Who Is Royland Goff in Peacemaker and Why Is He Important?

This week, on HBO Max’s Peacemaker, things got really, well, real as Royland Goff, the butterfly queen (known in her own tongue as “Eek Stak Ik Ik,” but we’ll stick with Goff) not only got out of the mason jar where Peacemaker was keeping her, but also got inside Sophie Song, the cop leading the investigation that is about to bust Peacemaker himself. 

So who is Goff and what are the Butterflies?

Let’s take a step back: We’ve learned in previous episodes that Peacemaker has been recruited by Amanda Waller’s ARGUS to do a completely off-the-books mission centered around stopping an alien invasion. That invasion comes in the form of butterfly-like aliens, who get inside of human hosts and nestle inside their brains, turning them into meat puppets. The butterflies had originally come to Earth because their home world was dying, but when they got here, some of them decided they should take over, and so they began infiltrating the bodies of important human leaders—like Senator Royland Goff. 

Peacemaker didn’t know this when he was tasked with assassinating not only Senator Goff but also his whole family. Peacemaker, on a journey from cold-blooded killer to a warm-blooded killer, balked at killing the Goffs, even when they opened their mouths and revealed gross proboscises that they used to suck up a thick, honey-like liquid of some kind. 

Vigilante stepped in and killed most of the Goffs, but not before the duo was captured and tortured by Senator Goff himself. (Technically, Vigilante was tortured. Peacemaker’s torture was being forced to watch Vigilante getting his toe cut off.) Peacemaker was able to escape his bonds and kill the Senator, at which point the butterfly emerged from his head.

What happened to Goff?

It turns out the Goff butterfly was then captured by Peacemaker, who kept her in a jar, fed her alien honey, and even one time hotboxed her. In fact, it seemed like a bond was growing between Peacemaker and the butterfly, and in the latest episode, “Murn After Reading,” the Goff butterfly was attempting to communicate with Peacemaker. 

That all went out the window when Sophie Song showed up with a SWAT team to bring Peacemaker in for murder, and in the ensuing escape, the Goff butterfly’s jar was smashed. The alien queen wasted no time in going down Song’s throat and taking her over. But Goff didn’t stop there; she assembled hundreds of other butterflies and led them into the police station, possessing not only every cop in Evergreen, Washington, but also every inmate in the jail. With this army at her side, Goff intends to stop Peacemaker and his ARGUS team and finish conquering the world.

What is Goff’s plan?

Or is that her plan? As far as we know, Goff and the butterflies are not based on any existing DC Comics characters, or if they are, creator James Gunn has changed them significantly. What we know about Goff’s plans come to us only from Clemson Murn, the killer who leads the ARGUS team, and who we learned last week has a butterfly in his own head. He claims Goff wants to take over the Earth, but can he be trusted? In another episode, Judomaster—previously Senator Goff’s bodyguard (and a character from the DC Comics universe)—tried to talk reason to Peacemaker, telling him the butterflies are not what they seem, but Leota Adebayo shot him before he could spill the beans. Thankfully, Judomaster survived, so he may get to finish that thought yet. 

With two more episodes of Peacemaker remaining on HBO Max, we can be sure James Gunn has more twists and turns up his sleeve. Nothing is as it seems, and loyalties will be tested. Is Goff trying to conquer the Earth? Or could she be trying to save it? Only James Gunn knows for sure, and he’s going to make us tune in every week to find out.

(image: HBO Max)

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