Thursday, December 25, 2025

Viewer Log: Peacemaker ep 8

 Time to crush some bugs. 

Last time on Peacemaker, everyone is getting hunted by someone. Chris, Adrian and Economos load up and try to attack the Butterfly farm on their own, but get by the White Dragon, Auggie Smith, and his battalion of skinheads. The trio dodge him for a while, but Chris is forced to face off against his father. With the help of Adrian and Economos, he’s able to fight back against his father and ultimately kills him with a headshot. Meanwhile, Murn, Leota, and Harcourt try to load up and follow the other trio, but are stopped by the Butterfly police force and Goff-Song. Murn is cornered and killed by the Butterflies, both the man Murn and the Butterfly that had body snatched him, Ik-Nobe-Lok. Leota and Harcourt are then jumped by Judomaster. Harcourt fights the angry little man and gets beaten up, but ultimately grapples him long enough for Leota to taze him into unconsciousness. The two women then meet up with the other three at an animal hospital they’d rushed to. Eagly had gotten shot during their showdown with White Dragon and needed emergency care. The five special agents resolve to stop the Butterflies once and for all, the vets that they were kind of holding hostage offer to come too, but get left behind. At the Butterfly farm, the Butterflies start bringing in heavy machinery they’ll need to move their Cow, after having realized the team know about it. We see the Cow and learn that the translation was a bit… loose, as it’s a colossal worm. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

Ep 8: It’s Cow or Never

 

The episode begins with the agents driving their stolen vet van to the farm. Leota tries to apologize to Chris for planting the fake diary that the Butterflies are using to frame Chris as an unstable sociopath murdering innocent people due to a conspiracy theory. Chris makes a loud raspberry whenever she tries to talk, so he’s mad but characteristically mad, I guess. After he and Adrian do that for a solid minute, Leota tries to apologize, and Chris tells her an ‘I’m Sorry’ isn’t going to cut it after betraying his trust and setting him up to be the fall guy for their mission. Leota says that she’s getting a lot of moral judgements form a pair of murderers, and Chris defends himself by saying he doesn’t kill people for no reason. He “vowed” when Keith died that no one would die for no reason at his hands. Leota says that’s stupid and tells him to stop defining himself by the accidental death of his brother. Adrian is exasperated at this point, saying that they had a classic run of murdering White Dragon with his two best friends, Chris and Eagly, and now Chris and his fifth best friend Leota are ruining it. I enjoy knowing how he ranks his friends.

 

They pull up to the farm and Harcourt ushers them out. Leota makes a call to Amanda Waller, her mom, and tries to see if they could get an assist. She tells Waller than there is WAY more Butterflies than they thought, and if they don’t act fast, they’ll lose the Cow, which is their only means of stopping the Butterflies. She begs for back up from the Justice Leage, but Waller says they’re on their own. She orders Economos and Leota to stay back while the shooters handle it, and that otherwise Harcourt is in charge. So, they’re on their own, that’s fun.

 

We see that the Butterflies have set up their teleporter. Goff-Song asks how much longer they’ll have to wait, and B-Locke says that it’s nearly complete and once it’s finished their teleport the Cow to their Eastern Base. Goff-Song tells him to hurry as their enemies could arrive at any minute and without the Cow they’re screwed.

 

The team gather outside of the farm’s barn, Economos asks the obvious question, why is Leota’s last name Adebayo when Waller is her mom. Leota says she took her wife’s name and when Adrian asks if that makes her the woman in the relationship she explains that in a lesbian relationship they’re both the woman in the relationship. They try to make a plan based on the equipment they have handy, that includes a few Peacemaker helmets. They’ve got underwater breathing, scabies inducing, anti-gravity, sonic boom, and human torpedo. They think about using the anti-gravity helmet to set the sonic boom helmet on the barn and use that to level everything, but Leota accidentally says “activate anti-gravity” too loud and the helmet floats away before anyone can grab it. They try to pivot, Chris suggesting they could sent the helmet over on a line they shoot at the barn. When Adrian asks ‘like Green Arrow,” Chris says that that dude goes to Bro-ny conventions for anonymous sex. When Leota calls him out for having another fake hero rumor, Economos says he’s heard that one, and it’s the only ‘real’ one he’s said. Before Adrian adding Aquaman having sex with fish. Harcourt gets them back on task and says they don’t have a bow. Chris says they’ve got a teammate that can fly. Harcourt says “Get the F*** out.” Chris tells Eagly to take the helmet to the barn, Harcourt saying that there’s no way this could work. They get Eagly to take the helmet and fly away… but he drops the helmet in another part of the forest. Harcourt is pissed, and Adrian says, “Peacemaker is a great guy in almost every way… but his biggest flaw is that he commonly overestimates Eagly’s abilities.” The group fans out to get the helmet, they have to hurry because the teleporter could be online at any minute.

