Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS for the Peacemaker episode “One other Rick Up My Sleeve” are forward!
Peacemaker followers, one other acquainted face has returned! Joel Kinnaman, who performed Rick Flag Jr. within the Suicide Squad motion pictures, reprised his character for the 2025 TV schedule in two methods. First, we flashed again to Rick simply earlier than he launched into his mission to Corto Maltese, after which we had been launched to the Rick Flag Jr. from that different universe. Seeing the deceased model of Rick was fairly the throwback to The Suicide Squad, and Jennifer Holland knowledgeable CinemaBlend that his connection to Emilia Harcourt has been deliberate since Peacemaker Season 1.
The opening minutes of “One other Rick Up My Sleeve” present Rick Jr. and Emilia in mattress collectively mere hours earlier than the previous was set to ship off for the Corto Maltese mission that may lead to his demise. It’s rapidly laid out that these two had been nearer than was indicated in The Suicide Squad, the place it didn’t look like they even knew one another personally. As Holland, who’s additionally Peacemaker creator James Gunn’s spouse, advised out personal Hannah Saulic:
… You discover out that basically Rick Flag Jr was Emilia Harcourt’s solely pal. She says, ‘He was my solely pal.’ And that’s the crux of the hatred in direction of Peacemaker in Season 1, which is one thing that James all the time knew about Harcourt from the time we did Season 1, I did not know if we had been ever going to get to discover that, however yeah.
Emilia Harcourt disliking John Cena’s Christopher Smith was straightforward sufficient to know in Peacemaker Season 1 as a result of he killed a fellow A.R.G.U.S. operative. However now we all know there was private causes behind it too, with Rick Flag Jr. being Emilia’s solely pal and the 2 even sleeping collectively. Had Rick survived, it feels like he would have been within the two of them getting into right into a romantic relationship. Yeah, breaking issues off with Enchantress would have made that difficult, however it might have been well worth the danger, proper?
Alas, we’ll by no means know, as Peacemaker killed Rick Flag Jr. in The Suicide Squad when he tried to show the US’ involvement in Operation Starfish. It’s unclear why his connection to Emilia Harcourt wasn’t integrated into Peacemaker Season 1, however hey, higher late than by no means. Maybe that’s the explanation why Emilia is unwilling to pursue one thing deeper with Christopher, as she will’t get previous him taking her pal away from her.
In the meantime, in that different universe, Rick Flag Jr. is alive and nicely, albeit frightened that Prime Christopher Smith (i.e. the present’s most important model of the character) goes to steal his girlfriend, that universe’s Emilia Harcourt. It’s comprehensible, as a result of after studying his now-deceased counterpart had damaged with that world’s Emilia, Prime Chris pretended to be the useless Chris and went to see her at A.R.G.U.S. headquarters. They had been having a pleasant sufficient time collectively on the close by park till the Sons of Liberty confirmed as much as try to blow up the close by DMV with Cefanalolol explosives as a part of their campaign in opposition to the US authorities.
By the tip of “One other Rick Up My Sleeve,” Prime Christopher Smith appears to have a superb factor going with Alternate Emilia Harcourt, who once more, believes she spent the day along with her ex-boyfriend. It’s only a disgrace that as Chris returned to his universe, A.R.G.U.S. is moments away from coming to his home to kill Eagly and attempt to entry his quantum unfolding chamber. We’ll see how that turns when the fourth episode of Peacemaker Season premieres on HBO Max subsequent Thursday.