Refresher: Peacemaker Season 1 in a Nutshell

For those who have watched Peacemaker (2022-) and need a refresher on the characters and events of season 1.

**REFRESHERS CONTAIN SPOILERS**

Major Characters

Peacemaker/Christopher Smith

Peacemaker (John Cena) believes he is a “superhero,” one devoted to fighting for peace, but he’s really little more than a contract killer. After his final confrontation with Rick Flag Jr. (Joel Kinnaman) at the end of The Suicide Squad, he is struggling to justify killing, especially if he feels the person doesn’t deserve it. At first he doesn’t get along well with the rest of the team, frequently annoying all of them, except for Vigilante who idolizes him, but over time, he grows close to the group, especially Adebayo who becomes his best friend (next to his eagle Eagly, of course).

When he’s brought into the team, he’s left largely in the dark about the Butterflies, and ends up inadvertently crossing paths with one who attacks him. Forced to defend himself, he kills her and demands to know more about their mission, but the team refuse to disclose more. He is then tasked with assassinating Goff (Antonio Cupo) and potentially his family, depending on whether or not they are also Butterflies. Due to Peacemaker’s internal struggles about killing, he freezes up when the official order comes to take out the entire family, including the children, and Vigilante has to step in instead, which almost allows Goff to get away. Peacemaker and Vigilante are captured by Goff but are able to kill him, which is when they find out what the Butterflies really are–alien parasites who take over a host human’s body. Feeling unable to trust his team completely due to their reluctance to include him in their intel, he captures the Goff Butterfly, which turns out to be the leader of the Butterflies, in a jar and tries to get information from it.

Meanwhile, Peacemaker’s father, Auggie (Robert Patrick)–who made Peacemaker’s uniform and a variety of helmets, each with a special function–is framed for the murder of the woman Peacemaker killed earlier, since the police don’t know she was really a Butterfly. Auggie convinces the detectives that Peacemaker is the one they’re looking for, not him, and they go to his place to arrest him. Peacemaker and Vigilante try to flee, but the jar containing the Goff Butterfly is smashed, and the Butterfly takes over the head detective on the case, Sophie Song. Song then infects the rest of the police force with Butterflies and they go to relocate their “cow,” the one thing that can keep them alive on this planet.

Peacemaker and Auggie have never gotten along, especially since Peacemaker accidentally killed his brother, Keith (Liam Hughes) when he was a child as a result of Auggie pressuring them to box for sport. Auggie is also the former white supremist supervillain, the White Dragon, and after being framed by Peacemaker’s team, he decides to kill Peacemaker with the help of his klan. They take the team by surprise, but are ultimately defeated, and Peacemaker is forced to shoot Auggie in the head, though he laments it after and sometimes sees visions of his ghost.

Peacemaker and the team attack the Butterflies and the cow and wipe out most of them. Song, now possessed by the leader of the Butterflies, tries to appeal to Peacemaker and ask for his help in their cause, because Peacemaker let her live and actually tried to speak with her earlier when containing her in the jar. Song also thinks their goals align, because the Butterflies are really here not to dominate but to save the human race from their own destructive behaviors. They seem to be like-minded in their beliefs that some people might need to be sacrificed if it means peace in the end. However, by now Peacemaker has realized that the beliefs he once held sacred were really just an excuse to do whatever he wanted, and no longer agrees, especially if it means his friends are at risk as a result. He kills the cow and Song, though he lets the Butterfly inside her escape.

Leota Adebayo

Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) is the daughter of Amanda Waller (Viola Davis). Waller trained her in weapons and combat, but Adebayo never wanted the life of a special agent and previously refused to work for her. Unfortunately, recently both she and her wife, Keeya (Elizabeth Faith Ludlow) recently lost their jobs and are desperate for work, so Adebayo begrudgingly accepts Waller’s latest offer–join a special task force intent on defeating the Butterflies, provide information to Waller (who doesn’t trust the others on the team, especially after The Suicide Squad), and plant a fake diary in Peacemaker’s trailer so that he would ultimately be defamed. However, she unexpectedly grows fond of her teammates, especially Harcourt and Peacemaker, and though she plants the diary, she feels incredible guilty about it. She feels torn between loyalty to her team and loyalty to her mother, since she is unable to maintain both at the same time.

Additionally, the mission itself turns out to be way more intense and dangerous than she anticipated, and she quickly regrets joining, feeling she isn’t cut out for this type of work. She intends to quit, but everything comes to a head and she must stay with the team and see this through, finding a new confidence in herself to handle what is being asked of her.

As the team attacks the place the Butterflies keep their cow underground, Peacemaker falls into the cavern, and Adebayo goes after him, donning one of his helmets that acts as a human torpedo when triggered. She reaches him as he speaks with Song, possessed by the leader of the Butterflies, and Peacemaker triggers the helmet, sending Adebayo as a torpedo into the cow and killing it.

With the mission accomplished, Adebayo chooses the team over her mother and reveals the task force and the Suicide Squad in a press conference, aggravating her mother.