 

In the underground, we see them start to power up the teleporter.

 

Economos and Adrian team up to find the helmet, and argue the level of importance of ants in the circle of life. Harcourt asks Leota why she decided to come with, and Leota says that she saw an Eagle hug a human and thought that it was a sign to help. Harcourt asks why she didn’t interpret it as a sign to run in the opposite direction, and that is clearly the first time Leota has thought about that. Chris is searching alone when he sees the ghost of his dad. He’s hallucinating, but it’s the DC universe so Auggie being an actual ghost isn’t outside the realm of possibility. Chris grabs his blowgun and shoots his dad with it. He knew it was a hallucination but he need to metaphorically kill his dad again. Harcourt sees him just blow a dart at nothing and asks what’s up. But before he answers they find the helmet where Auggie’s ghost fell. She grabs it and tells Chris that there’s something he needs to do for her.

 

Christ walks up to the perimeter and stabs a guard. He steals the guards uniform, and gives it to Economos. They need someone to sneak in and setup the helmet, and Economos is the only person that the Butterflies won’t recognize on sight, as the costumed killers have very recognizable faces at this point, and the women have a lot of visible injuries. And to make matters worse the guard crapped himself as he died, so they’re diarrhea pants. Economos goes in, clearly nervous, but the Butterflies don’t get people, so they barely notice. He makes it to the barn before B-Fitz stops him, asking where he’s going. Economos says that he’s going inside, because of this bag, and that seems to work for some reason. Economos runs inside and vomits from nerves, which almost makes Chris vomit from the noise. Harcourt encourages him to keep going. He tells her he sees stairs and an elevator, and she tells him to take the stairs. He descends.

 

He reaches the sublevel and sees the Butterfly’s Cow is a giant worm that they’re milking. He also sees the teleporter is almost ready. Economos drops the bag with the helmet and mutters, “No more Kaiju.” He runs off, telling the others what he saw and that they need to get the fuck out of here. As he leaves, B-Fitz stops Economos and asks about his oddly colored beard. Economos admits that he dies his beard to look younger; that because he’s overworked, he doesn’t dye the roots regularly; because he’s underpaid, he only gets the cheap brand; and because until very recently he didn’t think anyone paid enough attention to him to notice. Very sad man, John Economos. B-Fitz believes him and says that humans can be really pathetic. Economos tries to run, but one of Butterflies, one of Auggie’s old goons, comes out and says that Economos left the helmet there. He tries to run and the Butterflies run after him. Chris tells her to activate the sonic boom. Leota tries, but she drops the walkie-talkie. The Butterflies grab Economos and force him to the ground, but Leota finds the walkie-talkie and activates the sonic boom several times. The blasts level the barn, kills all the Butterflies nearby, and damages the cavern that the Cow is housed in. Harcourt orders Leota to stay back as she will be their only backup if something goes wrong. Economos is hurt at being left out.

 

Peacemaker, Vigilante, and Harcourt charge the Butterflies, killing humans and bugs to their non-diegetic theme song. Vigilante slices them with a machete, Harcourt and Chris shoot them, and Chris uses a Shield for some trick shots. Chris heads into the cavern to kill the Cow. B-Fitz tries to grab him, but Vigilante kills him with a machete slice. Vigilante is the first to drop as he’s shot from behind, but he throws a knife at the guy and kills him. Chris slides down the tunnel to the cavern but gets buried under some rubble. Harcourt gets shot in the shoulder, kills a few more Butterflies and then drops as the music fades out. Leota and Economos run in to try to help. Well, Leota does, Economos unfortunately trips over a bit of fencing and breaks his leg. Like, bone is exposed broken. Leota kills the last few Butterflies and stops one from getting into Harcourt’s mouth. Harcourt tells her to go help Chris, Leota asks how, and an injured Economos rolls the human torpedo helmet to her.

 

