Cameos, Crossovers, and Chaos: Peacemaker S2 Is Here

HBO Max hit the ground running at San Diego Comic-Con this past weekend, dropping the full trailer for Season 2 of Peacemaker, the Emmy-nominated DC spinoff series from director James Gunn. Peacemaker’s first full-length trailer ahead of its Season 2 premiere marks the first extended look at what to expect from John Cena’s Christopher Smith and, well, a lot more seems to be on the menu this time around. This season is going bigger, weirder, and much more emotional.

Peacemaker’s eight-episode first season—set five months after the events of The Suicide Squad (2021) film, in which Smith miraculously survived a near-fatal gunshot wound to the head—followed the U.S. government’s decision to recruit Smith for an undercover mission, known as “Project Butterfly.” Teaming up with a new crew of operatives led by Clemson Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji), and with the support of A.R.G.U.S. agent John Economos (Steve Agee), NSA agent Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), and new asset Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), Smith and the team soon found out that “Project Butterfly” was a lot more than just a straightforward government operation.

Tasked with a mission to stop an entire alien species known as parasitic butterflies from taking over the planet Earth by infiltrating human hosts and possessing their bodies, Smith and his ragtag team of misfits in the end were able to stop the aliens in a bloody all-out war at a ranch, saving their skins but not without some permanent injuries and plenty of emotional trauma.

Now, Peacemaker has returned in a very changed DC Universe, given that the first season was set in the now-defunct DCEU cinematic universe, while the second season is set in the all-new DCU, which Gunn himself rolled out earlier this year as part of his “Gods and Monsters” slate of storytelling. Gunn also said that while everything that happened in Season 1 and in The Suicide Squad (2021) is still canon, except for some Justice League cameos, a whole new world has been built for Season 2, in which Smith will have to navigate and wrestle with his violent past and future.

All returning cast members include Cena, Brooks, Holland, Agee, and Freddie Stroma as fan-favorite megalomaniac psychopath Vigilante. Nhut Le also reprises his role as Judomaster, along with Eagly, Peacemaker’s winged bald eagle sidekick. Robert Patrick also returns as Peacemaker’s dead father, Auggie Smith. New cast members for Season 2 include Frank Grillo as Rick Flagg Sr., father of Rick Flagg (Joel Kinnaman), who died at the hands of Peacemaker in The Suicide Squad. Flagg now runs A.R.G.U.S. and has it out for Peacemaker, along with Tim Meadows as agent Langston Fleury, Sol Rodriguez as Sasha Bordeaux, and Michael Rooker as Red St. Wild, Eagly’s “nemesis.”

According to an official synopsis, Chris Smith in Season 2 is still coming to terms with the emotional and physical consequences of his past violent work and newfound craving to want to be a better person. He still hunts and kills for peace—but this season, he wants to earn it through good deeds of heroism rather than continue being a silent, unquestioning killer on someone else’s payroll.

In a teaser trailer released back in May, which served as the very first look at Season 2, fans got a first taste of the out-of-this-world, absurd, and bloody shenanigans that Gunn and company have up their sleeves. Opening to the instrumental rendition of “Oh Lord” by Foxy Shazam, the early moments show Peacemaker in a failed attempt to join up with the Justice League. Attired in his own custom-designed (if not ill-fitting) gear, Chris interrupts a JLA meeting to pitch himself for membership to the League, which included Green Lantern/Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl/Kendra Saunders (Isabela Merced), and Maxwell Lord (Sean Gunn), who are all reprising their roles from Gunn’s Superman.

Predictably, his shtick doesn’t go down too well, and without getting an invitation, he storms off to the much-deserved jeers from the others. Fun character updates are also seen in the teaser. Adebayo is currently “living in the worst level of Grand Theft Auto,” as stated by Economos. Harcourt, on the other hand, is suffering from “a particularly severe form of toxic masculinity,” while Vigilante has landed a gig in the food service industry.

But the most surprising part of the trailer came toward the end. A dimensional portal is seen in one of the last shots. In a major mind-bending moment, Chris finds himself in a parallel universe of Earth, where he meets his alternate doppelganger, one who is already well-loved and adored as a true hero. Desiring to stay in this new world, because his version is successful and even has the girl, Chris is about to go against his people, but of course, his past, again, catches up to him. Harcourt gives him the usual line, saying, “No matter how green the grass is over there, you belong here. With us.”

Director James Gunn, who presented in the Hall H panel at SDCC, said that Season 2 is also all about the characters’ development. “I like TV shows where the characters don’t just come back for the next season and they’re the same characters they were last time you saw them,” Gunn told reporters at SDCC. “I want to see them change. I want to see them grow, and sometimes I want to see them regress. Peacemaker is a different guy this year. He’s in the middle of dealing with all the demons that were unearthed in the first season and trying to come to terms with them. He’s out there attempting to do that. And the world is not welcoming him back the way that he is. They aren’t accepting him as a hero.”

It is a good thing then that this Season of Peacemaker has a full eight episodes to tell, show, and make true the craziness of it all, all while indulging in a desire for more Peacemaker madness in a multiversal DCU comic book action television series. Gunn’s lovable antihero has returned and is a lot angrier and wants to get some respect by any means necessary.

Peacemaker Season 2 premieres August 21, 2025, exclusively on HBO Max.