ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - Peacemaker Season 2 Episode 8 Breakdown - Ending Explained & DCU Easter Eggs!

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

ScreenCrush The Podcast tackles all the movie and TV hot topics, offering reviews and analysis of Marvel, Star Wars, and everything you care about right now. Hosted by Ryan Arey, and featuring a panel of industry professionals.

The Peacemaker finale sets up Superman Man of Tomorrow in a huge way, but I also think this episode is one of the most personal things that James Gunn has ever written. So we're going to explain that hidden meaning that this entire season is a commentary about James Gunn being fired from Marvel and then restarting with the DCU. And we're also going to break down how the entire season was foreshadowed by the opening dance. Welcome back Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie, and this is all of the Easter eggs, references, and little things you might have missed in the season two finale of Peacemaker. The episode starts one month ago with Chris and Hardcourt having a night out.

Now, at this point, Harcourt has been blackballed by Argus, and she's angry, but not quite picking fights in bars level angry just yet. She and Chris are meeting at a Big Bellyburger, the fast food joint in DC Comics, and the Arrowverse. Now, on the door, it says that Big Belly Burger was established in 1966, which is the year that Peacemaker made his comic debut in Fightin' Five, number 40. Harcourt is complaining about Otobio when she outed her mom, which got Harcourt blacklisted from all intelligence agencies. Now, we also saw the effects of this in Creature Commandos.

Technically, Congress said Argus can't use incarcerated human beings as mission operatives any longer. Now, Harcourts complain about Outabio in part because at the start of this season, the 11th Street kids were fractured, and Chris was the only common glue that held them together. And this scene shows how Harcourt's resentment of ads was also partly causing a rift in the group. So the song at the beginning is Someone Special by Hardcore Superstar, and Chris spells out the meaning for her.

Why are you so embarrassed about being someone special, Harkort? And neither Chris nor Harkort think much of themselves, but in one another's eyes, they are special. Chris says Amelia was too busy assembling automatic weapons to know music, which is true to her character. She went into the CIA right out of high school and has known how to shoot a gun since she was 12. Mine got me my first clock when I was 12. Also a mirror, though, to what Keith said to her on Earth X, when she didn't know who Halloween were. She spent all those years in books, you don't know the first thing about the most basic of pop-dum. Culture trivia. Outside, Harcourt starts to slip into old habits and picking a fight with this guy,

who, by the way, is wearing a prawns shirt. That's the same football team that Economos mentions later on. Did you watch the prawns game last night? Now, my favorite part of the exchange was how James Gunn was able to give this weird character a whole other backstory that happens off screen. Hey, my mama taught me to be proud of my freckles, okay? It reminds me of what's probably my all-time favorite line from Guardians. I like your knife. I'm keeping it. How is my favorite knife. And then we see that Chris is able to balance out hardcore. With him around, she doesn't need a violent outlet for her anger.

She can just lean on him and be happy. They talk about Adrian and Chris mentions his brother. This older brother just really wasn't good to him, you know? He's trying to fit in. Remember, way back in season one, Chris mentioned that he was actually friends with Adrian's older brother, gut. But he felt like he had to look out for Adrian. And now we know it's because Gutchase was mean to his little bro and probably shaped him into the sociopath that we know in love today. The band playing at the bar is Nelson. and in the 90s they had one hell of a great hit. I can't live without your love and a fiction.

I love you, little buddy. And as they go to see Nelson, we go to the opening titles. And believe it or not, this dance actually foreshadowed everything that happened this season, including the ending. But I'll talk about that later in the video. Now, the title of the episode, Full Nelson, has a few different meanings. Obviously, it refers to the band that was playing when Chris and Hardcourt kissed. Nelson brought out their full love for each other.

But Full Nelson is also a wrestling move, coming back to John Cena's past as a wrestler when he won 16 world championships. 17. You're right, 17. Now, a full Nelson is a lock where you trap someone, foreshadowing how Chris ends up trapped at the end of the episode. But it also refers to how he lived his life halfway, like ads tells him. Every time someone around you dies, it's because you're not listening to yourself. Now, when the episode starts, Chris is in jail, bringing him full circle to when we met him for the first time in the suicide squad. Now, he looks at this pigeon outside his window, which could be a reference to their avian cousin doves and the dove of peace that he has on his

uniform and all of his weapons. The dove of peace, my trademark? At this point, it's showing that he is very far away symbolically from that peacemaker identity. And also, his prison number is 11, which could be a nod to the 11th Street kids. So they've set up shop in the same warehouse for their Keeping Luther's Dimensional Portal Command Center that we saw in Superman. Last episode, they recruited his former henchman, Sidney Sapperson, to work for Argus,

