Written and Directed by James Gunn
Five months after the events at the island of Colto Maltese, Christopher Smith, AKA "Peacemaker", is discharged from the hospital in his hometown of Evergreen. While the other surviving members of Task Force X have managed to successfully bargain for their freedom with Amanda Waller, Peacemaker still has to serve 24 years in Belle Reve Penitentiary. But when no police, or any other authority figures for that matter, show up to bring him back into custody, Peacemaker takes it as a sign that they might actually have just forgotten about him. After checking himself out of the hospital, he takes a taxi back to his trailer.
Meanwhile, a rookie Task Force X operative Leota Adebayo settles down in her new apartment with her wife Keeya. They talk about this job being only temporary and something that they have to put up with to make more money and try to leave this life behind.
Peacemaker arrives at his trailer, but only has Colto Maltesese currency on him, so the driver takes his helmet as payment. Unable to find the key to the front door, Smith breaks the window and gets into the trailer, where he finds that a mysterious fan known as "Vigilante" has been leaving him voice messages. He's quickly surrounded by his new handlers: a known mercenary named Clemson Murn, a Task Force X operative Emilia Harcourt, a technician John Economos and Adebayo. They explain the situation to him and offer him a deal: he either goes back to Belle Reve or performs several assignments for the US government that will shave off years from his sentence. After some arguing, Peacemaker agrees, but first decides to visit his father's home and take back his pet bald eagle, Eagly.
Arriving at his father's house, Smith briefly argues with the neighbor, before his father, August "Auggie" Smith, lets him in. Auggie makes no secret of him being disappointed in his son, who he sees as a screw-up, but still begrudgingly agrees to let him take a new helmet with a sonic boom function in it. After taking Eagly with him, Peacemaker arrives at a restaurant with the rest of the group is waiting for him to give him the briefing files on his assignment: Project Butterfly, and he's tasked with assassinating a US senator. One of the restaurant workers is unexplainably excited after seeing Peacemaker, getting into an awkward situation with his co-worker. Back at home, Adebayo is seen talking to her mother, Amanda Waller, who instructs her to keep an eye on the other members of the group.
Going back home, Peacemaker notices Harcourt going into a bar and decides to follow her, where she is being harrassed by several men. When one of them approaches her, she easily overpowers him and breaks his fingers, impressing Peacemaker. He offers her to sleep together, but is rebuffed as she describes his following her as "stalkery" and says she has no interest in him other than his ability to act as a fighter for the taskforce. Instead Peacemaker catches the interest of another attractive woman in the bar, who ends up taking him home to her apartment for a one night stand.
After having sex, Peacemaker is suddenly attacked by his date who is revealed to have superhuman strength and easily tosses him around. He jumps out the window (5th floor), and manages to get to his car and equip his helmet that releases a sonic wave and blasts the woman to pieces, after which he takes a moment to ponder the situation with Eagly while the police are arriving at the scene.
Tropes:
- The Cameo: Viola Davis appears as Amanda Waller in a Skype call with her daughter, Leota.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Peacemaker when the team catches him at his home.
- A Dog Named "Dog": The team mocks Peacemaker for naming his pet eagle "Eagly".
- Dude, Where's My Reward?: Right after Chris runs back to his squalid trailer home, Murn and the other agents surround Chris with guns stating that he's still required to carry out his Suicide Squad duties this time in Project Butterfly, Chris lashes out that he should've earned his freedom by having killed Rick Flag (who wanted to betray Waller) in the Project Starfish mission. There was never an agreement that Chris would be allowed to go free even if he succeeded in Project Starfish, he would only be granted a small sentence commutation at best and the other surviving Suicide Squad members only went free because they blackmailed Waller with classified information.
- Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Both Peacemaker and his father think it's hilarious that Bloodsport's father locked him in a room with starving rats.
- Flipping the Bird: Emilia Harcourt casually flips off Peacemaker when they're introduced.
- Handicapped Badass: Peacemaker is still recovering from his Corto Maltese injuries, having had a clavicle replaced and being unable to lift his elbow above his chest.
- Happy Dance: Chase does a dance behind his workplace when he learns Peacemaker is out of jail.
- Honey Trap: Peacemaker is nearly killed by a mysterious metahuman he had met at the bar and slept with.
- I Ate WHAT?!: John Economos is disgusted when he learns that the olives he took from Peacemaker's fridge were four years old.
