Despite the goofy opening and John Cena’s comedic disposition, Peacemaker is a surprisingly affecting show about trauma and the human condition. While Christopher Smith serves as Peacemaker’s primary protagonist, its supporting cast is just as rich, and intelligence agent Emilia Harcourt is the one who steals the show in Season 2’s first episode.
From her first introduction in Season 1, Harcourt establishes herself as a tough military woman. Yet, her conventionally attractive appearance suggests that she could very well be the main love interest in Peacemaker. Indeed, that’s the initial path that Peacemaker leads us down. After Chris joins Project Butterfly, he’s quick to hit on Harcourt. He’s not alone either; Harcourt is frequently shown to be the main target of cat-calling whenever she steps into a bar, and it’s clear she’s tired of it.
In Peacemaker Season 2, with Task Force X now in shambles and Amanda Waller facing government scrutiny, Harcourt is out of a job. In her latest job interview, she’s described as exhibiting signs of “toxic masculinity” and as you can imagine, she doesn’t respond well to that. In fact, Harcourt’s immediate reaction is to hurl insults at her interviewer, before getting into her car and punching her dashboard till her knuckles bleed.
The next scene, she once again walks into a bar only to get unceremoniously hit on by several men. She’s not afraid to shoot back insults of her own, before goading the men into a bar fight and beating the ever-loving crap out of them. She’s constantly eager to prove she can fight as well as any man. She doesn’t hesitate to throw out the first punch, and you could possibly even argue that she’s often the instigator of such conflicts. In Season 2, Harcourt is shown to be even angrier than ever, and a part of me wonders if that’s her way of fighting back after spending so much time being undermined by the male figures who surround her.
After all, Peacemaker is quick to subvert the roles between her and Chris in one crucial scene where it’s alleged that something romantic may have happened between them before Season 2 started. Whereas Chris takes on the role of the doe-eyed boy with a crush, Harcourt is dismisses it as a one-time thing that didn’t mean anything. Harcourt’s reaction to the male-dominated world around her is a natural one that I suspect most women can relate to; she wants to be taken seriously based on her own merits. She says as much in Season 1 where she laments that just because she wants to look a little pretty by putting on makeup, she can’t take one step into a bar without getting hit on.
In response, all Harcourt can do is fight back the only way she knows how. By throwing hands and proving to the men that she can’t be touched. For most of Season 1, I rooted for Harcourt. I believed that this was the only way to fight back and I respected her for it. More importantly, I respected that she refused to be the main love interest in Peacemaker. This, I felt, would completely undermine her character and reduce her to nothing more than a cliche.
And yet, after Season 2’s first episode, I find myself wondering if perhaps Harcourt is overcorrected to the point where fighting back has become harmful for her. After all, Chris has proven himself to be quite the decent guy, hasn’t he? Her cold dismissal of her feelings suggest that she’s hardened herself so much to the point where it’s no longer possible for her to trust any external force, and I’m sure being unable to find a job anywhere sure isn’t helping things either.
That being said, I’m not sure where the show could take Harcourt’s character development and still create a satisfying conclusion for her. She certainly can’t continue down the road of self-destructive toxic masculinity, yet becoming Chris’s love interest doesn’t seem like the answer either. The solution must be somewhere in the middle where she’s able to recognize why she reacts the way she does, while also refusing to fit into a certain mould without compromising herself.
Peacemaker‘s cast is beautifully nuanced and complex, and with Season 2’s focus on parallel universes and hints of a potential Chris/Harcourt romance in an alternate timeline, I’m interested to see how the show handles her different facets.
Peacemaker Season 2 is now available for streaming on HBO Max.
