[Updated 7/16: I put in more jokes and made some grammatical tweaks.]

Let’s get into it.

The Instant White-Hot Wild[1] starts with pedal firmly applied to metal: the government is preparing to search Vought Tower for information on Maeve’s whereabouts (thanks to Annie’s social media campaign). Can you imagine the shitshows that would ensue if this happened in real life? Elon Musk would be tweeting people out of house and home. The corporate shitheels at Vought decide to remove Maeve from the building, gassing her unconscious and putting her in the back of an armored transport van.

Turns out they should have brought more knockout gas. Maeve wakes up, kills everyone in the van, and stumbles onto the street…it’s finale time.

…and since it’s a season finale of The Boys, Ryan has to show up[2] – sure enough, there he is, chucking baseballs over the horizon while “Aunt Grace” looks on. Not sure if he’s still making stop-motion Lego parodies of famous films; I’d be curious to see what his take on The Godfather would be. Homelander arrives on the scene (thanks to Neuman passing him Ryan’s location) and makes Grace toss her phone – this can’t be good.[3] For next time, Grace should invest in some AirPods – I’m pretty sure the CIA has the budget for that.

Black Noir arrives at Vought HQ, accompanied by a crew of animated critter buddies that would make Walt Disney blush. With his backstory freshly revealed and his swords newly sharpened, Noir is ready for a final showdown with his old teammate Soldier B – aaaand Homelander kills him by literally ripping his guts out.

I quite liked this twist; although it did eliminate the possibility of a Noir/Soldier Boy rematch, Homelander’s violent killing of his teammate was entirely in character. Of course Homelander would go full Mortal Kombat on the guy; he’d always seen Noir as the only other member of The Seven he could count on, only to realize that his eternally-silent teammate had kept his father’s (Homelander’s that is) identity a secret. Homelander reacts the way he always does when he’s pissed: by killing someone. It remains to be seen if the animated critters will return for revenge. Side note: the shot of Homelander leaving the conference room with blood dripping from his glove was well done – I’m talking really well done, like one of Donald Trump’s steaks.

Somewhere along the route back from Mindstorm’s house, Butcher knocks Hughie unconscious and leaves him in a truck stop bathroom (a great place to nap, in my experience). I’m puzzled as to why, if he was willing to do this, he wasn’t willing to pass on the information from Annie about Temp V’s (lethal) side effects. If I was feeling uncharitable, I’d hazard a guess that it was done just to build a bit of a cliffhanger into Episode 7, but I’m a charitable guy, so I’ll leave it at that.

After arriving back in NYC, Butcher and Soldier Boy commiserate over their horrible dads, with SB revealing that his father’s abuse drove him to take Compound V…only for his dad to continue to talk shit after he became a well-known hero, saying that he “took a shortcut” to success. Lotta bad dads this season, huh? It’s almost like the writing team is trying to say something.

Annie arrives at the truck stop to give Hughie a ride (dragons don’t fly that fast, yadda yadda). Her car is quite the mobile psychologist’s office: MM opened up about his OCD during the trip to Herogasm, and, in this episode, Hughie had a relationship-mending conversation with Annie in which he acknowledged the fact that, yeah, he had been acting like an asshole for most of this season. Maybe the writers could take Annie’s car for a spin and have a couple conversations about their dads on a trip to 7-11. It’d be cheaper than therapy, unless the price of taquitos skyrockets in the near future.

Elsewhere, Frenchie presents MM with a thoughtful gift: a dose of the (extremely) toxic nerve gas that knocks Soldier Boy unconscious. The fact that Frenchie somehow put it in a bottle of Starlight’s cologne was funny, but also…shit, man, at least put it in something that isn’t glass.

Then we take a quick detour to check in on A-Train; the speedster pays an apologetic visit to his (newly-paralyzed) brother Nate, who tells him to fuck off and stay that way. This is a fair reaction on Nate’s part, but I couldn’t help feeling bad for A-Train – he can run again, but he’s lost pretty much everything else. This whole plotline didn’t really tie into the show’s larger story, but it was emotionally engaging and didn’t hog too much screentime, so I’m giving it a pass. Like I said – I’m a charitable guy. Just look at my tax deductions.

