Vigilante is on the hunt.
Last time on Peacemaker,
Smith and co headed out on their first (official) Butterfly hunt. They set up a
sniper blind, Smith and Harcourt manning it with Leota, Economos, and Murn
working as tech support. The Goffs arrive home, but Smith can’t get a clean
shot of the Senator that wouldn’t go through his human bodyguard, so they’re
forced to wait. The two snipers bond a little due to their similar life
stories, but are interrupted by Vigilante’s arrival, who Murn says they have to
keep an eye on rather than risk him screwing up the mission. Eventually, the
Goffs, who act extremely robotic and uncanny when not in line of sight, get up
in the middle of the night and start drinking a honey like substance using proboscis
that they extend from their mouths. Despite confirmation that every member of
the family are Butterflies, Smith can’t take the shot. He’s been having a
crisis of faith, I guess, about his vow to kill anyone to achieve peace. Vigilante
takes over and blows the brains out of three of four Goffs, but they’re interrupted
from killing the senator himself by his specialty bodyguard, a fella called
Judomaster. Smith and Vigilante are captured, Goff unmasks Vigilante and tries
to torture him to make Smith talk. Unfortunately for Vigilante aka Adrian
Chase, Smith is a bit of dick and isn’t willing to spill anything. The rest of
the team find a hidden door to the basement and use a small explosive to break
through the glass wall. The explosion helps Smith escape, and he’s able to
finish off Goff. Judomaster almost escapes but Economos hits his car with their
repair truck and then disables the injured martial artist. When the dust
settles, we see one of their computers finishing a scan and confirm that there
are A LOT of Butterflies. Globally. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall
we?
Ep 4: The Choad Less Traveled
We join Project: Butterfly as they
drive in their van. Harcourt asks Smith what happened with the Butterfly, and
Smith says that he shot it into little pieces. She scolds him for not trying to
capture it for study. Adrian is very concerned that he won’t be able to walk
right now, based on his very incorrect believe that the pinky toe is the most
important toe for that. Leota explains that if he lost his metatarsal that’d be
bad, but losing the toe isn’t a big deal. Their debate is interrupted by an unconscious
Judomaster falling over. Harcourt asks what they’re going to do about him, and
both costumed killers pull their guns and prepare to shoot him, but Harcourt
and Leota tell them to back off.
Back at their office, they start moving
some of the stuff they stole from the Goff’s into their office as Murn joins
them. Murn gives Adrian the keys to Adrian’s car as a casual dismissal. He
orders Harcourt and Leota to go over the records they stole from the Goffs for
any intel. She complains and asks why Economos isn’t on it, but Murn says his
job is keeping Judomaster alive. He orders Smith into his office. Murn starts
chewing him out for choking on the mission. He tries to play it off as not
having the Dove of Peace on the weapon screwed him up, but Murn isn’t buying
it. Smith admits that while he will kill any man, woman or child to have
peace, he won’t just kill kids because that was his order. Murn hopes that is
all that is wrong and admits that this mission needs a SOB and Smith is the
only one he has. Him and Vigilante now. Smith asks if he’s sure about that, and
Murn basically says ‘we need all the help we can get.’ He briefly distracts
Murn with a story about Matter-Eater Lad, his power is what it sounds like,
eating an entire restaurant. He asks one more time what a Butterfly actually
is, but Murn just dismisses him to get some rest. He and Adrian leave.
Leota and Harcourt keep going
through files. Leota apologizes for freezing, explaining that she hadn’t even
shot at someone before last night, and elaborating that she’s a pescatarian,
so like she doesn’t enjoy or endorse killing mammals at all. Harcourt chews her
out, saying that her hesitation made the guard’s last minute of life the most
terrifying minute ever and that if she wants to do covert ops like this, she must
have zero hesitation. Leota excuses herself for a ‘bathroom break’ aka crying
just a little bit. Coming out of the bathroom she sees Economos setting
Judomaster up with an IV and is weirded out that they’re just kinda holding him
hostage. He says that if they just let him go, he’ll nark on them. He tells her
not to take what Harcourt says too personally, as she really doesn’t like
anyone. She thanks him and says she just has to show Murn and Harcourt she can
handle things.
On the drive back to Smith’s place,
he asks Adrian to drive him over to his dad’s place so he can grab another helmet
that he thinks could be useful. Adrian admits that he was a little mad at Smith
for letting him get tortured, or he was until he decided that Smith was just
trying to train him to be tougher. He ‘thanks’ him for it. But Smith senses the
underlying anger Adrian is clearly feeling and tries to confront him about it,
but Adrian keeps being passive aggressive. They pull up to Auggie’s house and
Adrian asks about the upside-down flag. Smith says he’s not sure, it’s a ‘deep
state’ thing, but Adrian says that maybe it’s a racism thing. Smith gets very
defensive about his dad, deflecting the conversation to the fact that Adrian’s
dad left his mom for another man. Adrian seems weirded out by this attack,
saying his dad and his dad’s boyfriend are deeply in love. Smith makes a crack
about Mr. Chase pretending to be gay to get away from Adrian before rushing up
to the house and trying to break in.
