The shocking episode 6 ending was not actually inspired by the comics.

James Gunn explains major Peacemaker twist and says live-action G.I. Robot will debut somewhere else

The shocking episode 6 ending was not actually inspired by the comics.

By Sydney Bucksbaum

Sydney Bucksbaum

Sydney Bucksbaum is a staff writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2019 and is a published author. Her work has previously appeared in TV Guide Magazine, E! News/E! Online, The Hollywood Reporter, Mashable, Bustle, IGN, DCComics.com, Inverse, The Daily Northwestern, and more.

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September 26, 2025 5:48 p.m. ET

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John Cena in 'Peacemaker'. Credit:

Jessica Miglio/HBO Max

**This article contains spoilers for *Peacemaker* season 2, episode 6, titled "Ignorance Is Chris."**

Welcome to Earth-X.

*Peacemaker* just confirmed what some viewers predicted, that what Chris (John Cena) thought was the "best dimension ever" is actually a dystopian universe run by Nazis. While Chris was, as the title of this week's episode declares, totally ignorant that everyone in the town was white, Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) clocked immediately that she hadn't seen a single person of color since following Chris into the alternate dimension. An altered American Flag with a swastika proved her suspicions, shocking Chris.

Unfortunately for Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), the way she discovered the truth about this dimension was much more terrifying. She took what she thought was a peaceful walk around alternate Peacemaker's neighborhood, until Chris' brother Keith (David Denman) saw her and shouted, "One got out! A Black!" He led a group of angry white neighbors as they raced after a freaked out Adebayo, ending the episode on a disturbing cliffhanger.

Danielle Brooks in 'Peacemaker'.

So this is a world run by Nazis, with people of color hunted down and kept somewhere else ... this must be Earth-X from the comics, right? Yes, creator James Gunn confirms to ** that while the characters may not call it that, it's what he's named this alternate dimension.

"People don't name their planets other than Earth, so to them it's Earth, just like to us and the DCU it's Earth," Gunn says. "I don't think people think of their planets as having numbers, but yeah, I call it Earth-X."

However, Gunn wasn't actually inspired by the comics for this season 2 twist. Below, the creator reveals where he got the idea to introduce this Earth-X storyline and what it means for the final two episodes. Plus, he details Nicholas Hoult's surprise cameo as an R-rated incarcerated Lex Luthor, where we'll see a live-action G.I. Robot debut in the DCU, and more.

Danielle Brooks in 'Peacemaker'.

**: Where did you first get the idea to bring Earth-X from the comics into season 2?**

**JAMES GUNN: **Honest to God, it's not from the comics. It's from Philip K. Dick's *Man in The High Castle,* which is a book I've always really liked. I'm a huge Phil K. Dick fan, and that was the first book of his I ever read. It's about an alternate Earth where the Nazis won World War II, and that was more what inspired me for this. It just seemed to be a natural outcome of Chris dealing with his personal journey. He goes and he gets everything he desires, but it is a monkey's paw because there are a lot of things about this place that are — and even though people think he went to our Earth, it really is worse than our Earth. It is. He's finding out the complexity of all that. Everybody thinks that means everybody there is a Nazi, everybody there is bad, but you find out that things are not that simple in the next episode.

**Were you inspired by any real life events to introduce Nazis into this season? It does feel very timely.**

Well, I can't say for sure. Obviously there's been more neo-Nazi white supremacists in the forefront of our culture, more so than in the past, so definitely that probably has some sort of effect upon me. But I don't think of it like that. I really do come from a place of storytelling and what's Christopher Smith's journey, and at the end of the day, despite all of this big stuff, and I know Adebayo is in a lot of danger at the end of the episode, the core of the show is really the scene between Harcourt and Peacemaker. It's about these characters and their relationships to each other and what is their destiny as a group of friends. To me, that's the core of the season, and what are the lessons that Peacemaker has to learn about himself going through this very f---ed up journey.

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**A lot of fans predicted this twist by noticing what Harcourt saw immediately, that there were no people of color in any scenes, even in the background. What did you think of how some viewers guessed that correctly? **

It makes sense. I knew that that was a likely possibility. It's interesting, I showed a lot of people the whole season, people of all different ethnicities, and not a single person noticed it. So when [episode] 6 came, they flipped the f--- out. And this morning when I read the messages about the show, there were a lot of people that were like, "Holy God, oh my God, what the f---?" But everybody that discusses the show online already knew because either they clocked it or someone else clocked it. Because the minute you see what Peacemaker is looking at in the alternate dimension with all white background actors, and then what happens in our dimension with [a] very multicultural background, immediately you've got to go, "What's going on here? Is this Earth-X?" If you know the comics.

But hopefully it works. I mean, I think it did. It seemed to work for people because even though you knew it was coming, the way it unravels to be a personal danger — I mean, if you know it's coming and then Leota is going for a walk, you're like, "Please, please do not go for a walk. Please don't go out there!" It would've been so much better if Economos and Leota changed places and he went out for a walk — although she'd be stuck with Augie. So yeah, it's interesting. I think it still really works whether or not you know it's coming. Shout out to Fred Raskin who edited the episode, who really just did such a good job with that ending.

And it was so fun to shoot so much of the episode, which is weird when you're in a Nazi world. John wasn't there, but the rest of the gang was all together and we're shooting for days just walking from one dimension to the next to the house, and boy, we laughed. We had just had so much fun, even though keeping track of the cocaine on everybody was difficult.

**I can't even imagine. Does this twist mean we’ll get to see G.I. Robot in live-action?**

The answer to that question, which, this is going to be all anybody talks about from this interview, is yes, but not necessarily when you think you're going to see him. So not necessarily in *Peacemaker* season 2.

Jennifer Holland in 'Peacemaker'.

Jessica Miglio/HBO Max

**How did Lex's surprise cameo come about, and what was it like letting him get fully R-rated in that scene?**

It was cool. Nick's a big fan of the show. Everything's connected, so there is a story here that we're telling throughout the DCU, and this is connected very much to *Man of Tomorrow.* There's story elements that we're telling that are mostly just about this season of television — the Justice League isn't going to go to Earth-X next year and stomp out evil. That's about Christopher Smith's journey in season 2. But there are other elements, and part of that is the relationship between Rick Flag and Lex Luthor, and that's an important thing going forward in the DCU and *Man of Tomorrow* and so on. So he was a part of the series from the beginning, he was really excited about it, and it was really fun directing him because the character subtly shifted.

There is a difference in the way I write *Superman* and the way I write *Peacemaker*. One is obviously more mature adult — maybe more immature, but also more adult — but it's also more naturalistic in certain ways and *Superman*'s a little more heightened. Seeing Nick adapt to that dialogue and that situation instantly was really cool.

**As a vocal *Big Brother *fan, are you going to pull a Mike White and start giving your favorite *Big Brother *players cameos in the DCU?**

I've become very friendly with [winners] Taylor [Hale] and Derrick [Levasseur]. And so if they want a cameo in a DC project in the future, not necessarily with dialogue. But if they want come by and do what other people have been doing in my movies for so long, they're more than welcome to do that.

**What characters could they play?**

[*Laughs*] I don't know if I see Derrick as necessarily somebody who would be a great actor, so I don't know if I see them as characters. But they could be a cashier or something.

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity. *

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*Peacemaker* season 2 debuts new episodes Thursdays on HBO Max.**

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