Warning: Contains spoilers for Peacemaker episode 7.
In Peacemaker episode 7, Judomaster returns again, but his identity, plan, and connection to the Butterflies make a mystery that is not only unanswered by completely unexamined in the DCEU TV show. It is sometimes possible to divine the motivations of a character by looking at their comic book origins; however, this doesn’t work for Judomaster. Judomaster is a name that is used by a range of DC heroes at different times, and the Peacemaker Judomaster does not seem to be a direct adaptation of any of these characters or their narratives.
Judomaster (Nhut Le) first appeared in Peacemaker episode 3, “Better Goff Dead,” where he served as a bodyguard for the Goff family of Butterflies, with the Royland Goff Butterfly later being revealed to be the leader of the Butterflies. Judomaster is captured and escapes but is recaptured by Peacemaker (John Cena) and Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), when he tries to explain that the Butterflies aren’t what they think. Peacemaker episode 7 casually acknowledges that he has escaped again before showing him steal a car to attack Leota and Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) at the motel after Murn’s (Chukwudi Iwuji) death.
While White Dragon (Robert Patrick) has a clear motivation for wanting to kill Peacemaker and the Butterflies’ larger plan for world domination has been explored, there is no explanation for what drives Judomaster. He is clearly not a Butterfly himself as he refers to the Butterflies as other to him, and while he demonstrates peak human ability, he does not appear to be a metahuman in the same way as a Butterfly possessed human. While it is possible that he was simply employed by the Butterflies, if he is simply a mercenary it makes no sense that he would not have been turned into a Butterfly himself as the Butterflies could easily take control of him and have access to his powers and his memories.
What makes Judomaster’s Peacemaker narrative even stranger, is that by the time he escapes for the second time, he no longer seems to be working for them. While he attack Harcourt and Leota at the motel, which in the longrun could have helped the Butterflies, if he was still working with them directly, then he might have been expected to arrive with the Butterflies from the police station. The fact that Judomaster doesn’t seem to be trying to reunite with the Butterflies emphasizes that there is a distance between them, given that the Butterfly inside detective Song (Annie Chang) is the same one that was inside Goff when Judomaster served as his bodyguard.
One possible explanation for Judomaster’s strange behaviors is that Judomaster is secretly working for Amanda Waller (Viola Davis). Waller always seems to have secret contingency plans in place and wouldn’t be above using one of her agents to ensure that another group of her agents didn’t disrupt her final plans. However, with so little information given about Judomaster, it is possible that his Peacemaker motivations are, at this point, pure pettiness. Judomaster obviously didn’t appreciate being captured and shot, so he could simply be seeking revenge against the Peacemaker ARGUS team at this point.
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Peacemaker releases new episodes Thursdays on HBO.