WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Peacemaker Episode 5, “Monkey Dory,” now streaming on HBO Max.
The Butterflies in HBO Max’s Peacemaker have been hyped up for four episodes because of their supposed endangering threat to humankind. Now, Episode 5 has proven this to be correct, and maybe even worse thanks to new light on their dangerous capabilities.
Being new to Project Butterfly, Chris/Peacemaker had no clue of the alien species or why Amanda Waller was interested in going behind the government’s back to chase the conspiracy. Chris wasn’t the only unaware member of the group, as Vigilante, Emilia Harcourt, John Economos and Leota Adebayo all were being led without specific knowledge of the species, on account that the mysterious Murn would tell them when they got deeper into the investigation. Unbeknownst to them — with the exception of Leota by the end of Episode 5 — Murn is a Butterfly and may be driving the project into an entirely different direction that seeks to unleash the fullest potential of the Butterflies, which the humans encounter a tease of in Episode 5, “Monkey Dory.”
With the help of John’s graphic design skills, Murn puts together a PowerPoint presentation that highlights the “new” discoveries of the Butterflies’ abilities. They can take control over any being and make them four times stronger, meaning that the human part of the Butterflies are unwillingly acting as hosts. This also includes animals, which is seen later in the episode when the group encounters an enhanced gorilla that was teased in Episode 4 on the news as having escaped. These may be frightening images to the rest of the group, but what’s scarier is the idea of the Butterflies manipulating the country and beyond as important political figures and celebrities, and Murn seems to be working with a Butterfly acting as the new police captain.
The group encounters their largest number of Butterflies at the Glam Tai bottling factory, suspected to be the distribution center for the aliens’ food supply in the country. While Harcourt is initially careful in believing that only humans are in the factory, Chris’ X-Ray vision helmet reveals that every being is a Butterfly, which turns into a nasty mob. When their true form is discovered, they let out an ear-bleeding screech and become zombie-like creatures that only know to attack. Their incredible strength, speed and durability make them invincible when clustered up together and manage to trap Harcourt and Vigilante in a room with the alien gorilla.
The realization that all of the factory workers are Butterflies makes Harcourt wonder if there are more Butterflies than they think there are, which seems like a redundant question that she keeps asking herself. It was only a few episodes ago that John’s computer showed that there were millions of potential Butterflies scattered across the world, and while he was away from the computer, it seems unlikely the data was ever erased without Murn being present. There was also the briefing Murn gave the group that detailed Butterflies being disguised as highly important people of society, but maybe the group was under the assumption that people with little to no importance wouldn’t be affected.
But that may all be a part of Murn’s dangerous plan, which is still unclear. Murn is slowly releasing information to the group, but leaves out dire details that they have to discover on their own while he’s working with the new captain to keep Chris’ dad behind bars so Detective Song won’t catch on to Project Butterfly’s shady operation. The Butterflies have managed to manipulate politics and slow down the criminal justice system and are slowly integrating themselves into everyday life. It would be typical for their end-goal to be world domination, but it wouldn’t make sense why else they would be on Earth using humans as hosts. They react strongly to anyone finding out their true identity with fatal violence, which means they would go to any lengths to destroy humans.
To see just how daunting the Butterflies are, stream Peacemaker’s first five episodes on HBO Max. New episodes of Peacemaker release every Thursday.
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