WandaVision and Loki were well paced TV shows. Falcon was fine too, though it got affected by covid the most.
Hawkeye was definitely a movie that was cut into 6 parts though.
Hawkeye was definitely a movie that was cut into 6 parts though.
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DC's Peacemaker |OT| There is no I in Peace. [Spoiler tag until episode drops if anything leaks]
- Thread starter ContractHolder
- Start date
- Video/Streaming OT
After Guardians 3, Gunn is apparently doing another DC project for TV.
Maybe this gets a season 2, but I'm thinking this is built as a one-off.
Uhhhhh, this is fucking fantastic. The writing, tone, direction, casting, performances... it's all so spot on. Really didn't expect to love this or even like it, I'm thrilled.
It's far too self-aware to be considered "edgy". You're mistaking intentional bathos for unintentional immaturity.
I mean, it kind of does. Being edgy is all about trying too hard to be cool without realising you're just being cringe. This show exhibits none of that, and the characters that do show that behaviour are relentlessly mocked and punished for it.
It is trying to be cool. Like, just think why those nude scenes NEED to be there. Why does a shot of John Cena doggying a woman from the bar need to exist to get the point across? The scene before was him literally propositioning his coworker for sex and just for fun because he was in prison and needed some release, and this was done framed to make the audience laugh. That's some genuine "hehehe he wants to bang" level of humor. You contrast that with the whole "sweet cheeks" moment in the diner and you learn that they are trying to rehabilitate this guy but they also want that whatever edge humor and "cool" they can add. Like, the payoff better be worth it. Anything but Peacemaker
unflinchingly shooting his father in the face worth it
I mean, it shows what Peacemaker thinks is the first real human connection/appreciation of his existence he's had since he got out of the hospital and everyone thinks he's a piece of shit or a homophobic slur by his Dad's view, and it follows by showing him in a moment of pure glee over it by doing karaoke, only to have it ripped from him by it being a trap to try to kill him. by being violently attacked.
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Again, it's bathos. We have Harcourt giving a poignant putdown about how she can't even get a beer without everyone harassing her. It sets the mood at a fairly sober "well, shit, we feel bad now". Then — remembering that this is a superhero show, a genre that has seen people noting that everyone is hot but never sexy — we cut to a really awkward looking sex scene with the main character yelling "FREEDOM". The rapid tonal shift causes an anti-climax. It's an intentional technique, not for some kind of character payoff but instead to elicit humour. To be clear, sex isn't the joke, the tonal whiplash and context is.
There's a sex scene because how people express themselves sexually is entirely within the realm of ways to explore a character. It's immediately followed up with him singing and dancing with real sincerity in his underwear (super edgy, right?) because it becomes increasingly clear his relationship with music is important to him - both as a place of freedom and emotional safety. And having some cathartic sexual release for the first time in four years, that's probably a rare moment for him to really let his guard down. Which only then backfires when he's violently attacked.
Dude puts on an album in his trailer and immediately breaks into tears with extreme vulnerability and self-loathing - something he's clearly not okay with people seeing. Music is private, music is comforting, and for Peacemaker, music means honesty.
The putdown is meaningless because he gets what he wants literally right after she leaves. That's generic bad boy toxic attitude 101 Hollywood: does something super insensitive/offensive/awful in a supposed growing moment but the camera changes and they get exactly what they want from that person. He gets what he wants regardless of his actions. There is no anti-climax. He gets to have sex, he enjoys himself, and the woman enjoys herself, he finds nostalgic records and sings happily to them. The "tonal whiplash" is lost over all of this.
The show then has him comment many times after about his escapade that night. It's pretty obvious what the showrunners REALLY wanted.
You just forgetting how that scene continues and what position the episode leaves him at? Or the context of how he got laid?
Yeah, he got laid because he was an attractive man at a bar. That was it. There was no other setup for it. How do you think he got laid?
You're right, people definitely don't hook up at bars...
Yeah, he went up to his coworker literally asking for no-strings-attached sex because he was in prison for a while and wanted a release. She rebuffed him. You are supposed to realize this is a bad thing because just before that she beats up a man who took offense to her deflecting his obvious horribleness. He then looks over and sees someone else who will give him what he wants. Now tell me, what am I supposed to get from this? It's like they threw out the entire purpose of that scene. He should have went home and jerked off like Harcourt said he should.
It is noted that the Butterfly only did that because Peacemaker left the dossier of the Senator being a target in her apartment, and she read it after having sex with him. This is explained in the show.
Man asks co-worker if she wants to hook up.
She says no and walks away.
Man meets woman also at bar looking to hook up (or speculatively knows who he is/who he's working for)
They hook up
This shit ain't hard to grasp...
