Peacemaker season 2 is still a sequel to the James Gunn Suicide Squadron

This article contains spoil Through season 2 of “Peacemaker”, episode 4, “I need the door.”

The concept of a series of films of multiple franchises in progress, to which we have come to refer as a “cinematographic universe”, is still relatively in his childhood. Despite the existence of decades and change of things like Marvel Cinematic Universe and the conjured universe, there is still a lot of experimentation and margin of maneuver on how each property chooses to manage its growing continuity. The oldest franchises, such as James Bond’s films, “Halloween” and others, have tended to choose a time to break continuity with the past, presenting certain new deliveries as starting points, either through the middle of a new version or a restart. This may be the fastest and most clean way to start over, but although this movement releases the narrative, it means that part of the thematic and emotional resonance that a property wins over time could be lost.

The DC universe of James Gunn and Peter Safran, born of the ashes of the extended universe of DC, is a fascinating case of an ongoing universe that stepped on a new path when it comes to continuity. While most of us initially assume that Gunn’s “Superman” (and the “creature commands” before him) would mark the rupture point for the missing DCEU, the second season of “Pacifier” has shown that these assumptions are wrong. As seen in the season until now, it seems that Gunn is adopting a parallel universe approach to merge the DCU and the DCEU. In other words, we can assume that the events in that universe happened the way we saw them previously, unless otherwise indicated. Then, Gunn’s “Superman” acts as a restart of that main character, since the film makes it clear that this is not the same Superman who endured the events of “Man of Steel”, “Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice”, and so on. However, “Peacemaker” has only retired a couple of elements, and we have taken a look at what has changed. This is what has remained the same: “Pacifier” remains a sequel to “The Suicide Squad” by Gunn, not only in tradition but also in terms of its emotional and thematic continuity. In fact, a large part of this new season deals with the consequences of the options taken in “The Suicide Squad”, specifically the murder of Rick Flag Jr. (Joel Kinnaman), which is an exciting and narratively responsible decision by Gunn.

Part of the artistic motivation for Gunn to make “pacifier” after “The Suicide Squad” is like a continuation of his career to the helpless and the misfit characters. As with “The Specials” and “Super”, “The Suicide Squad” by Gunn is about a group of superheroes and anti -bears of list B and C, whose moral is decidedly decisive everywhere. The most disgusting of the group, at least when it comes to morality, is the same peacemaker (John Cena), who, without a doubt, follows the orders of the leader of the Amanda Waller Squadron (Viola Davis) to cover up all the US participation tests in a secret government project. One of the ways in which Peacemaker tries to ensure that this is killing Flag, who was prepared to go against Waller’s orders once he discovered the truth behind the Starfish project. While the pacifier is not the main villain of the “Suicide Squad”, it is essentially the character of Turncoat, which is somehow even more laughable for the public. Then, “Pacifier”, then, it is Gunn’s experiment to see if he can take such an unpleasant character and make him a beloved protagonist of another project.

Given the reception of the first and now second season of “Pacifier”, it could certainly be said that the mission has been achieved. The impressive thing is how Gunn had an obvious blackboard and easy to use for the titular character (and the entire Ne’er Wells Wells set of the program) with the DCEU series movement to the DCU. It would have been very possible that Gunn says that “the suicide squad” never happened to this new Pacifier DCU, or that it happened in a different way, and so on. Instead, Gunn leans in the connection with film 2021 and is twisting the emotional knife even harder. Now, Peacemaker not only has to consider murder Flag Jr. and deal with the subsequent search for revenge that Rick Flag Mr. (Frank Grillo) is undertaking against him. He must also reconcile the fact that the woman who has fallen in love with, Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), was Flag Jr.’s lover before he died. Then there is the question of the alternative universe that the pacifier has found thanks to the stolen technology of his father, in which Flag Jr. is still alive and is in a relationship with the Harcourt of that universe, which used to be involved with the Chris Aka Peacemaker of that universe, whom the pacifier of our universe killed in self -defense this season. By keeping the repercussions of Chris’s error alive while introducing a parallel instance of pacifier killing the wrong man (a version of himself, damn the subtlety), Gunn is using the material made so that the DCEU feeds the DCU in an intelligent and emotionally vibrant way.

While all this may seem confusing, we generally know where the “pacifier” events and their central characters are. However, the jury is still out, on which other future characters and projects within the DCU will select elements of the DCEU to carry out. Most likely, Marquee’s great characters, that is, Superman, Batman, The Flash, etc., will not be in any kind of continuity with their DCEU exploits. However, the admission of Rick Flag Jr. to go out with June Moone, also known as enchantress, of the “Suicide Squad” of 2016 (played by Cara Delevingne) in “Peacemaker” raises the question of whether that film is also part of the continuity of the DCU. We know that Gunn has entered the album to confirm that “Blue Beetle”, the movie DCEU 2023, is still mainly canon for the DCU too. So, those are at least two, and potentially three, the DCEU films that retain the canon elements for the DCU in the future.

The big question is whether this fragmentary approach to build the DCU will end up paying or if it could become a bigger headache than it is worth. There is no doubt that the general public is much more prepared to understand this advanced storytelling mechanics than they would have been a decade ago, especially thanks to the MCU multiverse saga that leads to a group of previously established heroes, such as Patrick Stewart professor, Xavier and Wesley, the sword of Snipes, to their recent entries. While it is likely that Gunn himself has a headache or two when talking to the media about who and what is Canon (if he has not yet done), the secret of all this in the long term is something that the filmmaker has already discovered, which is that finally it does not matter whenever the elections serve the story and the characteristic in a compensatory way. It is one thing to maintain continuity simply to appease the literal mind. However, “Peacemaker” illustrates that Gunn was not interested in taking shortcuts or molding the boxes, but wanted to retain the moral and emotional weight and tension that makes “peaceful” so convincing. While it is not yet clear how much you can trust Chris, it is obvious now that the audience is in good hands with Gunn and “pacifier.”

New episodes of “Peacemaker” unfold on Thursdays in HBO Max.