Despite Earth-2 Focus, James Gunn Says ‘Peacemaker’ Season 2 Is Not “A Multiverse Story”
While Christopher Smith’s latest outing may revolve him jumping between various timelines (and cinematic universes), showrunner James Gunn says Peacemaker‘s DCU-set Season 2 is less of a “multiverse story” and more of a “literary” one.
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In addition to transplanting the series from the former DCEU to its new DCU successor, as confirmed by its opening recap showing the Justice Gang rather than Zack Snyder’s Justice League as the super team who in arrived “too late” to help Peacemaker end last season’s Butterfly invasion, Peacemaker Season 2 centers its narrative on the reformed anti-hero’s use of the newly acquired Quantum Unfolding Chamber.
Created by his father, Auggie Smith, and coming into his son’s possession following his death, the Chamber serves as a sort of ‘multiversal nexus’, its seemingly endless space accessible to anyone capable of developing the technology to access it.
Originally accessed by the Smith’s for use as a glorified storage closet, a wrong turn by Eagly while exploring it in Season 2 leads Peacemaker to find a door to Earth-2, whereupon he discovers that in this world, Auggie is both alive and fights alongside him on the side of angels.
Bewildered by the reality that stands before him, Peacemaker eventually goes against his better judgement and slips away to his counterpart’s home, where upon arriving he slips inside to investigate the differences between their respective lives.
But in the middle of his snooping, Peacemaker is caught in the act by his doppelgänger, who due to not seeing his face and believing nothing more than a common burglar.
Responding to being held up by attempting to make a run for the Quantum Unfolding Chamber, the doppelgänger gives chase, the ensuing fight eventually resulting in the latter’s unintended death – which, as the episode comes to a close, leaves Peacemaker facing a multiversal identity crisis.
However, despite the seemingly major relevance this Earth-2 excursion will have on the DCEU survivor’s foreseeable future, Gunn has pushed back against the widespread description of the season as a typical “multiverse story”.
Offering his own insight into the season’s story during a post-season premiere press roundtable held the day after Peacemaker‘s return, as attended and recapped by nerd-related news outlet Nerdist, the director explained:
“[The Quantum Unfolding Chamber] was just a place where [Peacemaker] could keep his helmets. It wasn’t going to be as important as it became when I first wrote it.”
“This is about one emotional journey with the world that seems slightly better than ours and how that helps Christopher Smith to learn about himself. And so that’s the story that interested me, the fun of that singular universe, of the small differences, not the big differences.”
“It’s personal for me just in that I am a person that thinks back to, “What if I did this thing a little bit differently?” Or, “What if I did that thing a little bit differently? What if I kept that person in my life? What if I wasn’t so mean to this person in the past? How would my life be different? How much do the small choices we make in our lives affect us in really big ways?
“That is really the difference. That’s why this isn’t what has come to be considered a multiverse story. People will say it’s a multiverse story, but it’s really much more contemplative than what we’ve come to see from a multiverse story. As we were saying earlier, it’s a much more of a literary story than that.
“And it is about the emotional journey of this person who’s really lost everything in his life that has been important to him, from his brother to any sort of real relationship with his father that he never had. And now he’s presented with those things in a way that absolutely is going to be compelling and that we cannot blame Christopher Smith for his actions throughout the season.”
New episodes of Peacemaker are currently dropping on HBO Max every Thursday at 6 PM PST/9 PM EST.
