This episode of Peacemaker was all about bonding, and while not a full road trip episode, it was still a fun time. It also managed to make a long-running joke still be funny, with Chris’ (John Cena, WWE Smackdown!) list of people that Economos (Steve Agee, Superstore) could’ve framed instead of his father, Auggie (Robert Patrick, Terminator 2: Judgment Day).
In honor of that joke, every time Chris will be mentioned, his name will be replaced with one of the people he listed in both the main scene and the extended version shown at the end of the episode.
That being said, this episode had a lot more going for it than just the singular joke, as the plot and characters both had major developments.
One of these major developments is the introduction of Captain Caspar Locke (Christopher Heyerdahl, Chapelwaite), who was sent by Waller (Viola Davis, How to Get Away With Murder) to help Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji, The Split) handle the situation with Auggie since “Ariana Grande” decided to tell him the truth about the fingerprints.
While looking more like a walking corpse than a person, the most interesting development from his introduction—besides the fact that the show introduced a new character over halfway through the season—is the development of Detective Sophie Song’s (Annie Chang, Shades of Blue) character, as she’s so lawful neutral that she’s willing to let a neo-Nazi free from prison because he was framed; sure, the law says it’s the right thing to do, but is it really?
While Sophie deals with Locke and his misogynist condescension, “Drake” and the rest of the team are set to infiltrate the warehouse where they suspect the butterflies are housing their amber fluid-like sustenance.
If that wasn’t already a conflict in of itself, “Brad Pitt” has decided to upgrade his bullying of Economos from mean nicknames to outright insults, channelling his inner high schooler, as Leota (Danielle Brooks, Close Enough) and Adrian (Freddie Stroma, The Crew) both point out, with Adrian brushing off “Payne Stewart’s” cruelty to being part of his personality while Leota tries to get through to him and tell him to be nicer.
Surprisingly, the bullying doesn’t last too long, as the team begin to bond during their road trip. It’s not so much bonding as it is “Doug the Pug” screaming about music as he goes through his CD collection, his bullying of Economos taking a brief pause when it’s revealed they both are fans of Hanoi Rocks. However, not much bonding occurs at that moment as a moment later, they arrive at the warehouse.
After a game of rock-paper-scissors, the group broke into two pairs and Economos in the truck, Leota and “Khloe Kardashian” going through the front, while Hartcourt (Jennifer Holland, Sun Records) and Adrian head through the back, the latter two channelling their mother-son dynamic with Hartcourt forbidding Adrian from bringing the chainsaw and eventually being surprised with how much of an asset he was for her.
This episode was overall incredibly sweet—save for the animal death, that was unfortunate—with Hartcourt embracing her role as team mom and taking a picture of everyone jamming out on their way back from the warehouse, then later seeing everyone’s reactions as they receive the image in a new group chat which, as everyone knows, is the ultimate symbol of friendship.
Other than the heartwarming development, credit must be given to this show in that it understands the importance of Chekov’s Gun, which is where, if something is mentioned or shown, it is paid off by the end of the story.
In this episode, the first and most clever instance was Charlie the Silverback Gorilla. Unlike the other two examples, Charlie was introduced as a concept at the beginning of the previous episode when “the Red Tiger from Voltron” found Auggie’s TV left on and showing the news story of Charlie being missing.
The next instance, which was also an interesting twist, was that Adrian wasn’t the one to use the chainsaw.
It was a great choice to have Economos use it, as it’d been established that he does wish he could be like the others and be competent in the field—see: his disappointment when admitting to Leota that he’d never been shot at, and his celebratory dance over the unconscious and seemingly dead body of Judomaster (Nhut Le, Stardumb) after he’d knocked him out.
It was also a fun twist in that Adrian even acknowledges that he had been the one who wanted to use the chainsaw and yet he wasn’t the one to use it, which also contradicts the promotional stills on the HBO Max website, but that’s besides the point.
The other instances both had major plot implications and both had to do with Leota.
Leota had great scenes in this episode, with her first appearance being an interaction with her and Keeya (Elizabeth Faith Ludlow, Another Life), showing how the job has begun to interfere with their relationship. It was a welcome surprise that the show didn’t just brush the relationship under the rug after the pilot, actually allowing one of their leads to not only be gay, but also have a realistic marriage.
The lesbian/himbo solidarity between Leota and “BTS” was also great, especially the sleepover-esque moment they had in “the two old guys from the Muppet”’s trailer where they talked about his crush on Hartcourt.
Their developing dynamic in this episode really helped to make the betrayal that much more painful, with the diary shown in the premiere coming back to haunt Leota whose guilty reaction clearly indicates that whatever is on that diary can’t be good.
The final scene had the final instance and was a very successful cliffhanger. After revealing Murn to be a butterfly in the previous episode, then introducing the X-Ray helmet that can see butterflies in people’s brains in this one, it only makes sense that it would be used to expose Murn. That being said, it was still a very tense scene with Leota’s fate up in the air until the next episode.
Overall, it was a great episode and with only three left, it will be interesting to see how everything ties together and what will come of these new developments in “the fucking cunts from Riverdale.”
Rating: 10/10