After last week’s “Herogasm” blowout (blow-up?), The Boys took things down a notch this week to spend an episode focusing on how the various characters deal with the fallout from.

Homelander, ego (and face) bruised, pays a visit to the (unsurprisingly) still-alive Maeve, who’s been imprisoned in a room similar to the one Homelander was “raised” in. The concealer on his face doesn’t keep Maeve from spotting Homelander’s black eye and subsequently picking up on his nervousness. She keeps the roasting going even after the Big Blonde Bastard reveals that he plans to harvest her eggs in order to create a super-child.[1]

Speaking of roasting: Black Noir’s backstory was partially revealed via animated critters reenacting traumatic events from his past. It would be nice to see a bit of who Noir was before joining Payback (and subsequently moving on to The Seven), but I can see how that might have broken up the episode’s pacing. Turns out Soldier Boy is a bigger piece of shit than we thought. I’m curious, though, as to whether Noir’s colorful recollections represent the objective truth of what happened or just Noir’s own perception of the events (where, of course, Soldier Boy would be portrayed as even more of a dickhead).

Elsewhere, The Deep tries to spice up his sex life by introducing an octopus to the equation (presumably the same octopus he got head from at Herogasm, I can’t believe I just wrote that). This goes about as well as you would expect it to, and it’s very funny.[2] I don’t really see much payoff for this storyline – if you can call it that – down the road, but the scene was funny and didn’t eat up too much of the episode.

Over at Vought, A-Train wakes up, alive (called it!) and with a brand new super-heart, courtesy of the very-much-not-alive Blue Hawk (did not call that one).[3] Ashley drops in to inform him that he’ll be participating in a heavily-edited (read: corporatized) TV show about his origins as a superhero…where he’s to be portrayed as a gangbanger from the hood who’s saved by a well-meaning white guy, (played by Tom Hanks).[4] Oof.

MM’s daughter is taken to a Homelander rally by her weasel of a stepfather, where HL gives a speech that reminds me of [redacted][5]…right down to the wild assertions about children being trafficked. Ashley and Neuman’s reactions to his bonkers speech were funny; that said, Ashley is bumming me out with the way she’s gone full corporate heel on TV, bashing Starlight on a news show that certainly isn’t based on [redacted].[6]

…of course, once MM finds out he decks the weaselly stepfather, which is fair enough, but, like, do it somewhere else, man.[7] I mentioned last week that MM is the responsible one of the group, which is true unless he’s doing predictable, short-sighted shit that fucks up his personal life. It’s not overly annoying (because it hasn’t backfired on the other protagonists and caused them unnecessary trouble), but it’s still frustrating to see him constantly shooting himself in the feet re: his fraying family relationships.[8]

At Kimiko’s request, Starlight goes back to Vought HQ to get her hands on some Compound V (the permanent stuff). She finds out (from some conveniently-accessible lab notes) that anywhere from three to five doses of temporary V will kill the recipient. After pocketing the V, Annie is confronted by Homelander just before she can get on the elevator and make good on her escape – but, thinking quickly, she records what his threats and gets him to borderline-admit to a bunch of the villainous stuff he’s done (recently).[9] Homelander’s boast that he was aware of her presence the second she entered the building makes his timing all the funnier – and all the more villainous. The guy just can’t help playing with his food. I wonder if that bad habit will come back to bite him on the ass someday…

Kimiko taking the V of her own volition was a relief, in a way – she took a lot of punishment this season, and now she’s back to her old, invincible self, just with more self-knowledge. Her tender moment with Frenchie hit me right in the feels, and I’ll admit to chuckling when Kimiko described Frenchie’s arms as feeling like bendy straws when she’s in possession of her powers. I still don’t see why we needed the Little Nina plotline to get here, though.[10]

Our final plot thread involves what I just now decided to start referring to as the “action trio”: Hughie, Butcher, and Soldier Boy, the latter of whomst is occupying himself blasting bratwurst-sized joints and plowing aged hookers. This does not inspire confidence on the parts of the trio’s other members, particularly Hughie.

In an attempt to get some reassurances regarding Soldier Boy’s reliability, Hughie stops by The Legend’s place – no Marlon Brando jokes this time, but The Legend does spill some details on SB. For example: the guy didn’t storm Normandy until two weeks after D-Day! Maybe they weren’t hopped up on Bennies after all.[11]

Soldier Boy, on the other hand, is hopped up…on the devil’s lettuce. Our guy is burning down more trees than the Brazilian government.[12] In my experience, though, roasting a fat one doesn’t make you hear sounds that aren’t there – it makes you binge-watch the early seasons of Entourage while stuffing Flamin’ Hot Cheetos™ down your gullet. Maybe it was the decades of post-traumatic stress instead of the doobies?[13] Either way, the crew runs into some trouble when Mindstorm appears (basically out of nowhere) and traps Butcher in a nightmare world of his own memories.

