Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Mike Redmond | TV | August 29, 2025
Right out of the gate, “A Man Is Only as Good as His Bird” is a much stronger episode than the Peacemaker Season 2 premiere. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate the first episode, but let me lay my cards on the table. This show had a winning formula with John Cena’s title character being the douchebag comic relief, and now… well, he’s kind of a vibe-killer. Peacemaker wants to prove it’s actually super deep, and I get that and am not entirely opposed to the idea, but that doesn’t make it less depressing to watch. Peacemaker’s hook is that he’s a big, dumb idiot, and yes, he’s making some absolutely stupid decisions this season. However, there’s a miserable air to everything this time around, coupled with the dulling effect of being on a “hero’s journey.” So far, anyway. Next week looks like we might crawl out of this stupor, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Episode 2 opens with a flashback to John Economos (Steve Agee) welcoming Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo) as the new Acting Director of ARGUS following Amanda Wallace’s ouster. The two have a history and get along well until Flag makes his first official move: Demanding the report on his son’s death. Turns out, it’s been hidden from him, and Economos knows this won’t end well. Sure enough, Flag learns what Peacemaker did and instructs Sasha Bordeaux (Sol Rodríguez) to put him under surveillance. When she tells him that ARGUS is giving Peacemaker grace for stopping the Butterfly invasion, Flag makes the agency’s new position crystal clear: “F*ck Peacemaker.”
Speaking of, we find our hero desperately attempting to hide a dead body, namely, his own after killing the alternate universe version of himself in self-defense. Turns out the Quantum Unfolding Chamber doesn’t have the best storage options, but it also doesn’t seem to have a lot of visitors. Does anyone even go in that thing except the weird cat-burning alien? Realizing he can’t do this alone, Peacemaker heads back to his house full of passed out, naked orgy people and calls Vigilante (Freddie Stroma) to bring over some bone saws.
After a rough night of purposefully getting beaten by bikers, a battered Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) is approached by a woman at the grocery store who assumes she’s the victim of domestic violence. While Harcourt politely rebuffs her help, the woman keeps pressing, prompting Harcourt to forcibly declare “I’m not a mirror” before landing a solid Beaker joke. As if her life doesn’t feel depressing enough, Harcourt catches herself pausing and considering the “Help Wanted” sign on the door while leaving with her clearance sale chips and dip.
Meanwhile, we catch up with Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), who is staring down the barrel of a divorce from Keeya (Elizabeth Faith Ludlow). Thanks to the events of Season 1, the two are separated, and Adebayo is struggling with the ground rules of not entering their old apartment without calling first. She still wants to work things out with Keeya, who rightly feels burned after Adebayo abruptly decided to torch ARGUS and start her own spy agency.
Outside Peacemaker’s house, Economos is back to working surveillance, but he’s about to get an unexpected visitor in the form of Langston Fleury, played by the always great Tim Meadows. If Peacemaker isn’t going to be this show’s comic relief, James Gunn could not have picked a better replacement. Fleury is here to babysit Economos now that Peacemaker’s use of the QUC is giving off strange readings. ARGUS doesn’t know what he’s doing, and they don’t trust Economos to tell them.
Because Peacemaker is spiraling, he gives ARGUS yet another opening by returning to the QUC with Vigilante, who is thrilled to be hanging with his best bud. Chopping up a body in a pocket universe? What’s not to love about that? With their excursion setting off alarm bells at ARGUS, Fleury instructs to breach the house when Economos is gone that night. Turns out, he’s meeting up with Peacemaker for an 11th Street Kids reunion on the roof of Harcourt’s apartment.
With that party in full swing, Fleury’s team gets saddled with inappropriate nicknames before breaking into Peacemaker’s home. They discover the door to the QUC, which is giving off all kinds of extra-dimensional energy, but their surveillance is cut short by the real man of the house: Motherf*cking Eagly. Like a feathered, flying Batman, he absolutely wrecks Fleury’s team, and I have to give James Gunn props. I was actually on the edge of my seat that the little guy would take a bullet because this show is dark enough to go there. Fortunately, Eagly is too damn good, and Fleury’s team is sent packing with bleeding necks and missing eyeballs. Eagly does not f*ck around.
Back on the roof, Peacemaker takes another shot at making things happen with Harcourt. However, he steps in it when he implies that she’s going to rough bars on purpose, and she calls him out for wanting her to be some wounded bird that’s broken enough to be with him. It’s not a great moment for our boy, who responds by getting absolutely sloshed. Nothing is going his way. He knows Rick Flag wants revenge for his son (Adebayo dropped that bomb) and the girl of his dreams can barely stand him. Where does she not hate him? The alternate universe.
The other Peacemaker’s phone fell out of his pocket before his body was incinerated, and our Peacemaker naturally looked through it. What he found was tons of photos and videos of that universe’s Harcourt being fully in love with the other him. In another drunken stupor fueled by rejection, Peacemaker wanders back to the alternate universe where he texts the other Harcourt. She responds with a broken heart signaling that she misses him, and our Peacemaker is stupid enough to see where this goes. Fade to black.
Mike Drops
— I’ve been watching this season with my son, and we’re extremely curious to see if James Gunn is crazy enough to introduce the DCU’s Batman on this show. He’s definitely been dropping bread crumbs. Not only did White Rabbit make a brief cameo in the premiere, but Sasha Bordeaux is apparently a recurring character. Both have direct ties to Batman in the comics. Episode 2 also saw Keeya straight up mentioning Gotham. Gunn has had an enormous amount of creative freedom, so there’s definitely a non-zero chance he could debut his Bats amidst a sea of flopping dongs.
— Does it bother anyone else that nobody seems to enter the QUC except Peacemaker? His alternate family seems to make use of it, but for a place that has 99 doors leading into it, you’d think there’d be more activity. I get this is a comic book world, but there’s a little too much hand-waving going on. Maybe we’ll get some answers down the pipe.
— On that same topic, here’s the big question: Is the alternate reality where Peacemaker escapes Earth-2? In the behind-the-scene feature for the Season 2 premiere, James Gunn says that the other Peacemaker is from “another planet.” That could have been a turn of phrase, but it’s interesting that Gunn has also revealed that the QUC leads to “99 other dimensions.” Numbering the different Earths is a DC Comics staple, and if Peacemaker is on Earth-2, we could be in for some wild sh*t.
