Peacemaker Star Reacts to Gory Gorilla Kill in Episode 5: “So Satisfying”

Warning: this story contains spoilers for Peacemaker Episode 5, “Chapter 5: Monkey Dory.” “Dude! You f*cking killed a gorilla with a chainsaw!” Peacemaker (John Cena) goes ape-sh*t when John Economos (Steve Agee), the task force member derisively called “Dye-Beard,” chainsaws a rampaging gorilla in Episode 5, “Monkey Dory.” But this is no Harambe: the escaped Charlie the Gorilla is a super-gorilla, its brain controlled by the insect-like alien parasites known as Butterflies. In a new interview on HBO Max after-show Podly: The Peacemaker Podcast, Agee says Economos saving the day and going Texas Ape-saw Massacre on the CG-animated gorilla was “so satisfying to do.”

“It sounds disturbing to say that that was satisfying, but I read through all the scripts at once, and when I got to that part, it was all bets were off. I was like, ‘This is the moment I’m looking forward to in the shoot,’” Agee said of the eight-episode The Suicide Squad spinoff scripted by series creator James Gunn. “This was five episodes in, so I had to wait months until we got to it. I was just like, ‘That was great what you did, Cena, but I’m gonna kill a gorilla in Episode 5.’”

The gruesome gorilla kill comes when the Project Butterfly task force, including Vigilante (Freddie Stroma), rookie recruit Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), and field handler Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), infiltrates the bottling factory processing Butterfly food.

“It’s a super-monster gorilla. It’s not like I broke into a zoo and chainsawed a gorilla,” Agee said with a laugh. “It’s an earned kill. This was earned! All you activists, it was completely CGI, so calm down. I was literally chainsawing a giant board in front of me, so you’re all good.” 

Though the alien-controlled Charlie the super-gorilla was CGI, the blood-splattered effects were practical.

“You’re reading it and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, I’m gonna be drenched in blood, this is gonna look so cool.’ And then it starts to dry and get sticky, and it’s really sticky, and anything you touch is then covered in blood,” Agee said. “This was like halfway through shooting the episode, and it’s like, Oh my God, I have to get put into this blood every day now for the next week just to sit in the office and be like, ‘Yeah, I killed the gorilla,’ (laughs). Be careful what you wish for: blood is gnarly.” 

Starring John Cena, Danielle Brooks, Freddie Stroma, Jennifer Holland, Chukwudi Iwuji, Steve Agee, and Robert Patrick, new episodes of DC’s Peacemaker premiere Thursdays on HBO Max.