DISCLAIMER: This recap of the Peacemaker episode “Best Friend, for Never” has spoilers. Proceed at your peril.
Welcome, arbitrators of peace! Peacemaker‘s second episode, “Best Friend, for Never,” kicks things into high gear when the authorities get involved in the proceedings. John Cena‘s knack for physical comedy pays off in spades. Admittedly, the balcony scene is simultaneously hysterical and wince-inducing. He also injects Peacemaker with nuance, challenging us to fall in love with this flawed, messy human.
Christopher Smith gives me Johnny Lawrence a la Cobra Kai vibes, albeit more murderous. I’m cool with that.
“Best Friend, for Never” further establishes our characters and propels the plot forward in intriguing ways.
Ready to delve into the second episode? Let’s get to it.
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We open with Christopher Smith, a.k.a. Peacemaker (Cena), frantically calling Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) after he inadvertently killed Annie Sturphausen. After Chris explains he slept with a metahuman, Harcourt surmises he took out one of the infamous “butterflies.”
Harcourt knocks on Leota’s (Danielle Brooks) door and orders the latter to drive them to Chris’s location.
Chris runs back into Annie’s apartment to retrieve his belongings, including the crucial Project Butterfly dossier Murn gave him. Peacemaker decides to swipe Annie’s records and CDs. Hey, she won’t need them anymore.
Harcourt contacts Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji), who’s heading to work with Economos (Steve Agee) to eradicate any traces of Peacemaker’s presence at that apartment building. Firstly, Economos changes Chris’s name on his vehicle’s registration.
Next, Harcourt warns Leota that having family can endanger them, considering her field of work. Leota talks about her furbabies at length and how one of them loves to wear clothes. Would that make them a moving target to enemies? Folks, I adore Leota.
Meanwhile, Detective Sophie Song (Annie Chang) and Detective Larry “Fitz” Fitzgibbon (Lochlyn Munro) are at the scene of Annie’s demise, wherein they find part of her face. Sophie muses whether another spandex-clad vigilante might be involved.
Leota and Harcourt pull up outside the apartment building, observing from afar while the police inspect the scene.
While Peacemaker raids Annie’s apartment, he finds a peculiar metallic device complete with luminescent, glowing markings. It looks positively extraterrestrial! Naturally, he takes it.
Harcourt reaches out to Chris, urging him to steer clear from the windows because of the police. Of course, Chris refuses to listen, catching the eye of Sophie with his glinting helmet. Peacemaker tries to exit through the back, but Sophie and her team are already checking all ingress and egress points.
Fitz spots Chris ascending the stairs to the sixth floor, and we see him knock on someone’s apartment door. Evan (Lenny Jacobson) answers Peacemaker’s knock and heeds the latter’s orders. Evan’s girlfriend, Amber (Alison Araya), finds Evan picking up Chris’s belongings while our titular antihero searches for a way out.
Sophie and Fitz look through Annie’s apartment, but they find nothing.
Inevitably, Peacemaker ties up Evan and Amber while flirting with Amber after he learns about their mutual love of the rock band Cinderella. She digs him. Evan and Amber loudly argue until Chris gags them.
Then, Chris jumps off Evan and Amber’s balcony with his belongings. He’s not graceful — at all.
Sophie and Fitz ungag Amber and Evan, asking them where Peacemaker went. After clumsily falling from a series of balconies, Chris gets caught by the police. Thankfully, Harcourt surreptitiously shoots darts at the police, giving Peacemaker a chance to flee. Sophie catches him while he escapes, firing her gun at him.
Leota drives away once Harcourt, Peacemaker and Eagly (can’t forget Eagly) are in the vehicle.
Later, Murn discovers Economos changed Peacemaker’s registration and the fingerprints to none other than Auggie Smith, a.k.a. Chris’s dad. Uh oh.
Sophie and Fitz knock on Auggie’s (Robert Patrick) door for questions, but Auggie spews his usual racist vitriol, and the pair departs.
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Next, Peacemaker, Harcourt and Leota return to the team headquarters, and Economos treats Peacemaker’s injuries. The group speculates how Annie knew Chris worked for Project Butterfly. Peacemaker reveals he left Murn’s dossier out in the open for Annie to read.
So, there’s that. Murn chastises him for being so careless.
Murn receives a crucial phone call, so he asks Leota to bribe Evan and Amber so that they don’t identify Peacemaker to the authorities.
Chris heads home and sobs on his bed, telling himself that everyone loathes him. He even despises himself for killing Rick Flag.
Suddenly, Adrian Chase, a.k.a. Vigilante (Freddie Stroma), appears outside Peacemaker’s window. After an extensive joke about dicks and Louis C.K. (ew), Vigilante chats it up with his best friend.
Leota tracks down Amber and Evan before they go to the police and blatantly bribes them, which both parties accept.
We learn Chris doesn’t know Vigilante’s real identity, even though they saw each other at the restaurant. Vigilante loves to kill; he believes he and Peacemaker are killing machines. When Peacemaker divulges his doubts about his path, about killing people, Vigilante encourages him to keep going.
So, to cheer up his bestie, Vigilante takes Peacemaker out into the woods so that they can shoot at household appliances. It’s a rock ‘n roll adrenaline-laced scene full of pure, unadulterated joy.
I never thought I’d enjoy watching people shoot guns at blenders and microwaves.
At the police station, Amber and Evan identify Auggie Smith as the one who tied them up. After Peacemaker’s vehicle registration and fingerprints confirm Auggie’s identity, Sophie and Fitz arrest him for the murder of Annie Sturphausen.
Leota broaches the subject of Keeya and the furbabies leaving with Keeya (Elizabeth Faith Ludlow), who doesn’t appear to take the suggestion well.
Later, Peacemaker and Amber smoke weed in bed with Vigilante, who vehemently rejects the blunt because he’s a goody-two-shoes who likes to murder people. Chris procures the device he stole from Annie’s apartment. He touches one of its markings, and the device morphs into a mini-spaceship of sorts.
Meanwhile, Auggie orders one guy to move in prison because he likes to sit by the window. It’s perfect at sunset. After taking his place on the bench, Cool Steve (Neil Webb) and his goons fall prostrate before Auggie, hailing him as “The White Dragon” and doing the Hitler salute. Oof. White supremacy and Nazism are gross.
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Danielle Brooks knocks it out of the park as Leota Adebayo. Leota is our humanistic eye into this story, the one who grounds this world full of superheroes and magic in reality. Her comedic timing is pitch-perfect, and her deliveries never fail to make me chuckle.
“The White Dragon” in the comics is “a white supremacist terrorist posing as a vigilante.” That explains some of Christopher’s morally questionable actions. Robert Patrick slays this role, and I’m sure he’ll continue to be super malicious and creepy.
Overall, this show is so damn fun, funny and raunchy in the best way. It’s unquestionably James Gunn.
New episodes of Peacemaker are available to stream every Thursday on HBO Max.
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What I do: I'm GGA's Managing Editor, a Senior Contributor, and Press Coordinator. I manage, contribute, and coordinate. Sometimes all at once. Joking aside, I oversee day-to-day operations for GGA, write, edit, and assess interview opportunities/press events.
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