[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Peacemaker, Season 1, Episode 5, “Monkey Dory."]We already had the pleasure of having Jennifer Holland on Collider Ladies Night, but one episode in celebration of Peacemaker just isn’t enough. With the show’s finale episode, “It’s Cow or Never,” available to stream on HBO Max tomorrow, we’re keeping the Peacemaker party going with a Ladies Night episode with Adebayo herself, Danielle Brooks.
At the start of the show, Adebayo is reluctant to join the Project Butterfly task force. In need of a job to support her family, Adebayo agrees to accept the assignment from her mother, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis). Along the way, she grows close to John Cena’s Peacemaker, successfully earning his trust and even encouraging him to change for the better. However, when her mother insists she plant a fake diary in Peacemaker’s home, Adebayo must figure out where her loyalties lie — will she betray her friend or disobey her mother’s orders?
We’ll have Brooks’ full Collider Ladies Night conversation for you tomorrow covering her journey from Julliard to Peacemaker, but first, a brief clip from the interview about this complex performance beat. Where exactly is Adebayo’s head at in that moment? Brooks doesn’t get the opportunity to explain how she’s feeling about her actions via dialogue. Instead, we watch a flurry of conflicting expressions. There is some determination, but there’s also some powerful flashes of regret. How exactly did Brooks go about finding the right balance of emotions for that scene? Here’s what she said:
“It was exactly that, this internal struggle that she was going through. And I think what keeps running through my mind is you have this person that you’re connecting with and that has finally opened up to you in your vicinity, and you also have the history of your mom in the back of your head, too. It’s this tug of war of what’s right and what’s wrong. It’s like, I have this person right in front of my face who’s just made me this drink, even though it was horrible [laughs], and has opened up to me, and then it’s my mother.”
Adebayo has that standout ability to connect with just about everyone on the task force, but there’s no denying that her relationship with Peacemaker is one of the most heartening of the bunch. It’s crushing to discover she’d betray him like that. But, the determination to please a parent is mighty strong. Brooks continued:
"I think we all have that thing; you want to do right by your parents. You want them to be proud of you. You want to just make them proud and so that was that internal struggle with the diary and then trying to right her wrong after the fact, too. It’s like, you build this trust to just break it down, but luckily, there are opportunities to redeem yourself, and I think that’s what this is about too, is redemption.”
Eager to hear more from Brooks on Peacemaker, Orange Is the New Black, and more pivotal moments in her career thus far? Hang tight! We’ll have her full episode of Collider Ladies Night for you tomorrow, just in time for the Peacemaker finale.