Peacemaker season 2 review: "Darker and sadder than the first year, but there's still a lot of fun to be had with the 11th Street Kids."

This review is spoiler-free.

A lot of the pre-release speculation around Peacemaker's second season has hinged on how the show might fit into the newly minted DCU. That first year was sweary and ultra-violent – a far cry from James Gunn's mostly clean-cut and family-friendly Superman.

Well, fans of the show need fear not. Some small continuity tweaks aside – last year's climactic appearance by the Justice League has been reworked to feature the Justice Gang, for instance – this is very much the same show. In some ways, in fact, it goes even further. A bracingly explicit orgy in the first episode shows that Gunn has clearly not been tasked with toning things down...

Peacemaker's first season ended on a high for the 11th Street Kids, with an alien invasion thwarted and broadly good vibes between the gang. Six months later, however, things have changed – and almost entirely for the worse.

Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) has lost her job thanks to an unseen-but-spiteful Amanda Waller and is resorting to self-destruction. Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) and her wife Keeya (Elizabeth Ludlow) are taking a – potentially permanent – break, and while Economos (Steve Agee) is still working for A.R.G.U.S., he is increasingly being forced to monitor Peacemaker, with Waller's replacement Rick Flagg Sr. (Frank Grillo) plotting revenge for the death of his son in The Suicide Squad. Vigilante (Freddie Stroma), at least, is still pretty much just Vigilante.

Crucially, Peacemaker himself is still wracked with guilt and insecurity. An early try-out for the Justice Gang – cue an amusing cameo from Nathan Fillion's Guy Gardner, Isabela Merced's Hawkgirl, and Sean Gunn's Maxwell Lord – goes badly wrong, but it's his relationship with Harcourt that's causing him the most pain. Clearly something romantic has happened between the two recently, but she's increasingly lashing out at anyone who tries to get closer to her.

And so Peacemaker finds himself drunk, high, and in the Quantum Unfolding Chamber – the TARDIS-like room in his late dad's house – where he accidentally discovers a doorway to an alternate reality...

Sliding doors

I'm fairly certain I'm not the only person who gave a heavy, wearied sigh on learning that Peacemaker season 2 would be stepping into the multiverse. Marvel's post-Endgame work has so thoroughly muddied the concept that it's easy to forget that there's still a lot of potential for meaningful character work in the Sliding Doors, roads-not-taken aspect of alternate realities.

Happily, Gunn has locked onto this, giving Peacemaker access to a world where he's a cherished hero, where his dad Auggie (Robert Patrick) is still alive, and where he has a romantic history with Harcourt. Basically, it's a world where Christopher Smith can finally be happy and where his past is a lot less complicated.

That stands in stark contrast with his own universe, where the screws are only tightening. While Peacemaker's first season was structured around the mystery of Project Butterfly and a looming alien invasion, season 2 is largely focused on Smith himself, with Flagg Sr. having assembled a squad to take him down. Chief amongst these new recruits is Tim Meadows' Langston Fleury, an A.R.G.U.S. agent whose bizarrely changeable mood and string of non sequiturs mark him out as this season's most reliably amusing character. He's paired with Sol Rodríguez's terse and tough (if slightly ill-defined) Sasha Bordeaux, Michael Rooker's eagle hunter Red St. Wild, and a grudging Economos.

The scenes focused on this new team feel like a conscious throwback to the way the gang bonded in the first season – often antagonistic, but also quippy and fun. They bring lightness to the show, which is welcome given that the core cast are kind of a bummer to be around right now.

That's clearly intentional. This season – from the five episodes (of eight) shared with us so far – seems to be about finding all of the core characters at their lowest point; tearing them apart so that they can – presumably – come back together stronger. There are hints of that in the fifth episode, which ends on an exciting cliffhanger for the rest of the run.

Still, while that means there's nothing quite as spit-your-drink-out hilarious as Peacemaker's semi-improvised celebrity rant at Economos ("Khloé Kardashian! The Red Tiger from Voltron! Fran Tarkenton! Joe Montana! Joe Mantegna!"), it gives Cena the chance to find even more depth and nuance in what was already a compellingly contradictory character.

Season 1 saw Peacemaker grow sick of being effectively a killer for the government, and while he still has blood on his hands, there's an increasing desperation to Chris in season 2 that only seems to abate when he's in the other universe and treated as the uncomplicated hero he longs to be. It's affecting – and clearly doomed to failure. You can't run from your past forever, and while Peacemaker is certainly more on the side of the angels now, a past as murky as his cannot be easily forgotten.

Keep on keepin' on

This strong focus on the title character – and on his connection to Harcourt – helps distract from a few flaws. At least in these five episodes, Keeya is even more sidelined than she was in season 1, which feels like a missed opportunity to explore the most important person in Adebayo's life. There's also a sense of repetition. Last season saw the police coming for Peacemaker; this year, it's A.R.G.U.S. and Rick Flagg. Last time around, Adebayo was forced to work against Chris; this year's it's Economos. The plot has changed, but some of the beats are the same.

Peacemaker has always felt like the most personal of James Gunn's various superhero projects. There's a deep sincerity here that, combined with Cena's vulnerable, wounded performance, makes for an often genuinely moving show. Season 2 builds on that without abandoning the laughs, shocks, and essential silliness that made it so much fun in the first place. A mid-season subplot surrounding Rooker's character on the hunt for Eagly is particularly perplexing.

Removing the central threat of season 1 – the Butterflies – and turning the attention fully onto its title character has led to a looser, and more introspective series. Still, that Gunn has found a way to make a parallel universe storyline in a superhero project both engaging and unpredictable in 2025 is impressive.

We don't yet know how this story ends, but this is a solid start to a season that lingers in life's one-thing-after-another difficulties. It's a year that forces Peacemaker's flawed, damaged, sometimes terrible people to – as Foxy Shazam's theme tune puts it – keep on keepin' on because, let's face it, what other choice have they got?

Peacemaker season 2 is streaming on HBO Max in the US from August 21, and on Sky Max and NOW TV in the UK from August 22. For more, check out our guide on how to watch DC movies in order, and keep up with all the upcoming DC movies and shows heading your way.