Peacemaker: Stop Dragon My Heart Around

February 10, 2022 8:02 PM - Season 1, Episode 7

Peacemaker finally has it out with his dad, who's basically Iron Klan, and we find out the truth about what happened to his brother. Plus, we finally meet the cow.

- The cow is kind of what the mutant squid in Watchmen should have been, but wasn't. Yeesh.

- The second-most-impressive raccoon in a James Gunn production, I think.

- I'm so glad that at least one of the crew can take Judomaster.

- Are people who can't pee if something is touching their butt actually a thing?

posted by Halloween Jack (26 comments total)

Some very satisfying plot payoffs here - the eagle hug in particular.
posted by simonw at 8:44 PM on February 10, 2022 [4 favorites]

I don't know if it has to do with clothing-to-butt contact, but I have definitely seen adult men in public restrooms, at the urinal, belt unbuckled and pants around their ankles. I'm pretty sure I've seen full-on bare-ass pissing in gym locker rooms too. People are weird.

(I've also seen people take food and open drinks into public restrooms, apparently some people are fine with ingesting a melange of strangers' feces.)
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:00 PM on February 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

There's a running thing of the generally slobby, nebbishy Economos coming through with the violence in the clutch, isn't there? Running over and (carefully! satisfyingly carefully and I'm tired of film/show characters taking no precautions at all when dealing with a potentially dangerous enemy and getting Oberyn Martell'd!) clubbing Judomaster, chainsawing the gorilla, machinegunning a bunch of neo-Nazis. He always seems like he'd really rather not get into the violence but comes through when he needs to.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:14 AM on February 11, 2022 [15 favorites]

Now that's what I call a penultimate episode! That "fuck yeah let's do this" look on Harcourt's face as she realizes in her heart that there's no bad time to rock.
posted by whuppy at 6:04 AM on February 11, 2022 [5 favorites]

I never thought I would say this but John Cena can act.
posted by Pendragon at 11:08 AM on February 11, 2022 [12 favorites]

I was previously mildly afraid that the show was setting up a plot where they would have to team up with the Nazis to take down the butterflies, or at the very least some kind of minor redemption arc for his dad where he sacrifices his life for Peacemaker or something. I am exceedingly pleased that it went nowhere near that.
posted by skycrashesdown at 12:03 PM on February 11, 2022 [10 favorites]

So first I was terrified that Vigilante had been blown up and then I was totally clutching my heart that Eagly was dead or dying. That made Murn's death sort of "meh" to me.
posted by miss-lapin at 1:35 PM on February 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

I was a little confused about exactly what happened with Vigilante and the grenade. Did he not throw it far enough away from himself? Was there something else explosive nearby? It just looked odd to me, like that dude is at least 20 feet away.

I, too, am glad that Peacemaker shot that f'ing Nazi in the f'ing face. Now, why hasn't anyone on the show asked how Peacemaker's father knows how to build a TARDIS in his house and design flying dragon armor with laser arms and scabies helmets et alia? Because I sure am curious about that.
posted by Saxon Kane at 3:11 PM on February 11, 2022 [7 favorites]

Now, why hasn't anyone on the show asked how Peacemaker's father knows how to build a TARDIS in his house and design flying dragon armor with laser arms and scabies helmets et alia? Because I sure am curious about that.

I mean, a notable portion of the team was very recently involved in a starfish-Kaiju mission that also involved hordes of zombie-like brain controlled civilians and a fellow who spewed out polka dots that obliterated whatever was nearby... 'oh yeah his dad does racist super-science' is one of those office chatter bits that might not even make it to being spoken out loud due to the comparative mundanity.
posted by FatherDagon at 4:12 PM on February 11, 2022 [6 favorites]

me: blah blah this show blah blah better than it needs blah incredible blah nuance really Auggie blah I'm so horny for Harcourt blah Vigilante is a subtle blah Danielle Brooks blah Eagly blah

Holy fuck.
posted by porpoise at 7:42 PM on February 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

I also loved Christopher Heyerdahl's very off-type post-credits bit =)
posted by porpoise at 7:48 PM on February 11, 2022 [5 favorites]

I'd just like to thank Judomaster for beating the shit out of the Boondock Saints guy. Thank God.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:53 PM on February 11, 2022 [11 favorites]

In terms of whether or not Auggie invented his own stuff, it's hard to say--he comes off as a peckerwood whose main power seems to be being incredibly mean, but he could also be some kind of reclusive genius. One of the things that occasionally pops up in the comics is the idea of there eventually being enough of this stuff laying around so that people can more or less just pick it up; think of the MCU's Vulture salvaging tech from the Chitauri invasion of NYC to not only create his own wings but also one or two other supervillains (the Shocker, possibly eventually the Scorpion if the scene in the midcredits of Spider-Man: Homecoming ever comes to fruition). DC Comics had one version of the Manhunter (Kate Spencer) putting together a supersuit out of stuff that she salvaged from the supervillain section of the local police evidence room. (Her sidekick/armorer/mike guy is a former supervillain sidekick who kept gear from various villains that he'd henched for.) One of the heavier hitters could have set up Auggie with some gear that he kept for his own use.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:41 PM on February 11, 2022 [5 favorites]