So yeah, I got the trap bit wrong, but that doesn't erase that act of sex meant more to him than just fornicating, and then that feeling was rebuffed in an incredibly violent way.
It's not as bad as you deliberately ignoring how that scene concludes.
Since you're clearly trying to ignore the context of it being a comedy show, lets look at it from a character perspective.
It's episode 1 of a series. The character starts out as an asshole with no self-awareness. This scene drives that home. You don't load up all the character growth into the first episode. This is where you're supposed to establish character so it can develop down the line. And you're also ignoring that when he brings it up later everyone just gives him the side eye, showing that this isn't supposed to be an endearing trait, It's taking the piss out of fuckboys who brag to everyone about their "conquests".
This is also ignoring the fact that he literally gets punished for sleeping with her, resulting in multiple stab wounds, fall injuries, and getting his father arrested in his place.
This is a very sanitized look at it. Peacemaker is very descriptive of how he wants to fornicate even setting boundaries of what he can touch but changes it because he wants to feel her boobs.
This is right after the woman (his coworker) literally defended herself from 1 man and potentially 2 others because of how aggressive they got to her saying no to some pretty horrible pickup tactics. She even notes that Peacemaker "stalks" her to the bar instead of just coincidentally running into her. I put coincidentally in quotes because he kind of just sees her on the street but lies about u-turning and going into the bar because he saw her.
Peacemaker then looks over, and after seeing all this, hearing all this proceeds to just do what he came for. You as the audience, the intended person to learn from this show, is left knowing that regardless of Peacemaker's actions, he got what he wanted.
He wasn't rebuffed for having sex. He was rebuffed because the Butterfly attacked him because he was targeting Butterflies.
That doesn't actually align, though. Right after he gloats about his night. The action against him doesn't align with what the character says. He's VERY happy he got laid and being attacked doesn't seem to bother him. And guess what? It doesn't seem to bother audiences because if he doesn't care or it's not framed to show he's lying about caring about the attack then why should the audience?
lol so the lesson you wanted him to learn was that "casual sex is bad"
Oh, you mean the guy who very clearly is presented as putting up a persona doesn't let his inner turmoil be visible to other people.
You are not arguing in good faith. You are continuously ignoring what is specified in the show, what the show is trying to TELL you, and just summarizing poorly.
I would say the scenes that show his awfulness far outweigh the scenes that show he's just a tender soul inside and unable to truly express himself. He seems very honest when around with his father.
What's a character arc? And also, naw. He's not honest around his father, just look at the difference between how he expresses himself in front of his father vs while listening to a record. Like Khanimus really nailed it when they said music is emotional honesty to Peacemaker.
A good character arc would have done the bar scene much differently, and that's just 1 example. My original point still stands: this show is ow, the edge in live form.
Like, even if you believe music is emotional honesty to Peacemaker then how do you reconcile it with the scenes that are being shown? Am I wrong in that the bar scene undermines itself massively? If so, what does the music scene following it do to make up for it?
Harcourt immediately shuts down dude she isn't interested in - he responds like an asshole and then his friend responds like a violent asshole. She dispatches him pretty easily.
Peacemaker (extremely awkwardly) propositions her while atleast being up-front about boundaries and his needs, to which she tells him to fuck off, followed by removing herself entirely from the situation.
Peacemaker meets another person at the bar looking to hook up, and they go to her apartment (again, assuming that she as a Butterfly wasn't looking to get close to him for a reason.)
What is edgy about any of this?
So 2 VERY VERY VERY (I cannot say very enough) examples of men being awful to a woman at a bar clearly gives an obvious message to the audience. The first interaction literally ends in 1 of 3 men getting beat up because of it. You are then shown Peacemaker, while being an absolute horrible douchebag, failing to sleep with the same woman who beat up the previous guy now has zero character growth between that moment and the moment he sleeps with another woman at the exact same bar.
Do we just assume... what he did works?
Like, it's really hard to parse this scene as anything but, "Being an asshole can work", and that is reinforced when he actually brags about it regardless of being beat up by that woman.
Scene sucks.
And as for edgy... the obvious male gaze associated with these scenes and the framing of his horrible pickups? The next episode literally starts off with Harcourt walking around in her underwear when answering a phone call. Like, it makes logical sense because she's asleep but we all know why that scene is filmed the way it is.
You can criticize a show as it goes. That's hopefully how a lot of shows improve over time.
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Yes, you're wrong.
Harcourt was not interested - not in the dude prior, or Peacemaker. Random Butterfly lady was. And then it backfires as she tries to murder him, either pre-meditatedly or not.
What character growth are you looking for in the first episode, and in the first private interaction between two lead characters before we even get any actual momentum in the plot?
lol why are you coming to a James Gunn thing expecting this to be "tasteful and restrained"
like you literally complained that there was a sex scene because "nudity"
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Well I for one hope the show doesn't "improve" for you because I am pretty sure you are alone in your opinion the show is "edgy". It is probably just not for you.
