‘Peacemaker’ Season 2 just raised the bar with one epic DCU cameo none of us saw coming
The latest episode of 'Peacemaker' Season 2 featured a big DCU cameo, and it came as a surprise despite the show's creator, James Gunn, dropping hints about the same for a while now. In the sixth episode of 'Peacemaker' Season 2, titled 'Ignorance Is Chris,' viewers saw the aftermath of Rick Flag Sr. (played by Frank Grillo) losing Peacemaker (played by John Cena) to the alternate universe, which brought him to Belle Reve Prison to ask for some help. There is only one leading expert in the alternate universes, and it's none other than Lex Luthor (played by Nicholas Hoult). Flag visits the prison where the fallen genius is serving his 265-year sentence for nearly destroying Metropolis.
In an episode of 'Peacemaker The Official Podcast with James Gunn', Gunn explained, “We have a really important moment for not only Peacemaker but the entire DCU in that Rick Flag, the head of A.R.G.U.S., strikes a deal basically with Lex Luthor in exchange for Lex Luthor finding where Peacemaker's portal might be. He is going to move him from a prison with metahumans to a prison with no metahumans, from Belle Reve, where they are now, to Van Kull, both prisons from the comics. And then he leaves and tells Sol (Sasha Bordeaux) that he's teamed up with Lex Luthor, which is scary. A man with such power as Flag, who obviously, you know, has some. He's got an agenda. It's scary for our boy Peacemaker.”
Luthor has a scanning device that can help Flag track down Peacemaker and his portal-opening box. As Luthor seems eager to seek his freedom, he accepts Flag’s offer for a shot at “redemption.” Luthor, who is using a cane for walking, really wants to get away from metahumans, and this change of venues will allow for that. Elsewhere in the episode, Gunn shared that Luthor’s cameo was shot during the filming of Flag’s Pentagon scenes in 'Superman.'
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Gunn also mentioned that Luthor's cameo was originally supposed to appear in the seventh episode. He said, “That is the other thing that I moved besides the openings of [Episodes] 2 and 4, which I switched around. And the reason being that the next scene was so serious and heavy that I needed an in-between scene. And luckily, I had shot both of them, so it wasn't a weird directing thing for me to just steal a scene from the next episode.”