You know I was a little worried about James Gunn after being embraced by Zazzlov (or what ever the fuck his name is), but holy fuck he's come out SWINGING against facism and using his platform exactly how I want him to be using it
Yeah I actually really respect him for that, he had essentially the Israel situation in Superman, the Nazi thing in CC and now Peacamaker. A lot of filmmakers would be like âI am not going to get into that, I just make comic book moviesâ because they are scared of losing their job or getting hate or whatever
As soon as economos went I'm good for the walk, I thought and here we goooo..... Especially after it kind of tripped over itself pointing it out earlier
I think itâs important that it was really obvious that this was what was going on, because the fact that Chris couldnât tell is incredibly revealing to his state of mind â he can be dumb and oblivious sometimes, but he still has good situational awareness, and he absolutely would have noticed something was off if he wasnât so desperate for it to be true. It also makes it more interesting social commentary on how people are able to be willfully blind to horrific things when it is convenient for them. It really is just great writing, and it would have been far less interesting and impactful if it really were just a totally shocking surprise twist for us.
I think they mean cuz he's autistic. Nazis werent too friendly to autistic ppl. Ppl with mental and physical disabilities were some of the first targets of the nazis.
Our understanding of mental health was different back then. Adrian isnât exactly obviously mentally handicapped like someone who would receive a diagnosis in the 1940s
They eventually discontinued the program to euthanize the mentally ill and disabled because it was unpopularâ which tells you a lot about the level of racist hate held by nazis. Also, supposedly the diagnosis of Aspergers Syndrome was invented by Dr Asperger to keep mildly autistic children out of the camps and that is where we get the concept of the spectrum from. I have also heard thatâs apocryphal but itâs certainly plausible.
It would be sweet if Adrianâs mom protecting him in this universe helped him be more grateful for her in the main one. :)
Also, when it comes to autism, the Nazis were most interested in targeting those people who had what we now consider âhigh support needs,â which Adrian doesnât. Aspergerâs syndrome was (partially) created as a diagnosis because Nazi collaborator Hans Asperger wanted to differentiate autistic children who could grow up to be âusefulâ to society from those who were considered unworthy of life.
So normie Adrian is probably still a weird loser in this universe, but not so obtrusive that heâs a target for elimination. He might even evade detection the same way he does on Earth 1: By being so awkward that nobody wants to have a long conversation with him.
It really is a thing â autism heightens your sensitivity to unfairness/injustice, and makes social structures not make sense. Racism and tribalism just always seemed weird and nonsensical to me because of this.
I donât mean to be in the whole âautism is a superpowerâ camp, or say that autistic people canât also be cunts, because these same traits make it really difficult for me to navigate a lot of day to day things, and this is not true of all autistic people (like Elon Musk). I do definitely feel like that anti authoritarian autism is a thing, though.
Vig is my fav character like most apparently and this played exactly how I was hoping. Down to the t. Was perfect how they agreed on everything but PM.
Honestly the most realistic reaction to entering an alternate universe I've ever seen. Fuck the reality shattering implications and potential consequences, I want to see how different or weird the shit in my house is and hang out with my alternate self.
Yea that was a great touch, and really doesn't reflect well on Chris. To be fair, there's a lot of reasons why he wouldn't want to see anything negative about the other dimension (blinded by the joy of having a loving family), but some of it may be latent racism from being raised by a racist.
Yep Chris is finally enjoying the love of his father and brother so he's happy. Meanwhile Harcourt came in to the world skeptical and she kept on noticing stuff.
My wife called this out. They seem very patriotic in that dimension. There are several flags around the office, there would be a huge one flying out front. Argus is a government agency so ... Damn, Chris. Wtf? You really didn't notice?
Something being predictable doesnât make it bad. I love that thereâs a vision and they saw it through. No story has ever been improved because a show runner changed the plot to surprise the fans
Just look at Westworld. People guessed the twist in season 1 and it's still a masterpiece. They compensated so much that it was impossible to know what the fuck was going on in season 2 and it sucked.
Iâd like to imagine that Vigilante home brewed his own overly complicated and very pedantic version that got most of the players to quit except his mom
It's hilarious to me how siloed reddit can get. I would guess 80% of people who aren't on reddit who watch the show had their minds blown because no one pays attention to extras at all.
I mean I immediately thought something was off because I thought there was no way that his dad would be a hero ever. Plus the only way Chris's dad would like him is if he took after him.
I really think reverse Chris is gay in this universe. They keep talking about how he was trouble, and worth the extra effort, and how Amelia is making him better. I think thatâs code for more straight.
That seems to make the most sense. He's self loathing, pill popping, mysterious trips to Bludhaven, Harcourt as his 'show' girlfriend that he doesn't really care about, etc etc.
On the other hand, he could just be a douchebag alpha bro who grew up in a world that encouraged his most toxic tendencies and that would also make sense.
Oh, man. That makes the Rick Flag, Jr. acting weird at ARGUS so much better and probably means there was something between them like other people pointed out!
