Peacemaker’s one night stand has consequences. A lot of consequences…

If episode 1 picked up straight out of the after credits scene from The Suicide Squad, barely any time at all has passed between the end of episode 1 and the pick-up here. Without going into spoilerish detail it’s safe to say that Peacemaker has been caught with his pants down and needs a quick exit from his situation.

The first half of the episode is an extended sequence of him trying to get to safety. It is very funny with some superb slapstick, offbeat nonsense and a growing sense of what Peacemaker as a show is aiming for.

One really interesting point about this show is just how thirsty it is. Sex is never more than half a scene away and it’s pretty relaxed about broaching the subject visually but also in character discussion, motivation and interests.

After a lot of superhero fare where everyone’s hot but no one’s horny it’s really interesting to see it out and in the open here. Now, it’s Peacemaker, so it’s kind of in your face and there’s almost no excuse they won’t use to have Cena running around in tiny white y-fronts. It fits with the man-boy character, fits with the aesthetic and feels, weirdly, consistent overall with the tone of the show – this is about a man whose world is small, who has no grasp of current events or politics or science or finance – he’s concerned with the US Flag on his car, his pet and the opportunity to get laid as much as he’s concerned with anything.

The second half of the episode deals with the aftermath of Peacemaker’s ill advised one night stand. It revisits his family situation and begins to lay out more about the individual team members. They’re still ice skating around the big sink hole of boring cliché but they’ve not yet fallen in.

The second strongest character in the show is Danielle Brooks as Leota Adebayo. Her character is defined well and although none of them are given much to do she has the most presence and is, by far and away, the most endearing and least tropey of the team supposedly handling Cena’s character. I really want more of her; insight into the life she’s been living and what she’s actually capable of. Fortunately, the signs are that we’ll get some of that as the series progresses.

The other character to talk about is Vigilante, Peacemaker’s old friend and companion in crime (fighting). Freddie Stroma is channelling Deadpool even down to the voice but brings a determined lack of charm to proceedings. I don’t mean this in a bad way.

The merc with a mouth is up there, witty, deadly and a complete arsehole. Vigilante is, really, a psychopath in a costume who hasn’t yet been banged up for a series of murders. It’s clear he’s a wrong’un but he’s also so insignificant that no one who can do something about it cares. Even his crime isn’t worth people’s attention. It’s a fascinating bit of commentary both on the character but also more broadly about the kind of person who ends up in Vigilante’s place and how the rest of the world sees him. The truth is the rest of the world doesn’t notice someone like Vigilante at all – he’s just invisible.

Moments of this had a feeling of the 2010 Jeff Wadlow movie, Kick Ass, complete with a sense of how dreadful these characters’ lives must actually be. It increased the sense of pity I felt for Peacemaker without it becoming mawkish or sentimental – don’t worry, the show’s sentimentality is carefully disguised by its focus on sex, violence and quips.

The plot is wafer thin so far – even by the end of the episode all we know is that there are metahumans who are of interest to Project Butterfly. Beyond that we know very little and nearly all the characters are bumbling through this assignment.

Verdict: This was an interesting episode – you could argue it was filler, but I think it’s smarter than that – there’s a lot of interesting character work in the extended farce that unfolds across the two distinct parts of the story. However, I want to see something more now. I want there to be some plot and a story to follow. Watching characters bumble about can only be entertaining for so long.

Rating? 7 out of 10.

Stewart Hotston