Peacemaker's first season is over and its Rotten Tomatoes score is a high point for both the DCEU and for other DC TV shows. With a season-average score of 95 percent, Peacemaker doesn't only have a higher score than every other entry in the DCEU, but also scored higher than almost every other DC TV show other than Doom Patrol.
Prior to Peacemaker, DC's shows on streaming and broadcast TV have either been standalone stories or a part of the CW's Arrowverse or shared a loose connection like HBO Max's Titans and Doom Patrol; however, that all changed when Peacemaker became the first show to share continuity with big-screen installments of the DCEU. As a result, Peacemaker didn't only get a more prestigious treatment from HBO Max when it came to budget and talent but also benefitted from a number of explicit connections to the larger DCEU, particularly The Suicide Squad, which it directly spins off of.
James Gunn continued the story of Peacemaker (John Cena) after Task Force X faced off against Starro in Corto Maltese in The Suicide Squad. Since Peacemaker wasn't as widely known of a character in the DC pantheon prio to The Suicide Squad, Gunn had a lot of freedom to develop the peace-at-all-costs vigilante and his arc after he killed Rick Flag to protect confidential data about unethical research the US Government conducted on at the Corto Maltese black site where Starro was imprisoned, delivering both on humor and drama as Peacemaker struggles to understand his role as a hero and whether peace-at-all-costs is really worth the cost.
Peacemaker's DCEU Connections Made it Better Than Other DC TV Shows
While the CW's Arrowverse shows and Titans on HBO Max have featured a number of DC's biggest characters including Batman and Superman, those shows were always notably constrained by the restrictions against using certain characters or stories depending on what the higher-profile movies had planned. Peacemaker didn't have any of these same constraints, and the shared universe connections, meaning cool Easter eggs and cameos, but particularly the continuation of Peacemaker's arc after The Suicide Squad. At the climax of the movie when Peacemaker kills Rick Flag (Joel Kinneman), Flag utters his final words, "Peacemaker, what a joke," mocking the paradox of Peacemaker's as a potential reference to Watchmen's Comedian (who Alan Moore based off Peacemaker from the comics), and his famous declaration that "it's all a joke."
Up to that point, Peacemaker proudly declared he believed in fighting for peace at all costs, no matter how many men, women, and children he had to kill to get it, but Rick Flag's words haunt him throughout the course of his own show, giving him a crisis of identity going back to his childhood and his relationship with his father, who was responsible for crafting him into a killing machine. The theme is so closely tied to his arc in the movie that the show flashes back to Flag's final words one last time during Peacemaker's big decision in the series finale, making the show's DCEU connection essential to the story beyond simple Easter eggs or cameos.
The DCEU connections also meant a higher production value thanks to access to resources from the movies like costumes and actors from John Cena to Viola Davis, or even a surprise appearance from Ezra Miller and Jason Momoa as The Flash and Aquaman. Without the DCEU connections, it's highly doubtful it would have had access to the same talent and other resources, preventing it from standing out as a step above other DC TV shows, which is reflected in its higher Rotten Tomatoes score.
James Gunn's Peacemaker Involvement is Bigger Than Other Superhero Show Creators
In addition to DCEU actors, the fact that Peacemaker was a spin-off from The Suicide Squad meant it had one of the best showrunners to ever work on a TV show in James Gunn. While talented writers and directors have had involvement in a number of DC shows in the past, such as Kevin Smith, who directed multiple episodes of Supergirl and The Flash, James Gunn is one of the highest-profile superhero movie directors, having helmed two successful Guardians of the Galaxy movies for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and one of the DCEU's best-reviewed movies with The Suicide Squad.
Gunn wrote all eight episodes of Peacemaker's first season and directed five of the eight episodes, giving the show big-screen caliber talent behind the camera in a way few other shows have, including the Star Wars and Marvel shows on Disney+. Not only is Gunn one of the biggest writers and directors in the superhero genre for both Marvel and DC (a rare brand crossover at any level), but as the writer and director of The Suicide Squad, it also ensured a level of synergy and singular vision unseen by any other shared universe streaming show. This doesn't only lead to a higher quality show, but also leverages the trust critics have for the James Gunn brand, meaning the show was predisposed to have a higher Rotten Tomatoes score to an extent.
Peacemaker Was Free From Normal DC TV Show Cliches
Going back to the days of Smallville's "no capes, no flights," DC TV shows have been handicapped by a number of mandates treating them as inherently inferior to their big-screen cousins. In more recent years, the rules have lifted a little bit, particularly with The Flash getting his own show or Tyler Hoechlin showing up on Supergirl as Superman, and later getting his own show with Superman & Lois, or Titans featuring Ian Glen as Batman, but they're still often held back from fully utilizing the biggest names in DC's pantheon of heroes.
In the past, almost every show had a gimmick to prevent the big-name heroes from being used, be it Tom Welling never wearing the proper Superman suit on Smallville or David Mazouz never fully becoming Batman on Gotham. Even smaller characters were often impacted depending on DC's big-screen plans, like the Suicide Squad, Harley Quinn, or Deathstroke being taken off the table for Arrow when there were other plans for those characters in the movies. Thanks to Peacemaker's DCEU connection, it wasn't subject to any of those restrictions, to the point where four members of the DCEU's Justice League showed up in the final episode, including proper cameos from Ezra Miller's Flash and Jason Momoa's Aquaman (while a Henry Cavill-esque Superman and Gal Gadot-inspired Wonder Woman were reduced to silhouettes).
Peacemaker's R-rated status also gave it the freedom to target a more mature audience than the typically teen-focused stories in the Arrowverse, where sex, language, and violence standards are notably stricter. That's not to say R-rated elements are inherently superior, but the flexibility afforded by the rating allowed the show to tell a story the Arrowverse or other network TV DC shows might not have. It should also be noted that Peacemaker's more mature audience is something it has in common with the only DC shows to get a Rotten Tomatoes rating, Watchmen and Doom Patrol, which have slightly higher 76 percent and 77 percent scores, respectively. Most notably, the highest-rated DC show, Doom Patrol shares similar language, irreverent comedy, and violence, all of which are highly influential on the stories the show tackles, setting it apart from other DC offerings in a similar way.
With the success of Peacemaker and its high Rotten Tomatoes score, HBO Max is off to a great start with its DC shows, especially with multiple shows on the way with a shared canon to Matt Reeves The Batman, both of which Reeves is involved in. Whether or not Reeves will be as involved in those as James Gunn was in Peacemaker remains to be seen, but the shared movie connections, the high-profile talent behind the camera, and fewer content restrictions mean HBO Max could give Disney+ Star Wars and MCU shows a run for their money.
