Movies & TV Peacemaker Peacemaker Digs Up Some Backstory in “Another Rick Up My Sleeve” What is going on with the so-called “Best Dimension Ever”? By Emmet Asher-Perrin | Published on September 5, 2025 Image: Curtis Bonds Baker/HBO Max Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Curtis Bonds Baker/HBO Max We’re getting to the Rick Flag Jr. of it all this week. Recap Image: Curtis Bonds Baker/HBO Max Three years ago, we learn that Harcourt was having an affair with her friend, Rick Flag Jr. (Joel Kinnaman). Rick suggests this is more serious than a fling, but she dismisses the thought, as he has a girlfriend. He leaves for his mission in Corto Maltese, leading to his death. In the alternate universe, Chris awakes to Keith asking about his whereabouts and worrying that he’s been on a bender. Chris admits he was only drinking, and Keith heads to make them breakfast. Chris finds the texts on his phone to alternate Harcourt, who agreed last night that she would meet him at work the next day. Chris dresses and gets his brother to tell him where she works (at A.R.G.U.S.), and learns that he has a “Peacecycle” to drive into town on. The trip into town is exciting because everyone recognizes him and seems to adore him. Chris arrives at A.R.G.U.S. and goes to meet Harcourt—who he calls Emilia here. He gets the suspicious treatment from her boyfriend, Rick Flag Jr., who is kind of a dweeb in this universe. Emilia decides she and Chris should go outside to talk, and they get hot dogs and take a walk through the park. Back at home, the 11th Street Kids are all walking up in Harcourt’s apartment hungover. Adebayo asks Harcourt if anything happened between her and Chris recently, particularly after the party boat, but Harcourt insists that nothing can or will happen between them. Adrian awakens and insists he knows everything about spiders (and that it’s morbid that they’re one of his favorite animals), and Harcourt suggests Economos might be dying in the bathtub where he fell asleep to distract Adrian away from their conversation. In the other universe, Chris tells Emilia that he’s been working on himself, and she admits that he does seem different, but also that she’s not willing to reenter their relationship until he takes some time to think. He agrees to do so, and a man suddenly explodes in the park; a terrorist group called the Sons of Liberty have taken over the nearby government building and plan to execute government workers until their demands are met. While law enforcement create a plan, Chris decides to take matters into his own hands: He infiltrates the building and murders the entire group, defusing their bomb before it can take down the whole building and hostages. His brother Keith shows up to destroy the helicopter that arrived to airlift the group away. Emilia is enthralled. Economos is called back in to work, being blamed for Eagly’s attack on Fleury’s team, despite not knowing they were planning to raid Chris’ house. He’s given a new partner to oversee him, named Rip Jagger—better known as Judomaster (Nhut Le). Fluery is going to be using the skills of Red St. Wild (Michael Rooker) to hunt down Eagly, but the guy would like to hunt all eagles, if only they’d give him the permission. Later on, Keith tells Chris that he hopes everything is okay, and mentions that their dad was worried about him. Chris admits that he’s missed Keith a lot, and Keith assures him that he’ll always be there for him. Emilia texts saying that she hopes Chris will let her know what he thinks about them in a few days. Commentary Image: Curtis Bonds Baker/HBO Max Taking bets on whether this is a totally enmeshed, gleefully white supremacist alt-universe because… well, it’s looking that way, isn’t it? There are a lot of tip-offs in this episode, but the biggest ones to my mind are Emilia and alt-Rick. She is… not herself by ay stretch of the imagination, and the only explanation that makes sense is that this universe is so fundamentally different, it makes her entire being similarly at odds with everything that we know about her. This version of Emilia Harcourt is unassuming, sweet, deferential, and happy to let a big, tough guy take the lead on everything. It’s not that she loves puppies or wants to take a walk in the park; it’s that there’s no anger in her for clearly being cheated on (repeatedly). No messy emotions that might make a guy back away from her. Her edges haven’t been filed down, so much as lopped off with a chainsaw. Cleverly, while the