Bugs are raising up!
Last time on Peacemaker, we
finally learned what the hell Butterflies are. They’re a race of alien insects
that can enter a host through an orifice and take control of their body,
greatly enhancing their strength and speed during the process. The team found
the Glam Tai bottling card at both locations and are sent to Glam Tai to check
it out to see if it held the alien’s food supply. The group bond a little on
the drive up upon discovering that Chris and Economos share a love for the Finish
Glam Metal band Hanoi Rocks before they investigate the plant. Chris uses his
X-ray vision Peacemaker helmet and confirms that the whole staff at this place
are possessed by Butterflies. He, Leota, Harcourt and Adrian start killing
minions left and right before facing off against Charlie, a Butterfly infected
Gorilla. Four on one odds are usually great for the four, but the Gorilla is way
stronger than them. They’re only saved by Economos coming in and killing the
Gorilla with a chainsaw from behind. This seems to heal all issues between
Chris and Economos, as the former starts calling the ladder a stud. They
celebrate a job well done, Harcourt renames the employee group chat the
Eleventh Street Kids after a song by Hanoi Rocks, and Murn congradulates the
team for a job well done. Meanwhile, Auggie tells the cops to recheck his
fingerprints, and this causes the whole chain of lies protecting Peacemaker to
fall apart. Murn tries to put the case on ice by replacing the Police Chief
with an agent of his, but Song goes over his head to get a warrant from her
judge uncle. Chris gets dropped off at home by Leota, the two share a few more
beers, and Leota tells him if he stopped being a dick as a defense mechanism,
he’d have more friends. While alone when Chris goes to pee, Leota stashes the
fake journal in Chris’s house. Feeling wired she goes back to the office and
plays with Chris’ X-ray helmet, learning that Murn is a Butterfly in the
process. Well damn. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?
Ep 6: Murn After Reading
We open with Murn catching Leota in
the rain and disarming her. To her surprise he says “stop,” and says he’s not
going to murder her. Harcourt arrives and confirms she knows that Murn is also
a Butterfly. She gives Leota back her gun and the three go inside. Harcourt
says that she figured it out after the Goff house, where a bomb went off in
Murn’s face without doing much damage to him. This coupled with his knowledge
of the Butterflies tipped her off something was hinky so she confronted him.
Murn explains that his people came to Earth because their world was dying. He
was content with just living his life as an intelligent bug, but the others
wanted more. Goff’s Butterfly was their leader and she started what he calls
“Leeching,” taking a host body. He claims he was the sole opponent to the plan,
the other Butterflies called him over sensitive. Leota calls him a murderer,
pointing out he killed the ‘real’ Murn when he took him. Murn doesn’t deny
this, saying that he had to do something, so he took the worst person he could
find. Murn says that he knows that even with how vile Murn was, he took away
his ability to change and that disgusts him. Leota asks if Economos knows, and
Harcourt says he does but he tries to ignore it. He’s afraid of the
repercussions if Waller finds out they’ve kept stuff from her. He says that she
can’t tell Waller either for fear it’ll slow their investigation. He says they
need to get the cow before the others move it. Yes, a Cow is involved.
We then cut to Peacemaker giving a
Q and A presentation to a group of kids at a school. He’s doing Jamil the
Janitor a solid, something I’m sure Jamil is regretting as Chris Smith should
absolutely not talk to kids. He answers a few questions, though the big one is
Jamil’s daughter asking him if he has an origin story. He has a flashback to
the death of his brother. We see his father accuse him of killing Keith, young
Chris looking at his bloodied knuckles in shock and horror before seemingly
praying for forgiveness. He comes out of the flashback and just mutters ‘Not in
the Traditional sense.’ The last kid he takes a question from says that he
might be her biological father, but the teacher cuts off that line of
questioning real quick. After, Jamil thanks him for doing this as his daughter
was stressing out about Show-and-Tell.
Auggie is released, makes a racist
joke, and leaves. Captain Locke stomps in and demands to know what is
happening. Song tells him that she took the evidence to a judge who gave her a
warrant for Christopher Smith, their new prime suspect in the murder. Locke
storms off, saying she has no idea what she’s messing with. Song and Fitz head
out to get Peacemaker. Auggie is picked up by a goon. The goon asks what next,
and he says he wants to get home, do some things, and then do something he
should have done years ago, kill his song. Chris is completely unaware of this
happening, he happily feeds Eagly and Goff bug.
