Full Cast and Plot Breakdown for Peacemaker Season 2

HBO Max gave San Diego Comic-Con a treat this weekend, unveiling the full-length trailer for Season 2 of Peacemaker, the Emmy-nominated DC spinoff series from director James Gunn. The trailer is the first official look at what John Cena’s Christopher Smith, aka Peacemaker, has in store for Season 2, and it is safe to say this season is set to be bigger, weirder, and more emotional than before.

Set after the events of The Suicide Squad (2021), Peacemaker’s eight-episode first season was set five months after the Corto Maltese mission and events that nearly saw Smith die from a near-fatal gunshot. Hired by the U.S. government for a top-secret mission known as “Project Butterfly,” he was forced to build a new team led by Clemson Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji), with the help of A.R.G.U.S. agent John Economos (Steve Agee), NSA agent Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), and a new addition to the team in the form of Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks).

Tasked with a covert mission that at first seemed like a regular government operation, Peacemaker soon learned that Project Butterfly was a race against time to save Earth from an alien parasitic threat. According to the official description, an entire alien species in the form of deadly parasitic butterflies invaded Earth by possessing and living in the bodies of unsuspecting humans. Despite stopping the invasion in a bloody explosion on a ranch and surviving in one piece, it came at a heavy cost for the team in terms of injuries and emotional damage.

For Season 2, Peacemaker is back and even more over the top in a changed DC Universe. Gunn’s spinoff still existed in its first season in the confines of the now-defunct DCEU; however, in the latest trailer, Peacemaker Season 2 is set in the newly rebranded and relaunched DCU, which Gunn himself debuted as part of his own “Gods and Monsters” block. Gunn, however, confirmed that past events from previous seasons are still canon, aside from appearances from key Justice League characters.

Returning cast members include Cena, Brooks, Holland, Agee, and Freddie Stroma as the show’s fan-favorite unhinged vigilante known as Vigilante. Nhut Le also returns as Judomaster, along with Eagly, Peacemaker’s sidekick, a black eagle with no feathers. Robert Patrick also reprises his role as Peacemaker’s deceased father, Auggie Smith, who still casts a long shadow. Other new additions to the cast this season include Frank Grillo as Rick Flagg Sr., the father of Rick Flagg (Ryan Reeves), the Rick Flagg that Peacemaker killed in The Suicide Squad. Grillo’s Flagg now works as the new A.R.G.U.S. director, while also plotting his revenge against Peacemaker. Other new cast members include Tim Meadows as agent Langston Fleury, Sol Rodriguez as Sasha Bordeaux, and Michael Rooker as Red St. Wild, the “Avalanche of pain” and Eagly’s nemesis.”

In terms of where the new season picks up, the official description for the season has Peacemaker and his team still trying to pick up the pieces after the last mission and events from Season 1, with the main difference being Smith is struggling to deal with the emotional fallout of his past transgressions in the pursuit of his desire to be a better person. In true Peacemaker fashion, he still wants peace at any cost—but now he wants to earn it by actually being a hero.

We got a little preview of the absurdity and insanity to come back in a teaser trailer released back in May. Set to the music of Foxy Shazam’s “Oh Lord,” the trailer showed a failed attempt by Chris to join the Justice League, which included Green Lantern/Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl/Kendra Saunders (Isabela Merced), and Maxwell Lord (Sean Gunn), all reprising their roles from their solo outings in Superman. Of course, his pitch lands like a fart in church.

The teaser also offered character updates for fun. Economos made it clear that Adebayo “moved on to the worst level of Grand Theft Auto.” Harcourt was said to be struggling with “a particularly severe form of toxic masculinity,” while Vigilante had a change of career in food service.

The biggest shocker in the trailer, however, was the presence of a dimensional portal. By the end of the trailer, Chris is left gawking after inadvertently stumbling across a parallel universe and even meeting a doppelgänger that has already achieved the kind of fame and adoration he’s long been looking for and could never achieve in his world. Chris even seems tempted at first to stay there, though as he quickly learns, there’s no escaping who he is and the path he’s on. Harcourt offers a painfully honest line at the end: “No matter how green the grass is over there, you belong here. With us.”

James Gunn, who was in attendance during the Hall H panel at SDCC, said the new season is all about seeing the character grow from what he was last season. “I like TV shows where the characters don’t just come back every season and they’re the same characters,” Gunn stated during the panel. “I want to see the characters change and grow. I want to see the characters get better—and sometimes worse. Peacemaker is a different guy this year. He is having to deal with all the demons that he unburied at the end of last season. He’s trying to do that, and the world is not accepting him the way he is. They’re not accepting him as a hero.”

Season 2 of Peacemaker will premiere on August 21, 2025, exclusively on HBO Max.