more “endearing” qualities we’re shown in Emilia’s scenes with Chris would genuinely be cute on an entire human being with more complex traits, they only serve to make her look vacant and helpless here: She can’t put mustard on a hot dog properly! She has to stop and pet a puppy because that’s her entire personality! She is, in effect, the dream of conservative womanhood: She plays at having thoughts and opinions, but is ultimately waiting for her Chad to show off how well he’ll protect her, so she can be swept off her feet. This Rick, conversely, feels like a beta-cuck caricature straight off a 4chan message board. He’s letting (a much more mild version of!) Chris muscle in to talk to his girlfriend (so the guy can ostensibly convince her to leave him). He’s suspicious, but doing nothing effective about it, including even talking to said girlfriend. He’s just lurking and staring and bumping into furniture. He can’t even manage to ask a coherent question, and Emilia is barely interested in him beyond his ability to be faithful to her. But there are abundant clues elsewhere, including the fact that we see possibly one person of color in the background shots of that universe. (I think there was a woman at A.R.G.U.S., and that’s all I could find.) And the fact that the Sons of Liberty are clearly intended to look like a white supremacist terror group when we intentionally learn nothing about their goals. Everyone cheering at/crying over Peacemaker? They’re all white. Mark it: This is going to get very ugly, very fast on that side of the reality fence. The fact that Chris isn’t noticing it now is liable to be a major corrective going forward, to whit: His dearest friend (Adebayo) has been erased in this world, and he hasn’t clocked her absence yet. That’s one heck of a Chekov’s gun to have waiting in the wings. The reveal of Harcourt and Rick Flag Jr. having a thing before he died in the primary universe is… not the greatest move, though. It’s understandable from a dramatic standpoint, but it’s just lazy. The two make note that they were friends before this happens, and I wish it could have just been that. As I scream to the sky, every day for the rest of my life: Men and women can be friends! They can have deep bonds that are not romantic, and this matters! And frankly, it would have hit a lot harder to me, personally, if Harcourt was trying to square the circle of Chris Smith murdering her best friend, instead of another romantic prospect. How could you make that okay in your mind? It’s way more complicated, in fact, than feeling bad that you might want to date a guy who killed another guy you wanted to date! I’m also thinking a lot about how Keith is clearly, in every universe, the softer brother. In the primary reality it got him killed, but in the alternate reality it results in him playing support to the stronger personalities of his father and brother. There’s a deeply depressing undercurrent to all this, being that this version of Keith would probably love this version of Chris a lot better. But that’s definitely not where we’re headed. Keeping the Peace (Thoughts and Asides) Image: Curtis Bonds Baker/HBO Max Another clue, and an extremely pointed one if this all turns out to be true: The Kardashians aren’t famous in the alternate universe. And this is relevant for the fact that there are ongoing discussions IRL about the whiteness of the Kardashian family and how various cultures and ethnicities gain access to whiteness through power, wealth, and notoriety (because, don’t forget, whiteness is a construct). This suggests the possibility that in the alternate universe, they weren’t “white enough” at the start in order to gain entry to fame. Standing by my aggravation from last week, being that I want Adebayo and Harcourt to hang out as friends without talking about Chris. Their friendship is already very good stuff; there should be more of it. Adrian being terrible at animal facts while being convinced he’s great at them is almost my favorite thing. My actual favorite thing is how he’s constantly doing things for friends that are simultaneously tender and creepy (he washed Economos’ pants and kissed him goodnight!), and he clearly has no idea they’re the latter. The look for Rooker’s character here sure is… a choice. I assume we’re going to get some explanation for it going forward, but uh. Next week—see you then![end-mark] The post <i>Peacemaker</i> Digs Up Some Backstory in “Another Rick Up My Sleeve” appeared first on Reactor.