Peacemaker is a naive asshole there is no question about that. Due to his father he has never had a need to have any character growth of any kind. Nobody was going to tell the guy to fuck off when his dad was Mr Nazi killer weapons guy. He literally has no filter.
It seems now for the first time he has people being honest with him, but I think that it is more that he is now listening and self reflecting after he killed a hero.
Peacemaker is a naive asshole there is no question about that. Due to his father he has never had a need to have any character growth of any kind. Nobody was going to tell the guy to fuck off when his dad was Mr Nazi killer weapons guy. He literally has no filter.
It seems now for the first time he has people being honest with him, but I think that it is more that he is now listening and self reflecting after he killed a hero.
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You are not adequately explaining how I am wrong. You just keep saying I am.
The "pre-meditation" MATTERS. If it was pre-mediated then, yes, he got his comuppance and maybe learned from his bad behavior, but this is inarguably refuted by the show. To say it doesn't handwaves a lot of shit in media. We know why the Butterfly attacks Peacemaker and it is not because of his words at the bar or anything else associated with his personality. She did it because he had a dossier on another Butterfly. So there is ZERO backfire of any caliber against him as a character. He even brags about his night after. This is textbook undermining your own message. They would have to do massive work to just make that make sense the way you all think it does.
How you frame, shoot, and plot out things matter. If Peacemaker is a character who is eventually going to be redeemed then the moments in the show that are supposed to support that should. He shouldn't be able to lie, be an abrasive horrible person and still get what he wants and have that potentially handwaved later on. That is just bad story telling.
So, yeah, with all the male gaze, homophobic and racist remarks going unnoticed to weird things like vagina selfies, yeah, OW THE FUCKING EDGE. But then again I must be wrong about that too since the only way to bring up the fact Leota is in a same sex marriage to others is an accidental nude appearing during the mission.
We literally know nothing about the Butterflies or their motivations other than "little bugs" and "ships". We don't know their motivations, we don't know her intentions that night, and hell, we don't know if they're even really the bad guys. Neither does Peacemaker. And while he's left in the dark on this stuff, so are we. Withholding information about the central mystery on Episode 3 is perfectly fine. It's literally the point of having a mystery.
Literally of all the things to judge Peacemaker's character for, having a shallow trashy hook-up at a bar is like maybe the most "mountains out of molehills" issue you could bother bringing up, and instead comes off as a weirdly prudish when you kick-off your argument with "THERE WAS NUDITY".
And no, having a deeply flawed-at-best/anti-hero protagonist doesn't mean the show needs to moralize every action (which again, we're talking about a bar hook-up) like this is Steven Universe and the audience is children. And if anything, dude was extremely honest about his needs (assuming he repeated any of that shit after talking to Harcourt) so I'm not even sure where the lie is in this situation. If you wanted him to get punished for his actions, he literally gets the shit beat out of him, spends half the next episode dropping from the building like a buffoon, and now has his father imprisoned (which is clearly framed as things about to go much worse for everyone). You want repercussions on his character? Literally everything about his life shows there have been repercussions on his character. He's an emotionally stunted idiot with a broken value system that's only now beginning to come into some reflection.
There's a very clear emotional core to this story and Peacemaker's character
"Edgy" is far from being an accurate description of this show.
"Edgy" is far from being an accurate description of this show.
"Haha, they only think I lack basic media literacy" is a weird bit for them on which to get their kicks.
I am judging what they have shown. Maybe they do have some kind of reason for the current awfulness of the show. Maybe. But right now they do not. They also seem to double down on him bragging about it, them convincing each other that Peacemaker literally caused the attack because he was really stupid to bring the dossier into the apartment, and the fact that the Butterflies are seemingly all over the world. Like, maybe they will make it so the butterflies are actively and were targeting Waller and her agencies but right now that isn't the case. We can only critique what they have shown, and what they have shown is easily argued to be OW THE EDGE, so yes, my original post stands.
Like, maybe MAYBE at the end will be some kind of Usual Suspects ending where all the pieces fall together where some inside individual in the government was really a butterfly and influenced all the events to cover up the secrets of the butterflies, but that doesn't really excuse a whole lot RIGHT now. There's zero, and I mean zero, harm in critiquing what is being shown right now.
You cannot keep going, "He got beat up afterwards" because that as already been refuted to not being tied to any action besides his own stupidity of leaving the dossier. There's zero connection with him being attacked and him being a horrible person. Him dropping from the building in humorous ways isn't a product his his awfulness as well.
Having a consensual shallow bar hookup does not make someone horrible. It's telling that that's what you supposedly think.