and now he's not even in his prison uniform anymore, implying that he is a very. been fully exonerated. He has full clemency and later is even in high-level Pentagon meetings. And Lex Luthor is also in the good graces of the government. It's interesting that Gunn is telling a story about a billionaire who was convicted of a crime who now has power in the government again. It'll be interesting to see how this sets up Superman, Man of Tomorrow. So in the wide shot, we see that there are way more than 100 doors like Chris has said in the past. Now, I don't think Gunn is going to use these doors to set up a big multiversal story. In fact, in the Peacemaker podcast, he said only likes multiversal stories when they center around character. But these other doors are here if

another writer wants to pick up this thread and do something with it. I also still think these doors are going to connect to Apocalypse and Darkside and I'm never going to let that go. Now, the doors are also numbered, just like the different numbered Earths and DC Comics. They mention that door number four is locked. And Earth 4 is a really cool reference to the Earth that the original Charlton Comics characters are from, including Peacemaker. That is prior to their convergence with the mainstream DC Comics brand heroes. The Earth in the comics post the event New 52 is a meta-humanless universe where all the heroes or vigilantes are actually government operatives of some kind. And like I keep saying, I think Argus tampering with the QUC is going to set

up the next big bat of the next Superman movie, which will probably be Brainiac or Darkside. The Argus agents are in hazmat suits and they're tethered back to the real world, which is probably a callback to the movie Poltergeist, which of course was also referenced in the show Stranger Things. Flurry is telling a story about Pony, sorry, I guess now we're calling him Cupidol, where he compares a stripper to Mothra. That's the bug kaiju from the Godzilla movies. And I think this is also a callback to season one when Chris was first told about the butterfly invasion. Soon, the mission is joined by Otis and McCoy, two more of Luther's workers from the movie Superman. Now, Otis and Happerson were the goons that released the kaiju on Metropolis to distract

Superman while Lex invaded the Fortress of Solitude. And McCoy is in the Superman movie, barely. But in the comics, she actually unearthed Superman's secret identity as Clark Kent, and then tries to expose him to Luther, who doesn't believe that Superman could ever pretend to be a mere mortal. Meanwhile, Lex gives them notes on what they find in the portal. Now, in the announcement for Made of Tomorrow, we saw Lex wearing his exosuit from the comics, so we think it's likely he's going to use some of the technology from the QUC to give himself this upgrade. We got a couple more theories about Lex's notes that we're going to talk about later in the video. The team comes across an unlocked Door 22.

This is a fairy tale gumdrop land inhabited by adorable monsters, similar to the adorable aliens in the movie Galaxy quest. See, we're going to help the little hurt one. And just like in Galaxy Quest, the adorable moment doesn't last and the monsters go feral and chase after them. Now remember, in episode one this season, Augie retells the story of a 12-year-old Chris trying to steal peppermint sticks from these emps. Krispers rummaging around the munchkin dimension eight doors down. So we've seen emps in the DCU so far. The Justice Gang fought a solar imp in the background of Superman and Batmite was even mentioned last season in Peacemaker. I'd rather be with Bephantin'bite than you.

However, James Gunn has since rescinded his canon status. So here's a few of my favorite moments from the sequence, the way the imp leaps like the rabbit from Holy Grail, how they know to cut the breathing tubes and cut this cord, and also to shut the door. So this must not be the first time that people have entered their universe. In fact, this must be a trap that they have set.

I also love how when they die, they explode with magical glitter. And finally, when they shut the door, this one is severed in two and screams in pain. And RIPC, your last dialogue of record was the entire world learning that you barfed on a stripper. And that is someone who removes Exactly. Now, it turns out that Chris may be a dumbass, but he actually was the right person to keep the gateway to the QUC, because he knew better than to try and exploit all of these other universes. Like Add says at the end of the episode,

he may be an idiot, but he has a strong moral compass, so strong that without him, his friends lose their way. Harcourt doesn't really care what Flag wants. She is just happy to have her job back, because she used to obtain her self-worth through her work, but slowly she's learning to obtain self-worth through her relationship with her friends. Now, without Chris, the group falls apart. Even Eagli is sad. God, that image of a sad CGIE eagle really gets to me. It's all season long. Economos has shown a soft spot for Eagley, leading up to this ending that I'll talk about in just a bit. But right now, I want to remind you guys that for a limited time, we have these Peacemaker parody designs at our merch store. Peace cycle as the Akira cycle. Do you really want to taste it with Egli? Peacemaker and Eagley is Charlie Brown and Woodstock. This PSA for giving a hoot about bird blindness and where's the dog.

