Pratik Handore
After ‘The Suicide Squad,’ writer-director James Gunn returns to the world of DC Comics with the superhero drama series ‘Peacemaker.’ The spin-off follows the eponymous anti-hero, who, after recovering from his injuries, is assigned to a new team and must undertake a new mission. As we learn more about the abrasive and offensive protagonist, we get a sense of the underlying loneliness that resides within him.
Gunn’s over-the-top yet provocative writing elevates the slow character development with a little help from entertaining performances and stylized action. If you are curious to find out the details of the Peacemaker’s latest mission and the risks that come with it, here’s a detailed breakdown of the show’s first three episodes! SPOILERS AHEAD.
Peacemaker Episodes 1, 2, and 3 Recap
The series premiere episode titled ‘A Whole New Whirled’ opens with Christopher Smith/Peacemaker (John Cena) getting discharged from the hospital after recovering from his injuries. He returns to his trailer home and is greeted by a team of agents who work under Amanda Waller (Viola Davis). Peacemaker is recruited for another mission known as Project Butterfly, headed by Clemson Murn. He is hired to be a contract killer and tasked with killing a US Senator.
Before beginning the mission, Peacemaker goes to his father’s house to retrieve his pet bald eagle, Eagly. After a difficult interaction with his father, Peacemaker obtains a new helmet and suit. He meets up with Murn and the other agents at a diner and hilariously offends everyone. Later, Peacemaker tries to hit on Agent Emilia Harcourt at a bar but is rebuffed. He then hooks up with a woman from the bar. However, the woman aggressively attacks Peacemaker, and he is forced to kill her using his helmet’s destructive power.
In the second episode titled ‘Best Friends Never,’ Harcourt, John Economos, and Leota help Peacemaker escape from the crime scene. Before fleeing, Peacemaker finds a strange device in the woman’s apartment. He holds a husband-wife pair hostage and then jumps from their balcony. Peacemaker escapes, and Economos changes Peacemaker’s fingerprints and car license plate to show the name of his father, August Smith. Leota bribes the couple to take Smith’s name during police interrogation. The police subsequently apprehend Smith. Peacemaker becomes depressed by his inability to form a bond with anyone. He is cheered up after a visit from Vigilante, an amateur hero who idolizes Peacemaker.
The third episode, titled ‘Better Goff Dead,’ follows Peacemaker and the rest of the team heading out to assassinate Senator Goff. Murn reveals that Goff is a butterfly and suspects his family to be the same. However, he refuses to reveal what a butterfly is and hides other details of Project Butterfly. Peacemaker refuses to kill children, but Murn insists he will have to if they are confirmed to be a threat.
During the stakeout, Peacemaker and Harcourt are interrupted by a sneaking Vigilante. Goff and his family are revealed to be butterflies and depict inhuman behavior. Peacemaker gets an open shot at the family but freezes before pulling the trigger due to anxiety. Vigilante steps in and kills everyone but Goff. Goff’s bodyguard, Judomaster, intervenes and fights Vigilante and Peacemaker. The duo is captured, and Murn formulates a plan to rescue them.
Peacemaker Episode 3 Ending: Is Senator Goff Dead? What Is the Butterfly?
In the final act of the third episode, Goff takes Vigilante and Peacemaker to a basement that looks like a hive with some alien material layering the walls. Goff tortures Vigilante to extort information out of Peacemaker. Murn, Harcourt, and Leota arrive to rescue them but are withheld by a strange substance protecting the entrance to the basement. Murn uses an explosive device to blow off the substance. In the ensuing confusion, Peacemaker frees himself and fights Goff. He uses a shotgun to blow off Goff’s head. Outside, Economos singlehandedly deals with Judomaster and seemingly kills him. In the end, Goff dies, and a butterfly/moth-like creature emerges from his body.
The butterfly’s reveal serves as a callback to Project Starfish, which dealt with, quite literally, a giant starfish. At the moment, not much is known about the butterfly, but it appears to be extraterrestrial. The butterfly is a parasitic being and can control humans by residing within their bodies. After Goff’s death, Economos’ computer screen reveals that the number of suspected butterflies (the code word for people affected by the parasite) rapidly increases across the globe. Thus, it is possible that Goff served as a beacon for harvesting the parasite in humans, and his death triggered the awakening of the butterflies.
What Is Clemson Murn Hiding?
In the third episode, we learn a little about the past of Clemson Murn. The agent works under Amanda Waller, so it is safe to assume that he is a part of ARGUS. However, not much is revealed about his connection to Waller or his motivation for handling Project Butterfly. During a conversation with Economos, Murn reveals that there was a time when he was incapable of understanding and projecting human emotions. The precisely woven dialogue hints that Murn is not entirely human. He was likely trained or brainwashed to be a soldier from a young age. He could also be a former butterfly who recovered from the parasite’s effects, thereby expanding the mission’s importance to him.
The character does not have a direct comic book counterpart and could be a twisted version of an obscure DC Comics character. His covert actions, distrust of Peacemaker, and unwillingness to share essential details all make Murn a likely candidate as the potential big bad of the series. Only time will tell what secrets Murn is hiding, but given the ending of episode 3, he owes Peacemaker and the team some desperate explanations.
Read More: Where Is Peacemaker Filmed?
