Peacemaker season 2 ending explained: How finale sets up Superman's Man of Tomorrow

The penultimate episode of season 2 left Chris Smith in a very bad place. Yes, even worse than the Nazi-loving dimension he's just escaped from. Because on the team's way out, both Peacemaker's (alternate) brother and (alternate) father ended up dying, forcing Chris to relive the loss of his family all over again.

With Peacemaker now in custody and the rest of the gang in disarray, what does this mean for the final chapter of season 2? And how do we go from that to the setup for season 3, not to mention James Gunn's Superman sequel Superman, Man of Tomorrow, which this episode will also launch.

Grab yourself a Big Belly burger and settle in as we take a closer look at the end of season 2 and what's next for Peacemaker.

Peacemaker season 2 ending explained

The finale starts one month prior where we finally get to the night Chris and Emilia Harcourt acted on their feelings and shared a kiss.

Copious amounts of tequila aside, it's an incredibly sweet, affecting sequence that wouldn't feel out of place in a modern-day rom-com. That's not to say it's cheesy either, especially when Emilia nearly pummels a guy with freckles. The chemistry Chris and Emilia share feels genuine, rooted in affection for their friends and each other.

Back in the present, Chris rejects efforts made by the gang to visit him in prison. He claims to a guard that he's become the angel of death as a result of the trauma he's endured, but if that's true of anyone, it's Rick Flag Sr.

Time and time again, he sends A.R.G.U.S. agents to investigate unlocked doors in the inter-dimensional space that Peacemaker first introduced us to at the start of this season. John Economos points out that this feels reckless, especially given that the agents can't be tracked once they pass through each door.

Most of the doors are locked though, thankfully. That is, until they reach number 22.

At first, it looks like the sweetest dream, a world where candy canes stand tall in place of trees. But, of course, it's not long until tiny critters ambush the agents, including Emilia, biting at their hazmat suits with tiny pointy teeth. The team eventually escape, shooting and even ripping the imps apart who explode in a puff of glitter.

One team member, embarrassed earlier by his story of puking on a stripper, has nothing to be embarrassed about anymore, and that's because he's dead. The little gremlins smashed their way through the glass in his helmet and proceeded to eat his face.

So what is the plan exactly? It turns out Flag is looking for an uninhabited world that's breathable with its own food and water supply. But why?

Leota Adebayo, aka Ads, visits Vigilante who ends up envisioning her and his mum engaged in cunnilingus because… reasons. Moving swiftly past that, Ads needs the blood money Vigilante has accrued from all his crime busts over the years. It's the only way they can pay off Peacemaker's bail and free him from jail. Vigilante would rather kill the judge's family because he's afraid this blood money is cursed, but Ads tricks him into agreeing anyway.

Chris makes bail, despite his wishes to the contrary, so he just takes off to a dingy motel with Eagly. Meanwhile, A.R.G.U.S. Agents open plenty more doors to other worlds including one with a black hole, another with old-school zombies, and a third that's populated by giant skulls on spider-like legs, screaming into the abyss.

That's a big nope for everyone involved, although Lex Luthor leaves a note saying the black hole world looks promising. Flag seems pretty happy too, laughing and doing lines of coke with his team while more agents are brutally killed under his command.

Yep, Flag sucks, which is a bummer for anyone who enjoyed watching a younger version of his character lead the Creature Commandos in Gunn's recent animated series.

Eventually, another dimension suited to his needs is found. In a shady meeting with some higher-ups, Flag explains that this 'Salvation' planet is the perfect place to house criminals that prisons like Arkham Asylum and Belle Reve can't handle. Essentially, he wants to remove all the aliens and meta-humans he doesn't like, much like a dumber version of Lex. Will that soon include Superman?

Flag's cyborg colleague slash girlfriend Sasha Bordeaux doesn't feel particularly good about this plan, and with so many people dying for the cause, she decides to form an alliance with Emilia and put a stop to this.

They meet in the same Big Belly burger restaurant that Harcourt and Chris visited on their date, which is as good a time as any to point out that Peacemaker has barely appeared in the finale yet, even though it's his show. While some might be quick to criticise that, this just goes to show how strong the supporting cast is, especially when they band together with one common goal.

Despite that camaraderie, Danielle Brooks remains the clear standout here, and she gets a chance to shine when Ads visits her ex to find resolution and close that chapter of her life for good. The words they share — "It tears me apart at my bones and I will love you for the rest of my life, but I know we’re not right for each other" — are so good that they almost make me forgive the fact that Ads' wife's been missing from the show since episode 1.

Using her special clearance, Sasha finds Peacemaker's location with a little help from John who tells what might be the worst joke in the world — while revealing a harrowing fact about lobsters in the process. Did you know they die because their shells stop growing so they end up being crushed by their own exo-skeleton? Well now you do... Ok, maybe double check that one on Google.