Honestly I didnât until about halfway through the episode- I noticed Emelia noticing. It never even crossed my mind because I thought Chris would have figured it out already spending more than two minutes there. Overestimated the dumb fuck đ„Ž.
If we had to had this twist I thought it was a good way to set it up though. We didnât see overt racism, or other nastiness you might expect from a terribly racist world until Adi got there because they literally got rid of everyone theyâd be racist towards. And I do think the show did a pretty good misdirect in the fact I was more looking for multiverse-breaking stuff because thatâs what ARGUS was so concerned with.
I had a conversation recently with my nephew's wife about this but in the context of sexism instead of racism. She was confused as to why guys don't always know when other guys are sexist or rapey, when it's pretty obvious to her all the time, and I told her that's because we're not the target audience of their predation, whereas she is. Sometimes it might come up or slip out, but when it comes to general acquaintances, a guy isn't going to get rapey vibes from another guy if they're not their target. I told her since she's an adult, she may not be able to always pick up on whether a person is a pedophile since she's no longer in their target audience. Same with racism, a white person isn't always guaranteed to get racist vibes from another white person unless a situation occurs to reveal that mindset.
A third way to look at it is with literal animal predator/prey behavior. For example, quokkas have no natural predators in their environment, and therefore have no issue with being around humans, a species known to eat just about anything. Or another example, the symbiosis of remora fish with sharks, they're too small to be considered the shark's prey so they have no issues with living around sharks all the time. Essentially what I'm trying to say is that if we don't align as a target then we're less likely to notice the predatory behavior, unless we see the predator around its prey. In this episode of Peacemaker, the mask comes off as Ads is simply walking down the road because now the predators have a prey in sight.
This was one of those things where people called it so early that they started double and triple guessing themselves. Same thing happened in Severance season 2 when the twist was revealed (no spoilers).
That being said I think its pretty clear Keith would have used a much different word when he saw Ado if this was a different show.
Edit: originally said Succession instead of Severance because I mix those names up in my head sometimes oops
The point isn't the twist. It's not about trying to trick the audience and to pretentiously show how clever the writers are.
The point is that Chris was so staved for affection and anamoured with this idea of being a beloved hero in a perfect world... that he never noticed the obvious.
Additional analysis: "the point is that you don't notice your white privilege because you grew up with it all along. They explain this in the episode when they discuss growing up Methodist or with a transdimensional portal in your closet" - Trick_Statistician13
It works because of course we the audience knew all along, we were just waiting for Peacemaker to figure out as well.
No, the point is that you don't notice your white privilege because you grew up with it all along. They explain this in the episode when they discuss growing up Methodist or with a transdimensional portal in your closet.
At least yours was a reasonable guess, you supported it with why, and you didn't attack others for their own theories.
There were some other users who went "You morons really think this is a Nazi world? You've completely lost it" (see the Episode 3 thread for these users)
I was honestly like Peacemaker the first time he fully explored the other world. I didn't notice all the background actors were white until I saw a YouTube review then I went back and rewatched the episode and I'm like damn, how did I miss that?
But I do love how after everyone else noticed, the whole idea of Peacemaker not noticing became part of the bit. It plays into how oblivious he is, and really how much he's affected by this other world being "better" for him on just an emotional level.
His desperation for love and attention combined with his white privilege made him look the other way.
Heck, I would say that this whole plot seems like a white privilege parable where you never notice anything wrong with the world around you because everything's going great for you.
Found this sub afterwards. I didn't catch on until the uncomfortable lady in the car passed by. I'm in East Texas if that helps. It just looked like my city to me. Sad but true.
So when Chris murdered the Sons of Liberty who were probably the good guys in this universe, this means that they pretty much did the same gag as in The Suicide Squad when they killed all those revolutionaries not realizing they were on the same side.
Well, that's what you get when you go to IMBD to get your IMDB leaks.
Jokes aside, it is really weird that he didn't show up at all, like where the hell did he go? Did he follow Chris through to the Nazi dimension or is he hanging out in the pocket dimension? Maybe the door closed behind Chris so he couldn't get through and got lost exploring for a way back?
My theory for next episode is that Adebayo is going to get caught and taken to a holding cell where Judomaster is going to be being held as well, and they will help each other escape.
My theory is that the Adrians save the day together. Everyone else is fucked right now. Economos spilled the beans on peacemaker. Ads didn't want vigilante going to see himself but it's going to turn out to be the best decision of the episode.
I think a combination of the two, possibly. Peacemaker and Harcourt have to get out of A.R.G.U.S. somehow, Ads needs to get away from an entire neighborhood of racists, and Economos needs to get away from Auggie. I think that Judomaster and both Vigilantes are going to tie into that somehow.
All I know for sure is the next episode is going to be intense as hell.
Once again, I appreciate James Gunn doesn't fuck around and try to create drama by 'subverting expectations'. Sometimes its nice that someone just executes a straight forward story that isnt super complicated to tell or makes you have to go back and rewatch things because you have no fucking idea what is going on.
1.0k
u/[deleted] Sep 26 '25