But “Another Rick Up My Sleeve,” the third episode of Peacemaker season 2, reinforces that series creator and writer James Gunn is using the concept in a way more reminiscent of science fiction works like Fringe, Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Dark Matter. Those stories use the multiverse to tackle philosophical questions about who their characters are, what they want, what they’re capable of, and who they would be if things were just a little different. That’s a much richer use for the concept than an opportunity for endless cameos.
[Ed. note: This article contains major spoilers for Peacemaker season 2, episode 3.]
In Peacemaker’s season 2 premiere, Chris Smith (John Cena) steps into the world Gunn calls Earth-2 and discovers that there, his father Auggie (Robert Patrick) and brother Keith (David Denman) are both still alive. That alone would be enough to make Chris want to linger, but in this world, he’s also a celebrated hero. He has the warm relationship with Auggie that he’s always wanted, and a much better chance for a romantic relationship with his former handler Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland). As Chris says repeatedly in this episode, it seems to be the “best dimension ever.”
It also seems to be the answer to all of his problems. Peacemaker season 2 opens with Chris in pretty much the exact same spot he was in the series premiere, hoping to connect with Harcourt, getting rejected, then coping via debauchery that leads to him having to kill someone. This time, instead of killing the alien invader he just hooked up with, Chris kills his Earth-2 self. As horrifying as that incident is, it does give Chris the perfect opening to slip into a better life.
But lingering in Earth-2 has higher costs for Chris than having to hack apart and dispose of his own body. Accidentally killing Keith when they were both kids was a formative trauma for Chris. He spent most of season 1 grappling with his self-loathing over Keith, which Auggie constantly reinforced by blaming Chris for killing his older brother and saying that Keith was the better son. Ultimately, Chris kills Auggie after realizing his father really deserved the blame.
Chris wants to think he’s changed. When he’s interviewed by the Justice Gang in the season 2 premiere, he says he’s no longer an indiscriminate killer. When he talks to Earth-2 Harcourt, he says he’s less arrogant and won’t cheat on her again because he has shaken a trauma that was weighing on him. While he doesn’t explain it to her, he clearly means he feels like he can be a better person now that he’s seen Keith alive. But rather than actually moving forward and coping with his grief, desperate need for acceptance, and the violent tendencies Auggie instilled in him, Chris is actually moving backward as a character by indulging in old fantasies of being part of a happy family and solving his problems through lethal force.
Even though Auggie caused Keith’s death by forcing his sons to fight, and constantly shifted the blame to Chris while denying him any form of affection or approval, Chris still desperately tried to please his father. In Peacemaker’s first episode, he appeals to Auggie’s sadistic tendencies by joking about how Chris’ fellow Suicide Squad member Bloodsport (Idris Elba) was also tortured by his father, even though Chris obviously doesn’t find that pain nearly as funny as Auggie does. Chris has Auggie’s love in Earth-2, but Chris doesn’t examine what he did to earn it, or what his family’s ascendance as Earth-2 heroes means for the rest of the world. He doesn’t even question why his Earth-2 self was prone to drug abuse, womanizing, and disappearing for long periods of time, despite having everything Chris wants most.
I think the answers are hidden in “Another Rick Up My Sleeve,” where we get to see more of Earth-2. As Chris rides through town on his Peace Cycle, all of the people cheering him are white. So is everyone working at Harcourt’s agency ARGUS — a marked contrast to the racially diverse team of colossal jerks serving the agency in the main world. The same seems to be true of everyone working at the DMV when the terrorist group the Sons of Liberty attacks as part of their campaign to fight oppression by blowing up government buildings.
Earth-2 Auggie is a hero under the name Blue Dragon, by contrast with his overtly white-supremacist original-Earth secret identity White Dragon. But I am not convinced that his values have changed. In a universe where Keith didn’t die and drive a wedge between Chris and Auggie, but instead served as a second strong soldier fighting for Auggie’s vision, could they have used their stolen interdimensional technology to take over part of the United States? If so, could the Sons of Liberty be targeting government offices that collect personal data as a way of fighting a superhero-backed white nationalist regime?
The bloody, high-fatality fight between Chris and the Sons of Liberty shows Chris again setting aside the personal growth he claims he’s achieved. Keith matches Chris’ level of violence, casually destroying the Sons of Liberty’s escape helicopter and killing all aboard without regard for the civilians it might injure when the flaming wreckage crashes to the ground. Chris’ brutality impresses Earth-2’s meek version of Harcourt, making her seemingly eager to rekindle their romance. This Emilia is so different from the one Chris is pining for that it should make him question what he even likes about her, but again, Chris would rather have the easy win than really engage in self-reflection.
That’s the point of the sort of multiverse stories Gunn seems to be channeling. Dark Matter, Fringe, and Everything Everywhere All at Once start off by presenting the multiverse as a method of wish-fulfillment: What if you had taken a different path and got the girl of your dreams? What if you could save the child you lost? What if you were wealthy, famous, and good at kung fu instead of barely getting by? And then they become stories about how bad things can really get, as characters confront versions of themselves capable of mass murder, kidnapping, and child abuse.
Chris has already killed his Earth-2 self, but what he really needs to battle is the part of his own psyche that hasn’t changed since The Suicide Squad. He spends the beginning of this season hanging all of his self-worth on being celebrated as a hero and becoming romantically involved with Harcourt, rather than enjoying the other meaningful relationships he’s built. Now he seems ready to retreat from his world to Earth-2 without examining why things are so different there, and why his doppelgänger there was so unhappy. That internal fight is far more meaningful than a brawl between characters from defunct series, and it shows that the multiverse can still be a powerful tool when it’s used for philosophical quandaries rather than brand-building.
Peacemaker is streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes premiering every Thursday through Oct. 9.
