so I don’t have to see your stupid, dumb face ever again.” She’ll figure out what she wants out of this mercenary’s life her mother’s foisted upon her soon enough. Ugly and violent though it may be she’s really quite good at her job, even Harcourt can admit as much. It’s here where we leave Leota with her thoughts as she zooms down a lonely highway alongside her fellow 11th Street Kids. Ready to face their destiny, this motley crew is about to make one last suicide run.

Stray Observations

• First, let me begin by owning up to totally biffing the Goff Butterfly/Butterfly Leader reveal last week. Helpful commenters pointed out how completely wrong I was, and I have been stewing in my wrongness for a full week now. Apologies for any confusion/frustration this gaffe may have caused.
• R.I.P. Clemson Murn. I’ll miss Chukwudi Iwuji when I watch the finale next week; his Butterfly reveal unearthed all sorts of vulnerability and kindness and strength that would have been essential to this show’s final covert op. All the evil things Murn ever did before Ik-no-bloke lodged itself inside Murn’s cranium have been set right by Ik-no’s valiant sacrifice. Truly a rebel to the anti-Butterfly cause.
• This week’s director, Brad Anderson, is the director of the properly fucked psycho-thriller Session 9 and is also the guy who made The Machinist, the movie what made Christian Bale lose weight until he resembled a demonic scarecrow. He shot the heck out of this episode, good stuff.
• “Pretty random rule, that the only lives that matter are the lives of the ones who fight beside us?” For Harcourt, the answer is yes. For Leota, perhaps not so much. We’ll see where she lands on this next week.
• “Economos, are you insinuating that there is a wrong time and a right time to rock?”
• “Who the fuck feeds their bird chips?”
• “I can’t pee when clothes are touching my butt.” Vigilante was (South Park’s) Butters when he was a kid, I swear.
• So who’s to lead the 11th Street Kids now that Murn is dead? The answer is clear: Harcourt. Her stirring words even inspire the veterinarians, who are locked in and loaded for bear. “No, you’d just die.” Chris says.
• Vigilante’s concern over duct tape hurting the veterinarians’ skin after threatening to kill them sure is something.
• So what did you think about “Stop Dragon My Heart Around”, group? Are you mourning Murn as I am? What did you think about the big Cow reveal? Do Cheetos have secret health benefits, or something? (Probably not?) Let’s pour one out for fallen comrades in the comments below.