Peacemaker Episode 6 Review: Murn After Reading | Den of Geek

“Dude. My advice – cut it out with the introspection. The mind is a den of scorpions better left running from, not towards,” Vigilante tells Peacemaker. But that advice goes unheeded.

Peacemaker, who other characters are tellingly starting to refer to more frequently as “Chris”, is truly on the verge of an emotional breakdown, which is something I wouldn’t have necessarily expected when this series began. The Peacemaker of the show’s early episodes, and even The Suicide Squad before that, was the perfect government tool. His credo was simple: peace above all else. And his mode for achieving that piece was simple: kill whoever needs killed. 

The show’s early efforts to communicate that Christopher Smith’s murder of Rick Flag may have been one murder too far weren’t entirely effective. Combining the guilt of that assassination along with the guilt of somehow killing his brother years prior (which we still have yet to see the full story of) has proven to be far more successful.

Though this season of Peacemaker was almost certainly shot out of order, like most full-season streaming efforts, John Cena’s performance really does appear to be getting stronger as the series goes along. He’s the best he’s ever been in this episode, maybe because he has the best material yet to play with. 

The episode’s opening scene, in which Peacemaker visits his old janitor “friend” Jamil’s kid’s school, is perfect for Cena’s talents. Having this large, charming man be bullied by children is just always going to have a high success rate. It also stealthily gets the character on the morose path of self-reflection that he’ll spend the rest of the episode in. After fielding questions from a kid he dubs “gender-swapped Alfred E. Neuman”, Peacemaker gets a query from Jamil’s son.

“Do you have an origin story?” he asks.