Peacemaker Season 2: “The Ties That Grind”

Peacemaker returns to HBO Max with a bang, reintroducing the peace-loving hero Christopher Smith in the brand-new DC Universe. Fresh off the heels of Superman (2025), Peacemaker season 2 kicks off with a recap of the first season, highlighting the essential elements needed to understand where all of these characters stand in the present day. While most viewers will likely be fans of the first season, the long gap between seasons may worry those jumping back in. Thankfully, James Gunn delivers an excellent and concise recap without stuffing it with unnecessary details, focusing only on what’s needed to understand the characters.

Most fans will start this season with the big question: how does this connect to the new DCU when the first season took place in the DC Extended Universe? Gunn immediately addresses this, recontextualizing and making subtle changes within the recap to answer that question. This may not satisfy everyone, but Gunn has already been clear that this is not the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU); every property here is meant to have its own tone and identity. That also means lore and “what is canon” are not the most important aspects of each movie or show.

Speaking of tone, Peacemaker season 2 reintroduces the irreverent style of the first season, but with a more personal edge. Gunn’s signature comedy is ever-present, yet there’s an undeniable air of seriousness that underscores the sadness felt by John Cena’s Peacemaker, a sadness that feels deeply genuine. Gunn has proven himself a master of blending pathos with comedy, and this is no different. The best comparison is between Guardians of the Galaxy and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: both are quintessential Gunn, but the latter carries a much more serious weight overall.

As the season premiere, the episode naturally falls back on some traditional opening clichés, such as reintroducing characters and showing where they’ve been. Some, like Steve Agee’s John Economos or Frank Grillo’s Rick Flag Sr., recently appeared in Gunn’s Creature Commandos or Superman, so they require less buildup. Others—Peacemaker himself, Harcourt, and Adebayo—have had less exposure recently and thus receive more attention. Fortunately, they’re reintroduced with minimal exposition, allowing the story to get moving quickly and making this one of the most concise season premieres in recent memory.

Structurally, “The Ties That Grind” feels like a complete, self-contained story. After the recap, the episode opens with Peacemaker accidentally stumbling into a parallel universe, only to flee when confronted by an alternate version of his deceased father. Later, he returns to that universe after feeling humiliated and defeated in his own life, creating a neat symmetry between the beginning and end of the episode. As George Lucas once said, “It’s like poetry, it rhymes.” Too often TV episodes feel like incomplete chapters of a larger narrative, but this one avoids that trap, functioning both as a standalone story and as the launch point for the season’s overarching plot.

While season one was unapologetically violent and laced with profanity, this premiere doubles down on its mature edge, including an explicit orgy scene that lasts over a minute. Gunn has been vocal that Peacemaker is not for kids, and this sequence makes that abundantly clear. Whereas many shows use nudity purely for shock or spectacle, this scene serves a narrative purpose: illustrating Peacemaker’s need to escape his reality, burying himself in sex and drugs as a way to forget his pain.