Best Friends, For Never

*"I used to think God put me here for a purpose. For peace. And I always said I didn't care how many people I needed to torture or kill to get it, but... You know, lately, I just think I'm a fuckin' maniac, like... I don't know, I'm having... feelings about things that..."*
―Christopher Smith
***Best Friends, For Never*** is the second episode of the first season of *Peacemaker*. The episode was written and directed by James Gunn, and it was released on Max on January 13, 2022.

## Synopsis

*After Peacemaker’s hazardous escape, tension and mistrust build within the team. Later, as Peacemaker grapples with his new assignment, he receives a surprise visitor.*

## Plot

Peacemaker calls Emilia Harcourt while escaping asking her to come and rescue him since he killed a butterfly woman while asking about the project, Harcourt who was sleeping quickly gets ready and goes to Leota Adebayo's apartment to wake her up and ask her to drive to Wild Estates Apartment Complex to rescue Smith.

When the police arrived, Peacemaker returns to Sturphausen's room and in a hurry begins to get dressed while Harcourt calls Murn to inform him that he is heading towards Smith's location, while they are going Leota talks to Harcourt and shortly after Leota hurries to drive, while Murn at the store asks Economos to hack and change Peacemaker's car data so they don't get caught. Detectives Sophie Song and Larry Fitzgibbon arrive at the crime scene and begin analyzing it.

Hasty Peacemaker begins to gather all his things to which the police discover a piece of the victim's face, when Harcourt and Adebayo arrive they stop to wait for Smith and seeing that he was late Harcourt decides to call him to ask him to hurry up, while Smith asks her to find Eagly. Peacemaker would then approach the apartment window, whereby he would be discovered. The cops head to the apartment as Smith escapes to another apartment and Harcourt and Adebayo go around to the back of the apartment to pick him up, as he escapes Peacemaker is seen by Larry Fitzgibbon who tells Song.

Peacemaker then knocks on the door of the apartment from a neighbor and when he opens it he forces himself in, when Peacemaker enters the couple from the apartment they are terrified when they see him and keep silent. One of the policemen continues to investigate while Peacemaker opens the window to jump out, Smith then tells the couple that he must tie them up but shortly after he ends up befriending Amber Calcaterra. When they are tied up Amber starts arguing annoyed with her husband Evan, the police knock on the door of the apartment so Peacemaker rushes to jump out the window. Peacemaker begins to jump down between balconies hurting himself while the police have just entered the apartment while Harcourt and Adebayo watch.

In that police reinforcements arrived to help Song to which Peacemaker only managed to get down to the roof, annoyed Harcourt gets out of the car and goes to help Smith with a gun, the police found Smith trying to get off and try to stop him, but Harcourt arrives and uses her dart gun to stop the police, Harcourt quickly asks Peacemaker to hurry up and they start running to the car while Sophie Song starts shooting at them, when Peacemaker arrives he stops to wait for Eagly and when he gets in, Smith gets in the car so Adebayo quickly starts up and the team escapes excited for having survived, returning to the Henenlotter Video.

Murn asks Economos how he did the car registrations changes to which he explains how he changed Peacemaker's registrations to those of his father, Auggie Smith, while the officers were going to Auggie's house to ask him about what happened as Auggie argues with them, an annoyed Murn begins to scold Economos for changing the records to Peacemaker's father. In that, the team arrives back at the store while Adebayo shows his emotion after the escape, shortly after Economos begins to sew Peacemaker's body and ends up arguing with him, meanwhile Murn talks with Harcourt who tells him that maybe Amanda Waller she was sacrificing the team as well as Adebayo could be undercover to kill the butterflies herself.

Adebayo tries to justify herself while Peacemaker supports her. Peacemaker then starts arguing with Economos again fighting over his dyed beard, Murn mentioned that there was no infiltrator but when Harcourt then ended up asking how Sturphausen discovered Peacemaker, he ended up remembering how he allowed her to read Goff's files during the meeting. Annoyed, Murn scolds Smith for his irresponsibility, however, he was called so he leaves to answer, shortly after Murn asks Adebayo to go convince Amber and Evan Calcaterra not to reveal Peacemaker as the person responsible for the conflict. Peacemaker then returns to his house and begins to cry remembering Flag and since everyone hated him, however Vigilante begins to look at Peacemaker through the window and asks him what happened to his surprise.

