The Season 2 finale of Peacemaker just dropped and it’s end of the road for the series, for now, at least, according to James Gunn.
In the episode, which airs on HBO Max, Rick Flag Sr. played by Frank Grillo tasks his team with searching the Quantum Unfolding Chamber for another dimension where he can carry out his plan.
Meanwhile, things are looking bleak for John Cena’s Chris Smith.
Gunn, showrunner, writer, director and executive producer, spoke with the press ahead of the finale, talking about the end of Peacemaker, for now, how he plans to carry the character on in the wider DCU, and teases that Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool nearly made it into the episode.
The first season ended with a big confrontation with an alien invasion but the second season ends on a more emotional note. Gunn says, “I always thought the first season is about Peacemaker. The second season is about Chris Smith. We saw in the first season where Chris was dealing with his the repercussions of his actions in many ways, but also the presence of his own trauma, and a trauma that he had never seen in his life, that was affecting all of his thoughts, all of his decisions, everything he did, and he just he wasn’t aware of it. By the end of season one, he becomes aware of this trauma, and I think in Season 2, he’s aware of it, and it is actually makes his life a little bit hard. As anybody who’s done a lot of therapy knows, sometimes that can also be make your life harder, at least temporarily, because you’re dealing with all this stuff in your life that you didn’t even know was there, and you’re doubting things about yourself that you never doubted. This second season is about that internal journey of Christopher Smith.”
DEADLINE: How did you dream up those other universes?
JAMES GUNN: In the first episode, we saw Auggie two talking about going down to the little imp land and nabbing one of them giant peppermint sticks, and then we see that he was actually talking about a real place. I wanted to show that, but show that in a way that was hellish. It was one of the most fun things I ever did, because it really does remind me of a lot of the Hong Kong Category III movies I loved when I was younger, and how it’s able to blend this absolutely batshit crazy stuff with true tragedy, with Klein getting killed, the sadness of Harcourt and Fleury, and then the change in Fleury that leads to his ending. Then in terms of all the other doors, it really was just a matter of creating a montage and what’s the most fun, or, of course, the important one.
DEADLINE: Were there any other universes that you dreamed up that for whatever reason you didn’t get a chance to include?
GUNN: Yeah, I wanted them to open the door and see Deadpool in a room. I talked to Ryan Reynolds about it and we’d have had to go through some pretty, pretty big hoops to do that. He wanted to do it. That’s all anybody’s going to talk about now is f*cking Deadpool in the other room.
DEADLINE: Can you just talk broadly about the decision to bring the planet of Salvation and the Checkmate agency into the DCU?
GUNN: Well, those are the two things that were always a part of this season. So when we sat down, even before I sat down with the writers room in DC, I had sort of mapped out what I thought the general story was, and two important aspects to that were Checkmate and especially Salvation, so those were things that I had pitched to everybody before we ever came into DC and then after we came into DC and we met with the writers room and worked things out a little bit more. That was always pretty instrumental in the overall, overarching story that I’m telling in the DCU, but also connected to it as well.
DEADLINE: Are you planning a third season of Peacemaker?
GUNN: No, this is about the wider DCU and other stories in which this will play out right now. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be. I don’t want to never say never, but right now, no, this is about the future of the DCU. It’s an important character.
DEADLINE: Will John Cena or any other Peacemaker stars be returning in Supergirl or Man of Tomorrow?
GUNN: Well, we’ll have to see. That’s a secret.
DEADLINE: The previous episode ends with Keith [Smith] surviving and quite horrifically disfigured, it would seem, from his attack. What can you reveal about if or when or how we might see him in the future?
GUNN: I think we’ve born a super villain, but I do think of the sort of a stories about Salvation, which is the thing that’s more planned out than the Keith of it all. I have plans for Keith, I just haven’t figured out exactly how it’s all going to work out, so I have to make sure I can do it. It’s hard with the interdimensional hopping stuff to make these things come together in the way I’d like. I have what I would like to happen with Keith, but I’m not sure.
DEADLINE: How much is what happens at the end of Peacemaker going to affect whatever you might be doing next with Creature Commandos?
GUNN: It’s in there, it’s a part of it. That’s being written now, and we’ve got the first couple episodes.
DEADLINE: Is there anything different about him since Creature Commandos?