At the office, Leota asks Harcourt
how she can trust Murn and she just shrugs and says Murn has helped them too
much to be plotting against them. Economos comes in and learns that Leota
knows, and we see he literally shoves his fingers in his ears when Murn =
Butterfly comes up. Leota shows Harcourt some footage, saying that every three
days a delivery of a giant canister happened, the two of them reason that that
is the raw goo being delivered for processing. Harcourt says that’s good, but
they need to know where the goo is coming from to matter. Economos has an idea
and starts looking something up. Leota gets a text from Keeya saying that she’s
worried.
The cops suit up for their raid on
Peacemaker’s trailer. Song warns her people to approach the trailer with
caution, to shoot if threatened because Peacemaker is a trained killer and will
do the same.
Adrian stops by Chris’ and is
shocked to see he still has Goff’s bug. Chris shrugs and says that he thinks
he’s dealing with his masculinity issues by keeping a very dangerous pet.
Adrian says to knock it off with the introspection, that bad thoughts are
things you run from. Goff’s bug takes some of the goo that was poured on it
earlier to draw a Peace Sign on the side of the glass.
As the cops head out, Locke calls
Murn to warn him.
Adrian and Chris try to communicate
with Goff, setting up the classic one tap yes, two taps for no set up. They
have an argument about what questions to ask, as Adrian seems to not understand
that it’s yes or no questions only. Their argument keeps Chris from seeing Murn
trying to call him. The cops arrive and begin closing in on his home. When Murn
can’t get a hold of Chris, Economos suggests calling Vigilante. They do and
when Chris takes the phone from Adrian, is told to get out of there. They grab
Goff and Chris opens his skylight for Eagly. He grabs his bird and throws it
onto the roof. Song tells Chris to come out with his hands up. Chris gets to
the roof and pulls Adrian p just in time as the little weirdo took a few
minutes to tap Goff’s jar to his hip to have his hands free. The cops conclude
they’re gone and start sacking Chris’ place for clues. Chris and Adrian watch
from the roof before slipping away through the trees. As they do, one of the
cops finds the forged diary. It’s full of crazy gibberish and occult drawings
in it. Chris tries to call Eagly to him, but the bird doesn’t react until he
whistles, drawing Song’s attention as well. She remembers Chris’ pet Eagle and
heads back to investigate. The duo climb into the trees and try to slip away.
Chris whispers to Adrian where he parked, Adrian reveals he got an Uber because
he assumed they were going to get wasted tonight. His pantomiming getting drunk
causes him to slip off the branch, fall, and shatter Goff’s jar. Goff escapes
and infects Song. I’d wondered if there was any way to recover from Butterfly
infection, but the blood Song coughs up as the bug burrows into her makes it
clear she’s not walking that off. The cops find Chris and Adrian over Song’s
body and they start running.
Chris and Adrian run through the
woods, aided by Eagly who keeps maiming or killing cops as they go. Adrian says,
“holy shit, Eagly is hardcore man.” They’re eventually cornered, but Locke
arrives and executes the last cop standing. He tells them there’s a car nearby
and to get going. As they walk away, the see Locke go through and executes the
surviving cops. Goff-Song gets up and demands to know where Peacemaker and the
buffoon went.
Chris and Adrian drive off. Chris
tries to call Harcourt with his phone, but Adrian throws it out of the car,
saying that they can be tracked. A righteously pissed off Chris says that was a
secure, untraceable phone. He’s super pissed as that phone had tons of cute
Eagly pictures on it, and he never figured out the cloud, so they’re gone
forever. Adrian asks what’s going on with him as Adrian has noticed that he
seems to have decided all life is sacred or something. Chris demands Adrian
hand over his phone.
Goff-Song and Fitz find Locke over
the bodies of one of the cops, the fake captain saying that he was too late to
help. Fitz goes to examine the bodies. Fitz asks what happened, and Locke tells
him that he saw a man in a striped shirt, red tie, black mask and fedora run
off after killing the cops. Goff-Song turns and marches off, Fitz following and
saying he’s pretty sure that Locke just described the Ham-Burglar. Goff-Song
doesn’t seem to care, as she has figured out that Locke is working with
Peacemaker. She takes her car and drives off, saying she needs to contact some
friends. One of the uniform cops sees Locke and gives him the diary. He
suspiciously takes the diary and sends the cop off.
Back at the office, Harcourt says
that Chris and Adrian are almost there. Murn comes in and asks anyone if
Peacemaker keeps a diary. Leota curses to herself but doesn’t answer Murn. He
says that his man on the inside has the diary now, so maybe that’s the last
they’ll hear of it. Chris and Adrian arrive, they reveal to the group that
Chris kept Goff, that Goff escaped, and is now possessing an Asian cop. There’s
an argument about offensive terms, which causes Murn to tell everyone to just
shut up. Chris demands to know why he sent a psycho to help them out, and Murn
is visibly shocked to hear how Locke executed several cops, including one that
was unconscious. They’re distracted by Economos saying that he thinks he’s
figured out where the raw amber goo is coming from.
