Summary: A flashback shows Billy with his wife. In the present, The Boys watch a noodle shop where A-Train gets the Compound V from. They go in and Frenchie frees a trapped girl, but she is a supe and kills all of the workers there before leaving. A-Train goes after her but The Boys try to find her first. Frenchie finds her in a tech store at Penn Station and tries to talk to her, empathizing with her story. But she escapes. Later, The Boys catch up with her again and when she attacks Frenchie, Billy knocks her out with gas. Hughie goes on a date with Starlight and hacks into her phone. Maddy sees a hijacked plane over the ocean and sends Homelander and Maeve to resolve the situation to help get supes into the military. Homelander ends up crashing the plane instead and refuses to save anyone to prevent witnesses. He appears on TV claiming that the plane crashed before he could get there and that supes need to be in the military so that he could respond faster and prevent this tragedy. Maeve is horrified by Homelander's actions. Deep tries to raise awareness on dolphin mistreatment at Oceanland by stealing a dolphin. However, he is stopped by the police and the dolphin dies after being run over by a truck.
The Good: The central story involving an escaped supe who is out for blood is very chaotic and entertaining. This was not at all where I thought the investigation into the noodle shop would go, and I'm curious to learn more about this lady and what was being done with her. We had some great action sequences, particularly when she was released and when A-Train found her, to give us some exciting action and suspense to make this more interesting. However, the highlight of the story was the focus on Frenchie. Frenchie was a bit of a gimmicky character in the first three episodes, but this gave him a tremendous amount of depth. We have a better idea of why Frenchie and M.M. dislike each other (M.M. is all about following orders while Frenchie is more emotionally driven), and we learn a great deal about Frenchie's terrible upbringing, which no doubt played a role into why he ended up in this line of work. It's fascinating to see Frenchie see a kindred spirit in this lady, and his continuous attempts to get her to trust him so he can help her are very well done. Hughie has a great character-based story as he goes on a date with Starlight. There is no action whatsoever in this story, but we get some well written scenes as Hughie and Starlight get to know each other better while Hughie has a crisis of his beliefs. We can tell that he recognizes Starlight as a good person, and that makes him extremely hesitant to hack her phone and use her to bring down supes - he knows she doesn't deserve it. It's further compounded by Billy's black and white approach of "all supes must die", which horrifies Hughie (and us by extension), blurring the lines between which side is good and which side is bad. As such, Hughie is tempted to let Starlight go because he doesn't want to punish her and take advantage of her. But as he goes on this date, he finds himself getting attached to her and is wracked by guilt through hallucinations of Robin staring at him. With her loss so recent, Hughie feels guilty to be dating Starlight and he forces himself to stick to his mission to hide from this guilt. Even though his moral compass is stopping him from hurting Starlight, his guilt leads to him doing despicable things anyways. That's a really complex and compelling scenario to explore. The plane hijacking scene is the biggest setpiece of the episode and it works so well (see: Best Moment). It's been interesting to watch the development of this supes in the military story, and we get a comprehensive reason why they should be nowhere near national security with what happens here. Homelander hits a new level of awfulness with what he does on that plane (again, see: Best Moment), and I am thoroughly disgusted that the whole tragedy was still spun by him to support supes in the military anyways. Maeve's sheer horror at what transpired makes perfect sense and it helps make her more relatable even though she hasn't really been explored as a character yet. Deep is not in this episode very much, but what we get from him is fantastic. He wants to do good by helping the dolphins, and when he doesn't get permission from Maddy to pursue this, he goes rogue, kidnaps a dolphin, and witnesses its death in the most gloriously over-the-top and brutal fashion. It's so obscenely dramatic in its directing, and horrific in terms of what happens that it becomes easily the funniest scene in the whole show (so far). I loved it. A-Train and Popclaw continue to have an interesting relationship. There is a lot of tension between them right now, but they also seem to genuinely care about each other despite the bad scenario that they are in. The acting has been good, and I'm interested to see this relationship develop. The Bad: I am starting to grow weary with how strongly the show is pushing the idea that supes are bad for society. It has felt like the same idea has been hammered repeatedly into our heads for these first four episodes. I hope we start to explore other themes as well, or at least explore the supes in different ways, maybe highlighting their positive impact or exploring different ways that they affect society. I was disappointed to get such little of Billy's backstory. The flashback at the episode's start got me excited to dive into the character, but it ended up being just a tease. I wish we had gotten a little bit more because the scene feels out of place since it was just a one-off. The Unknown: Who is the girl? Why was she being injected with so much Compound V? Was she a test subject? Why was she selected? What is her story? Why did she kill specific people? Is there more to Frenchie's story? Why did he end up choosing this line of work after his traumatic upbringing? Is Ezekiel providing the Compound V? Or is his place just a front? Where is the Compound V coming from? Will there be evidence within the plane of what Homelander did when it went down? What will happen to Deep after his failed rescue attempt? What are The Boys going to do with the girl? Do they have a plan for her? Best Moment: Homelander on the plane was a stunning moment. He easily had the power to use his vision to see where the terrorists were in advance so that he could take them out efficiently. Instead, he chooses to pander to the crowd and soak in the applause, not even caring about what could be happening in the cockpit. And then it's his own rash actions that destroy the plane controls and cause it to crash and sink. The sequence is phenomenal with outstanding acting, and Maeve's horror at Homelander's despicable nature is shared by us as we watch. It's disgusting to see him give hope to people he knows are going to die, refuse to save them at any cost, and just be an overall prick. The sad truth is that these people would have been better off with the terrorists than with Homelander. Character of the Episode: Homelander. What a performance we are getting from Antony Starr. Conclusion: This was a great episode. Good storylines all around supported by a couple standout scenes. I thoroughly enjoyed this. Score: 68
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
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