GUNN: We saw a guy in Creature Commandos, which, when you’re first watching that season, he seems like he’s the good guy, but he’s absolutely not. He screws up everything again because he thinks he’s smarter than [Amanda] Waller, which he isn’t, and he falls for this woman, and is kind of played by her from the beginning. The fun thing about Rick Flag is he’s not this. He’s totally imperfect.
DEADLINE: What do you envision the organization looking like moving forward in this universe? Is it its own thing, or will you see it carrying through specifically with Peacemaker or other TV projects?
GUNN: You’ll definitely see Checkmate carrying through like they’re a thing now, so they’re a part of what’s going to happen, and I think they’re going to be really, really good at what they do. When we see them next, I think their circumstances will be a little bit different than the startup that they’re now.
DEADLINE: Does this lead us closer to a certain Caped Crusader’s canonical appearance?
GUNN: No, it’s really not about that. I mean, if you think we’re kind of skipping that part of it, because it really is about Sasha and Checkmate, it’s not about Sasha and Batman. Frankly, I know Sasha mostly from Checkmate, so that’s why she came into the story.
DEADLINE: What is the status of the Waller series? Might Checkmate be involved in that?
GUNN: It’s just been a rough road. Sometimes things just happen and it’s like butter, and it’s so easy, and you’re getting great scripts, and it’s just straight off the bat, and other times it’s just a rockier road. As I said from the beginning, we’ll never greenlight something where the scripts aren’t working, and we just haven’t had that yet with the Waller show.
DEADLINE: Will the conclusion of Season 2 be setting up a broader role for Peacemaker in the DCU?
GUNN: Moving forward, yes. He’s important. He’s really important to me. Peacemaker is an important character. I said from the beginning when we took on this job, it’s about really propping up and maintaining and repositioning. The big diamond properties that DC has, the Batmans and Wonder Womans and Supermans, and then creating diamond properties out of the smaller characters like Peacemaker.
DEADLINE: How do you balance wanting to tell a stand-alone season, while planting seeds for future DC projects?
GUNN: The balance for me is simply, can people sit down and watch Peacemaker Season 2 by itself? Maybe watching Peacemaker Season 1 and be thoroughly entertained. The answer is yes. So that’s my only litmus test. Will people be able to go watch Man of Tomorrow without watching Peacemaker or even Superman, and be thoroughly entertained? You know that that is the first thing that needs to exist. Then all the rest of it becomes gravy at that point.
DEADLINE: Was that Jared Haibon of The Bachelor acting as one of the artists?
GUNN: Yeah. Jared is a guy I know. My friend Elan Gale ran The Bachelor for years, and I knew Jared through that. He’s a huge Superman fan. When we were shooting he came down and appeared in the scene. That whole thing with the cocaine was improv. I didn’t tell him he was going to be doing cocaine.
DEADLINE: You mentioned that Waller has been a tricky road. Do you anticipate Viola Davis appearing as Amanda Waller in any capacity?
GUNN: I would certainly hope so. Viola and I have a great relationship. I love her to death. I think she’s one of the greatest actors I’ve ever worked with, and so I would certainly hope so.
DEADLINE: You’ve talked about getting the DCU off the ground. How are you feeling now, in terms of passing the baton to other creators?
GUNN: It’s challenging, because I am, by nature, a writer and director. I produce things, but it doesn’t come as naturally to me, it doesn’t feel like it does. I’m trying to be the best producer I can. It’s a personal challenge; I’m focused on being the best producer and supporting those creators the best I can to help tell good stories. I’m beholden to the story in those things as much as I am to the story of my own stuff. So, my central concern is the same, whether it’s a movie I’m directing or someone else.
DEADLINE: What will dictate in the future what DC projects you direct?
GUNN: Man of Tomorrow was an idea I’ve had for a long time. I think I know the next few I’m directing, so I already know, frankly. Because it’s a part of the plan of the DCU, there is one big story. On the one hand, I want everything is going to be okay to watch by itself. But also, there’s a bigger story being told that involves, say, Salvation and that story involves Rick Flag, it involves Lex and Superman. There’s those movies that I’m going to be directing. That’s the plan right now, at least. I may get so f*cking tired that I can’t do it, because I’m pretty tired, but we’ll see. But there’s a plan that I’m going to do a couple more, at least.
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