Peacemaker Season 2 Finale Plunges to Series Low — Did Peter Safran Change the Ending?

Peacemaker Season 2 just wrapped its eight-episode run, and yes, that finale was... a choice. If you felt the ending swerved hard into setup instead of payoff, you are not alone. And interestingly, that wasn’t even the original plan.

The ending Gunn almost went with

On his Peacemaker podcast (as relayed by THR), James Gunn said his first draft ended on a happier note: the 11th Street Kids doing a dramatic slow-mo walk into their new headquarters with two recent additions, Judomaster (Nhut Le) and Langston Fleury (Tim Meadows). The final shot would have pulled back to reveal the newly formed Checkmate building, with Eagly flying overhead. For anyone not fluent in DC spy stuff: Checkmate and A.R.G.U.S. are the universe’s shadowy government ops outfits, and Gunn is clearly steering Peacemaker deeper into that corner.

But Gunn also had another ending in his back pocket: Peacemaker gets snatched by A.R.G.U.S. and shipped off to Salvation, a prison planet. Gunn handed his draft to DC Studios co-chief Peter Safran, mentioned the alternate idea, and Safran immediately pushed for it. Gunn says Safran’s response was essentially: you have to put that in. That’s the version we saw, capped by some creepy, otherworldly audio playing over an ominous cut to black.

Fans were not thrilled

The episode currently sits as the lowest-rated of the series on IMDb at 6.8/10. A lot of the blowback boils down to expectations: Gunn had been teasing the finale as a major DCU lynchpin, which had fans bracing for big story moves and possibly some capital-M Moments. Instead, the episode leaned into a musical number and character beats (which were fun!) but then swerved into a cliffhanger that felt more like a trailer tag for next season.

"I can guarantee it’s the craziest, wildest, most insane and wonderful episode of 'Peacemaker' we’ve ever produced."

Gunn also said the last three episodes were so secretive that even parts of his crew weren’t fully looped in. After the finale landed with a thud for some viewers, he doubled down on the big-picture plan, telling Entertainment Weekly that two things were always baked into this season: Checkmate and, especially, Salvation. He added that Lanterns ties into all of it, even if that connection isn’t obvious yet. We will see.

How this ties to Superman: Man of Tomorrow

While the Salvation arc kicks off on the TV side, Gunn is pivoting to his next film, Superman: Man of Tomorrow, which he’s been positioning as a key pillar of the new DCU. He has not exactly been shy about teasing it, either. Gunn says the movie puts Superman and Lex Luthor on the same side against a bigger threat, and he’s called it as much a Lex movie as a Superman movie, with a focus on Lex’s whole being overshadowed by Superman thing. On Instagram, Gunn has also hinted that the threat is Brainiac.

• Title: Man of Tomorrow
• Release date: July 9, 2027
• Writer/director: James Gunn
• Main cast: David Corenswet (Superman), Nicholas Hoult (Lex Luthor), Rachel Brosnahan (Lois Lane)
• Supporting cast: Isabela Merced (Hawkgirl), Milly Alcock (Supergirl), Frank Grillo (Rick Flag Sr.)
• Villain: Brainiac (strongly implied by Gunn’s Instagram)
• DCU connections: Salvation (the prison planet), Checkmate, and setups that ripple into future projects, including Lanterns
• Production start: Scheduled for April 2026
• Placement: Part of Gunn’s four-film 'Superman Saga', not a direct sequel to the 2025 Superman

The bottom line on that Peacemaker cliffhanger

There’s a version of this finale that ends with a victorious team strut and Eagly doing flyovers. Instead we got an abduction, a scary-sounding planet, and a big To Be Continued. If you wanted closure, yeah, that stings. If you’re here for deep-cut DCU worldbuilding and a long game that connects to Lanterns and the Superman films, Gunn is promising that all these pieces matter.

Peacemaker is streaming on Max in the U.S. What did you think of the finale — satisfying swing or hype that outkicked the coverage?