Last time on Peacemaker,
Chris had to deal with the fallout of his very bad decision to pick up a bargirl.
He called Harcourt and got the Project: Butterfly crew to come bail him out as
the cops’ rush to investigate what happened. Harcourt and Leota arrive in a car
and are forced to wait for Smith to gather his stuff and get to the damn car. Smith
stole a bunch of stuff from the bargirl and tried to escape. As he fled, he
briefly held a couple hostage and flirted with the wife, Amber, much to the
annoyance of her husband, Evan. He ends up leaping out a window down a series
of balconies to the lower building. He’s almost caught by the cops, but
Harcourt comes out and hits them with knockout darts. They flee and report back
to Murn. To help cover Smith’s tracks, Economos hacks the police database and
alters the registration of Smith’s car and his fingerprints to that of his father,
Auggie. Murn chews him out for stupidly picking Auggie of all people. Back at
their office, operatives try to figure out how a Butterfly, Annie Strurphausen,
found Smith. They argue for a bit but don’t come to any conclusions. Smith
heads back to his house and has a sobbing fit to try to process the fact
everyone hates him and he just exacerbates everything. He’s interrupted by Vigilante,
his self-proclaimed BFF. They decided to celebrate his freedom by shooting a
bunch of appliances, their favorite pastime. Meanwhile, Leota bribes the couple
to say that Auggie was the one that kidnapped them. Auggie is arrested and we
learn that he's actually a former supervillain, the White Dragon, and has a lot
of minions in prisons. In the last few minutes of the episode, we see Smith,
Vigilante, and Amber after a three-way. While sharing a blunt with Amber, Smith
plays with a device he stole from Annie’s apartment, and it’s revealed to be a
small spaceship. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?
Ep 3: Better Groff Dead
The episode begins with Peacemaker
meeting with the other Project: Butterfly crew and filling them in about the
tiny spaceship. Smith tells the others that he hates homunculi and/or tiny
beings, including Dollman, a villain who can shrink. Murn asks about the tiny spaceship
and Smith says that it’s at Leota’s desk under his lunch. While Economos goes
to get it, Leota clocks Vigilante very obviously watching them from behind a
dumpster. Harcourt tells him to leave, and he stays to be obstinate. Smith asks
him to go, and he agrees, but not before telling Smith that none of his current
coworkers would ‘work’ as a friend for him. Especially not a best friend. But
he should try to be friendly with Leota, because of all the racism rumors. He
runs off. Economos points out that Vigilante is wanted for multiple counts of
murder, but Murn tells him they’ve got bigger fish to fry and they should focus
on killing a US senator.
We see the crew are driving in an
Ex-static Electrical truck, swerving in and out of traffic and otherwise
driving dangerously to get to their mission on time. Murn informs us of the
mission perimeters, their target is Royland Goff, he’s mostly known for being vocally
against climate change. Smith thinks they’re killing him because Climate Change
is fake, but he’s corrected. Murn tells him that Goff is a Butterfly and that he’ll
need to take him out. There’s a brief digression when Leota accidentally pulls up
an… explicit pic that her wife sent her and her having to explain how the hell
that happened. WhatsApp added it automatically for some reason. Getting back on
task, Murn says that Goff is traveling with his family, they don’t know if the
wife and kids are Butterflies, but if they are Peacemaker will have to kill
them too. Smith is visibly shaken by this. Harcourt brings up his ‘vow’ to have
peace no matter how many people he has to kill to do it. Smith is against
killing kids, his concerns are noted by Murn. We learn that Goff is traveling
with a bodyguard that goes by Judomaster. He’s short but dangerous according to
Murn. They head into the mission.
Smith gets his sniper rifle ready
and is annoyed when he finds out they didn’t engrave the gun with the “dove of
peace” the upside-down bird that he has on his chest and all his other weapons.
He says he’s not sure he can kill someone without it, so Leota gives him a
sharpie. He draws a lopsided bird and looks real disappointed. Economos asks
why they don’t just tell Peacemaker what a Butterfly is, and Murn says it’s
because he doesn’t trust Smith. He tells Economos that Peacemaker had a deep-seated
desire to belong and they need to use that against him. Economos asks about Murn’s
past, and he confirms that he's done bad things in the past and he’s trying to
make up for it now. They set up a camera to help with their spying.
That night, Peacemaker has his
rifle set up and is watching while Harcourt eats some trail mix that she
shares. Leota, Economos, and Murn watch from the truck. They report to their
field team that the family is inbound with Judomaster and an additional
bodyguard. There’s a brief argument over the pronunciation of the Berenstain
Bears before Murn says for them to shut up. Murn orders Smith to take the shot,
but he can’t get Goff in his line of sight as the big bodyguard keeps getting in
the way. He asks Murn if he wants Smith to just drop the normal bodyguard, but
Murn says no. Watching from a window, they see the family acting weird once
they’re out of line of sight. They walk in a creepy single file line to another
part of the house. Smith isn’t happy about any of this, not the situation, not
the lack of a dove of peace, none of it. Murn tells him to be patient. He says
they aren’t killing anyone who doesn’t deserve it, and that he’s not Amanda
Waller.