The group catch up with Chris outside the motel. He tries to run, but Vigilante electrocutes him. It's ok though. He does it with love. And then they all pour out their feelings to Chris who reveals why he's been pushing everyone away.

With so many people dying around him, including his family, twice, Chris believes that he's cursed. After all, weirder things have happened in a world full of magic and aliens and all kinds of f***ery.

But Ads points out that all those deaths happened because Chris was listening to other people, Amanda Waller… his father… and not himself.

"When you are truly who you are, Chris Smith, what happens? You touch people, man. I believe in miracles because of you. I saw an eagle hug a human. I know who I am because of you and when I’m around you, I feel loved. You’re big and you’re stupid but I know you love me and I don’t know if I can say that about anyone else in the world."

Brooks has received Oscar and Emmy nominations in the past, so how about we just give her both for this performance? It doesn't have to make sense. All I know is that she's amazing here and got me crying even harder than her character does in that motel room.

Everyone pitches in to convince Chris that they're his family, and with that, they go off to the next big thing. But before they do, Peacemaker stops Emilia and asks her if their time on the boat meant something to her. She pushes back, at first, afraid again that she might hurt him, but then Emilia admits: "Of course it did you fucking arsehole. It meant everything."

Chris goes back inside and pauses for a moment. Suddenly, he then does the biggest cheer along with an adorable leap in the air and mini dance break to the show's theme song. The show intercuts that with an actual performance by the band Foxy Shazam one week later on the rock boat.

A montage where everyone grabs money from Adrian's basement, complete with an obligatory stripper dance from Adrian, cuts to the team building their own office alongside Judo Master and Agent Langston Fleury (you know, the guy with bird blindness).

There's a very cheesy moment where the gang all walk together, slow-motion, in a line, which shouldn't work, but you know what? They've earned it. We then learn from Langston and Adrian that spiders can produce milk, because what else are these two loveable weirdos going to talk about now they're teammates? That one's definitely true. I've already Googled it.

How the Peacemaker finale sets up season 3 and Superman's Man of Tomorrow

As the team leave the office, we pan up to see that the new organisation they've funded with Adrian's blood money is called Checkmate.

In DC Comics, Checkmate is an established spy team that follows a chess motif with everyone's code named based on rank, like Kings and Queens on top, for example. The white half of the division focuses on information and intelligence while the agents designated black work in the field.

Peacemaker was actually a member of Checkmate in the source material, so this all tracks, and with the organisation's focus on ensuring balance between humans and metahumans, it's obvious that the Peacemaker gang will continue to play an important role across the wider DC Universe moving forward.

But not with Chris, it seems, because at the very end of the episode, Flag kidnaps him and throws our hero through the interdimensional door, trapping him on Salvation. He claims Peacemaker is a test subject to see what long-term effects the dimension might have on his body. But really, it's pretty obvious he's doing it out of spite.

"This is for Ricky, you piece of s**t," says Flag as the door closes and disappears, leaving Chris alone in another dimension where monstrous screams from who knows what can be heard in the distance. That's what you get for killing the dude's son in a Suicide Squad feature film a few years back, I guess.

Two post-credits scenes follow, both played for laughs. The first sees a government official suggesting that Flag put up a "vaporising barrier" around Salvation to ensure no one can escape. Kind of like a bug zapper.

The second feels more like a deleted scene that didn't make the cut because it jumps back to John trying to distract everyone with a terrible joke. The story this time, about a serial killer who shows his killer permit to a cop, leaves one colleague in fits of laughter though. "Looks like someone has got a new fan," John says to himself rather smugly.

It's interesting to end the episode on a joke as some fans feel the same way about this episode as a whole, complaining online that there wasn't enough action or that it was too concerned with setting up something new at the end.

It also doesn't help that Gunn has previously hyped this episode up, only for the cameos in question to be old rock bands and not famed heroes like the Justice League finale from season 1.

Yet there's something rather ballsy about doubling down on the character work while forgoing the usual big CGI battle that's come to characterise the end of so many shows like this. Sure, there are still loose ends to take care of, potentially in other DC endeavours rather than a third season of Peacemaker.

It's previously been hinted that Superman and Lex Luthor will be forced to team up in their next movie together, Man of Tomorrow, and it's looking more and more likely that this may take place on the Salvation planet introduced here.

In the comics, this 'Salvation Run' arc forced plenty of villains to team up so they could escape the prison world together, and it wouldn't take much of a twist to throw Superman into that equation, especially given Lex's involvement here in Peacemaker.

One thing's for sure, Chris ain't finding peace anytime soon, even if it did look that way ever so briefly in that happy smiley slow-motion segment.

Peacemaker is available on Sky Max and NOW.

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