Peacemaker Revealed The Villains' Plan Had A Stupid Plot Hole
Warning: SPOILERS for Peacemaker episodes 7.
Peacemaker episode 7 revealed a gaping plot hole in the Butterflies' secret plan. The show follows John Cena's Peacemaker in his adventures with the ARGUS black ops mission Project Butterfly, unfolding secrets about the mission along the way. One of the project's bigger secrets that even Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) isn't aware of is the fact that Clemson Murn (Chuckwudi Iwuji), the leader of Project Butterfly, is a Butterfly himself. Revealed in episode 2, "Best Friends for Never," and subsequently expanded on in later episodes, Butterflies are alien creatures that inhabit unsuspecting Earthlings and use them as hosts in their effort to take over the world. Murn reveals in episode 6, "Murn After Reading," that the initial Butterfly plan was simply to escape their dying planet and inhabit Earth, until the Butterfly's leader made plans for world domination.
The only thing keeping the Butterflies alive on Earth is Peacemaker's Cow, one of DC's stranger aliens. The Cow, a giant, bug-like creature kept hidden underground, was transported from the Butterflies' home planet to produce their nectar, which is their only viable food source. The Butterflies are inhabiting human hosts to be in positions of power. Destroying the Butterfly population on Earth requires the destruction of the Cow, which Murn orders Project Butterfly to do as soon as possible before he's killed by the Butterflies inhabiting the Evergreen Police.
However, the comments made by Detective Sophie Song (Annie Chang) upon Murn's death introduces a major plot hole to the Butterfly plan. Murn yells to Leota (Danielle Brooks) and Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) to kill the Cow right when the Butterfly-inhabited police officers break his door down. Detective Song, who since episode 6 was taken over by Peacemaker's queen Butterfly Eek Stack Ik Ik after formerly inhabiting Senator Royland Goff (Antonio Cupo), pins Murn down and asks, "How do you know about the Cow?" Furthermore, the police officers are perplexed when a Butterfly crawls out of Murn's mouth. Detective Song recognizes immediately that he's the Butterfly gone rogue, Ik Nobb Llok, and crushes him in her hands. This reveal complicates the Butterfly plan because it implies that they don't recognize other Butterflies in human form.
The Butterflies rely on inhabiting humans for their world domination takeover. In a process called "leeching," as it's revealed to be called in episode 6, Butterflies appear to target people of worth for their plan - politicians, police officers, people that can work at Peacemaker's Glan Tai nectar-producing factory, and so forth. However, by not knowing who is and isn't inhabited by a Butterfly puts their plan at risk. It's harder to know who their allies and enemies are this way, and who is and isn't a viable host. While the Butterflies can exist outside of a human host for an extended period of time, as evidenced by Eek Stack Ik Ik living in a jar for days and episode 6 showing a fleet of Butterfly spaceships, being inside a human protects their species and moves their plan forward more efficiently. Even Ik Nobb Llok recognizes that taking over Murn is the most effective way to stop the butterflies' world domination plan, fighting his cognitive dissonance in the process.
This Butterfly plan plot hole raises the question as to how their world domination efforts became so widespread, despite the lack of differentiation between available and unavailable hosts. While Peacemaker still has Butterfly mysteries to explain, introducing the fact that Butterflies don't recognize other Butterflies inside a host confounds things. Butterflies seem to only recognize other Butterflies if they interact with each other, as evidenced by the Evergreen police department and the Glan Tai factory. Potentially, Ik Nobb Llok was the only Butterfly the other Butterflies don't recognize because he went rogue. Nonetheless, there's a lot that Peacemaker still has to answer.
The Peacemaker finale releases this Thursday, February 17 on HBO Max.