Peacemaker is bisexual. The character, played by John Cena since 2021’s The Suicide Squad, has been open to pretty much anything — peep the conversation between the character and Bloodsport (Idris Elba) about eating an entire beach full of d**ks — and that was affirmed more explicitly in Season 1 of the HBO Max show. Thankfully, the Season 2 premiere of the series doesn’t stop there, doubling down on the character’s open sexuality thanks to a full-frontal nudity-heavy bisexual orgy, and a pointed quip that pushes back on decades of easy jokes.
Spoilers for the Peacemaker Season 2 premiere past this point. Towards the beginning of the episode, Peacemaker is auditioning to be a member of the Justice Gang, and thanks to a faulty microphone setup by Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Peacemaker overhears every “private” conversation the Justice Gang is having. When Maxwell Lord (Sean Gunn) asks Peacemaker what special skills he has, Green Lantern crassly quips, “Besides blowing dudes?” After storming out of the audition, a pissed off Peacemaker tells his friend Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) when she asks how it went that, “Apparently, one of my skills is sucking d**k… That’s not a put down. That’s a f**king compliment.”
Is the show sort of having its cake and eating it too with this exchange? Sure. They’re getting the laugh from raunchy dialogue mentioning “sucking d**k,” but at the same time being very clear that A) Green Lantern is very much in the wrong here, and B) there’s nothing wrong with a man sucking another man’s d**k.
Far more pointed is what happens midway through the episode. Hitting a low point, Peacemaker gets completely wasted, and with a time-dash flash, there are suddenly dozens of completely nude men and women having sex all around him. Peacemaker is too wasted and depressed to really get into it, while everyone else has fun rocking out with their c**ks (or otherwise) out. But writer/director James Gunn does make sure to include a moment where multiple people approach Peacemaker for one, brief moment of pleasure:
While this scene is still partially played for laughs — let’s be honest, dozens of delighted people having sex in various positions in a kitchen is pretty funny to see — it’s much more about the contrast between Peacemaker’s emotional state and what’s happening in the world around him. The laudable part here is that his sexuality just exists and is; that part is not where the humor comes, nor should it.
And to keep the accolades coming, this decision was all up to Cena. According to Gunn, in an interview with Empire for the first season of the series, via Slashfilm, “Peacemaker is an interesting character because he’s so f**ked-up in so many ways, and then in other ways, he is kind of weirdly forward-thinking. John does improv all the time, and he just turned Christopher Smith into this hyper-sexualized dude that is open to anything sexually. I was surprised by that. But I thought, ‘I guess it makes sense that this guy isn’t one-dimensional.”
That became an important point of contrast for the character in Season 1, between himself and his racist father, Auggie/The White Dragon (Robert Patrick). In the episode, Auggie taunted his son by saying, “I knew you was unclean when you were born. I knew when you slept with the whores of polluted blood, and men.” It was the most explicit confirmation of the character’s sexuality in the series, up until this Season 2 premiere orgy (which is literally and figuratively explicit).
Cena has also been matter-of-fact about the character’s sexuality in interviews. In a clip posted online featuring Gunn playing a “would you rather” game with Cena, he was asked about stopping an alien invasion, but he would have to “eliminate… an alien intruder disguised as a bald eagle; or B) your Tinder date for the night.” Without missing a beat, Cena answered, “I don’t think he would eliminate a bald eagle, and if he…had to eliminate a Tinder date, he would just go to Grindr and find another date. The great thing about Peacemaker is that all apps are welcome, all the time.”
That leads to the best part here: having Cena, an overly-muscled and hyper-masculine man, playing a character who is the same… Treating bisexuality as a given character trait, rather than something weird about him and/or his main character trait. Too often, LGBTQ+ characters on TV and film are defined by their sexuality, and that’s it. They are the lesbian character, or the gay character, or the trans character, etc. Instead, Peacemaker is bisexual among many other things. Particularly for a part of the sexual spectrum so misunderstood that Time Magazine thought it was invented in 1995, these sorts of representations on screen are vitally important. And having them in a DC Comics based TV series, versus a drama that is ostensibly about sexuality, is important for representation, too.
So shouts to Peacemaker for doubling down on the title character being a bisexual icon in Season 2. Here’s hoping by season’s end, though, he can at least enjoy the orgy a little bit. He deserves it.
Peacemaker Season 2 Premiere Dates And Episode Guide:
Peacemaker season 2 will officially premiere on HBO Max on Thursday, August 21. The season will be eight episodes long, with one episode premiering per week.
Here’s the full list of episodes in Peacemaker Season 2, with premiere dates:
- Thursday, August 21, 2025: Peacemaker, Season 2, Episode 1
- Thursday, August 28, 2025: Peacemaker, Season 2, Episode 2
- Thursday, September 4, 2025: Peacemaker, Season 2, Episode 3
- Thursday, September 11, 2025: Peacemaker, Season 2, Episode 4
- Thursday, September 18, 2025: Peacemaker, Season 2, Episode 5
- Thursday, September 25, 2025: Peacemaker, Season 2, Episode 6
- Thursday, October 2, 2025: Peacemaker, Season 2, Episode 7
- Thursday, October 9, 2025: Peacemaker, Season 2, Episode 8 *Season Finale*
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