Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS for the Peacemaker Season 2 finale are ahead! Seriously, tread cautiously if you haven’t streamed the episode with your HBO Max subscription yet.
Watching the Peacemaker Season 2 finale, titled “Full Nelson,” was a wild ride, with some of the highlights including the founding of Checkmate, A.R.G.U.S. discovering the dimension Salvation, and then Rick Flag Sr. exiling Christopher Smith in said dimension for killing his son. There’s more than enough to follow up on in a potential Peacemaker Season 3, but unfortunately, series creator James Gunn has a disappointing update on that front. However, there is another lingering Season 2 plot thread that I’m glad to hear Gunn plans to revisit down the line.
Peacemaker Season 3 Isn’t Happening (For Now)
Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. Despite Peacemaker’s titular character now being stuck on a world where metahumans will be imprisoned and, contrary to our initial belief, isn’t as safe as it seems, James Gunn informed Deadline that a third season of the HBO Max series is not being planned. Gunn, who also runs DC Studios with Peter Safran, said this:
No, this is about the wider DCU and other stories in which this will play out right now. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be. I don’t want to never say never, but right now, no, this is about the future of the DCU. It’s an important character.
This doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve seen the last of Christopher Smith in the DC Universe, though when asked if John Cena or any of the other Peacemaker stars will appear in next year’s Supergirl or 2027’s Man of Tomorrow, James Gunn said, “That’s a secret.” Nevertheless, it’s a shame that Peacemaker Season 3 isn’t in the cards, as these characters deserve more time to shine. Maybe that could change down the line, but with Gunn prioritizing other DCU projects, we could end up waiting longer than three years for another season, the amount of time that passed between Seasons 1 and 2.
There Are Plans For David Denman’s Keith Smith
Last week, Chris, his friends and Judomaster escaped Earth-X, though not without collateral damage. Along with Adrian Chase killing this world’s Auggie Smith, not knowing he was a somewhat decent guy in this Nazi-infested world, David Denman’s Keith Smith was badly injured. I speculated that this was meant to set up him becoming a villain in Peacemaker Season 3, and while that obviously isn’t going to pan out, we haven’t seen the last of Keith. James Gunn explained:
I think we’ve born a super villain, but I do think of the sort of a stories about Salvation, which is the thing that’s more planned out than the Keith of it all. I have plans for Keith, I just haven’t figured out exactly how it’s all going to work out, so I have to make sure I can do it. It’s hard with the interdimensional hopping stuff to make these things come together in the way I’d like. I have what I would like to happen with Keith, but I’m not sure.
I’m curious to see what other corner of the DCU Keith Smith could organically fit into since Peacemaker Season 3 isn’t an option pending further information. However, he’s another one of those characters I think deserves to be seen again, so I’m glad to hear James Gunn isn’t brushing him aside. Still, Salvation is the more important thing for him to deal with in this franchise, so it could also be a long time until Gunn figures out what to specifically do with Keith and where to put him.
Now that Peacemaker Season 2 is over, Lanterns, the next upcoming DC TV show, will premiere on HBO sometime in early 2026. Supergirl will then hit the 2026 movies schedule on June 26, followed by Clayface on September 11 of the same year.