Peacemaker Season 2 Episode 2 Review: A Man Is Only as Good as His Bird

If Peacemaker Season 2 Episode 1 “The Ties That Grind” was meant to refresh us on where Chris and the 11th Street Kids were doing, then Season 2 Episode 2 “A Man Is Only as Good as His Bird” is all about reflecting on those moments and moving on.

Unlike Season 1, Peacemaker Season 2 feels like it’s taken a more serious turn in terms of how it handles its emotional storytelling. While Episode 1 provided the raunchiness and explicit moments we’ve waited for, this episode provides a calmer environment to allow these characters ample development time.

What results of this more reflective episode is a mostly heartwarming experience as Chris and company get to understand themselves a bit more. Sure, it seems like most media has a need to dig into being self-reflective, “A Man Is Only as Good as His Bird” handles that concept with a hint of realism.

At the start of Peacemaker Season 2, we understood that not everything is bright with the main gang. Chris failed to get into the Justice Gang, Harcourt enjoyed getting beaten to a pulp, and Adebayo is struggling to get her security firm off the ground. Yet, some of them, like Economos and Vigilante, find solace in their new opportunities.

Of course, those that do handle it differently, like with Economos getting a new partner in the form of Langston. While he’s initially over-confident (and somewhat charmingly sly as hell), Langston is honest about the work.

Langston’s joke might over-do it at time, like when he’s joking about Adebayo and Chris together. Overall, though, this “straight man” comedic team-up between the two provides some much needed hilarity.

This humor continues on when Chris tells Vigilante about killing his alternate self and the two have to try to cut Smith’s variant up. It might be a gory sequence to watch, but it’s a key to understanding what Gunn and company are trying to say.

Chris can’t accept not being the hero in his world due to a bunch of factors, but more particularly, the voice of his dad that constantly reminds him he’s still a loser. By removing his variant from the equation, Chris is almost giving himself that piece of mind from those expectations.

Unfortunately, this also means that he’s forced to be the replacement for his variant, something that isn’t really considered fully until the end of the episode.

The most integral sequence from “A Man Is Only as Good as His Bird” has to be the entire 11th Street Kids rooftop celebration, which gives us every single member reveling in ecstasy in drunken fashion. It’ll throw you into a montage here and there, but there’s a particular moment that stands out.

By the tail end of the sequence, there’s this feeling that Chris wants to share his emotions with Harcourt. Not only is this because of what he saw in the “elseworld”, but also because of those Season 1 interactions the two shared.

Sure, you could say they were mostly “work partners” at first. Although, there was definitely a bit of that flirtatious tension, especially with Season 1 Episode 7 “Stop Dragon My Heart Around”.

The conversation that Chris and Harcourt share with this scene shows that the growth they’ve had could be meant for more. Chris knows that it can work out, but Harcourt is holding back because she doesn’t believe that Chris can make that change because of his personality.

Chris’ overconfidence and arrogance as the “male figure” of the group makes Harcourt believe that he’ll take advantage of her. Yet, deep down in Chris’ heart, he genuinely wants to be a better person not just for Harcourt, but for himself as well.

We also get to see a bit of that gradual empathy between Economos and his conversations with Adebayo and Vigilante. Economos, like Chris, also knows he can do more outside of being the group’s “techie” and the two know that. However, given everything that’s going on, Peacemaker knows that it’s not the right time for that change yet.

However, one character that certainly believes that Chris can’t change is Rick Flag Sr., who learns what he did to Flag Jr. a long time ago. In fact, this drives Flag Sr. to go all out on Chris, not caring for anything else until he can get his hands on his son’s murderer.

In a sort of parallel way, Chris also tries his hand to contact the “elseworld’s” version of Harcourt, who apparently had a relationship with Chris. Though, this doesn’t really work out as Harcourt only gives Chris the brief turn around before the antihero revels in his depression.

These two moments, uncoincidentally placed at the episode’s start and end, feel like they go hand-in-hand.

Not only does it show that unwillingness to change and understand through these different perspectives, but it also emphasizes the counter-belief that Chris might not be able to change. All in all, these scenes make for some interesting turns as Chris embraces this new reality for the first time.

As a whole, Peacemaker Season 2 Episode 2 “A Man Is Only as Good as His Bird” does a good job in giving us a reflective perspective of Christopher Smith’s hardships while questioning if change is possible for these antiheroes. While it may be somewhat more gratuitous in some moments, it’ll make you want Chris and Harcourt’s relationship to truly work in the end.

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New episodes of Peacemaker Season 2 premiere on HBO Max on Thursday, August 21.

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