Chris Sheridan
The following recap contains spoilers for Peacemaker S2E4 “Need I Say Door” (written by James Gunn and directed by Peter Sollett).
“Need I Say Door” opens 35 years in the past with Auggie (Robert Patrick) hunting with his young sons. Seeing something moving in the bushes, Auggie opens fire, and whatever he shot starts shrieking. They move forward to see some kind of bipedal creature, still alive but wounded, laying on the forest floor and screaming. Next to the creature is a silver device vaguely resembling a chest or a helmet. Auggie moves forward to take the killing shot, when Chris suddenly urges him to stop. Auggie pulls the trigger anyway, killing the creature, and turns to smack Chris in the face with the butt of his rifle for defying him. Chris picks up the object, and the three of them move forward to find the doorway to the Quantum Unfolding Chamber sitting in the middle of the forest.
Once the opening credits are done, ARGUS is heading to Peacemaker’s house to invade. Judomaster (Nhut Le) bickers with Economos (Steve Agee), doing his best to push the latter’s buttons and get a rise out of him. He’s not the only one angering Economos, with Fleury (Tim Meadows) sticking to his “Ginger Cool” name. Soon, nearly everyone in the truck, including eagle hunter Red St. Wild (Michael Rooker) is in on the fun, exchanging barbs and taking rotating sides against one another. Bordeaux (Sol Rodriguiez) finally loses it, yelling at everyone to shut up. Economos takes out his phone and discreetly begins to type.
Now that he’s sober, Peacemaker (John Cena) finally notices the state the house is in after it got torn apart in “A Man Is Only as Good as His Bird.” Calling out for Eagly, he finds his pet has opened up the fridge and is pulling the contents onto the floor. After scolding (and being ignored by) Eagly, Peacemaker gets a jumbled text from Ecomomos warning him of the impending raid. He rushes to a room in the house filled with boxes, frantically digging through them until he finds the device from the beginning of the episode. He coaxes Eagly out of the house and they escape seconds before being found. Racing through the forest, Peacemaker finds Judomaster in hot pursuit. They fight, and while Judomaster’s speed and skill initially give him the upper hand, Peacemaker throws them both down a hill, landing on Judomaster and taking him down for the count. He recovers the device and runs away.
St. Wild and Economos find dried eagle droppings on the ground outside the house, and St. Wild does exactly what we think he’s about to do and takes a bite. He identifies some of the food Eagly has been eating and they continue forward. In the post-credits scene this bit is quite a bit longer as the eagle hunter continues to list off random foods Eagly has had (“This bird eats better than I do!”). St. Wild locates Eagly in the sky and triumphantly prepares to take the shot, but Economos shoves him, sending him sprawling, where he cracks his head on a rock. He gets up, with a nasty gash on his forehead and calls it his “third eye,” determining that Eagly is the “primal eagle” that must be killed to avenge…and then spouts out some “strangely condescending to Native Americans” (according to Economos) phrases.
Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) is thrilled to receive an issue of Pro Soldier, a military-themed magazine in which she finds an ad for her security consulting business. Pulling out her phone to take a picture, she suddenly receives a frantic text from Peacemaker to come pick him up. Peacemaker also calls Vigilante to pick up some additional doors. In Adebayo’s car, Peacemaker explains the concept of the parallel worlds and the “better” one he stepped into where Auggie and Keith are alive.
In Peacemaker’s house, the ARGUS agents find the keypad that unlocks the door to the Quantum Unfolding Chamber. They call Economos to come open it up. Economos once again gets into it with Bordeaux, but Fleury’s insistence on calling Economos “Ginger Cool” finally catches up with him as Economos spits in his face. Bordeaux sends Economos out to the mobile unit to get his equipment to bypass the keypad, and in there, Economos calls Peacemaker, who insists he try to stall for time while Peacemaker can transplant the portal. And stall he does, in a way that gets increasingly more awkward and painful, while Bordeaux grows impatient and suspicious.
