Peacemaker: James Gunn Reveals The Real Reason Season 2 Episode 7's Brutal Death Was Inevitable

Peacemaker season 2 just turned its funhouse mirror into a buzzsaw. The penultimate episode rips Chris Smith out of his comfy alt-reality dream and drops him back into a fascist mess, then caps it with a death that is equal parts shocking and necessary. James Gunn jumped on the official Peacemaker podcast to spell out why that moment matters — and how it secretly launches the show’s next big bad.

The setup you maybe hoped was real (it wasn’t)

Earlier this season, a very drunk Chris tinkered with his late dad’s Quantum Unfolding Chamber and face-planted into a parallel Earth. In that world, his whole family is alive and worshipped like celebrities. Emilia Harcourt actually returns his feelings. It is wish-fulfillment with a glossy finish — right up until Chris figures out the truth: this is an authoritarian Earth where the Nazis won World War II. The shine is propaganda.

Auggie, but not the one you know

Episode 7 — appropriately titled 'Like A Keith in the Night' — throws Chris a curveball. Earth-2 Auggie (Robert Patrick) turns out to be... compassionate. Not loudly anti-regime, but clearly not a true believer either. Even after Chris admits that, when he first arrived, he accidentally killed this world’s version of himself, Auggie sees who our Chris is and tries to help him and his friends go home and stay gone. That is a wild twist if you remember main-universe Auggie: abusive, openly neo-Nazi, and the source of most of Chris’s damage.

Vigilante kicks in a window and makes everything worse

Just as Chris gets the fatherly support he never had, Vigilante (Freddie Stroma) explodes through a window and kills Auggie on the spot. In his head, he’s staging a heroic rescue. In reality, he just murdered the one guy in this world who was actually trying to help. It’s classic Vigilante: zero context, maximum chaos.

Why the death had to happen

According to Gunn, Auggie’s death isn’t shock for shock’s sake. It’s the pivot that turns Chris’s alt-universe brother Keith (David Denman) into the season’s endgame problem. Keith, who does not share Earth-2 Auggie’s quiet dissent, gets radicalized by the killing and goes full vengeance — until the Earth-1 crew subdues him. He survives, and that is the point.

'In one way, the whole season is Captain Triumph’s origin as a super villain... a white supremacist, piece of s**t super villain.'

Yes, Gunn’s saying the new arch-enemy is Captain Triumph — and he’s Chris’s brother from another dimension, who hates him for 'killing' him, in a sense. It’s deliciously twisted inside baseball: your nemesis isn’t just personal; he’s literally your family from a world where the bad guys won.

The fight, and the fallout

There’s no victory lap here. Watching his brother get brutalized triggers Chris’s worst childhood trauma — the death of his original-universe Keith when they were kids. He begs everyone to stop. Gunn calls the whole thing a flat-out horrifying moment. Keith lives, barely, which keeps the door wide open for revenge.

• Chris’s alt-world fantasy cracks: it’s a Nazi-won Earth in authoritarian lockstep.
• Earth-2 Auggie shows real compassion and tries to get Team Earth-1 home.
• Chris admits he accidentally killed the Earth-2 version of himself on arrival.
• Vigilante crashes in and kills Auggie, thinking he’s saving the day.
• Keith radicalizes, attacks, and is beaten by the Earth-1 crew — but survives.
• Gunn confirms this is Captain Triumph’s villain origin, making him Peacemaker’s new arch-enemy.
• Chris, wrecked, turns himself in to ARGUS.

Where this leaves Chris

The episode closes with Peacemaker surrendering to ARGUS, now fronted by Rick Flag Sr (Frank Grillo — yes, from Creature Commandos and Superman). That move saves his friends but throws his place in the DCU into question heading into the finale.

Final episode next week. Peacemaker is available on Sky Max and NOW.