At Vought Tower, Homelander presents his remaining cronies with Noir’s helmet – now The Seven is just The Three (I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that Maeve quit). He talks some shit to A-Train and The Deep, and makes Ashley take off her wig, which was just cruel. Leave it to The Boys to present a situation that has me feeling bad for a dickhead like Ashley. At least The Deep eating Timothy the octopus earlier in the season was funny…

Homelander also orders The Deep to assassinate a Senator.[4] As Prime Video’s X-Ray feature notes, this is the first time we’ve seen The Deep kill anyone onscreen – which I think might foreshadow a darker turn for his character next season. The killing also clears the way for Neuman to hop onto the Presidential ticket as Dakota Bob’s[5] (potential) Veep. This is more interesting political maneuvering than what happened in the entirety of House of Cards.

Back at the office, the two “factions” within The Boys face off, with Maeve, Soldier Boy and Butcher forcing Annie, Hughie, Kimiko, Frenchie and MM into a…giant safe? Always nice to have one of those around.[6] Before this, Maeve takes the cologne bottle full of nerve gas and yeets it out a window, presumably killing several hundred people a county or two over.

Let’s get to the frosting on this cake: the big showdown at the Tower. I gotta say, I didn’t expect the confrontation between Homelander, Soldier Boy, and the others to go the way it did – this was an onslaught of fun surprises and phenomenal moments that encapsulate (nearly) everything great about The Boys.[7]

Antony Starr and Jensen Ackles lit up the screen during their “father-son” conversation; I was genuinely uncertain how it was going to end until, well, it did. Ryan (of course) was waiting in the wings to be shown off to daddy dearest, but even before Homelander pulled out his son-shaped prop, his extended show of vulnerability and desire for familial connections was oddly humanizing. That said, I still positively cackled when Soldier Boy called him a “sniveling pussy” and the camera focused on Butcher’s shit-eating smirk across the room.

Ryan (of course) laser-visions Soldier Boy, interrupting him while he powers up his chest-explosion move; SB responds in true ‘50s-grandpa-style by backhanding the kid into a wall and calling him names. This does not go over well with Homelander – or Butcher. In a tremendously rare display of decency, Homelander immediately runs to his son to make sure he’s ok, giving Soldier Boy the chance to start powering up again – until Butcher opens up on him with his own laser vision (having taken another dose of Temp V). This leads to one of the season’s best moments, wherein Homelander and Butcher briefly team up to defend Ryan by blasting SB across the room; the glance the two nemeses exchange afterwards was positively goosebumps-inducing. Isn’t it great when your stepdad and your real dad team up to fight your grandpa? It’s what makes Thanksgiving special.

Homelander returns to Ryan’s side – only to be attacked by a vengeful Maeve, like that time your real dad’s ex-girlfriend crashed Thanksgiving while he was in the middle of fighting grandpa. Lotta spilled mashed potatoes that year.

Meanwhile, Butcher gets manhandled by Soldier Boy in the adjacent room (the rightwing talk show studio we’ve seen throughout the season); SB seems more annoyed than angry, like when he found out that “Oriental Chop-Socky Sauce” was no longer available to order.

Maeve gets in some decent hits, but is inevitably overpowered by Homelander… and has her right eye gouged out.[8] To her credit, she manages to stick a giant nail into Homelander’s ear shortly afterwards. It’s unclear whether the damage to his ear is permanent, but it was a gnarly thing to see no matter how you slice it. Echoes of the scene where Homelander deafened the Daredevil knockoff last season. It’s like poetry, right? It rhym- ok, fine, I’ll stop (with the George Lucas quotes).[9]

Starlight and MM arrive at the studio where Butcher and Soldier Boy are fighting and proceed to…not do much, besides saving Butcher from a shield-based decapitation.[10] Frenchie wraps up the new batch of nerve gas and Kimiko races upstairs to hit Soldier Boy with it, only for him to chuck her into the wall like a rabid squirrel.[11] MM and Butcher pull off the best combo attack since Operation Iraqi Freedom and break Soldier Boy’s shield with a mix of laser vision and shotgun shells, but things still seem pretty dire, until…

…Hughie finally learns the lesson this season was trying to teach him and decides to trust Annie instead of taking the Temp V; from the building’s control room, he turns the lights in the studio up so bright that Annie gains the ability to fly (kind of)![12] She also stuns Soldier Boy, giving MM and Kimiko enough time to blast him with the nerve gas Frenchie prepared. Now imagine if they’d tried to do that with the cologne bottle…all the main characters would be dead, right?

Unfortunately, the nerve gas doesn’t have an instantaneous effect[13] and Soldier Boy begins to power up his chest-blast yet again, putting even more of the cast in danger. Maeve and Annie lock eyes – er, eye – and you can just see the moment that Maeve decides to forsake revenge and be a Real American Hero, right before she tackles SB out the front of Vought Tower.

Boom.

