A lot of things on Peacemaker have the capacity to surprise us. The creatively gruesome action sequences, the bizarre non sequiturs, the seamlessly way that its events were retconned over into James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new DC Universe.
But the latest episode of the show’s second season just found a whole new way to blow the audience’s minds… with the introduction of a relationship that nobody could have expected.
**Spoilers for Season 2, Episode 3 of Peacemaker, “Another Rick Up My Sleeve”, below!**
The very first scene of the episode, before we dive into the anthemic opening dance sequence and into the parallel dimension adventures of Christopher Smith / Peacemaker’s (John Cena), is a flashback. More specifically, it is to three years before the events of Peacemaker Season 2, as Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) gets out of bed and gets ready for the day. In the bed behind her is Rick Flag Jr. (Joel Kinnaman), and the two of them begin to talk about the nature of their relationship.
Rick brings up the possibility of him breaking up with June Moone / Enchantress (played by Cara Delevigne in 2016’s Suicide Squad), who could react by tearing “a hole through the planet.” He says that that might be worth it, though, so he and Emilia can truly be together.
Emilia, meanwhile, claims that the two of them are probably each other’s only friends and that really being in a relationship could “screw that up.” Rick argues that, by hooking up, they probably already have screwed things up. Emilia pushes him to get dressed for the day because he ships out to Corto Maltese in just a few hours, before a montage of his scenes from The Suicide Squad play, culminating in his tragic death at the hands of Peacemaker.
A new ship for a new DCU
It’s impressive what this scene accomplishes (and raises questions about) in the span of just a few minutes. Even though Gunn has referred to the events of The Suicide Squad as an “imperfect memory” in this new DCU (with the fallout of Peacemaker killing Flag Jr. on that mission remaining the biggest constant so far), fans will probably spend the next few days and weeks debating the timeline and canon of it all.
The “three years ago” flashback would move the DCU events of The Suicide Squad (and by extension, the first season of Peacemaker) later than they were in the previous DC Extended Universe canon, putting them in closer proximity to what we’ve recently seen in projects like Creature Commandos and Superman. And Rick’s mention of June provides the biggest crumb in years for 2016’s Suicide Squad, even though there’s no telling at this point if any of that film’s events are canon, or if Delevigne would even reprise the role in the DCU. Rick mentioning that June could use her powers in 2022, when Suicide Squad ended with her being freed from Enchantress in 2016, seems to hint at a different chain of events than what we’ve previously seen onscreen.
But beyond that, this scene between Emilia and Rick is impressive on an emotional level. It ties together two characters who never even shared a frame in The Suicide Squad, but whose personalities and histories with Black Ops have more overlap than any of us could have probably realized. Some fans probably had their suspicions after Peacemaker Season 2’s premiere, when Earth-2 Keith Smith (David Denman) told Peacemaker that Earth-2 Emilia is dating a “jarhead,” but the reveal that they were also together on Earth-1 is something else altogether.
It adds a new weight to Rick’s death, and to the ensuing months of Emilia having to work alongside the man who killed him… which has only become more complicated now that they’ve seemingly started to develop feelings for each other. As Season 2 of Peacemaker has shown us thus far, there’s a multiverse of possibilities for how this could shake out.
New episodes of Peacemaker debut Thursdays at 9/8pm CT exclusively on HBO Max.
(featured image: HBO Max)
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