What I Know
The season 2 finale of The Boys begins with another satirical advert. This time, Homelander gives instructions on how to stay safe at school. On the back of this – and the incident at the hearing – the President has decided to issue Compound V for mainstream use by the military. Despite it being obvious Vought were responsible for this, the lack of evidence Mallory has gives them absolutely nothing to go on. Meanwhile, Starlight gives instructions for her Mother to leave. Just before she does, she hands over a new necklace to replace the old one. With her out of the picture, Butcher and the others band together and decide to go after Homelander and the others with brute force. Sporting RPGs and other guns, Butcher is determined to see this through. Starlight however has other thoughts. That brings her straight to Maeve, asking if she’ll testify against Vought and what they’ve been up to. Smoking on a cigarette though, she refuses and has all but given up. Homelander and Stormfront discuss the attack at the hearing and just who was responsible for bursting heads. It turns out neither of them know, which is intriguing to say the least. While they remain distracted, Becca finds Butcher’s hideout and gets acquainted with the others. At the Church of the Collective, Stan meets with Alaistar who starts pitching the idea of bringing Deep in “during these troubled times.” While he agrees to entertain the idea, A-Train most certainly will not be. Stormfront doesn’t like him given his background it’s obvious why. It turns out though he’s been listening this whole time. Butcher brings Stan out of hiding and holds a meeting with him. Butcher brings up Stormfront and her racism, finally learning the truth. Stan’s been using her in order to channel that anger into raising stocks and turning the mob. Stan can’t lash out though but Butcher can. They strike a deal to separate Ryan from Homelander. After hitting a dead end, Hughie and Starlight wind up with a second chance. That comes in the form of A-Train who suddenly shows up with a damning file full of incriminating details about Stormfront. “Fck that Nazi, btch,” He says through gritted teeth, admitting that they’re now even and leaves. Heading back to the hideout, Butcher returns and briefs the group. They agree to work with him and collect Ryan. The plan starts and Stormfront’s Nazi pictures are unveiled to the media. Much like Stormfront’s campaign against Homelander, they work together to derail public opinion online. As alarms wail outside, Homelander bolts out to find what’s causing the noise, giving Butcher enough time to sneak in and collect up Ryan. They all reconvene where Butcher admits the truth. He cut a deal with Stan involving selling Ryan up to Stan Edgar but he couldn’t follow through with it. Instead, he double crossed them all. He tells Becca to leave with Ryan and take him somewhere safe. Meanwhile, the soldiers arriving at Homelander’s house feel the wrath of his anger when he learns Ryan has gone. As Ryan and Becca drive off, Stormfront returns and blasts their car across the field. Thankfully they’re okay, prompting M.M. to let them leave while he and the others hold off Stormfront. Kimiko suddenly starts laughing, promising to hurt her badly as the group start fighting. Kimiko and Stormfront go toe to toe, with the Supe breaking Kimiko’s neck and leaving her in a heap on the floor. With all hope seemingly lost, Maeve suddenly shows up and in true girl power, they all gang up on Stormfront. Bloodied and bruised, she suddenly flies off… straight into Butcher’s path. Stormfront chokes out Becca, prompting Ryan to suddenly manifest his powers and completely obliterate the Nazi. Lying on the floor, she starts mumbling in German. Butcher meanwhile awakens and finds Becca bleeding out against a tree. As fate would have it, he’s lost his wife but somehow gained a son he never wanted. And just like that, Homelander arrives. He learns that Ryan was the one who killed Stormfront and asks him to join. Instead, he stands alongside Butcher. Just before he looks set to kill Butcher, Maeve arrives and shows him the clip from the airplane. She blackmails him into surrendering, using Homelander’s own weakness for wanting to be loved against him. On the back of what’s happened, the blame is squarely placed on Stormfront. The Compound V situation is put on hold for now and Starlight is invited back into the team again. On the back of this news conference, Deep and A-Train sits before Alastair who discusses the files. Given A-Train showed initiative, he’s back in The Seven. Deep meanwhile is left to ponder what could have been. Things seem to be calm for now and with everything getting back to normal (or, well, as normal as can be) Butcher gives Ryan a necklace. Promising that she’ll keep him safe, Butcher hands Ryan over to Mallory and the others. On the back of this, all the charges against Butcher and the boys have been dropped and they’re all free to go. The White House is also opening up a new division for “Supe Affairs” to go searching for supers. Butcher is given a position on the team but silently puts on sunglasses and walks away. M.M. returns home and visits his daughter, Kimiko and Frenchie go dancing together while Homelander starts to lose control. As the episode comes to a close, Alastair starts to work against Stan, intending to use this Supe Affairs to his advantage. Only, suddenly his head explodes. As we see from outside, the true culprit to this happens to be Victoria Neuman, a woman in congress. And she’s even got a new welcome employee in Hughie.
The Episode Review
With a third season green-lit already, this certainly isn’t the last we’ll see from Butcher and the others. Unlike season1 though, there’s a pretty conclusive end to this arc which is satisfying enough. The Compound V idea is nice and the whole online mob/media angle is a nice play on what’s currently been happening around the world. When it comes to satire, this show is really the king and the final girl-power fight is a perfect play on Endgame’s iconic all-girl segment. Unlike that tell-don’t-show, The Boys very much shows everything and the girls are the ones who wind up fighting this episode. What happened to Black Noir though? Although Stormfront mentioned him briefly here, it still would have been nice to catch a glimpse of our silent assassin. It’s also a little disappointing that A-Train and Deep have had very little to do this season. While I understand the former handed over the files that started this whole gig, Deep’s arc feels much more slow-burn so I hope he finally joins Butcher and the others next season. There’s lots more story to come though and for the most part, this season has had some wonderful stand-out moments that have really ignited this season. Quite what season 3 has in store for us, remains to be seen.
