Peacemaker: Why Amanda Waller Didn't Help Until The Finale
Warning: Contains spoilers for Peacemaker season 1.
In the Peacemaker season 1 finale, Amanda Waller sent the Justice League to help Peacemaker and the ARGUS team against the Butterflies, but this shows that she might have been able to help a lot earlier. In The Suicide Squad, Amanda Waller uses the inmates of Belle Reve to create her Task Force X teams and sends them off to their deaths, creating a team of supers that are at her disposal. However, the cameo appearance from the Justice League in the Peacemaker season 1 finale demonstrates that she had access to other teams as well.
In Peacemaker episode 8, “It’s Cow Or Never,” Peacemaker and the team have identified the location of the cow, the food source for all the Butterflies on earth. When they go to take it on, they know that they are set to be massively outnumbered, with just the five of them against the whole Butterfly army. Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), calls her mother, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), and requests that she send the Justice League to help. Waller clearly asks if she’s joking, but does manage to have them turn up at the end, even if it is too late to be useful.
At the beginning of Peacemaker season 1, the lack of larger involvement was established by the clandestine nature of the operation. It was crucial that the ARGUS team were not seen while assassinating Goff because he was a US senator. Once the team have taken out Goff, they continue to be concerned about anyone finding out about what they’re doing because the Butterflies have infiltrated the government high enough up to shut down anything that gets too close. However, by the time that they have shut down Glan Tai and learned more about the situation, it would have been safe to contact Waller and ask for more backup with a clear end goal. This means that they could have called earlier in Peacemaker than they did, but didn’t because of a lack of trust in even Amanda Waller herself, even if she wasn’t actually possessed by a Butterfly. So it is possible that Amanda Waller might have helped the Peacemaker team earlier, but she just was not asked until that point.
The DCEU is facing a growing problem with having a super team like the Justice League available. It is important that Peacemaker addressed the fact that they exist and could come and help, even if they didn’t come in time. More solo movies and shows in the franchise will have to work to explain why the Justice League or other heroes can’t simply come and help. The Suicide Squad avoided this issue with Waller by the nature of her mission. She wanted to have information destroyed that would risk compromising the United States government and the Justice League, much like Rick Flag, would have wanted that information to be revealed.
The ending of Peacemaker does leave somewhat of a question as to how the Justice League would have treated Peacemaker if they had arrived before the end of the battle. Amanda Waller had worked hard to set Peacemaker to take the fall for the death of Goff and others rather than being open about the nature of their work. Amanda Waller might have held off as long as possible before sending the Justice League to avoid having to explain to them the nature of Peacemaker in the mission and how she was set to double-cross him. With Viola Davis’ relatively small Peacemaker role and Waller being outed by Adebayo at the end, it will be interesting to see how this might affect the relationship between Waller, ARGUS, and the Justice League in the future.