‘Peacemaker’ – ‘The Choad Less Traveled’ – Review
Writer/director James Gunn has turned the dial all the way up when it comes to his R-rated, heavy-metal, take-no-prisoners superhero TV series Peacemaker and episode by episode we’re loving what we’re seeing with this series. The weird factor is cranked high and it’s about to get even freakier in Episode 4, ‘The Choad Less Traveled’.
It’s about to get complicated for would-be superhero Christopher Smith/Peacemaker, having recently grown a conscience he’s not up to scratch as a killer and this is making his new task difficult when it comes to ‘Project Butterfly’. Throw in the antagonistic relationship with his scumbag father and a ‘best friend’ who is trying a bit too hard and things get messy quickly.
Episode Four of Peacemaker, ‘The Choad Less Traveled’, and yes you are reading that right, and yes it is the single, greatest TV episode title ever created, finds our supervillain and would-be hero coming to terms with his newfound conscience and really questioning who he is on a spiritual level. Does Christopher Smith/Peacemaker desire to achieve world peace no matter how many men, women or children he has kill to get it? The answer is still firmly yes. But it’s the actual killing part that is leaving him as a bit of a mess. Throw in his complicated relationship with his father, and a dark secret that claws at him and ‘The Choad Less Traveled’ makes for very interesting viewing.
Along with Peacemaker’s new brush with conscience, things are also heating up for Project Butterflies new recruit, Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), she may be the daughter of uber-political puppet master and villain Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), but so far she’s very much been the third wheel of the team. Not seeming to fit in in any possible way, Adebayo’s value to the team slowly begins to draw itself out as it is revealed that she is the only one who is actually able to communicate with Cena’s Christopher Smith/Peacemaker on a human level. While Peacemaker might be lusting after Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and scrapping with John Economos (Steve Agee), it’s Adebayo who is the only one who can get through to him and this leads to a very interesting heart to heart moment between the two characters.
But don’t worry too much, while there’s a dab of sloppy drama, it doesn’t last long. And things get bloody quickly. Peacemaker hasn’t been able to get over his ‘performance anxiety’ of not being able to pull the trigger properly and now he wants to make up for it. And that leads to a full-on Shaolin dragon, kung-fu, car park beatdown with the diminutive Judomaster (Nhut Le). Both these two have a serious grudge with one another and it gets bloody quickly as punches are thrown, bones snap and one hell of surprise is unleashed. And damn will this have you sitting up in your chair in shock!
‘The Choad Less Traveled’ is an important episode for the relationship shared between Peacemaker and his father Auggie Smith (Robert Patric). While Chris tries to make it a sentimental moment between father and son, Auggie just sees it as another chance to chastise his son for being a useless wretch. It’s also here that we learn more about Auggie’s own career as a costumed supervillain, who in the past was known as The White Dragon. Best described as a ‘white supremacist’ supervillain, Auggie was willing to terrorise anyone or any minority he considered to be a criminal. Learning this about Auggie makes a lot of sense when looking at Chris, and it’s this conflict that leads to the episodes most intense moment.
That tension comes in the form of Peacemaker’s ‘best friend’ Vigilante, who takes it upon himself to end the life of Auggie Smith before he can weasel out of prison by ratting his son out and thus destroying the work of Project Butterfly. All along Vigilante, who is played with a good degree of comedic genius from Freddie Stroma, has been a scene-stealer in every possible way. And he does the same here. Possessing an unsettling Ted Bundy quality about him, Vigilante again showcases how much of a stone-cold psycho he is in ‘The Choad Less Traveled’ and your jaw will be on the floor with what he gets up to in this episode. Thanks to Vigilante’s messed up boy scout quality things get crazy quickly and we have James Gunn to thank for all of it. But this isn’t the craziest part of ‘The Choad Less Traveled’ and the ending of Episode Four will have you in complete and utter shock. It’s that FREAKY!
It just keeps getting stranger with Peacemaker and this is far and away the most original show on TV right now. And it’s about to get even stranger with a shocking revelation in the final moments of ‘The Choad Less Traveled’. I also have a feeling that anything and EVERYTHING is about to happen from here.
Peacemaker is available on Neon and Sky Go
Image: SKY TV