Shopping our merch store helps to support our channel so much. Thank you guys so much. Links are below. Now the song during the montage is Still Panther Stop My Heart in the Ass, a song that is about disappointment. The disappointment like trying to find a habit of dimension. Now here, notice the Lex says this black hole dimension looks promising. And remember, in his pocket dimension, he also had a black hole. So, maybe he's trying to rediscover his old prison, or he's trying to find Ultraman who disappeared in a black hole just like this one. They find a screaming spider skull dimension. Now, these creatures look very similar to the ghost spider from Starlink Comics Terror Tales number 11. The setting, though, looks nearly identical to Circe's vision of destruction from creature commandos.

With pike slittering the ground and in the left corner, it even looks like a cape is stuck to one of the spikes, like the dead heroes in her vision. This could be some kind of universe where the events of creature commandos did not unfold in the same way, and Pocolostan did conquer the world. Then they enter a zombie dimension, which is probably a reference to the great comic run, Deceased, where on an alternate earth, a corrupted version of the anti-life equation, has infected the population with a zombie-like virus, turning them into the image. into the anti-living. Now, this all happened when Darkside tried to extract the anti-life equation

from Cyborg, which went terribly wrong. So technically, we do have proof here that Darkside is. It could also be a nod to how James Gunn pinned the remake, Donna the Dead. We also see that Flagg has been hooking up with Bordeaux after he laid down the flirt a couple episodes ago. Impressive, sir. Rick. And remember, he tried to pull the same move on Harcourt. Rick. Call me Rick. Just pretty gross. It implies that he's trying to hook up with his dead son's best friend. And in the

episode, we see that he didn't really mean it when he said, call me Rick. It's just a way that he manipulates people. I'm sorry. I mean, Rick. What? You wanted me to call you Rick. Now, a couple weeks ago, we had Sasha Bordeaux actress Sol Rodriguez on our podcast, and she talked about Sasha's arc and how she slowly sees that Flag is using her. And sees him as someone that she would like to be like, right? Okay. Before she starts realizing things here and there and starts seeing his agenda, his personal agenda, I feel like then she goes through a journey of like, ooh, my loyalty, where do they, my loyalty resides. Now, during this montage, all the workerbees suffer and die while the eldest laugh in a penthouse. Granted, the penthouse is on the ground,

but I think it still counts. It all goes back to what John said just before the montage started. When is anything we've ever done actually been for the good of the people? And that line also sets up the ending in the main theme of the series that I'll talk about later on. So Flagg calls the inhabitable planet Salvation, which is a cool nod to the comics. There was an arc called Salvation Run as a lead-up to the final crisis event. In that comic, Waller, Flag, and Checkmate, who we'll talk about in a second, round up all of the world's most devious supervillains and deport them off planet. Their justification behind this was similar to flags in this episode. It's merciful and doesn't allow these people to hurt anyone else on Earth. Now, Checkmate, the Black Ops Agency,

finds out that this planet is in fact not inhabitable, as it was filled with dangerous beasts, which is hinted at the end of the episode. This prison planet is actually under the control of Darkside's lead torturer to Saad, and it turns out that he orchestrated this whole thing. The Sodd plan to use the planet as a testing ground for his parademons and release swarms of them onto salvation. So yet again, I think this is another lead up to Darkside. This is also the same room where Lex pitched Planet Watch to the Pentagon in the movie Superman,

and Rick is essentially completing Luther's plan from that movie. Luther created an unstable rift to build a prison for metahumans and people he didn't like, and Flag is now doing the same thing. Arkham and Belle Reeve. They're not capable of holding individuals who have extraordinary abilities. Belle Reeve, of course, is the MetaHuman Prison we saw on the Suicide Squad and Creature Commandos, and Arkham is the Gotham Asylum where Batman villains stay until they decide they want to break out. Now, we heard that frequent breakouts were a problem from these places back in episode one. This is the third metahuman escape from Bel Reve or Arkham in the past two months.

And I can't help but wonder, is Lex Luthor somehow mind-controlling flag? Secretary of Defense Mori, also from Superman, points out how Flachers, is doing a 180 by embracing Luther's policies. You've come a long way from lambasting Luther in this room a month ago. So maybe Luther found some way to influence Flagg's mind. It could also be foreshadowing him going up against Brainiac in the next Superman movie, which was also foreshadowed by this weird brain on the cover of the movie's screenplay. And let's not forget, Secretary of Defense Mori's words to Flag at the end of the movie

probably inspired his change of heart this season. Glad you're not concerned about the met of humans, Rick. Because now they're the ones making the rules. Now, having a prison world is also similar to the Phantom Zone, where Krypton sent their worst criminals. So it's basically Space Australia. Right. Flagg wants to create Space Australia. And in case you were wondering where they were meeting, it's in the basement of the Pentagon. See, he says clearly right here.

