Warning: SPOILERS are ahead for the Peacemaker Season 2 premiere!
If you’re a Peacemaker fan thinking back to when you first streamed Season 1 with your HBO Max subscription, what’s the first thing that comes to mind. If you’re like me, it’s probably the opening dance number set to Wig Wam’s “Do You Wanna Taste It.” For Peacemaker Season 2, which just premiered on the 2025 TV schedule, show creator James Gunn decided to shoot a new dance number, this time set to Foxy Shazam’s “Oh Lord.” Watch it for yourself:
It looks like a worthy successor to what we got in Season 1, right? That may be, but several of the cast members explained to CinemaBlend why the dance number is different for this new batch of episodes, as well as why it ended up being more “strenuous.”
What Danielle Brooks And Freddie Stroma Said About Season 2’s Dance Number
First, we have Danielle Brooks and Freddie Stroma, who are respectively back as Leota Adebayo and Adrian Chase/Vigilante, in Peacemaker Season 2. The actors informed our own Hannah Saulic that for the pile of people at the end of this “Oh Lord” sequence, they were all told by James Gunn to breathe heavy as opposed to everyone being legitimately tired by all the dancing. Brooks described that day as “crazy” with “a lot of moving parts, and when Hannah asked if it was harder learning Season 2’s dance number or Season 1’s, the duo responded:
Freddie Stroma: "I wouldn’t know, I wasn’t in the first one."
Danielle Brooks: “Yeah, that's a fun fact. Yeah, I was there and I would say the first one, because just understanding the language of the movement was really challenging. Like, what are we doing? This feels awkward. I don't get it. My body don't want to do that. My body wants to do this. So that was hard in the beginning. And then the second time, you understand a little bit more. So I was like, ‘Ok, I can do this.’”
For those who don’t know, Freddie Stroma is referring to the fact that Chris Conrad was originally cast as Vigilante and shot five and a half Peacemaker episodes before leaving due to creative differences. Stroma was then cast in his place and reshot or redubbed all of Conrad’s scenes. It sounds like he’s just a tad disappointed he wasn’t in the Peacemaker Season 1 dance sequence since Vigilante is costumed the whole time. However, if Danielle Brooks is saying that one was harder compared to what they did in Season 2, maybe that’s for the best.
What Steve Agee Said About Season 2’s Dance Number
In a separate interview, I spoke with John Economos actor Steve Agee, who, in addition to revealing to me who was the “hardest” character to cast in Peacemaker Season 2, also opened up about the new dance sequence. Having an interview where Agee described the Season 1 dance as “strenuous,” I asked him how Season 2’s was in comparison, and he told me:
Way more strenuous. We did the dance number for Season 1 in a day, and I don't even know if it was a full day. We also had less people, so it was a little bit easier. Season 2, I think with the success of the show, and honestly the success of just the opening dance number alone… After that came out, it was the number one thing I was asked about in interviews and stuff, people talking about the dance number.
As Agee, who’s also played Economos in The Suicide Squad, Shazam! Fury of the Gods (which is not DCU canon) and Creature Commandos, also pointed out, it was inevitable that Peacemaker Season 2 would need a new dance number. Sure, maybe “Do You Wanna Taste It” could have been kept as the song, but all those characters who bit the dust in Season 1 necessitated new choreography at the very least. So from there, it was decided that Season 2’s dance had to be an even bigger endeavor. Agee continued:
And it was rough, man. I'm not a dancer. I'm not coordinated at all. if there was anything in the show I was dreading… Not the fact that we had to do one, I was kind of excited. I knew it would be cool because it's already established that the first one did so well. It was just like, ‘Oh my God, I have to fucking dance again.’ And we shot it for 2 days, and oh my God, there were so many people. It just took forever, but it turned out so good.
Not only did Freddie Stroma finally get to take part in Peacemaker Season 2’s dance number, the established cast members were joined by newcomers like Tim Meadows, Frank Grillo, Sol Rodríguez and Michael Rooker. Oh, and David Denman, whose role in the DCU show is no longer a mystery.
What David Denman Said About Season 2’s Dance Number
It was revealed in “The Ties That Grind” that Denman is playing Keith Smith, an adult version of Christopher Smith’s late brother who lives in another universe. Not only has Denman known James Gunn for years, he also goes way back with Clarissa Barton, who choreographed the Season 2 dance number. She’s married to Denman’s Juilliard classmate and friend Alan Tudyk (who voiced Doctor Phosphorous in Creature Commandos and Gary the Superman Robot in Superman). So he welcomed getting the opportunity to work with her, adding:
I had a blast. That was the one question everyone had when I got the job. Are you in the dance? I'm like, ‘Yeah, I'm in the dance.’ They’re like, ‘Ahh, that's awesome!’ So it was a little challenging doing the lifts and stuff with the costume and whatnot. But yeah, it was great. It was fun.
Hannah Saulic also brought up how in Peacemaker Season 1’s dance number, everyone looks “triumphant” at the end, whereas at the end of Season 2’s, “ it just looks like everybody was tired” in that massive pile. Denman responded:
Well, I mean, at the end of the dance of the first one, they are kind of going [breathes heavy]. So that was meant to be mirrored into this one, that this is not something that is easy for all of them. That took effort for them to all do this. But yeah, I mean, other than James wanting that, I think they all kind of pile on top of each other, and then Eagly climbs on top. And so Clarissa was like, ‘Ok, well then you go here.’ Literally that was my last day of filming and I had to like snuggle spoon John Cena backwards from behind. So I got to see how large of a man he is up close, in person.
There are seven episodes to go where Peacemaker fans can see these actors dancing to “Oh Lord,” although I know I’ll be rewatching it plenty of times on YouTube just I’ve been doing the last three years with the “Do You Wanna Taste It” number. New episodes of Peacemaker drop Thursdays on HBO Max, and you can also check out fellow DCU story Superman both in theaters and digitally.
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