He goes in, seeing the TV is still
on but the house is empty. He opens the door to his dad’s lab and grabs a bunch
of the helmets. He looked like he’d only take one but decided better of it. In
his helmet grab, he sees his dad’s White Dragon outfit. He’s joined by Adrian,
who took off his Vigilante gear to be inconspicuous, who asks how the room is
so big. Smith says it’s a quantum space, bigger on the inside kind of thing.
Adrian is impressed by it, but once again points out that Auggie is a racist
and that if Smith is working with him, he might be one by association. Smith
shoves him out. They’re met outside by Auggie’s old neighbor who picks a fight
about if Smith is a supervillain or not. He reveals to Smith that Auggie was
arrested after Smith unleashed a tirade about how Batman’s no kill policy gets
innocent people killed.
Smith calls Murn and demands to
know why they framed his dad. He offers to have Smith come in so they can talk
like adults, but he refuses, saying he’s going to see his dad. After hanging up
on him, Murn goes to watch his team from his office window and glares at Economos.
Smith apologizes to Adrian for not being compassionate about the torture thing,
and that he knows his dad is a racist. Adrian asks if that means he should kill
Auggie too, but Smith is obviously weirded out by that. He says that he and his
dad hate criminals and that’s about the only thing they agree on. He needs to
see him.
At the office, Murn tells Leota to
go see Smith and convince him to not see his dad. She’s confused by this, but Murn
insists that she’s the only one that Peacemaker trusts. She says that he trusts
Harcourt the most, but Murn disagrees, saying that he wants to have sex with
Harcourt, that’s different. Leota heads for the door. Murn stops her to say
that her lack of a resume made him hesitant to take her on, but Amanda Waller
insisted, so he trusted her judgement. He tells Leota to prove Waller right. In
the back office, Judomaster wakes up and tries to get free. He can’t break the
chains but starts moving his hands back and forth.
Leota meets Smith and Adrian at the
front of the jail. She tries to convince him not to go in, explaining about what
happened to get him in there. Smith is pissed at Economos. They have an argument
about the desire to believe that parents are flawed but ultimately good people,
considering her mom I’m sure she’s wrestled with this a lot, and how that might
be true most of the time but isn’t true here. She implies Auggie has done a lot
of messed up stuff to Smith on top of the racism. Smith still has to see him.
Adrian shrugs and says that he’s gotta do what he’s gotta do. Leota immediately
figures out that he’s Vigilante and his attempts at hiding it make him more
guilty.
Auggie is pulled out of a poker game
to see Chris. Chris explains the situation to his dad, who is rightly pissed
off. He goes so far as to say that he should have killed Chris when he was born,
and that he never loved him, not like Chris’s brother. Chris tries to convince
Auggie to just keep quite while they work and that once the mission is over he’ll
turn himself in. Auggie says that he won’t rat him out right away but the first
chance he gets he’ll spill the beans.
Outside, Adrian asks Leota if they’ll
arrest Peacemaker. She says she hopes not, and that she thinks both him and
Adrian are good people. She very clearly sets the idea in Adrian’s mind that
Chris won’t be happy so long as his dad, who is a very bad man with no redeeming
qualities, is around. Adrian excuses himself to do ‘something.’ Smith comes out
and Leota offers to take him home so he can sleep. Smith wants to keep eyes on
Vigilante, but Leota tells him that it’ll be fine. On the drive back, Leota
gets Smith to unburden himself a little by telling him that she doesn’t hate
him.
Adrian goes behind the police station
and awkwardly moves a trash can towards a window while the cop’s watch. He smashes
a window in front of them to get him arrested.
Economos goes to change Judomaster’s
IV and finds him gone. He calls up Leota and tells her Judomaster got loose.
While he’s distracted, Judomaster comes out of a closet and attacks him,
knocking him into a desk and shattering it. Smith and Leota arrive and find Economos
wheezing. Leota gives him a hit from his inhaler and he points Peacemaker to
the hallway window. Smith leaps out into the parking lot and challenges Judomaster
to a rematch. Judomaster leaps onto him from the top of a truck and the two
start to brawl. It’s a match of Judomaster’s superior technique vs. Peacemaker’s
strength. After a few smashes, Judomaster tries to explain to Peacemaker what Butterflies
really are, but Leota shoots him in the chest before he can talk. He’s still
alive, somehow, so they have to get him back inside.
Adrian gets pulled out of his cell
by a guard. He walks through the other prisoners that try to intimidate him,
but he’s unphased. He enters the cafeteria and locks eyes on Auggie.
While that was happening, back at
his place, Smith opens his backpack. He reveals that he’d stolen some of the
goo the Butterflies were eating and that he’d kept Goff’s Butterfly… or the
Butterfly that is Goff. Eagly flies in and knocks the jar from his hand, but it
doesn’t break and the bird can’t get at it.