Back inside, Homelander looks ready to go after Butcher and the others – only to be stopped by Ryan, who plaintively tells his dad that he wants to go. Good ol’ Ryan. It was a bummer to see him leave with Homelander, sure, but he did it to save Butcher and everyone else from his father’s wrath. That definitely gives me some hope for the kid down the road: we know he still cares about people, even if they’ve been shitty to him (see: Butcher).

In a welcome change from the comics, Maeve is shown to be alive (minus one eye and all of her powers). That said, she seems happy, telling Annie that she and Elena plan to flee somewhere Homelander can’t find them. Guess she managed to adequately scratch the revenge itch, or at least slap some Caladryl on it. I’m a Maeve stan, so I’m stoked that she got a positive ending to her story (even if she did end up looking like a pirate).

Annie officially joins The Boys and ditches the Starlight moniker, dumping her old costume down a trash chute. It’s unclear what Butcher thinks of this, seeing as he passes out immediately afterwards, only to wake up in the hospital some time later. Turns out the Temp V worked the way Annie said it did: it’s fatal…just not immediately. More like 12-18 months fatal. So enough for…two more seasons, max? The show could go on without Butcher, but losing Karl Urban and his tragic, deranged, and hilarious performance would be a real blow.

At a rally outside Vought HQ, Homelander greets his followers and proceeds to introduce Ryan to the public. A leftwing protestor decides that now would be the perfect moment to chuck a (plastic) bottle at Homelander…but misses and hits Ryan instead. Homelander lasers the bottle-thrower’s head off. The shocked silence that follows reminded me of the time I sharted at my twin brother’s wake.

And then Todd (fucking Todd) starts cheering (just like he did at the wake). Then everyone else starts cheering, and then Homelander starts smiling, and, while Ryan doesn’t exactly look stoked, he doesn’t look disapproving, either. God dammit, Butcher. You had one job.[14] Well, two, counting running the Boys, but I feel like he does that as more of a hobby.

Overall, this was a fantastic capper to a great season of television. The Boys has always been a diamond in the rough when it comes to modern streaming services, and this season may well have been the best yet. Now begins the long wait for Season 4…

Odds & Ends:

• Homelander’s talk with Ryan at the beginning of the episode – about Ryan killing Becca and maiming Stormfront – was oddly sweet, with HL telling his son that he’d always love him. Sniff.
• The way Frenchie ended his little pump-up talk to MM with “get back on the fucking Lexapro” had me in stitches. Good advice, Frenchie. Good advice.
• We saw The Deep drown that senator on Homelander’s orders, but it remains to be seen what plans he has in store for A-Train. They can’t be good, though.
• The acting in this show is so fucking good. I’ve given a lot of shoutouts to Antony Starr, Jensen Ackles and Karl Urban with my reviews this season, but the whole cast does a stupendous job. Sometimes I’ll rewatch a scene two or three times just to appreciate the little details – facial tics, body language, changes in tone – that the actors use to bring their characters to life.
• MM had a few great lines this episode. The list is topped, of course, by the timeless “Fuck your shield, bitch!”
• The cycle of bad parenting continues with Soldier Boy telling Homelander the same thing his own father told him: that he’s a disappointment. To be fair, Homelander is a disappointment by almost any metric.

Score: 9.5/10 (+.25/-.5)

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[1] This season has done a great job of picking titles from the comic series to use as episode names.

[2] Yeah, I know the scene with Homelander and Ryan happened before Maeve escaped, but this is the way I wrote the review, so, uh, call the whambulance.

[3] I was relieved to see that Grace was alive at the end of the episode, watching over Soldier Boy in his new “home.”

[4] Yeah, that is “sort of treason”!

[5] Hell of a name.

[6] Just ask my parents. I had a weird childhood.

[7] One thing that wasn’t great: the lab that Frenchie needed in order to cook up some more nerve gas just happened to be located in the basement of Vought Tower. Too convenient, you know?

[8] Gross.

[9] This is not a promise.

[10] Not to minimize the value of saving your friends from being decapitated. That’s always a good thing!

[11] Another great part of this episode: Kimiko’s rampage through the guards in the basement lab, accompanied by Maniac on the soundtrack, was chef’s kiss level good. That said, Kimiko not being able to hear anything else kind of did get Frenchie shot in the leg…so maybe keep the AirPods out next time?

[12] It’s more of a slow hover.

[13] Which kind of begs the question of how the other members of Payback survived betraying him in the ‘80s.

[14] Not being shitty to the kid, or at least not driving him into his psychopathic father’s orbit.