The season 2 finale of Peacemaker, “Full Nelson,” started off extremely strong, with a flashback to Peacemaker and Harcourt’s fateful night on the boat. The revelation that Peacemaker has been concerned over a simple kiss retroactively adds a palpable and engaging child-like tenderness to his character. In the present, Rick Flag Sr. is overseeing the exploration of various universes, such as ones with candy monsters, zombies, and a black hole. Adebayo convinces Vigilante to use his blood money to bail out Peacemaker, but Peacemaker runs away with Eagly the second he gets out. Rick Flag finally finds a seemingly peaceful dimension, which he pitches to the government as a prison-dimension for metahumans. Bordeaux and Harcourt quit, teaming up with Adebayo to start a new agency, “Checkmate.” The group comforts Peacemaker, and Harcourt admits that the night on the boat was meaningful to her. The episode concludes as Peacemaker is taken by Rick Flag and thrown into the prison dimension, known as “Salvation.”
“Full Nelson” is extremely complicated, as it has some great character moments, but it seems to prioritize connecting to a larger universe. As for positives, framing the episode and season around Peacemaker and Harcourt’s relationship was an effective choice. Additionally, the decision to have the emotional climax of the episode be a conversation where the 11th Street Kids comfort Peacemaker was powerful. Aside from these moments, the episode focused mainly on two extensive montages that felt disjointed from the rest of the season. This season, as a whole, has swung back and forth between episodes that felt more like bridges between two plot points and episodes with climactic character and plot moments. “Full Nelson” falls more into the former category, which is an unfortunate identity to have as the final episode of the season.
Unfortunately, a better season and better episode seemed to exist elsewhere in the season. For example, Rick Flag Jr.’s appearance in only the first half of the season has turned out to be a false promise, and a very distracting one, as three major characters have arcs that revolve around his death. Additionally, Keith’s survival of the attack in the previous episode was an exciting cliffhanger, but now it seems like an unresolved plot line. As is the case with interconnected universes, these characters and storylines can always be expanded upon in other projects, but that does not soften the blow of an underwhelming episode. In some respects, the previous episode was a more effective finale to the contained arcs and plot points explored in both seasons. As it played out, this finale was effective with its exploration of Peacemaker and Harcourt, but it seemed more like the first episode of a next season or subsequent show. Sadly, this episode and the season overall became too comfortable being part of a larger universe, which led to many unresolved plot points, characters receiving little attention (such as Vigilante), and storylines that wrapped up unnaturally quickly in service of setting up future events.
Rating: 5/10