Back at the police station,
Goff-Song modifies her computer with Butterfly tech and ignores Fitz’s
questions as she works on something. Still with blood on her face. Fitz says
that she’s not even typing words when he looks at her screen, and she tells him
to forget it. She stops and looks at him, saying that she sense that Song was
fond of Fitz. She says some creepy stuff, the worst of which being “Smiling is
different on every single head. Every time you have to relearn it.” Locke comes
in and stores the diary in his desk.
Economos was able to track the
truck that made the goo deliveries via traffic, highway and security cams back
to a ‘Coverdale Ranch.’ Harcourt thinks that the one little barn is too small
to store whatever makes the goo in that amount, but Murn says Butterflies
burrow, so the majority of the facility is underground. Destroy it, and the
Butterflies starve. Chris senses something is weird, and accuses the others of
thinking that he and Adrian are too dumb to notice. Leota tells him about the
cow, a creature that makes the goo for the Butterflies and they’ll starve
without it. Chris is visibly hurt that no one seems to trust him with all they
know, and it’s clear that Leota feels like an asshole for not telling him more.
Goff-Song waits on a hill and a
moment later a hundred Butterfly ships land and unleash their bugs. Goff-Song
greets them with a roar chittering. She leads them back towards the police
station. Every cop, inmate, and civilian in the station, including Fitz and
Locke, are infected. Meanwhile, Auggie has finished prepping and goes to put on
his White Dragon suit to lead his Ariyan nation. I’ll admit, his suit looks
sick. Goff-Song leads her horde of new minions down the halls of the station,
all of them smiling like they’re in that Smile horror movie.
Leota sees Keeya and tells her that
she’s sorry and that she feels terrible for betraying Chris. She admits she’s
not made for the double life of a spy. She can’t tell her team or her mom
without betraying someone. Keeya says that if she’s not happy with the
situation she should get out. They’ve got other options for money, and they can
go back to Gotham.
Chris comes into the office and
finds Harcourt engraving a P90 for him. He asks if Leota is avoiding him, and
Harcourt asks why she’d do that. She gives him the gun. He says that she did
something wrong so the gun will be lopsided. She starts to walk away, but Chris
blurts out that he really doesn’t care about the engraving, he just wants an
excuse to not kill people anymore. Harcourt tells him this is kind of the worst
time for this crisis, but Chris says he’s fine killing the bugs, he’s just not
happy killing humans anymore. Harcourt apologizes for calling him a total POS, amending
to say he’s 85% a POS, but that remaining 15% is okay. They say goodnight,
Harcourt telling him that her first name is Amelia. When alone, Chris goes to
an old piano stored in their office and starts to play. Who’d have thought
Chris Smith had classical training? Adrian comes in and says that he thought
that Chris said he didn’t keep a diary. We see that the now possessed Locke has
the forged Diary that implicates Chris in the 35 Butterfly killings he’s been a
part of since the series began. Well, shit.
Honestly, I am a bit bummed that
Song was taken over. I liked her, she was a fun character. Her actress Annie
Chan did a good job with the switch from Song to Goff-Song, there’s not much
different in her speech but there’s just a little something… off about her
delivery. Her cadence is off just enough to make her speech sound a little
unnatural. Turning all the Evergreen police and prisoners into her legion was just
a very efficient way to get some cannon fodder for Peacemaker and company to
shoot through in the last two episodes. Again, I appreciate seeing how the
Butterfly possession works. While I intellectually know that a creature
entering the human brain is going to cause a lot of damage, the pools of blood
the victims cough up really take any ambiguity away. These are bug piloting
walking corpses. Chris finally admitting that he’s having trouble killing
ordinary people now was a nice character growth moment. I liked that he started
out with the dickish lie but immediately takes it back. It makes the honesty
feel all the more genuine and spontaneous. And I like the fact that Harcourt
amends his POS rating. Chris Smith still is an asshole but the dude is trying
to be better, so him getting points for it is nice. I like that Leota is having
this crisis of faith in her mom’s plan about the diary. It’s clear that the
strategy was to blame the Butterfly killings on Peacemaker, make it seem like
he had a psychotic break, or that the conspiracy brain of his dad seeped into
him. I’m not sure if this is to protect Murn or Waller herself somehow, but I’m
sure that’ll be made clear soon. So, the team has got bug infected cops on one
side, and the White Dragon and his white nation on the other. This’ll be fun to
watch. But probably not to live through. See you tomorrow.
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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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