Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of Peacemaker.If there’s anything viewers can conclude from the Season 2 finale of Peacemaker, it’s that the rivalry between Chris Smith (John Cena) and Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo) isn’t over yet. Just as the season closed with a sweet reconciliation between Peacemaker and the 11th Street Kids, Flag Sr. isn’t letting him off the hook so easily. While Chris’ true fate is anyone’s guess, one thing — or two things, for that matter — is certain. The Season 2 finale finally introduced Salvation and Checkmate, making it a perfect segue for James Gunn to introduce new characters into Peacemaker. With the expected release of Superman: Man of Tomorrow in July 2027, Salvation and Checkmate can bridge Peacemaker with the past, present, and future DCU lore.
What Happened to Peacemaker in the Season 2 Finale?
In Peacemaker Season 2, Episode 8, “Full Nelson,” Chris hits rock bottom after realizing that he’ll always screw things up, no matter which dimension he’s in. After being arrested, Chris isolates himself and refuses help from his friends. Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) persuades Adrian Chase (Freddie Stroma) to use his Vigilante money to bail Chris out, but once freed, he retreats into hiding with Eagly. Meanwhile, Flag Sr. is obsessed with revenge, ultimately taking advantage of ARGUS for his own self-interest.
Using Auggie Smith’s (Robert Patrick) dimensional door, Flag Sr. sends agents to explore the Quantum Unfolding Chamber (QUC). The objective is to find one specific dimension that matches Flag Sr.’s needs, though the team, including his trusted ally Sasha Bordeaux (Sol Rodríguez), is unsure what they are. The lack of direction from Flag Sr. resulted in agents entering high-risk dimensions, leading to their deaths. When Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) stumbles into a seemingly safe dimension, Flag Sr. reveals his true intentions: turning it into Salvation, a metahuman prison.
In the finale’s climax, Chris gets over his guilt and reconciles with the 11th Street Kids. Together with the now disillusioned Bordeaux, the group forms a new independent organization, Checkmate, joined by Langston Fleury (Tim Meadows) and Judomaster (Nhut Le). Unfortunately, the happiness is short-lived. Chris is kidnapped by ARGUS and forced by Flag Sr. through the Salvation portal, effectively trapping him for good and making him the first human test subject.
Checkmate Was Originally Founded by Amanda Waller
In the DC comics, Checkmate is a covert intelligence agency created by Amanda Waller. However, audiences haven’t seen much of Waller in Season 2. Previously on Peacemaker Season 1, Waller served as the mastermind behind Project Butterfly, a secret black-ops mission aiming to eliminate alien “Butterflies.” Adebayo is planted by her mother into the team as Waller’s eyes and ears, with clear instructions to manipulate Peacemaker if necessary. Unsurprisingly, Adebayo’s stronger moral conscience causes Waller’s plans to backfire. Following the Season 1 finale, Adebayo publicly reveals Waller’s role in Project Butterfly during a press conference — tarnishing her reputation and leading to her replacement by Flag Sr.
Instead of Waller, Checkmate is founded by Adebayo, serving as a rebrand of her failed attempt at a spy company. If Gunn has plans of bringing Waller back into the spotlight, a Waller-Adebayo reunion might make things interesting. Adebayo might have the funds to run Checkmate (thanks to Vigilante’s “blood money”), but when it comes to espionage experience, Waller clearly has years of experience above her. Similar to Auggie-Chris’ complicated father-son relationship, Peacemaker could also create the same mother-daughter conflict for Waller-Adebayo, with Checkmate as the backdrop. This helps to stay true to the comic’s lore while keeping it relevant to the current Peacemaker storyline.
As an organization, the Checkmate agency is structured in a chessboard-like hierarchy, with Kings, Queens, Bishops, and Knights serving as the higher-ups. With each volume of the Checkmate comics, the leadership roster often shifts. In the first volume, being the founder, Waller was introduced as the Queen of Checkmate, with Deadshot employed as a freelancer in the agency. By the second volume, heroes from the recent Superman movie like Green Lantern and Mr. Terrific are in Checkmate — the former as King and the latter as bishop. While those characters have yet to establish a direct connection with Peacemaker, Checkmate could be the institution that binds them together in the grand scheme of the DCU. With Checkmate’s first mission likely being the search for Chris, it’s possible they would turn to the characters above — and even Hawkgirl (rounding out the Justice Gang) — to join the hunt.
In the Season 2 finale of Peacemaker, audiences get a glimpse of what Salvation looks like. When Harcourt and her team first encounter it, they stumble into a grassy field, surrounded by nothing but lush greenery. After checking the atmospheric meters, Harcourt takes off her helmet, making it even clearer that the area was safe for humans. At that point, neither Harcourt nor Economos knew why Salvation was important to Flag Sr. — they genuinely believed that ARGUS was trying to find an alternative dimension to gather natural resources or stop overpopulation on Earth. It was only revealed later on that Flag Sr. wants to develop it into a human prison.
Meanwhile, in the comics, Planet Salvation is known as Cygnus 4019. Once used by the New Gods of Apokolips as a training ground, the planet is filled with hostile environments, abandoned war machines, and dangerous creatures — much like the one Peacemaker heard wailing from afar in the finale. Though it looks empty at first, it’s actually alive with threats. The planet appeared in “Salvation Run “ (2007-2008), with Waller and Checkmate turning this planet into a prison for Earth’s most dangerous villains. Notable metahumans that have been imprisoned in Planet Salvation include The Joker, Bane, and Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult).
However, remembering Flag Sr.’s newfound partnership with Luthor, Salvation is probably the last place he’d end up in. For one, the reason why Flag Sr. could even get ahold of the QUC in the first place is because he asked Luthor for help — in exchange for his dimension-tracking devices, Luthor will be transferred to another prison. Besides that, Luthor is expected to appear in Man of Tomorrow alongside Superman (David Corenswet). Considering that Planet Salvation is the literal dumping ground for all sorts of metahumans, it’s the perfect and most logical way of introducing a variety of characters without disrupting the storyline — whether as a main cast, a recurring member, or just a cheeky cameo.
- Release Date
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January 13, 2022
- Network
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HBO Max, Max