Vigilante/Adrian Chase

Vigilante (Freddie Stroma) is a charismatic sociopath who enjoys killing and thinks the world of Peacemaker. He insists they are best friends, though Peacemaker is less inclined to agree. Though at first highly protective of his secret identity, it doesn’t take long for the team to find out, and he is ultimately recruited into the group, mostly because they need someone who won’t hesitate to kill when needed, and Peacemaker has been reluctant to kill lately. When faced with the threats of the Butterflies and the White Dragon’s crew, Vigilante eagerly fights back, taking out several of each along the way while helping to defeat the Butterflies.

Harcourt and Economos

Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and Economos (Steve Agee) work for Amanda Waller, returning from their first appearance in The Suicide Squad, where they helped run Task Force X behind the scenes. Since their team at the time went against Waller’s orders, they feel she no longer trusts them and has sent them on this new mission as some sort of punishment. Neither of them cares for the majority of their new teammates at first, particularly Peacemaker, who they find frustrating, and Adebayo, who Harcourt thinks is too inexperienced to assist with the team. Over time, they ease up on the new members, coming to view them as family, and Harcourt bonds with Adebayo. Economos is the lead tech guy on the team, and Harcourt takes over leadership of the team after Murn is killed. Ultimately, they are able to work together to stop the Butterflies, though both are severely wounded in the process–Harcourt is shot and nearly dies, and Economos breaks his leg. Both survive and are on the path to recovery at the end of the season.

Murn

Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji) is the leader of the team, but is later revealed to secretly be a Butterfly, an alien insectoid who took over a human body. He has turned on the rest of the Butterflies and is determined to stop them, and regrets that in order to do so, he had to possess a human, knowing that he essentially killed his host in the process. In an effort to justify this, he chose the worst human he could find, but even still, wishes it could have been avoided. When the Butterflies gather up their forces and go after the team, Murn sacrifices himself to give Harcourt and Adebayo a chance to escape. The human body is killed by the leader of the Butterflies, who then notices the Butterfly inside and chides him for betraying them before snuffing him out.

Key Takeaways

• Following the events of The Suicide Squad (2021), Christopher Smith (John Cena), aka Peacemaker, has recovered from his injuries and is released from prison, but is recruited into a new special task force consisting of Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji), Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), John Economos (Steve Agee), Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), his pet eagle Eagly (Dee Bradley Baker), and later Vigilante (Freddie Stroma), who are fighting against a threat known as Butterflies
• The Butterflies are alien insect-like creatures that can take over a person’s brain and have infiltrated many high-level people across the world
• Adebayo is also secretly Amanda Waller’s (Viola Davis) daughter, who has been placed on the team intentionally by Waller to be her inside person, and though Adebayo has had professional training, she has never been on a team like this before
• After Peacemaker kills a Butterfly posing as a person, Economos frames Peacemaker’s father, Auggie Smith (Robert Patrick), a former white supremacist supervillain named the White Dragon, who blames Peacemaker for the death of his other son, Keith (Liam Hughes)
• Auggie is arrested by Detectives Sophie Song (Annie Chang) and Fitz (Lochlyn Munro), who are investigating the death of the Butterfly Peacemaker killed, though they don’t know it was a person controlled by a Butterfly
• The task force is sent to assassinate a political family believed to be Butterflies, but the father, Goff (Antonio Cupo), evades the initial attack
• Later, Peacemaker is able to kill Goff and secretly captures Butterfly inside him, who is also the leader of the Butterflies
• Adebayo and Harcourt realize that Murn is also a Butterfly, but he has turned on the others of his kind and is helping to bring them down
• Auggie is able to prove his innocence and is released from jail, then decides to take revenge on Peacemaker by suiting up again and gathering his Klan
• Realizing that Peacemaker, not Auggie, is their prime suspect, Detectives Song and Fitz go to his house to arrest him, but the Goff Butterfly escapes and takes over Song, who then releases more Butterflies into the police station, taking over the entire police force as well as the prisoners who were present at the time
• The Butterflies go after the team and kill Murn, realizing he was one of their kind who turned on them
• Song and the rest of the Butterflies rely on a special food source that comes from a “cow,” a giant alien that is the only one brought to Earth when they arrived; the team decides to destroy the cow, which will cause the Butterflies to starve to death within weeks, removing the threat
• The White Dragon and his crew disrupt the team’s mission and injure Vigilante, but are defeated by Eagly, Vigilante, and Peacemaker; Peacemaker shoots Auggie in the head
• The team attacks the place where the cow is being held, and the Butterflies scramble to teleport it to a safer location; most of the Butterflies are killed while Economos breaks his leg and Harcourt is shot and nearly dies
• Peacemaker and Adebayo are able to reach the cow, and Song tries to convince Peacemaker to join them, claiming that the Butterflies’ infiltration is not malicious, but rather they are trying to save humans from their own destructive actions that will ruin the environment
• Peacemaker refuses, triggering one of his special helmets that Adebayo is borrowing in order to kill the cow, then kills Song, though he lets the Butterfly inside live–probably the only surviving Butterfly left
• Adebayo decides to reveal the truth about the task force, as well as Task Force X (aka the Suicide Squad), to the world, to the chagrin of her mother

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