Peacemaker – Episode 8 Recap, Review & Ending Explained

It’s Cow or Never

Episode 8 of Peacemaker begins this finale with Peacemaker and the gang preparing to storm the farm. Leota tries to apologize but her words are interrupted by a bunch of fart noises, courtesy of Vigilante and Peacemaker.

Eventually the gang arrive on the outskirts of the farm and prepare to kill the cow and stop the amber production. In order to progress the mission, they need to move the Sonic Boom helmet over to the top of the barn so naturally, they call on Eagly to help them. He seems to be successful… until he flies right past it and drops the helmet in the trees on the other side of the woods.

Does Economos manage to keep his cover?

The group are forced to head off and try to find it, but it’s Emilia who eventually stumbles upon it. She brings them all together for the next step of this mission. After stabbing one of the Butterflies and taking their clothes, Economos gets dressed up and heads inside the barn, managing to make it past the others on lookout duties.

The mission here is simply to put the helmet down as low as possible, and that involves Economos acting normally and not blowing their cover. That’s easier said than done though when John catches a glimpse of the large cow and the amber production. Terrified, he drops the bag and rushes outside. He’s stopped by the Butterfly-controlled Larry though, and forced to open up about why he really dyes his beard.

What happens during the fight at the barn?

This momentary distraction unfortunately sees Economos’ cover blown, given the bag is found inside the barn and brought to the doorway. The group decide to strike, activating the Sonic Boom helmet. When all the grunts head back to the barn, Leota activates more explosions, which not only drop the Butterflies back, it also causes the roof to begin caving in on the cow too.

With the forces dwindled, everyone races in to fight. Unfortunately Vigilante is knocked down while Emilia ends up shot and tumbles over, blood oozing from her mouth. Leota eventually jumps in too, racing over to her to stop the Butterfly from infecting her. Leota takes everyone out en-route, shooting them all with one shot each and saving Emilia.

Throwing over one of Peacemaker’s helmets (the Human Torpedo one to be precise), it’s all up to her to try and save the day. As Leota heads down into the basement, she uses the human torpedo power… and misses her target (Song) completely, banging into the wall and dropping to the floor in a heap.

What is the real mission of the Butterflies?

Peacemaker meanwhile, is led down the corridor where the Cow happens to be groaning, sparks emanating around it. The two remaining Butterflies – Detective Song and Captain Locke – want to move the Cow out of there. It turns out they’re not doing this for power, they actually took a vow.

Song confirms that the Butterflies traveled across to Earth because their own planet had become unlivable. Earth had the habitat they needed but with no food consumption, they brought the Cow over to help them all survive for the next 100 years.

However, realizing that our world is messed up, with those in power valuing greed over the welfare of the planet, hurtling toward a devastating climate-changed future, the Butterflies took a vow to step in and change that. They wanted to make the choices for humans in order to save humanity, no matter how many lives that cost. Murn disapproved, believing they couldn’t impose their will, which explains why he was killed.

Peacemaker makes his choice and kills the Butterflies, activating the Human Torpedo so Leota smashes into the cow head-first. Tellingly, Peacemaker doesn’t kill the Butterfly that drops out of Song’s mouth.

Does Emilia survive? What choice does Leota make?

The rest of the gang reconvene outside and eventually race to the hospital, intending to save Emilia’s life. Both Economos and Vigilante are taken off for treatment too, leaving Leota to quiz Peacemaker over his choice not to help the Butterflies. The real reason is because he didn’t want to see his group hurt anymore.

Leota instead decides to take to the cameras, reporting what she’s found out live across the nation. Specifically, she talks about the diary and how Peacemaker and Vigilante were working for the government under the guise of Project Butterfly, intending to take time off their sentences. Leota even incriminates her own mum, calling Waller out for fronting this and asking for an immediate investigation.

How does Peacemaker Season 1 end?

Meanwhile, Emilia survives and after awakening, holds Peacemaker’s hand, grateful that he’s stood by her side the whole time.

Economos leaves the hospital and heads to Belle Reve Penitentiary, a picture of the gang in hand. That butterfly we saw before? Well, it’s actually with Peacemaker and he feeds it while Eagly continues to stay by his side. However, Peacemaker is still haunted by the memory of his father.

The Episode Review

With the recent news that Peacemaker has been renewed for a second season, HBO’s latest series bows out on a high, with plenty of drama and action to boot. There’s a consistent level of tension right the way through and understanding the real mission of the Butterflies and what they believe in is a nice way of rounding out this story. And there’s an important message about climate change and our planet in their too, which is always nice.

John Cena seems destined to play this role of Peacemaker too, although some of the jokes don’t always work that well. The constant fart jokes early on in this episode, for example, bog down the flow of the dialogue.

Either way though, everything bows out with a neat little Amber-coloured bow and sets things up nicely for the second season when it drops in the near future.