Back at the office, Economos sets
Judomaster up with another IV drip while Leota freaks out a little. Harcourt joins
her and compliments Leota for not freezing this time. When that clearly doesn’t
help, Harcourt goes on to say that after her first kill, it messed with her so
bad that she didn’t have her period for three months. Leota asks if it gets
easier, and Harcourt tells her no, but that’s probably good. Because if killing
becomes too easy, you end up like Amanda Waller, who uses people like chess pieces.
Leota admits that she manipulated Adrian into killing Auggie… and Harcourt goes
to tell Murn.
Murn chews out his whole team for
continually making stupid decisions without his saying so. Leota says that she
was just trying to make the hard call and keep Auggie from telling the cops
what happened with the frame up. While he’s angry at potentially losing Peacemaker’s
trust again if he hears about this, he’s more upset at the thought of losing
Vigilante when the WHITE DRAGON murders him. Harcourt says it’s more like
losing half a man as Vigilante is a psychopath. Murn says that they’re four
people fighting an invasion, they need a psychopath or two with those odds. Murn
asks if they can get him out of the system before he screws things up worse
than they already are. Economos is able to find him with just a little help
from Leota’s description of him, and Harcourt recognizes him as their busboy
from the first episode.
In the prison, Adrian attempts to
make his move on Auggie. He inserts himself into their poker game with his
classic awkward energy. He tries to set them off by complimenting black people
and then insulting them to their faces. Two of Auggie’s goons try to attack
him, but Adrian takes them out in no time flat. He tries to goad Auggie into
attacking him as well, but he’s too smart to fall for that. He knows that
Adrian is going to get off lightly since he got Auggie’s goons to throw the
first punch. Adrian calls him a bad dad, and as Auggie is dragged away he
demands to talk to detective Song.
Smith meets Harcourt at her bar and
asks her what his file says his dad did to him. She pretends to not know much,
but when he asks again, she says that it says that his father trained him to kill
from a young age, that his brother died when he was young, and that he may have
been involved. He thanks her and goes to leave. She’s shocked that that’s all
he wanted, and he does take a moment to compliment how her boobs look in her
top, but not in a sexist way, before going.
At his house, he puts on some music
and smokes from a bong, blowing the smoke onto the Goff bug. Adrian is released
from prison. Economos looks after Judomaster. Leota ignores a call from her
wife. Murn decompresses by watching a comedy. And Harcourt picks Adrian up from
prison. He tells her that Auggie is still alive, that his name is Adrian, and
admits that he may have made things worse. As Chris dances to his music, he
flashes back to when he was a child, and his father made him kill a man by
stabbing him multiple times with a screwdriver. He remembers killing Flag again
and falls to the floor, Eagly and the bug rolling over to look after him. He
flashes back to a happy moment hanging with his brother before jumping to
another memory of him dying from a seizure.
Leota goes through the belongings of
the Goffs and Ashley, finding that they both had a card for Glan Tai bottling.
Not sure what that is. Leota calls Murn, and tells him that she found
something. He says he’ll be right over, before grabbing a bowel and unfurling a
proboscis to drink from it. Well, damn.
Well, that’s a hell of a twist to
end on. The capabilities and plan of the Butterflies are still up in the air,
so this raises a lot of questions. Was Murn always a Butterfly or has he been
possessed? If possession, was he taken over before the start of the show or has
he been taken over recently? Is this whole operation a pretext to take out
rivals amongst the other Butterflies? Were the comments about his change in
behavior a sign he was taken? The plot has truly thickened. I liked the scene
with Adrian in prison. While the show has gone out of it’s way to show us that
he is a very disturbed, destructive individual, this is probably the first time
we saw how smart he is. Well, in a manner of speaking. Was getting himself
arrested in an attempt to assassinate Auggie so that Peacemaker would be free
of his influence stupid? Yes. But he really played Auggie’s men from the moment
he sat down. The dude is awkward as hell, but he got those guys to make the
first swing despite them being longtime inmate and thus more than likely
knowing how this would look if they threw the first punch. And he was self-aware
enough to know that he definitely made the situation worse by acting rashly.
That’s growth right there. Getting some of Chris’s background was interesting.
It’s one thing to hear about how Auggie messed him up as a child to make him a
hardened killer, it’s quite another to see a pre-teen stabbing a man to death while
his father laughed behind him. I’ll be curious to see how his brother’s death
factors into things. I’ve seen enough stories to know that it’ll be more
complicated than ‘Peacemaker killed his brother,’ but not by much. And it was incredibly
sad to hear Auggie say to Chris’ face that he never loved him. I have a very
loving relationship with my dad, so this whole exchange is foreign to me, but I
can think of few things he could say to me that would be more damaging than
that. I’m not sure Leota was wrong in trying to take him out, just for Chris’
mental health. But ya. Butterflies are everywhere and Chris is rightly pissed.
I wonder where this’ll go. We’ll see next time. Have a good night!
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Bluesky:@basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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