Leota finds the rubble and tries to dig him out. It looks like she reached him and pulled him free, but it turns out to be Goff-Song. They fist fight, Goff-Song getting him up against a wall. Leota reaches them and tries to use the Human Torpedo on them… but the helmet rockets her way off and makes her hit a wall, knocking her down. Goff-Song says that they don’t need to fight and tells him to come with her. She tells him that she and Locke need three sets of hands to operate the controls to teleport the Cow to their base in Maine. Chris tells her to screw off, and asks why he’d help, and she says that for the same Judomaster agreed to help them. She says that they’re trying to live up to a vow. Goff-Song says that they came to Earth from a world that was dying.  The only thing the planet could do was feed them, so they brought the Cow with as that would feed them for a hundred years. It sounds like they’d intended to just live in secret, but then discovered that the human race was on the same trajectory their kind had been on. Populism, selfishness and greed, the big ones. She said they vowed to save humanity from themselves, to do whatever they had to stop humans from destroying themselves. Goff-Song say that Chris is like them, willing to do anything for Peace. She says she tried to communicate that to him with the peace sign when she was stuck in the jar. She thanks him for talking to her and feeding her while in the jar. Chris has visions of his brother’s death, of killing Flag Jr, and of praying to God for peace. Goff-Song asks if he’ll help, and after a beat of silence, Chris activates the Torpedo helmet. Leota is turned into a human bullet and punches into the Cow’s body, killing it. Chris shoots B-Locke, and apologies to Goff-Song as he kills Song’s body. He grabs Leota and they limp to the exit. Chris looks back and sees Goff climb out of Song’s body.

 

The team convene topside, Harcourt is unconscious but alive, and Adrian limps over to join them. At some point they’d gotten a split on Economos’ leg. Chris grabs Harcourt and carries her away as Leota helps Economos limp away. As they leave, Superman, Aquaman, the Flash, and Wonder Woman arrive. Chris calls them dick heads for being late and tells Aquaman to have sex with another fish. Aquaman (Jason Mamoa) says he’s sick of that rumor, the Flash (screw you Ezra Miller) says it’s not a rumor and Aquaman tells him F you.

 

They get Harcourt and Economos to a hospital. Chris tells Adrian he needs to be admitted too as he was shot, he tries to say that he’s fine, but then passes out. Left alone, Chris asks if Leota heard she heard everything, and if he doomed the world by killing the bugs. Leota says that he might have, or he gave them a chance to choose rather than listen to their bug overlords. She asks why he did it instead of following their lead, asking if it was due to his… complicated beliefs on freedom. He says it’s just because they’d hurt the others if he went with the Butterflies. Leota gets up and walks away, Chris asks her where she’s going, and she says ‘to do the right thing.’ Chris tells her to not tell Adrian, but after Eagly, she’s his number one BFF.

 

Leota holds a press conference at their former base and admits to all of what she knows about ARGUS and Taskforce X, and her mother’s operations. We see Adrian slip away after he’d gotten a bit of treatment, and Waller’s shock at her baby revealing everything. Chris gets led back to Harcourt’s room, and we learn he’s been waiting out there for days. They hold hands. Leota is reunited with Keeya and they have a passionate kiss. Economos heads back to his office in Belle Reve and gets back to work, but adds a the picture Leota took of him, Adrian, and Chris laughing after their first mission. Chris returns to his trailer and Goff’s butterfly wakes him up. Judomaster makes it to the farm, sees all the dead Butterfly hosts and starts sobbing. He sits outside with a beer and pours out the last of the fluid for her to drink, his little peace offering to the last of the Butterflies. He sits with the ghost of his father as Eagly gives him some more roadkill.

 

That was a fun finale. It was as chaotic as all the other missions we’ve seen Project: Butterfly go on. Chris is still a bit of an idiot, but that’s a key character trait at this point. Overall, while it wasn’t a great plan, their decision to use the sonic boom helmet as a bomb was probably the best thing they could have done in this situation. Crazy how much kick that thing has. The fight scene with Peacemaker, Vigilante and Harcourt verses the swarm of Butterflies was very well choreographed with lots of cool stunt kills, and really let the trio of wet work operatives show off. The final confrontation between Goff-Song and Chris was solid. I liked the fact that we got to see that Chris has grown over this season, as while he was clearly tempted to help the Butterflies bring Peace to Earth by any means necessary, he ultimately couldn’t do it. If she offered him that in episode one, I’m not sure he would have resisted temptation. Using Leota as a human bullet made me laugh even if it was a serious moment. I liked the final scene between Chris and Leota, with the latter apologizing for framing him, and the former admitting that she really is his BFF. It was nice to see Jason Mamoa as Aquaman/Arthur Curry again. I’m excited to see him as Lobo in the new DCU, but he was a solid Aquaman and one of the better elements of the Snyderverse… which I’m going to be honest I hate. I wasn’t as actively against it when it first came out, but years of Snyder-bro stupidity really soured me on what was a compromised vision to begin with. Screw off Ezra Miller, you’re a legitimately bad person and I don’t understand why the Warner Bros executives were so dead set on this casting. Please, James Gunn, pick a better Flash. Barry, Wally, Bart, or hell even Jay, I don’t care what Flash ya go with, just don’t cast someone that sucks that hard to play him. Okay, I’m done with that rant. Overall, I liked this show, and I look forward to diving into season 2 at some point. I decided for the rest of December, we really should get back to My Hero Academia now that it’s finished. See you then. 

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/viewer-log-ep-8-146685526

Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social


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