Adebayo and Peacemaker arrive at his grandfather’s cabin in Settler’s Hills, and Peacemaker prepares the device. As he fires it up, Economos moves as slowly as he can to hack the keypad, carefully explaining every step and even resorting to hearing a cat trapped somewhere in a door. Thankfully, after the rest of ARGUS yelling at him to finish and his time having ran out, Peacemaker activates the device with seconds to spare, and he successfully transports the doorway. Back at the house, ARGUS faces an empty closet. Economos smiles in relief as Bordeaux angrily tries to figure out what happened. She calls Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo), who has an idea and asks his assistant for Harcourt’s address.
Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) is once again picking fights outside of bars, and is this time seemingly a little more successful. Back home, she’s still a little injured but cleaning herself up when Flag comes knocking. She lets him in, and their conversation is friendly enough, but there are still shades of animosity: while Harcourt insists that Peacemaker killed Flag’s son at the orders of Waller, Flag counters that they’ve all defied Waller’s orders when she “went too far.” He also confirms that Waller barred Harcourt from serving in any government agencies on her way out. However, he offers her a solution: give him Peacemaker, and she might be able to get back in the government’s good graces.
In the cabin in front of the newly-transported Quantum Unfolding Chamber, Adebayo presses Peacemaker for more information on the alternate dimension, asking him if there’s another version of him in there. He admits that there was, before Peacemaker 2 caught our Peacemaker in the bedroom, looking at a picture of them and Harcourt in love. He gets her up to speed on how Harcourt 2 is dating the still-alive Rick Flag Jr. 2, but is actually in love with Peacemaker. Adebayo also floats an interesting theory: the dimension he stepped into gives him everything he wanted, but isn’t actually real. It’s not a bad idea: in the other dimension, Peacemaker’s dad and brother are still alive, Harcourt is in love with him, and the world views him as a hero. She also presses him not to return to the dimension, but he offers his own reasons for wanting go back in there: Keith not losing his brother, and Harcourt being owed an explanation. I’m on Adebayo’s side here, actually, as she tells him that “no matter how green the grass is over there, our biggest problems in life are the ones that we carry within ourselves…You belong here.”
Adrian/Vigilante (Freddie Stroma) shows up with the doors Peacemaker asked for, and, seeing the Quantum Unfolding Chamber, floats the idea of there being another version of him somewhere in there. I have a feeling we’re probably going to see that before the end of the season, and I have no idea what he’s going to be like. Peacemaker texts Harcourt, telling her they need to meet. Shaking her head and closing her eyes, she asks him where. Peacemaker asks Vigilante to borrow his car, and after a beat, Vigilante asks him if it’s safe. Peacemaker isn’t sure, but he needs to ask her something before he can figure out what to do next.
Having received the address Peacemaker gave her (Kupperberg Park, at Hartley and Vermont), Harcourt exits her apartment to see Flag and ARGUS. Possibly onto Economos, Flag orders his men to take his phone and watch him. Harcourt hesitates. Flag reminds her that this is her chance to get back into ARGUS. “I don’t deserve this, and neither does he,” she says, but proceeds to feed the address to Flag. She says she can keep him distracted until ARGUS moves in. Rick reminds Harcourt that she’s doing the right thing, and she responds that she knows she is. Economos glances at her with a mix of suspicion and disappointment before she gets into her car.
In the final scene, St. Wild strips down and dances in front of a campfire, tearing off the scab on his forehead and using the blood to paint an eagle symbol in the sand in front of him. He places an eagle feather over the symbol, and blue fire and light swirl around him. Suddenly, he’s floating high above the trees, and sees Eagly land at the cabin in Settler’s Hills. As Peacemaker drives to meet Harcourt, Judomaster steps out of the tree line to watch him head down the road. At the park, Harcourt sits nervously on a bench as ARGUS waits nearby. We close on a shot of Peacemaker’s face as he draws closer to the meeting. We’re at the halfway point of the season, but it sure does feel like we’re further: while I’m glad that Economos finally grew a pair and decided to put the lives of his friends over his job, we’ve now got Harcourt possibly betraying them. There has to be something she has up her sleeve, but I don’t think we’ll see it just yet. She’s clearly got a crisis of conscience in betraying Peacemaker, but with Flag as the new piece on the board, there’s a lot that can still happen. And I’m maintaining that even with that final scene, St. Wild just can’t kill Eagly, right? I guess all we can do is keep pushing forward.
Songs
“Please Don’t Leave Me” — Pretty Maids
“A Shot at Redemption” — H.e.a.t.