Peacemaker gets scared and begins to argue with Vigilante annoyed that he was spying on him while trying not to look at him thinking that he was showing his penis. Vigilante convinces him to see him and asks why he was crying, to which Peacemaker lies saying that he did face exercises. Adebayo later comes to the Calcaterra apartment to bribe them. Vigilante enters Peacemaker's house and asks him how he got out of prison and then asks why he said he wasn't his best friend, shortly after Peacemaker ends up revealing that he was on a government mission to kill people, however he begins to feel wrong for killing them, so Vigilante tries to comfort him and convinces him to go out and celebrate his release from prison.

Peacemaker and Vigilante then head into the woods and start destroying appliances with their weapons in multiple ways while having fun. After a while at the police station, Amber and Evan Calcaterra confess that Auggie Smith was responsible for the murder of Annie Sturphausen, so the police go to his house to arrest him, Auggie is then handcuffed and taken to the police car as he drives away. Complaint and his neighbor begins to make fun of him, Adebayo meanwhile has a talk with her wife Keeya where she tells her that she will have more work hours in the mission.

In his house, Peacemaker sleeps naked with Amber Calcaterra and Vigilante while they smoke together, while checking a Sturphausen stone that he stole in the escape, he accidentally discovers that it was a spaceship, much to the surprise of his friends who observe. In the Evergreen Corrections Center, the members of the Aryan Empire prisoners look surprised at the arrival of Auggie Smith as he goes to a bench where a man was, Smith begins to threaten the man to move from the place, and seeing that the Auggie's accomplices approached, he decides to withdraw. Sophie Song watched in confusion from a distance as the group of racists praised Auggie Smith as the White Dragon.

In a post-credit scene, Amber is looking at mugshots with Song, where she refers Peacemaker as a hot guy, Evan hears that and yells angry at her, so she flips him off. She then asks permission to take Peacemaker's mugshot.

## Cast

### Starring

* John Cena as Christopher Smith/Peacemaker
* Danielle Brooks as Leota Adebayo
* Freddie Stroma as Adrian Chase/Vigilante
* Chukwudi Iwuji as Clemson Murn
* Jennifer Holland as Agent Emilia Harcourt
* Steve Agee as John Economos
* Robert Patrick as Auggie Smith

### Guest starring

* Annie Chang as Detective Sophie Song
* Lochlyn Munro as Larry Fitzgibbon
* Elizabeth Faith Ludlow as Keeya Adebayo
* Alison Araya as Amber Calcaterra
* Lenny Jacobson as Evan Calcaterra

### Co-starring

* Crystal Mudry as Annie Sturphausen
* Mel Tuck as Auggie's Neighbor
* Rochelle Greenwood as Officer Peggy
* Kevin O'Grady as Officer Johnson
* Gabriela Reynoso as Lookie-Loo
* Veena Sood as Captain Miele
* Neil Webb as Cool Steve
* Bzhaun Rhoden as Young Man
* Paul Lazenby as Dickhead
* Darryl Scheelar as Dickhead
* Zak Santiago as Prison Guard
* Dee Bradley Baker as Eagly (voice)

## Appearances

### Locations

* Earth
	+ Corto Maltese (mentioned)
	+ United States of America
		- Arkham Home for the Emotionally Troubled (mentioned)
		- Belle Reve (mentioned)
		- Nevada (mentioned)
			* Lake Tahoe (mentioned)
		- Washington
			* Charlton County
				+ Evergreen
					- August Smith's house
					- Christopher Smith's trailer
					- Henenlotter Video
					- O'Rourke's Sports Bar
					- Wild Estates Apartment Complex

### Events

* Project Butterfly
	+ Ambush on Peacemaker (mentioned)
	+ Escape from Wild Estates Apartment Complex
* Arrest of Auggie Smith

* Peacemaker's helmets
* Peacemaker uniform
* Vigilante suit
* Peacemaker's 1976 Ford Comet

* Humans
* Metahumans (mentioned)
* Bald eagle
* Opposum

### Organizations

* A.R.G.U.S.
* Cinderella (vinyl)
* Coldplay (mentioned)
* Evergreen Police Department
* Foster the People (mentioned)
* United States Army (mentioned)

## Music

* *Peacemaker (Soundtrack from the HBO Max Original Series)*

## Videos

Podly- The Peacemaker Podcast - Ep. 2 with Chukwudi Iwuji - HBO Max-2

## Trivia

* The episode's title is a play on the phrase "Best friends forever".
* According to James Gunn, Max had "some concerns" about the reveal of Auggie Smith as white supremacist supervillain White Dragon, with him describing it as a "delicate situation."

## References

1. ↑ "James Gunn Says DC Complained About Peacemaker's NSFW Batman Insult" - Comicbook

## External links

* Best Friends, For Never on DC Database
* Best Friends, For Never at the Internet Movie Database