‘Peacemaker’ Episode 6 Recap: “Murn After Reading”

*Warning: This article contains spoilers for episode 6 of Peacemaker*

After one heck of a twist that quite literally changed everything in the last episode, Peacemaker brings yet another one to the table, as it is currently setting up its series finale. Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) finding out that Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji) is a butterfly felt pretty disappointing here. He’s not double-crossing the team (yet? Jury’s still out since you can’t trust anybody in a Suicide Squad-related project), nor is the “butterfly” a villain. He’s actually trying to help the crew eliminate the butterflies before they take over the planet. 

Speaking of “taking over the planet,” Peacemaker (John Cena) kept the butterfly he plucked out of Royland Goff (Antonio Cupo) in his trailer. After Detective Song (Annie Chang) gets an arrest warrant from the judge for Peacemaker, she frees Auggie Smith (Robert Patrick) from prison and immediately goes to Christopher’s trailer. Vigilante (Freddie Stroma) interrogates “Goff” to find out the butterflies’ plans but is intercepted by a police raid. In pure James Gunn subversion, Vigilante lands on Goff’s jar as he falls down a tree. This frees the butterfly, which lands directly in Song’s mouth. If you were disappointed at the episode’s anticlimactic beginning with Murn “being a butterfly,” but not changing the direction of the series, with Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and Economos (Steve Agee) already knowing of that fact, think again. 

James Gunn has personally said that Episode 6 of Peacemaker is his favorite of the series, and you can clearly see why. The writer/director loves to subvert pre-conceived expectations on what we thought would happen and instead delivers something bigger and way more satisfying than the movie in our head. The chase scene between the police department and Peacemaker/Vigilante is interesting enough, with Eagly (Dee Bradley Baker) viciously murdering officers who are chasing them. Likewise, Captain Locke (Christopher Heyerdahl) kills officers in cold blood to hide the body of evidence Song and Fitzgibbon (Lochlyn Munro) found against Peacemaker. 

An officer found Peacemaker’s “diary,” implanted by Adebayo under Amanda Waller (Viola Davis)’s request, which Locke immediately hides away, hoping that it will never resurface again. However, that’s the twist here; a possessed Song calls a swarm of butterflies on Earth, who all arrive on tiny spaceships (the attention to detail here is staggering). She then goes to the police department and possesses every single officer. Not one of them makes it out without being a butterfly, including Captain Locke and Fitzgibbon. Murn can no longer trust Locke to keep the evidence quiet; because Locke throws a press conference to reveal Peacemaker’s diary to the world. Everything changes right there. 

Now, there’s something else too! Don’t forget: Auggie got out of prison. So, of course, we will get a father/son confrontation, which he immediately confirms while in a car with one of his henchmen, that it’s something he should have done a long time ago. The only thing on Auggie’s mind is to kill his son, and we see Auggie wear his White Dragon suit, cross-cutted with Song possessing the entire police department. I have no idea how James Gunn will transpose White Dragon’s suit powers on screen. Still, suppose we’re following the show’s aesthetic footprints. In that case, it’ll likely be highly visceral and dynamic, as Peacemaker will not only have to confront the butterfly-possessed police department but finally have the guts to confront his scumbag of a father once and for all. Two episodes left, and we’re in for a wild ride as of a ride next week.

The sixth episode of Peacemaker is now streaming on HBO Max.