Warning! SPOILERS for Peacemaker episode 5.
In Peacemaker episode 5, a subtle moment from Vigilante helped to underscore how important Rick Flag’s death in The Suicide Squad was for the series. Several times in the DCEU series, Peacemaker had reflected on Rick Flag’s dying words. However, a line from Vigilante helps to demonstrate why those words were so meaningful for Peacemaker.
In Peacemaker, Vigilante (Freddie Stroma) speaks about how his he kills people who break the law, even for minor infractions such as graffiti. He has a strong moral code, even if those morals are somewhat skewed. In Peacemaker episode 3, “Better Goff Dead,” it is demonstrated that he can cheerfully whistle while killing an entire family, kids included. In Peacemaker episode 5, when discussing the nicknames that Peacemaker (John Cena) gave people based on their penises, he explains that he wasn’t bothered by it because he doesn’t “have emotions like people do.”
In Peacemaker, Vigilante portrays himself as a psychopath who is entirely unbothered by killing or by what people think of him, as long as he can achieve his goals in line with his strict moral code. This serves as a crucial parallel for the way that Peacemaker was originally portrayed in The Suicide Squad where he was an obnoxious killing machine who was completely unbothered by the idea of innocent bloodshed. H would kill someone as ethically grounded as Rick Flag, if it was what his orders and perception of peace necessitated. Pairing the post-The Suicide Squad up with Vigilante’s Deadpool-esque zany killer helps to make it clear just how much of a difference Rick Flag’s final words truly had on Chris Smith.
The portrayal of Adrian Chase’s Vigilante in Peacemaker is different from the original comics in many ways. The original character was a less upbeat figure who had been a district attorney until his family was killed by the mob. However, the excessive use of violence and lethal force to take down anyone who broke the law is accurate to the comics, so he was a great pull by James Gunn to be able to underscore the changes that Peacemaker is going through in the DCEU.
Of course, while Vigilante claims not to have emotions in Peacemaker episode 5, episode 4 showed that that wasn’t entirely true. In the previous episode, he was visibly upset about the fact that Peacemaker had allowed him to be tortured and didn’t seem to care. Vigilante also cares about his friend enough that he had himself thrown in prison in an attempt to kill White Dragon to help him. He appears on the verge of tears when Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) picks him up from jail because he believes that he may have made the situation worse. The fact that he does have emotions, while he attempts to pass off a façade of not being unbothered by everything, makes him an even better parallel to the Peacemaker from The Suicide Squad and demonstrates that Vigilante in Peacemaker represents the figure that Peacemaker was before Rick Flag’s final words that he is now moving further away from.
Peacemaker releases new episodes Thursdays on HBO.
