James Gunn Trolls Obsessive DC Fans With Peacemaker Episode 5's Gorilla

Peacemaker episode 4 set down a bunch of clues about a gorilla that fans suspected was Gorilla Grodd, but episode 5 dashed those theories quickly.

Warning: Contains spoilers for Peacemaker episode 5.

After Peacemaker episode 4, a number of fan theories circulated about Charlie the Gorilla and James Gunn introducing Gorilla Grodd to the DCEU, but Peacemaker episode 5 makes a joke of the whole situation. James Gunn has made a habit of pulling out obscure characters to include in his superhero adaptations, both for Marvel and for DC. Even in Peacemaker, the show has already quietly confirmed a wealth of strange characters as DCEU canon, including Bat-Mite and Matter-Eater Lad.

Gorilla Grodd is primarily a Flash supervillain who has super-intelligence, super-strength, and various mental powers. Peacemaker episode 4, “The Choad Less Traveled,” includes two background elements that telegraph Charlie the Gorilla’s introduction in a future episode and set fan expectations for Grodd. An extended newscast plays in the background when Peacemaker (John Cena) visits his father’s house discussing how the gorilla was stolen from Evergreen Zoo. Later in the episode, when Vigilante (Freddie Stroma) is getting himself arrested, one of the officers at the jail is reading a paper that notes the gorilla is still on the loose. In Peacemaker episode 5, “Monkey Dory,” Charlie the Gorilla is discovered at the Butterflies’ Glan Tai bottling plant and is dispatched in the same episode by John Economos (Steve Agee) with a chainsaw shortly after the gorilla has yelled, “Die humans!”

Even with the setup and Easter eggs in Peacemaker episode 4, the logic of how Charlie the Gorilla makes sense and is well established in Peacemaker episode 5. Economos explains during his presentation that the Butterflies make humans four times stronger than they normally would be while including an image of a chimp because they themselves are 4 times stronger than humans. While a gorilla is not a chimp, the telegraphing makes what is to come clear as it makes sense that if the Butterflies can put themselves into any living form then a superpowered Gorilla would be exponentially stronger and a better security guard for the factory. However, given that the hints in the previous episodes are devoid of these clues, it does mean that James Gunn’s choices here end up doing a bit of trolling of the fans he must have known would jump to Gorilla Grodd as an explanation.

The tease and turnaround from the Peacemaker TV series is made worse for audiences by an episode 2 clue that made Gorilla Grodd seem that much more plausible. When toying with an item he took from the Butterfly’s apartment in episode 1, Peacemaker discovers that it is actually a small spaceship that was presumably used to get the Butterflies to Earth. In one of Gorilla Grodd’s origin stories, he gained super-intelligence after an alien spacecraft crash-landed in his homeland. That said, this is somewhat on viewers themselves being so quick to jump to conclusions rather than letting the story play out.

Ultimately, while fans were quick to jump to Gorilla Grodd, James Gunn’s inclusion of a gorilla-based character here is probably actually a different deep cut on DC’s history. DC comics include over 50 talking gorillas, with many of them appearing during the 1950s at a time when the company found that including a gorilla on the front of a comic substantially increased its sales. So while Charlie the Gorilla might have been thought to be referencing any one of these many talking Gorillas, his presence in the Peacemaker series is more likely to be James Gunn referencing just how enamored DC seemed to be with talking gorillas for a while.

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Peacemaker releases new episodes Thursdays on HBO.