What if Emilia Harcourt hadn’t made it out of Peacemaker Season 1 the way we thought?
Peacemaker creator James Gunn recently dropped a mind-blowing revelation about a very different ending he once considered for the first season of the HBO Max hit series.
On Peacemaker: The Official Podcast, Gunn shared that in an early version of the story, Jennifer Holland’s Harcourt didn’t walk away unscathed from the alien chaos… she became one of them.
“Harcourt got taken over by Goff,” Gunn said, referring to the Butterfly queen who was originally hosted by Senator Goff before hopping into Detective Sophie Song. “There was more of a pronounced line of Goff being in love with Peacemaker, and Peacemaker is in love with Harcourt, and he keeps her alive and stays with Harcourt even though she’s been taken over by Goff.”
That plot twist would’ve changed everything heading into Season 2. According to Gunn, this wasn’t something that made it to a finished script, but it was definitely a strong contender in the planning phase.
“When I say I changed it, these were all just outlines where I was trying to figure stuff out. It was a possible [direction], but it wasn’t a fully written script. In that version,Season 2 would have been Goff as Harcourt.”
Holland, who’s portrayed Harcourt since The Suicide Squad, seemed relieved that version didn’t make the cut. “I just can’t imagine a version that’s not what Season 2 is now, so I’m grateful it is what it is,” she added on the podcast.
It’s clear she’s enjoying the ride. Talking to CB, Holland spoke about what it’s like embodying such a badass human in a world full of metahumans.
“Right now I’m really enjoying playing a human being in a world of superheroes,” she said. “I’m playing a person who is, in some ways, superhuman in her strength for a small, petite person. But I have to look like, and feel like, a person who can actually be capable of the type of destruction that she’s capable of. And that’s a really interesting person to play.”
She added, “I have to work really hard on my body and my capabilities with fighting and [skills], because you need to believe that she’s capable of doing these things. And that’s a fun challenge.”
In Peacemaker Season 1, Harcourt and John Cena’s Chris Smith shared a slow-burning chemistry that played out as they fought alongside Team Peacemaker, including Steve Agee’s Economos, Danielle Brooks’ Adebayo, and Chukwudi Iwuji’s Murn, to stop the Butterfly invasion. Their bond began to deepen in the episode “Better Goff Dead” during the mission to eliminate Senator Goff.
That mission kickstarted the twisted trajectory of the Butterfly queen Goff, who later inhabited Detective Song and almost triggered Earth’s doom.
But Peacemaker, being Peacemaker, chose to spare Goff in the end, keeping the alien alive in a jar and feeding her the last of the alien “cow” fluid that sustains her kind.
Season 2 is set to pick up with Smith still haunted by his past and clinging to whatever hope he has left. Peacemaker Season 2 hits HBO Max on August 21st.