Adrian says that he is playing... Really far on Princess Peach Showtime. Which is not only a fun Nintendo Easter egg, but is weirdly relevant to the Argus plot. In that game, Princess Peach gets trapped by an evil witch in a theater, and the only way for her and the Toads to escape is by going through different plays. similar to Emilia and the other agents being forced by flag to go through all these different universes. Economost entertains Eagli with a piece of string, even though he reprimanded Eagley for bringing him string last episode.

I don't want a piece of string. You thought I wanted a piece of string? Now when Chris is at the motel, we see he's wearing a motley crew shirt. That is a reference not only to his love for this awesome band, but also to the beautiful piano cover that John Cena played last season to their song Home Sweet Home. It was an important moment in the show, as it was one of the first glimpses of this softer side of peacemaker that we've gotten the know this season. Harcourt meets with Bordeaux and tells her not to have a conscience in this job, but that's not really who Harcourt is. She is choosing to ignore the voice in her head telling her

what's wrong and what's right. And this is what Otabio calls out Chris for doing in the climax of the episode. So after Harcourt decides to put Chris first, we get this kick-ass cover of twisted sisters we're not going to take it. As the 11th Street kids start a mini insurgency against Argus. They don't try to do anything big like shut down the portal. After all, these do people can never pull off something that big. Instead, they just want to be reunited with their friend. And this also mirrors the end of last season, where Chris killed the cow not to save Earth, but just to save his friends. And now, his friends are killing their careers to save Chris. It's also important that Harcourt introduces her to ads. Because remember,

she started the episode Madd at Atabio for torpedoing her career. But now she wants Otobio's help to further ruin her career. The difference is, this time Harcourt actually can make this choice for herself. Now, when discussing how to find Chris, ads mentions, Can't you track him with that chip in his head? John and I have had our clearance with anything peacemaker related rescinded, so no. Which is a reference back to the suicide squad, where each prisoner of Belle Reeve is implanted with a microscopic chip that Waller had control of. If any of them went off mission, one button press, and they would. And this takes us to the boat, which we heard about way back to the start of the season.

With that party boat? Do you remember now? I remember I didn't want to go on it. Seems like you wanted to go on it then. It turns out to the boat was just a magical date, where they finally broke down their inhibitions and danced. By the way, the same dance move they do in the opening credits. But Harcourt, like Chris, does not listen to that angel on her shoulder,

and she rejects her feelings. I gotta go. And the song playing is to get back to you, and it has lyrics like, I can't find peace until you're in my arms. This, of course, symbolizes Chris and Harcourt's relationship. Neither of them feel good about themselves, except when they are together.

And this is mirrored in the present day, without a bio finally breaking up with her wife, Kia. It's a really honest, emotional scene where she finally sees the world from her wife's point of view after taking judo master's advice. She's crushing me, man. Maybe you can't accept her dreams. So in the present day, Ata Bio is finally able to be honest about her emotions and acknowledges that she and her wife are incompatible. While on the boat, Park court ran away from Chris because the two of them are very compatible. So the conversation between these two is filmed handheld with a long lens and very close up to really make us feel what the characters are feeling.

it's a very well-filmed scene. Economos has one more chance to be a dipshit to save the day, just like last season when he was terrible at getting past the bugs. Because of this bag? And then we see their master plan. It's not to stop Argus, it's to stop Chris. And of course, while most of them try to reason with him, Adrian, as always, chooses violence.

Chris says that he's cursed. I'm fucking cursed. What? And this ties in with what Adrian said about his money. Blood money will put a curse upon all of us and our distance. descendants. No, it won't. An autobio is able to show both of them the emotional truth.

There's no curse, there's decisions. That's deep. Adrian should use the money to do some good, and in Chris's case, he should listen to his judgment and do the right thing. And then she breaks up her life-changing event from season one. I saw an eagle, hug a human. And I love that this silly moment is what changed her life forever. Hard court ends the intervention by saying,

And we have all been listening to someone else. F-E-B- them all. And this. This is a James Gunn theme all the way through. He loves to tell stories about outcasts and outsiders who reject the system, but then create a found family for themselves. Just like the Guardians of the Galaxy, this found family even has its reluctant heroine finally admit that she has feelings for the protagonist.