As the night goes on, Smith ask
Harcourt what got her into spy work. They both confirm their dads set them on
this path. She gives him the bullet points about how she got into spy work
right out of college, got recruited by Waller, and is now out here preparing to
kill people. She asks him to take monitor duty while she takes care of
something. She walks off and Vigilante comes out to chat. He seemed to think
that it was safe to talk to Smith right now, despite being around several spec
ops guys. Murn is annoyed but says that Vigilante has to stay with the field
team as Murn doesn’t want him screwing this up. Leota pulls up a Berenstain
Bears book cover to win the argument about how it’s pronounced, but Economos
tells her that it’s clearly photoshopped. Sometime later Vigilante asks why
they aren’t just killing everyone, and Harcourt tells him they’re not killing
the guards who’re just doing their job. They detect movement and see the family
heading into the dining room. Mrs. Goff pours some honey-colored goo into
bowels for them. Murn confirms they are Butterflies. Which is confirmed a minute
later when they sit down to eat the goo and reveal that they’ve got some kind
of proboscis in their mouths. Murn orders Smith to take the shot but he
freezes. Vigilante ultimately takes over and easily kills the wife and kids as
he’s an amoral sociopath. He hums a little song while he does. He goes to kill
Goff, but they’re attacked by Judomaster. As his name implies, Judomaster is an
excellent hand to hand fighter, he quickly disables all three of the field
team, knocking out Harcourt by shoving her onto a rock and beating the other
two up. Murn takes Leota to back them up. He orders Economos to do everything
in his power to stop anyone from leaving and reporting this. He asks what he’s
supposed to do, and Murn shouts at him to do whatever he has to. If the
Butterflies catch wind of what’s happened, they’re screwed.
Leota finds Harcourt being held at
gunpoint by one of the bodyguards. She wants to let him live as he doesn’t seem
to know anything, but Harcourt says that doesn’t matter because they’ve seen them.
She ends up grabbing the gun and killing the guard. Leota apologies, saying she’s
never killed anyone before. Harcourt says her streak is ongoing and for her to
check to make sure he’s human. They regroup, confirm Peacemaker is still alive
and head inside.
Smith currently is tied to a chair
and having an intimidation fight with Judomaster, who is calmly eating Cheetos.
Smith asks for some and Judomaster uses them as projectiles to smack him in the
face a few times. Goff joins them and he has Judomaster prepare Vigilante for
interrogation. They tie his hands and hook him up to some jumper cables. Goff
tells Judomaster to head out and warn the others. Upstairs, the squad discover
that Peacemaker is in a basement of some kind. They search around for an
entrance, Leota finding a wall made of some kind of green glass behind a
painting.
Goff unmasks Vigilante, who is in
fact Adrian Chase. Goff starts electrocuting Adrian to try to get Peacemaker to
talk, but Smith isn’t effected by his only friend’s screams of agony. Upstairs
Murn pulls out some kind of device from his wallet, telling Leota to peel the
back and put it on the door, saying it’s an adhesive explosive. Outside,
Economos sees Judomaster preparing to escape. In the basement, Smith finally
realizes who Vigilante is. He compliments Vigilante on improving his physique,
and tells him not to worry as Smith won’t say a word. Goff decides to move on
from pure pain to threatening to cut off one of Adrian’s toes. Smith refuses to
talk, and Goff starts taking off the toe.
Upstairs, they try to use the remote
explosive, but it doesn’t seem to work. Goff has a hell of a time taking off
Adrian’s toe and wonders why it’s not coming off. Adrian, screaming in pain,
says it’s because the knife is dull and asks why he doesn’t maintain his
torture equipment. Murn goes to examine the explosive, and right on that
obvious cue it goes off in his face. It also knocks Smith forward, as the glass
wall was directly behind him.
Judomaster tries to drive off, but
Economos hits him with the repair truck. Smith frees himself from the chair and
he and Goff fight for a minute. He gets Goff’s shotgun and tells him “Peace
out, Mother F-er” and blows his face off. Economos checks on the car and sees
Judomaster has pulled himself from the wreck and is trying to crawl away. He
hits him several times with a crowbar until he finally stops moving. He hits
the guy like he’s trying to crush a spider, it’s pretty funny. The wall itself was
broken but mostly intact, Leota and Harcourt having to clear the rubble to get inside.
Smith helps Adrian get free, even giving him back his mask to hide his face
from the others. As they work, they see a large alien insect escape from the
wreckage of Goff’s head. It flies up and Peacemaker finally gets the name “Project:
Butterfly.” We cut back to the van where one of the computers finishes an
analysis and shows potential Butterfly locations. There are Thousands, worldwide.
Well damn.
This was a fun stakeout episode. As
such, there was a lot of waiting and preparing without much action until the
end. I liked Smith and Harcourt having some time to chat, her dislike of the man
is completely justified but it’s nice to see where their lives overlap ever so slightly.
I like the fact that they’re sticking to this idea that Smith is having trouble
being as amoral as he used to be. Part of me wondered if this would just be a
lot of him saying that killing people is hard for him now without a lot
of him doing, but his inability to take the shot does suggest he’s
legit. And it was kind of chilling as hell to see how easily Vigilante does it.
Like, the show has gone out of its way to say he’s a violent killer too, but
the whole ‘humming a tune while he blows heads off’ bit was disturbing. Honestly,
it seems like Project: Butterfly should have him on staff. The reveal that
Butterflies are some kind of alien bugs was well done. The proboscis drinking
was a big clue, but the actual alien bug climbing out of the… meatsuit I guess was
even better. And I’m with Smith at this point that ARGUS is terrible at naming
operations. Nhut Le was good as Judomaster, he put his whole voice into those
Kias. He was the just right amount of obnoxious while holding Peacemaker
captive. I hope he’s not a one and done because that character seems like he’s
a lot of fun. So… ya, there are a lot of Butterflies out there and it’s looking
like Peacemaker is going to have to work overtime to take them out. Fun times.
Have a good night, everyone.
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