At this point, I think James Gunn may need to stop talking so much. He’s everywhere. Hour-long post-show podcasts. Constant video and print interviews. Posting on social media at all hours of the day. And now, that’s gotten him in trouble with DCU fans, where he dramatically hyped up a Peacemaker series finale that was ultimately a letdown for most.
The finale was at least dramatically satisfying in some ways. Specifically, Danielle Brooks’ Adebayo gave a series-best performance in two separate scenes that were as emotional as we’ve seen from any cast member. And the will they/won’t they with Chris and Harcourt at least was temporarily ended with the two finally getting together. The group started their own spy business, Checkmate, and it was a happy ending. Until it wasn’t.
Rick Flag throws Peacemaker through a dimensional door to a seemingly Earth-ish planet, where the plan is to stick metahumans in there and lock the gate behind them so they can’t leave. And that was it. The end. Insert 2-3 montages and two full rock band performances in the middle, and that was the finale.
It wasn’t a bad episode on its own, but it was a bad series finale (it’s confirmed there is no season 3), even if it wasn’t the last look at these characters, Gunn said. In addition to that, Gunn hyping up the end of this season, specifically the finale, now seems overblown, and the high expectations are why the finale has rubbed many the wrong way. Here’s Gunn earlier in the season:
“I am the one who’s keeping the three episodes away from everybody because there’s too many surprises in those last three episodes. Especially 6 and 8, they are just crazy, my favorite things I’ve ever done of anything.”
Gunn said he literally only showed the final three episodes to a handful of people, and said many times that this was a hugely important finale for the entire future of the DCU. This led many fans to believe massive plot twists or huge DC cameos were coming. That did not happen. Not that the show needed that necessarily, but it’s certainly what Gunn seemed to be promising.
In fact, it is true that the episode is setting up a very important plot point, especially when it comes to Man of Tomorrow, the next Superman movie. The problem is, probably only 2% of Peacemaker viewers know about Salvation and the “Salvation Run” 2008 comic storyline it’s drawing from.
In it, the Suicide Squad throw in various supervillains into the planet Salvation and lock them in, as the episode indicated. That included the likes of Lex Luthor, the Joker, a bunch of Flash villains and even Catwoman, (I’d say her “supervillain” status seems questionable).
This storyline takes place after events that have not at all happened in the DCU. Black Adam killing scores of people in World War III. Amazonians attacking the US. The Flash getting murdered. This is when the metahuman threat reaches a breaking point, so they get tossed into Salvation, despite more than a few of those listed not being metahumans at all.
A twist here (perhaps future movie spoilers) is that the planet is actually a “training planet” for Darkseid and is wildly dangerous. Whoops!
So, it is simultaneously easy to see that the discovery of Salvation is a reveal of what the storyline is probably going to be for Man of Tomorrow, in addition to other developments like Lex working with ARGUS. But with viewers having exactly none of that information unless they start Googling, you can also imagine why the reaction to the finale was so poor.
I think 1) James Gunn should not have built this up to the degree he did and 2) I would not necessarily have used the finale of Peacemaker to set up a movie, as the show deserves better than that. Gunn reiterates that Peacemaker and his friends will return, but it’s hard to imagine that would happen in anything but brief supporting roles.
I really enjoyed some elements of the finale. But as a finale, this did not work at all.
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