As a lifelong cross-genre superhero comics reader, who is living in a time where I get to see lots of normies come to know the various tropes, I am chuffed to see how people appreciate this show, for the following reason:
There are those 'supers' of the genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist type (Batman, Iron Man). Some people like those, while others prefer what's called the 'street level' heroes - (Daredevil is just a guy, who punches mafia goons) - a more human scale experience.
Further out on the scale at one end are the 'I wield The Power Cosmic!!' types who will throw entire moons at each other. Bo-ring; there are no stakes!
But with this version of Peacemaker, regular folks finally get to enjoy the Trailer Park Level super. The far more relatable 'Wow, this guy's kind of a dysfunctional loser; but I like him!' trope. I'm so pleased that people are into it.
posted by bartleby at 10:56 PM on February 11, 2022 [10 favorites]

On the Heart Eyes for Harcourt front, I want to thank whoever in production put Jennifer Holland in the makeup chair, waved vaguely at her head, and said 'give her the Carey Mulligan/Michelle Williams treatment. Oh, and tell Wardrobe to dress her exclusively in black smediums'. It's a great look on her.
posted by bartleby at 11:08 PM on February 11, 2022 [7 favorites]

I was actually wondering about how Auggie made all of that stuff and figured he was just the evil version of Ash from Supernatural.
posted by miss-lapin at 3:38 AM on February 12, 2022

Auggie actually seems pretty smart -- he's just an asshole. The "asshole genius" trope seems believable enough when it's Tony Stark; I'm willing to accept that it could apply to a genuinely bad guy.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:57 AM on February 12, 2022 [7 favorites]

I am very confused by the relationship between Murn, Goff, and Locke. Has Murn always been a butterfly dissident? Why was he helping to hunt the cow, his own food source? What was Locke’s motivation since they’ve now shown us he was not previously a butterfly? Why did Goff and Locke appear to have an understanding out in the forest?
posted by migurski at 7:32 AM on February 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

Murn was on a suicide mission. He was willing to sacrifice himself to stop world domination. And not just a suicide mission, an extinction event of his own species in order to protect the Earth.
posted by miss-lapin at 9:25 AM on February 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

Having a white nationalist supervillain in a supposed action-comedy TV series is such a tightrope to navigate - I saw somewhere that it was one of the only aspects which HBO (understandably) raised concerns about it.

I think it's pretty remarkable how well they got that to work - the total lack of any form of redemptive storyline was key, but what a daring challenge to take on.
posted by simonw at 9:54 AM on February 12, 2022 [6 favorites]

"Has Murn always been a butterfly dissident? Why was he helping to hunt the cow, his own food source? What was Locke’s motivation since they’ve now shown us he was not previously a butterfly? Why did Goff and Locke appear to have an understanding out in the forest?"

Dude, there's no bad time to rock.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:08 PM on February 12, 2022 [5 favorites]

- The second-most-impressive raccoon in a James Gunn production, I think.

Admittedly, I have not seen much of his early work. Who gets the bronze medal?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:08 PM on February 12, 2022

Has Murn always been a butterfly dissident? Why was he helping to hunt the cow, his own food source?

Murn was previously a horrible person doing wetwork for other horrible people. Then a butterfly killed him and stole his body, and now he's a butterfly dissident. It's unclear that he would die if the cow got killed, unless I missed a line of dialogue -- the butterflies may all just be forced to go home. But I think he was willing to die for his cause.

What was Locke’s motivation since they’ve now shown us he was not previously a butterfly?

Pre-butterfly Locke was a colleague of pre-butterfly Murn, and was doing a very unethical favour for an old friend.

Why did Goff and Locke appear to have an understanding out in the forest?

I read this as Goff being perfectly aware that this weird dude was lying about the dead cops for some reason... and just not caring, because this is no longer her problem.

ICYMI, the last two episodes have very amusing post-credits scenes which make it clear that post-butterfly Locke is a gigantic weirdo, and pre-butterfly Locke was also a gigantic weirdo.
posted by confluency at 5:52 AM on February 14, 2022 [7 favorites]

I came here to ask the same question as Saxon Cane re: the grenade. I rewound it, expecting to see that I’d missed White Dragon kicking it back to Vigilante, but no.

So I guess the answer is that Vig did it intentionally as an act of self-sacrifice to give Chris and John time to escape? I won’t necessarily say that feels out of character for Adrian—because who even knows what “in character” even means for Vigilante—but the show sure didn’t telegraph that at all.
posted by Ian A.T. at 8:35 AM on February 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

I just figured Vigilante, though having demonstrated serious hand-to-hand skills, wasn't that aware of the blast range of his grenades. He is kind of an act first, think later kind of guy.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:04 AM on February 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

Also, too, most grenades are the fragmentation type (hence the verb "frag"), and so Vig could have been out of the grenade-explodes-you-too range, but not out of the sharp-little-shrapnel-slices-you-up range.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:56 PM on February 27, 2022