- I'd Tell You, but Then I'd Have to Kill You: Used as an excuse by Leota to justify why she cannot tell Peacemaker about her backstory.
- I Just Want to Be Free: Chris complains to Murn that he wants to be released from his duties to Waller and gain his freedom. Murn rebuffs that not only does Chris have no negotiating power whatsoever, but also Project Butterfly is such a catastrophic danger to humanity it negates Peacemaker's desire for freedom since he is one of the very few men qualified to handle the mission especially as the Justice League is apparently too busy fighting other evil-doers.
- Informed Flaw: Leota claims that Peacemaker is a sexist and probably racist (due to who his father is), but while he's been generally loutish and obnoxious he hasn't actually expressed any bigoted views in front of her and has in fact twice been offended at the suggestion that his vigilantism targets minorities.
- In Love with Your Carnage: Peacemaker's obvious attraction to Harcourt clearly shoots up several notches after watching her beat ten kinds of crap out of a guy who tried to attack her in a bar.
- Insistent Appellation: When Peacemaker suggests moving to First-Name Basis with Harcourt, she declines.
- Key Under the Doormat: Subverted when Peacemaker cannot find his spare key around his Trashy Trailer Home.
- Ludicrous Gibs: The sonic boom of Peacemaker's new helmet blows up the metahuman woman that was attacking him into a pile of gore.
- Made of Iron: Having brawled with Rick Flag, taking a bullet from Bloodsport, and being almost crushed by the Jötunheim tower, Peacemaker surprises the doctors by only needing a clavicle replacement.
- Mistaken for Racist: A janitor accuses Peacemaker of being this, due to having a higher percentage of minority victims. Peacemaker is quick to defend himself, pointing out he has killed white people too. He ends up promising to try to find more white criminals he can kill to improve his percentage.
- Next Thing They Knew: Peacemaker is shown going over to flirt with a pretty woman at the bar. Then the next scene cuts to him loudly having sex with her.
- Pocket Dimension: Auggie has one in his house, using it to store his old Peacemaker gear.
- Previously on…: Recaps the events of The Suicide Squad to bring the audience up to speed on Peacemaker and his handlers.
- Situational Sexuality: It's implied that this (or possibly its darker cousin) was the case when Peacemaker tells Harcourt that, having been in prison, he hasn't been with anyone for four years... then backtracks and adds that, well, he hasn't been with a woman for four years.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The fight scene between Peacemaker and the superhuman plays out with a love ballad playing in the background.
- The Stinger: Shows a deleted scene of Auggie showing Peacemaker a helmet designed to give him scabies. For a challenge.
- Strawman News Media: A very right-wing news channel is shown on Auggie's television. The anchorman is angrily rambling about aliens (albeit from space).
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Peacemaker still has the device in his skull that can be used to track and kill him. Naturally if the doctors knew about it, either Waller made them leave it or it was too risky to take it out without specialized equipment.
- The Belle Reve Mission Control team did the right thing in mutinying against Waller to stop Starro. However, they're also still grunts who disobeyed direct orders and assaulted their boss — a high-ranking, well-connected bureaucrat with a history of vindictiveness. So, since Waller can't touch the Task Force X survivors (due to the blackmail leverage Bloodsport secured), her pit crew gets to endure her full wrath. Harcourt and Economos have been removed from Belle Reve and reassigned to Project Butterfly. Flo Crawley, as the one who launched the mutiny, is even less lucky and has been arrested.
- Three-Point Landing: The superhuman lands this way when jumping out of her apartment window onto the street.
- Too Much Information: Leota doesn't need to know about Peacemaker's size.
- Trashy Trailer Home: Peacemaker lives in one of these. Apparently, vigilantism is not a very high-paying job.
- Underestimating Badassery: After Harcourt brushes off a jerk who tried to hit on her at the bar, a friend of his threatens her, unaware she's a government agent with extensive combat training. She proceeds to make short work of him with lots of Sickening Crunches.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Peacemaker manages to hook up with a woman at a bar, something that greatly improves his mood and makes him feel like maybe things are turning around for him... until she suddenly tries to kill him.
- Your Head Asplode: Murn gets Peacemaker to behave by reminding him there he still has the explosive from the Corto Maltese mission in his head and that his handlers can use it to track and kill him.