The success of the following Butcher-centric flashbacks rests almost solely upon Karl Urban’s performance. The show ran the risk of beating a dead horse here (given that we’ve seen a lot of Butcher’s sad backstory before), but narrowly sidesteps the problem thanks to the pathos engendered by Urban’s portrayal of Butcher’s tortured subconscious. The way these scenes emphasized the parallels between Butcher and his father was a bit on the nose, but effective. It’ll never not be a downer hearing about/seeing Butcher’s brother (Lenny?) kill himself, and memory-Lenny’s words to Butcher before pulling the trigger are the kind of thing that haunts someone for life.[14]

With Butcher trapped in nightmares, Hughie and Soldier Boy proceed alone, encountering a seemingly well-meaning priest and nun next to a broken-down car on the road. Naturally, Soldier Boy then shoots the priest in the face. SB argues that Mindstorm has brainwashed the priest and nun – an opinion that Hughie takes issue with until the nun jumps on his shoulders like an angry chimp and starts trying to bite him.[15] Naturally, Soldier Boy then shoots the nun in the face.[16]

Despite Soldier Boy being correct about the brainwashing of the recently-murdered religious figures, Hughie is still (somewhat understandably) freaked out; later, he calls out Soldier Boy’s PTSD and faked backstory. Even more ballsily,[17] Hughie grabs Mindstorm and naked-teleports the two of away from SB – and right next to the unconscious Butcher. Hughie convinces Mindstorm to free Butcher in exchange for a free teleport to a destination of his choice; unfortunately for the ol’ brainwasher, Soldier Boy arrives on the scene approximately two seconds after Mindstorm releases Butcher, reintroducing himself to his old Payback teammate via a throwing knife to the eye socket (gross). Before bashing Mindstorm’s head in with his shield, SB takes a moment to punch Hughie in the nose; this leads to one of the episode’s better moments, where Butcher flashes his laser eyes at Soldier Boy to discourage a more extensive beatdown.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that Butcher actually learned anything from the road trip through his own subconscious.[18] After Annie tells him that the temporary Compound V is fatal after 3-5 doses – and makes him promise to pass the information along to Hughie – he does…not that. I don’t care how sad he feels about it, that’s awful![19] I have had it up to *here* with Butcher’s constant moral compromises.

The episode ends with the biggest twist since Jesus came back to life: it turns out that Vought had Soldier Boy “beat his meat into a cup” and used the resulting, uh, supe-juice to create Homelander. As Keanu Reeves would say, woah! I was really pleased with this development – it’s a rare example of a plot twist that not only feels earned but leaves the audience’s imaginations running wild with new possibilities. Will Homelander and Soldier Boy team up? Will either one of them ever learn how to treat women like people? Will the Boys need to team up with Black Noir? I’m excited to find out.

Rating: 9/10 (+0/-1)

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[1] I keep thinking he can’t get any worse, but he always does.

[2] Shoutout to whoever in the writer’s room came up with the line “I gave up my tenure at Vassar for this!”

[3] The heart donation, that is. I think we all called Blue Hawk being dead.

[4] This sounds like the kind of TV show the bad guys in Get Out would absolutely love.

[5] You know who I’m talking about.

[6] Again, you know who I’m talking about. It’s different from the other guy, but you know who it is.  

[7] Ideally out of your impressionable daughter’s line of sight. Parenting 101.

[8] Relatable? Perhaps. But it’s also a fucking downer and I don’t think having characters repeat their mistakes ad nauseum is particularly interesting.  

[9] No references to the plane he allowed to crash back in Season 1, for example, but he essentially owned up to “disappearing” Maeve and killing Supersonic.

[10] But hey, there weren’t any Russian gangsters in this episode, so why am I complaining?

[11] Either way, I ain’t judging.

[12] Zing.

[13] Just typing the word “doobies” made me feel like a baby boomer.

[14] Presumably, this is the kind of thing Butcher’s subconscious is saying to him all the time.

[15] In case you didn’t know: chimps are the worst.

[16] I’m seeing a pattern here.

[17] Yeah, that’s a word. Fuck you.

[18] After all, his defense of Hughie was well in character, even before the traumatic flashbacks.

[19] This is like a more dangerous version of MM losing his temper and punching the stepdad: a character learning absolutely nothing from their experiences. The danger presented by the Temporary V raises the stakes – but I think it would have worked just as well to have Butcher struggle over the decision but ultimately tell Hughie. Then the dilemma becomes whether or not they’ll take it anyway.