Did it mean something? What? The boat. Of course it did. F***le asshole, it meant everything. And I love that this is what the season was building toward, not a fight, but an emotional catharsis. fist pumps as the theme song by Foxy Shazam plays, bringing the show Full Circle. One week later,

and the 11th Street kids have used Adrian's blood money to set up their own agency, Checkmate. Now, in the comics, this was a covert organization that Sasha Bordeaux worked for, so it makes perfect sense that they would spin off into their own intelligence house. Now, Checkmate first appeared in Action Comics No, 598, and they were an independent branch of Task Force X. Sasha Bordeaux was in charge of the team when they found out about the Salvation Plan, the same plan that Rick Flagg is implementing in this episode. So Sasha and Flurry become honorary members of the 11th Street kids. I mean, after all, Flurry also gave Flag a suspicious eye a couple episodes ago. And Judo Master also joins the team. He's hard to spot, but he was also in the QUC missions. It's just that

his costume was covered up by those hazmat suits. Now, before we get into the ending of the episode, I want to break down that opening dance and how it actually symbolized the entire season. It begins with Chris, and the lines behind him are like the grid in the QUC. Like we pointed out in previous videos, his alternating arms make the shape of a swastika, foreshadowing how the QUC leads him to EarthX. He's also in his peacemaker's suit, just like in the first episode of the season, when he tries to join the justice gang. And the spotlight on him also calls to mind the interview room from episode one. Now, the spotlights around the 11th Street kids can also represent the various doors in the QUC, a chriss and hardcore dance, because it turns out that their dance on the boat is what really kicked off the events of this season. They have a really tender moment here, just like on the boat.

And when Argus enter, they are very regimented and follow orders until they do an abrupt turn. Like how Flagg completely changes their mission into a revenge quest this season. And this is followed by the 11th Street kids in a row where they are never seen at the same time, showing their disunity. And then the side characters get a little bit of their own business to do. Judo Master flips, Adrian's mom humps the air. Alien does alien things. So best of all, though, this leads to Economos giving Eagley a tap dance number,

foreshadowing how Econimos is going to get closer to Eagley this season. In this group shot, nobody is quick. why it synced up with each other, showing how the characters are not working on the same page, but they are helping to tell the same story. So everybody leaves as Chris once again dances with Hardcore, and I think this is symbolizing their conversation on the bench, when she once again pushes him away, giving us this sweet moment where they are pulled away on tracks so the other Amelia from Earth X can enter with Keith and Blue Dragon. And again, there are movements make schwastikas. Oh boy, Nazis. So the two actual Nazis, Keith and Amelia, ascend while his dad unmasks and look at

the camera, just like how his dad revealed his true self last episode. I didn't create the problems in my world, Missy. I don't agree with them. And then they dog pile at the end because... Because they got sleepy. Right, and also because the season ends with Chris being taken away from them and everybody being sad. But the moment that really got me in this ending is when Jennifer Holland puts this little rabbit on her desk. It has a red cape and a sign that reads, obstacles are opportunities. Now, there's a lot here. This is the same shirt that Rick Flagg wore when he died, so this could be a tribute to her friend. But it's actually, a meta-commentary by James Gunn. The Rabbit represents Bugs Bunny, the symbol of Warner Brothers,

and the Cape is probably representing his 2019 film, Brideburn. Basically, when Disney fired James Gunn, he thought his career was over until Warner Brothers hired him to direct and write the suicide squad. That's why this shirt appears in that movie, because directing that movie was his second chance, his opportunity after the obstacle of Marvel firing him. Now, of course, that movie led to James Gunn being put in charge of this whole studio. So this moment is Gunn's way of saying that his friends and family are the 11th Street kids. They're the weirdos who broke free from the Marvel system to build something new, the DCU. But they don't get a happy ending. Rick Flagg gets his revenge on Chris by arresting him outside the system. Now, when this happens, Chris is wearing a foxy Shazam shirt. Another nod to how

James Gunn said they were the in-house band for the season. So masked guys and unmarked trucks grab Chris and take him to an off-site secret prison. Chris began the season looking to escape his sins by going to another dimension. And he ends the season being sent to another dimension to pay for his sense. The last song of the season is The Reckoning by the Cruel Intentions, with lyrics like, Why Don't You Scream a Little louder, it ain't working on me. And with Chris trapped on a random earth, it's almost like Flag is taunting him. No matter how much Chris screams, there is no escape from this planet. Now, as for how this connects to Man of Tomorrow and Darkside, we have so many theories we want to share with you guys, and we have another video coming out

about that very soon. Big shout out to Lee Mazio, who co-wrote this video. You can find his links below, and you can make sure to talk to us about the episode down in the comments, Twitter, Blue Sky Threads, or are free to join Discord server. And if it's your first time here, please subscribe, smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie.