A Whole New Whirled

Five months after the events in Corto Maltese,[lower-alpha 1] Christopher Smith / Peacemaker has recovered from the injuries he suffered there and is told he can leave the hospital. After confirming with a janitor that no one is looking for him, he leaves while wearing his suit. Unbeknownst to him, a nurse reports on his exit to a person known as "Mr. Murn".

Smith arrives at his house, forced to give his helmet to the taxi driver when he has no money. Inside, he finds many phone messages from a person known as Vigilante. Suddenly, A.R.G.U.S. agents Emilia Harcourt, John Economos, and Leota Adebayo hold him at gunpoint, revealing he was being followed after all. Their leader, Clemson Murn arrives and informs Smith that as he is still not done with his prison sentence. He is offering him to work for him in exchange for avoiding Belle Reve. Murn, working for Amanda Waller, is in charge of an operation known as Project Butterfly and wants Smith to cooperate in killing "Butterflies". Seeing he has no choice, Smith reluctantly agrees.

Smith goes to his father's house to retrieve his pet bald eagle, Eagly. His father, Auggie, reluctantly took care of the pet but is disapproving of his son's life, also displaying a racist attitude. After Auggie hands him a new helmet, Smith leaves. He arrives at a diner with the team, where Murn gives him a dossier with his target: he must kill a U.S. Senator. During their stay, an employee named Adrian Chase sees Smith and is silently ecstatic at seeing him. After talking with Adebayo, Smith follows Harcourt to a bar and attempts to flirt with her. Harcourt is constantly harassed by some bar patrons, brutally attacks one of the men and coldly rejects Smith, also prompting her to leave the bar. Meanwhile, Abedayo has a call with her mother, Waller, to express her frustration with the team but Waller convinces her that she will eventually find something better.

After the rejection, Smith bonds with a woman named Annie Sturphausen at the bar and they have sex at her apartment. While Smith is distracted singing a song, Sturphausen grabs a kitchen knife and starts stabbing him. They engage in a brutal fight in the apartment and despite Smith's determination, he is no match to Sturphausen, who displays a superhuman roar and strength. Smith jumps from the window and runs back to his car in the parking lot. As Sturphausen runs to attack him, Smith activates a sonic boom weapon in his helmet, which destroys Sturphausen and a small part of the parking lot. As Eagly stays alongside Smith, police cruisers are seen in the distance.

"A Whole New Whirled" received positive reviews from critics. Samantha Nelson of IGN gave the three-episode premiere a "great" 8 out of 10 rating and wrote in his verdict, "Peacemaker isn't quite as sharply written as Amazon's The Boys, but James Gunn is aiming for the same sort of subversive superhero show, using excessive violence and biting humor to deconstruct the failings of the genre. The three-episode premiere offers a goofy takedown of vigilantism while hinting at bigger and darker plots to come."[18]

Jarrod Jones of The A.V. Club gave the three-episode premiere an "A-" grade and wrote, "Peacemaker is a stacked deck of fearsome insanity and there's a lot to accept in these first three episodes. It's vulgar, violent, prone to non sequitur, and has more than one dance sequence in store for you. But don't you dare let its ceaseless barrage of profanity, nudity, and slaughter dupe you into thinking otherwise: James Gunn's Peacemaker comes packing, among other things, a beating heart."[19] Charles Bramesco of The Guardian gave the first three episodes a score of 3 out of 5, writing "James Gunn's Suicide Squad character gets his own HBO Max series with mixed results but a winning central performance."[20]

Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone gave the three-episode premiere a 4 star rating out of 5 and wrote, "Between the blood and guts, the slapstick, the political satire, and the musical digressions, there is a lot going on here. Yet the series functions as a sincere character study of its flawed hero — and the unfortunate souls who have to work alongside him — just enough for the joke to never quite wear thin. Even in a wildly oversaturated market for tales of hypermuscular men and women punching their way to justice, Peacemaker stands out. You'll wanna taste it, even the parts that are in incredibly bad taste."[21] Alec Bojalad of Den of Geek gave the three-episode premiere a 4 star rating out of 5 and wrote, "Ultimately, Peacemaker is another win for the suddenly surprisingly competitive DC Comics TV landscape."[22]

• "A Whole New Whirled" at IMDb