Peacemaker Didn't Need to Retcon Season 1

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for Peacemaker Season 2 Episode 1, "The Ties That Grind."]

In an irritating turn of events, Peacemaker Season 2 starts retconning Peacemaker Season 1 before Season 2 even gets the chance to begin. In the opening moments of the Season 2 premiere, "The Ties That Grind," the series rolls a "here's what you missed on Peacemaker" recap, which is fair, considering that this show hasn't aired new episodes since 2022. This is where Peacemaker takes a firm stance on the direction the rest of the season will take, as John Cena's voiceover proclaims, "Previously in the DCU." If that made you sigh heavily and/or stare at your screen in confusion, you're not alone: "The DCU," or DC Universe, refers to James Gunn and Peter Safran's reboot of the old DC Extended Universe, which is an overly complicated way of saying that all the Ben Affleck Batman movies are no longer canon. Before the recap concludes, Peacemaker retools a scene from the Season 1 finale to declare that it has, in fact, always taken place in the DCU.

You'd be forgiven for not remembering that the Justice League made a brief appearance toward the end of Peacemaker Season 1 — again, this show last aired in 2022 — as they arrived to "help" after Peacemaker (Cena) and his friends had already stopped the alien species trying to take over Earth. "You're late, you f---ing dickheads," Peacemaker barked. The outlines of Superman and Wonder Woman could be seen only in the shadows (Henry Cavill and Gal Gadot were clearly not actually present), Jason Momoa's Aquaman and Ezra Miller's The Flash had a quippy exchange, and that was that. The moment faded out, making no real impact on the remainder of the season. The Justice League cameo remains untouched in the version of the Season 1 finale that is available to watch on HBO Max, but in the "previously on" recap that kicks off Season 2, Peacemaker doubles down on its connection to the DCU by revising the scene. The shadowy outlines of the Justice League have been replaced by the shadowy outlines of the recently introduced "Justice Gang" (established in this year's Superman, directed by Gunn): Superman (the new one, modeled after David Corenswet, though he clearly was not on set for this piece of revisionist history either), Mister Terrific, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and Supergirl. Again, only two characters get to speak — this time, it's Nathan Fillion's Green Lantern and Isabela Merced's Hawgirl. And again, that's that.

But not really. Fillion and Merced, alongside Sean Gunn's Maxwell Lord, make a second and even chattier appearance later in the premiere, as Peacemaker sits down for an ill-fated audition for a spot on the Justice Gang. A technical malfunction results in Peacemaker hearing all the sh-- the three are talking about him (they call him a sociopath, among other things), the three argue about AV settings, and Peacemaker storms out, furiously telling Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) that he doesn't "want to be in their lame group, anyway." It's not until all of that is out of the way that Peacemaker's second season can finally start to breathe.

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All of this happens within the first 20 minutes of the episode, an obvious attempt on the part of Gunn (who wrote and directed the season premiere) to follow up on Peacemaker's quick cameo in Superman and make sure that we all know this show and that movie take place in the same universe. Nothing about the Justice Gang's scenes in Peacemaker feels natural, nor do they do much to serve Peacemaker's character. When the season begins, he's already at a particularly low point in his life, not to mention that he spent much of Season 1 voicing his bitterness about the Justice League's popularity. Gunn famously loves a cameo, so it was all but inevitable that characters from Superman would make their way into this season of Peacemaker, but something about the retooling of the Season 1 finale feels especially insidious.

Let's put aside the fact that "The Ties That Grind" sets up the concept of parallel universes in the season premiere, which seems like an easy enough explanation for why the now-erased Justice League would have appeared in the show at all. Retconning is a risky choice, due to the fact that it's kind of stupid. It's a way for creators to say, "What if the thing you very much saw with your eyes didn't actually happen?" and expect the audience to go along with it. Moreover, it's also a little cheap: Rather than problem solving with good writing, it's a way of erasing, of taking the easy way out. To be clear, Peacemaker's Season 1 finale could've done without drop-ins from DC's more well-known heroes, too — a moment of pure fan service if there ever was one. But the whole point of the Justice League's cameo was to prove that Peacemaker and co. didn't need them to save the world, which had the dual effect of proving that Peacemaker is a good show that stands just fine on its own, without shoehorning in connections to the greater DC film universe.

The thing that sticks out the most about the retconned finale scene is the inclusion of Supergirl (who is played by Milly Alcock at the end of Superman, and is set to get her own DCU film in 2026). We barely know who that is at this point in the DCU's painstakingly fussed over timeline, and yet here she is in Peacemaker, as if she's been there the whole time. It's exhausting, watching the powers that be try to force every story to fit perfectly together rather than just letting things stand on their own. It certainly would've been more in line with Peacemaker himself, a character whose charm comes from his inability to fit in with the rest of the DC heroes, to allow him to clash with the continuity of both universes. Not every TV series needs to be in service of a movie that will come out in two to six years. It would be a shame to see Peacemaker turn into just another show on the superhero conveyor belt.

Season 2 of Peacemaker airs Thursdays at 9/8c on HBO Max.