Leota Adebayo's Most Heartbreaking Moment From Peacemaker Season 1
It's pretty clear that DC short-form entertainment is killing it these days. First with "Harley Quinn," which has a solid 8.5/10 on IMDb, and now "Peacemaker" is blowing that out of the water with its Season 1 finale earning a 9.2/10. That finale also broke viewership records for the HBO streaming service. Between an unskippable show intro, the sharp, witty dialogue, and the quirky yet complex characters, it's almost impossible to avoid falling in love with this show.
One of the characters that experiences the most growth on the show is that of Leota Adebayo, played by the talented and dynamic Danielle Brooks. She's a married dog-mom who takes on a dangerous mission to save Earth from an alien invasion at the behest of her notorious mother, Amanda Waller. Although her explicit instructions are to frame Peacemaker and send him back to jail once the job is done, her growth throughout the first season puts her on the other side of that fence, culminating in a moment that tugged on fans' heartstrings.
The moment she puts on the human torpedo helmet to save peacemaker is more profound than you realize
In the Season 1 finale, "Cow or Never," the 11th Street Kids are racing against time to find and destroy the aliens' only source of food on planet Earth. Peacemaker brings a collection of his father's weaponized helmets along in order to help them succeed, including the "Human Torpedo" helmet, which he is hesitant about using because it could "risk shattering every bone" in the body of whoever wears it. But a writer as talented as Gunn isn't going to put Checkhov's helmet into a scene unless it's going to get used. And Adebayo is the one who ends up fulfilling that promise in a very emotional way.
She's still on the outs with Peacemaker after planting a fake diary in his trailer and almost sending him back to jail. Amidst her guilt and regret, she dons the helmet in an effort to save him despite his warnings, and fails in a slapstick way. But as the astute redditor purplenelly points out, in that moment, "she's showing courage and that she's willing to sacrifice herself" in order to save her friend. Given how timid and unconfident she was in the beginning, finding herself ready to sacrifice her own life for the sake of her friends and the planet is a profound moment that, thankfully didn't end up being a heartbreaking disaster — but it sure came dangerously close.