Peacemaker Just Confirmed a Major Character is Bisexual

On Thursday, HBO Max subscribers were treated to the seventh episode of Peacemaker, the penultimate installment of the series’ first (but hopefully not last) season. The series has peeled apart the narrative onion that is Christopher Smith / Peacemaker (John Cena), as well as a group of characters in the pacifist vigilante’s orbit. Episode 7 was chock-full of emotional character moments teeing up an epic season finale — including the biggest confirmation yet that one of the series’ characters is bisexual. Spoilers for Episode 7 of Peacemaker, “Stop Dragon My Heart Around”, below! Only look if you want to know!

One of the episode’s biggest plotlines concerned a climactic and ultimately deadly fight between Christopher Smith / Peacemaker (John Cena) and his father, Auggie Smith / White Dragon (Robert Patrick), after Auggie was released from prison and reunited with his Neo-Nazi minions, and set his sights on killing his son. As the fight ensued, Auggie briefly got the upper hand, stepping on Chris’ chest and monologuing about all the ways his son had disappointed him. Among them was that Chris “slept with the whores of polluted blood, and men.”

This served as the most concrete confirmation yet that Chris is bisexual or pansexual, something that the show had been sprinkling in for some time. In the series’ very first scene, Chris remarked that he had “no problem” with the idea of Aquaman sleeping with men, but would be offended if he really slept with fish. Later on in that episode, Chris had an awkward heart-to-heart with Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), in which he remarked that he hadn’t been intimate with “anyone” since being in prison, and then corrected himself mid-sentence to say that he hadn’t “been with any woman.”

Not only does this add even more LGBTQ+ representation to the DC Universe, but it subvert expectations surrounding Peacemaker’s character — who, on paper, is the epitome of straight, white masculinity. 

“It’s the first time I’ve ever taken an IP or a character into an extended look besides WWE’s John Cena,” Cena told ComicBook.com earlier this year of working on the series. “So that’s really fun, to be able to embrace the patience of not having to rush through everything in an hour and 45 minutes to two and a half hours. It’s a different approach, but it’s one that I like because I like being able to take a breath and soak in the nuances of what it might be going on. So it is a different approach, but it’s one that I prefer.”

New episodes of Peacemaker debut Thursdays exclusively on HBO Max.