A happy ending for Chris Smith (John Cena) in Peacemaker? Yeah right. 

**Spoilers ahead for Peacemaker Season 2 Episode 8, “Full Nelson“**

While all signs throughout Peacemaker Season 2 pointed to things turning sour for Chris as he dimension-hopped between his own reality and one where his brother (David Denman) and father (Robert Patrick) were still alive, how it would all go sideways did not become clear until the last few minutes.

In the eighth and final episode of the HBO Max show’s sophomore season, while Chris and his friends come together to break free of their past mistakes and establish Checkmate — an agency straight out of the DC Comics — it all ends with Chris being trapped in a more conclusive way than ever before. Will he be able to escape? And what major implications does this have on the DC Universe going forward? 

To answer those questions and get into everything we know about how the universe expands from here, keep reading for our full breakdown of the Peacemaker Season 2 finale. 

Peacemaker Season 2 Ending Explained:

In the final moments of Peacemaker Season 2, Chris — after having battled his own demons and come out the other side with the members of the 11th Street Kids — is kidnapped by A.R.G.U.S. agents, doing the bidding of Rick Flagg Sr. (Frank Grillo). Let’s go back one second.

The entire episode led up to the realization by Sasha Bordeaux (Sol Rodriguez) and Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) that the reason A.R.G.U.S. was opening doors inside the portal hopper was to locate a dimension similar to Earth, with the plan being to use the unreachable land as a prison capable of holding metahumans. Once she discovers this, Sasha immediately goes to Harcourt, putting aside their difference in order to stop Flag and Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) from implementing their own plans.

Before Sasha and Harcourt can do that, however, they decide that they need to find Chris, who has gone off-grid after being bailed out of prison by the money Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) took from Adrian’s (Freddie Stroma) lair. After infiltrating A.R.G.U.S. and tracking Chris’ chip to a motel, Adrian tases Chris as he tries to make a break for it. In a surprisingly tenderhearted moment, Adebao and the gang break down into tears with Chris, telling him that he is not the “angel of death” that he thinks he is and that he deserves to be happy and to live.

After finally deciding to put his struggles behind him, the group collectively establishes an independent covert operations and watchdog agency, known as Checkmate. This is a major buzzword moment for DC fans who know that in the comics, Checkmate is a group established by Amanda Waller — played by Viola Davis in the DCU — that works with governments around the world to act as international spies to bring about peace. They also have significant ties in the original source material to Maxwell Lord (Sean Gunn), although it is currently unclear if Waller or Lord will have any involvement in this iteration. As everything in the new DCU is intentional, this will surely have major implications on how the world deals with villains moving forward.

Jump back to the final moments of Season 2, which show a blissfully unaware Chris being tossed in a van with a bag over his head and brought to A.R.G.U.S.’ headquarters. Shackled, he’s pushed through the interdimensional portal to Salvation, the dimension that Sasha and Harcourt discovered earlier in the episode, told by Flag Sr. that he has volunteered to be a guinea pig to check out the land. In the comics, Salvation is a planet that is used by Waller and Checkmate to house dangerous metahumans and villains, leaving them stranded forever.

“This is for Ricky, you piece of shit,” Flag Sr. says as he closes off the portal from Chris, referencing Rick Flag Jr. (Joel Kinnaman), who Peacemaker killed in Gunn’s Suicide Squad film and who made a surprise appearance in a Season 2 episode set in the alternate dimension. The episode slowly zooms out to reveal Chris, with nothing but the shirt on his back, stuck on Salvation, with no way to get out or get help. Even worse, Flag Sr. is now fully in the pocket of Lex Luthor, whose Superman–based plot to eliminate metahumans is now fully underway.

Ultimately, this leads to the question of what happens next? Well, according to creator, writer, and director James Gunn, that is all to be revealed in the coming DC projects. While the DC head honcho has been hesitant to share major details, it does sound like the stories and the characters at the heart of the show will be back in Supergirl, Creature Commandos, Lanterns, and the next Superman movie, Man of Tomorrow.

“Some of these characters will continue, but also, it’s not exactly Peacemaker 3. I’m not ruling it out. You’ll see Episode 8 and maybe you’ll find out a little bit more,” he told DEADLINE.

It sounds like we’ll have to wait to find out the fate of these characters, including Chris and his band of 11th Street Kids, now the operators of Checkmate.

Peacemaker Season 2 is now streaming on HBO Max.

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