‘Peacemaker’ – ‘Stop Dragon My Heart Around’ – Review
We’re getting to the crux of James Gunn’s mental superhero series Peacemaker and Episode Seven, ‘Stop Dragon My Heart Around’ leads us into an emotional showdown for Christopher Smith/Peacemaker (John Cena) and an intense set-up as Project Butterfly has formulated a plan to stop the Butterflies for good.
With everything going to hell after the arrival of Goff (Annie Chang) and her new Butterfly army, Peacemaker again finds himself as a wanted man and is once again on the run. But this time he’s got to battle a fight on two fronts. Along with contending with Goff and the Butterfly host, Peacemaker also faces a showdown with his murderous Neo-Nazi father Auggie (Robert Patrick) who has donned the mantle of the White Dragon and the fight is on between father and son in an intense and brutal final showdown.
Noted horror-thriller director Brad Anderson steps behind the camera for Episode Seven of Peacemaker, ‘Stop Dragon My Heart Around’ and while he lays on the action and intensity pretty thick, he also brings out the drama and emotion in a very heavy way. All throughout Peacemaker we’ve seen Christopher Smith wrestle with his very nature as a would-be superhero and him coming to terms with the fact that his ‘superpower’ is that he’s just really good at killing people. This power came to light in his tragic origin story were spurred on by his father’s drunken dare sees him fighting his elder brother for sport and mistakenly sees Chris killing him with a perfectly delivered punch. It’s a horrifying moment that has haunted Chris all his life and we see the trauma that this memory still affects Chris to this day and Cena’s expression of this trauma will impact you as an audience member.
With everything now gone to hell, Peacemaker, Vigilante (Freddie Stroma) and Economos (Steve Agee) flee in flight from the encroach of the Butterflies but fall headfirst into a trap laid by his Peacemaker’s father Auggie, who in the guise of the White Dragon is ready to end his son once and for all. Anderson turns the volume and the violence up in this fight and it’s a mano-a-mano brawl that sees Cena and Patrick going to war against one another and beating the living hell out of the other. It’s not just a straight fight though and all of the emotion and trauma that has been pent up his whole life finally explodes. It’s bloody and brutal and ends in a hell of a bang! And audiences will not be expecting the reaction that this fight has on Cena’s Peacemaker.
While Peacemaker might be dealing with the White Dragon and his followers, Jennifer Holland’s Emilia Harcourt and Danielle Brooks’s Leota Adebayo, have to evade Goff and the Butterflies and things take a turn for the tragic. After one of the key members of Project Butterfly is brutally gunned down by Goff, it’s up to Harcourt and Adebayo to pick up the pieces, either though neither one of them trusts the other, and then there’s Judomaster to contend with! Pissed off and angry, Harcourt and Adebayo pull a tag-team routine on Judomaster and this fight scene gets gnarly. It’s a hell of a lot of fun to see Harcourt and Adebayo taking out their pent-up aggression on Judomaster and both of these ladies kick some serious ass!
Caught off guard, missing a teammate and with no help or back-up on-call, Peacemaker and the remainder of Project Butterfly are facing the end game now and their focus is squarely on combating the Butterflies and eliminating them for good. And this is only possible if they take out ‘The Cow’. What’s ‘The Cow’ you might ask? Qell it’s a freakish alien space monster that is the source of the Butterflies food supply and if they’re able to take it out the Butterflies will be dead for good. Throughout this season, James Gunn. has thrown curveballs from all directions at us and the events of ‘Stop Dragon My Heart Around’ certainly fit that description. This episode throws everything at its audience and sets the stage for one hell of a finale.
We’re walking into the final stages of Peacemaker and it’s time to take out the fucking Butterflies once and for all! So cue the music, load up your guns and get ready to strut out in style as only Peacemaker can because there’s no better time to rock!
Peacemaker is available on Neon and Sky Go
Image: SKY TV
