The following contains spoilers for Peacemaker Episode 3, “Better Goff Dead.”While thefirst two episodes ofPeacemakerare largely setting up the details of Project Butterfly, Episode 3 finally gets the team working together in the field on the first part of their mission. The group heads out to stake out the home of a United States Senator who is thought to be a Butterfly, intent on ending his life, and checking the status of his family while they do.
The mission doesn’t exactly go as planned, but it does provide the audience with some team bonding moments, a little bit more information about Project Butterfly, and a handful of Easter eggs. So far,Peacemakerhas been having fun referencing some obscure comic book characters, and it does the same here, while also providing the audience with a few hints as to what the rest of the DC Extended Universe might be like.
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Doll Man
Peacemaker decides to give up a bit of informationabout himself at the top of the episode, revealing he’s afraid of homunculi. As an example, he cites the character Doll Man. As the characters point out, Doll Man is someone who can become the size of a doll.
The character actually develops a special shrinking formula that allows him to shrink down in size in the comics to as small as six inches tall, but retain all of his full-grown strength. A few characters have had the name, but the first made their comic book debut in 1939 in Feature Comics before he became a DC character.
The Tiny Spaceship
The small metal device with blue symbols on it that Peacemaker finds in the apartment of the first Butterfly he encounters transforms at the end of Episode 2. Here, he calls it a “tiny spaceship,” which seems relatively accurate.
The design actually appears very similar to the “scarabs” used by the Reach in Blue Beetle’s comic book stories, though that could be coincidental. If it’s not, Peacemaker could beleading the audience right into theBlue Beetlemovie.
Berenstain vs Berenstein Bears
The argument had by the team when they decide to use a beloved children’s book series to provide their codename is actually one the internet has been having for years. Leota Adebayo is correct when she tells the rest of the team that the Berenstain bears are named after the creators of the book series, but that hasn’t stopped countless people from believing that Berenstein is correct like Economos.
Conspiracy theorists believe the existence of theconfusion over the names is evidence of the Mandela Effect, the idea that parallel universes sometimes collide and evidence of their existence is left behind.
The DEO
While Harcourt and Peacemaker chat on their stakeout, she outlines her career trajectory for him. Before working for ARGUS and Amanda Waller, Harcourt worked for the CIA and for the DEO. While the CIA has a real-world equivalent, the DEO is straight out of DC Comics.
The acronym is for the Department of Extranormal Operations. Not unlike Marvel’s SHIELD, it handles all the strange threats in the world of DC Comics. DC fans would have seen it used in depthin the recentSupergirltelevision seriesstarring Melisa Benoist.
Vigilante’s Family
The scene during the credits of the episode is an extended bit of Harcourt threatening Vigilante if he messes up the mission for the group. Her threat involves killing his entire family, but the masked man laughs her off and tells her she’s too late.
Until this episode, he isn’t revealed as Adrian Chase, but the character does have a pretty dark comic book backstory involving his family.Chase becomes Vigilante after his entire family is killed. It appears there might be a similar backstory for the character in the series.
The first three episodes ofPeacemakerare available to stream on HBO Max.
