Review: Peacemaker, "Ignorance Is Chris" | Season 2, Episode 6

On the orders of James Gunn, HBO isn’t sending screeners for the final three episodes of Peacemaker season two to critics. When I asked, they told me they were keeping the episodes “under lock and key.” While I very much wish they would give me screeners, I understand why they are not—the surprises in “Ignorance Is Chris” were worth holding back. There wasn’t any particular DCU character I was expecting to make an appearance in the back half of the season, but Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) wouldn’t have been in my first five guesses. And while the confirmation that the alternate dimension is a white supremacist one isn’t exactly a surprise—people have been anticipating this development for weeks now—how it happens is quite shocking. 

That revelation ends the episode, but let’s start with it, because it’s the most important thing to talk about. The absence of people of color can only be hidden in plain sight, and people definitely noticed it and anticipated it was coming. It’s a reveal that has to be deployed in a surprising, hard-hitting way in order to be as startling as it needs to be dramatically. Adebayo deciding to go for a casual walk around the neighborhood by herself is contrived, but the disgust on the Smiths’ neighbor’s face when she sees Ads is not. Keith stopping his truck as if there’s an emergency and getting out to frantically scream “One got out—a Black!” sent a chill down my spine. I liked Keith! The moment gives that sinking feeling of finding out someone you know who seems nice has terrible politics, but on an especially sinister scale. 

Chris not noticing that there are no people of color in this dimension until Harcourt points it out is in character for him. Chris isn’t racist, but he was raised to be, and he still has some blind spots—pretty literally, in this case. Even more than that, though, he’s so self-absorbed that he just straight-up didn’t notice. He’s so focused on Harcourt and his family and his own feelings that he doesn’t even realize what’s going on in the world around him until there’s an American flag with the stars replaced with a swastika in front of him. It’s like someone who “doesn’t pay attention to politics” realizing that what the government does affects them.