Warning: SPOILERS for the Peacemaker episode “Another Rick Up My Sleeve” are ahead!
Although the existence of another universe was revealed in the opening minutes of Peacemaker Season 2, it wasn’t until “Another Rick Up My Sleeve” that John Cena’s Christopher Smith finally ventured out to explore it. The latest episode to premiere in the 2025 TV schedule saw him going to visit that reality’s Emilia Harcourt while pretending to be his deceased counterpart. This Harcourt definitely stood out from “our” Harcourt in a few ways, and Jennifer Holland told CinemaBlend the most “difficult” thing about portraying two different versions of her character.
In addition to having a different hairstyle and fashion sensibility, Harcourt 2 also comes off as friendlier than Harcourt 1, and that’s even excluding how the latter has been deliberately picking fights this season. However, when I asked Holland about the process of playing two Harcourts in Peacemaker Season 2, she opened up about her efforts to make sure that Harcourt 2 wasn’t reduced to a joke, saying:
For me, the most difficult aspect of playing Harcourt 2 was that I didn’t want it to be comical. That how different she is from our Harcourt… I didn’t want it to seem like a comedy routine. Like we’re always calling out how different she is or something like that. So I wanted to make sure it stayed grounded and that it was real and that you could buy both that Chris found her attractive not just because she looks like Harcourt, but also that she still shares some of the similarities of Harcourt’s personality.
To be sure, it’s not like Harcourt 2 is on the opposite end of the spectrum as Harcourt 1. They both don’t suffer fools gladly, and it’s also indicated that Harcourt 2 can handle herself in the field as an A.R.G.U.S. agent, too. Still, obviously Harcourt 2 needed to stand out from Peacemaker’s main version of her to help show how this universe is different from the DCU (and perhaps there’s a dark secret lurking behind it). It’s just that Jennifer Holland wanted to make sure that Harcourt 2 was still taken seriously rather than just be fodder for comedic material.
As far as Harcourt 2’s more friendly personality goes, Jennifer Holland also commended director Greg Mottola, who helmed Peacemaker Season 2’s second and third episode, with helping her figure out this aspect of the character. In the actress’ words:
She still has a strength to… she’s not a total pushover, but she wears her heart on her sleeve. She is much more open with her feelings than Harcourt from our dimension. So it’s really just about trying to make sure… and Greg Mottola helped me with this a lot because he was really the one who brought Harcourt with me to the screen. So yeah, it was a delicate balance of making sure that she was grounded and real, and not comically different from our Harcourt.
On this other Earth, Christopher Smith and Emilia Harcourt were in a serious relationship, but his various character defects eventually resulted in that collapsing. So when the DCU’s Chris went to the A.R.G.U.S. headquarters in this universe, he saw she was dating Rick Flag Jr. (reprised by Joel Kinnaman), but he was at least able to repair some of the damage his counterpart left behind. Does this mean that Chris might be building towards starting his own relationship with Harcourt 2 given that Harcourt 1 is very much not interested in something like that right now? We shall see.
We’re now at the halfway mark with Peacemaker Season 2, so remember to check out the back half of episodes Thursday evenings on HBO Max. Once the season is over, HBO’s Lanterns will be the next of the upcoming DC TV shows to arrive.
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