Summary: It is Homelander's birthday and he tries to get Starlight to sing Happy Birthday for him but she refuses and Edgar maintains that she will not. Homelander goes to save a girl about to commit suicide for PR, but when he sees news of Stormfront's suicide, he forces the hesitant girl to kill herself anyways. Later at his birthday special, a fan shouts at him about Stormfront's death and Homelander unleashes a speech, finally revealing his true nature to the public. Hughie and Starlight start to track Neuman's history. Hughie is frustrated and goes on his own to explore Red River, an orphanage for supe children. He discovers that Neuman was picked up by Edgar and raised like his daughter. Kimiko and Frenchie confront Crimson Countess to get information on Soldier Boy, but she gets away and accidentally kills someone in an amusement park, which upsets Kimiko who mourns her lost childhood. Butcher goes to blackmail Gunpowder, but he refuses to comply and tries to kill him. Butcher gets away and contemplates getting out of the business. But when Hughie shares what he learned about Neuman, Butcher decides to use a vial of V24 and confronts Gunpowder again. He defeats him, gets the information he needed, and kills him. MM struggles with his compulsions at home and talks to Monique about it. Monique understands and tells him to go back to Butcher. A-Train debuts a new look, trying to tap into his African background.
The Good: There are tons of great character storylines in this episode and I enjoyed them all thoroughly. The standout, as usual, was Homelander. He starts off the episode at his petty worst. It's his birthday and he is awful to everyone as he chases the high of the day being all about him. He is awful and unapologetic towards Stormfront, and his petty attempt to maintain control over Starlight is laughably childish and poorly thought out. It's a delight when Edgar admonishes him yet again, like a parent lecturing their kid when they did something stupid. Homelander's delight quickly turns to agony after another humiliation and then the news comes in that Stormfront committed suicide. Seeing him react when he's supposed to save Chelsea's life is shocking and frightening. The way he forces her to do it when she started to hesitate is horrific, and it's another perfectly acted scene from Antony Starr, who captivates in every moment. Watching Homelander push this girl to her death is horrific and sad (as is his blatant anti-semitism, which isn't at all surprising by this point). The culmination of all of this is reached at his birthday special when he snaps. Losing his love, being verbally abused by a crowd of nobodies, and being overshadowed by Starlight pushes him well over the edge and we finally get the moment we've been waiting for: Homelander snaps. Gone is his public image after this because he finally lets out all of his frustrations over being a superior being yet being forced to play these games by people who he views as nobodies, people who can't even hold a candle to him. His speech is written spectacularly and acted even better. On the other side, Butcher goes through another highly compelling arc. The V24 has him highly conflicted because he feels a need to use it to get vengeance on the supes, but is torn because of his commitment to Ryan and he's afraid that becoming a supe, even temporarily, would endanger Ryan and make him a bad influence. A fairly snappy call with Ryan shows us that Butcher is already getting badly affected, and after he takes the time to watch Ryan's Lego stop-motion featuring Becca, Butcher looks like he has made the mature decision for once. He is willing to give it all up to take care of Ryan. But tragically, it's Hughie of all people, his canary, who drags him back into this mess with the Neuman reveal. Despite being so close to a peaceful escape, Butcher finds himself killing a supe with nearly uncontrollable power by the episode's end. I love that this episode is successfully able to paint this all as tragic, and it's another excellent chapter in the development of Butcher. The third main storyline is Hughie and Starlight trying to learn more about Neuman. We still get more of the annoying love triangle stuff, but it takes a back seat to more interesting things. Hughie is taking the reveal that Neuman is evil very badly. He is a mess throughout the episode, he's impulsive, angry, desperate, and emotionally unhinged. It all builds to a terrific scene where Hughie unburdens his emotions on Starlight, which brought his character arc into focus perfectly. On top of this, I continue to enjoy watching Starlight and Hughie become more competent at lying and being sneaky. Hughie's improvisations at Red River are great to watch, especially with how comedically awkward he is while lying. Luckily for him, he's awkward in general so it comes off naturally. The highlight of course is Hughie and Starlight's fake argument in front of Neuman to get her to stop probing, which was both incredibly smart and incredibly funny. I also got a chuckle out of Hughie telling Starlight that he signed them up for adoption (also, it was nice to see Maddy's orphan Teddy in Red River; of course she injected him with Compound V). There are several other character stories that I greatly enjoyed. Kimiko got more focus here than I think she has ever received. It was cute to see how happy she was at the amusement park, and seeing the joy ripped out of her when she sees more kids get traumatized is gut-wrenching. The idea of a lost childhood that you can never get back is heartbreaking and appeals to everyone. It also humanizes Kimiko more by showing us that she doesn't want others to suffer like she did. A-Train has a funny little story here as he tries to reach into his cultural background (despite almost certainly being born in America) to rebrand. His ideas are hilariously bad, and Ashley's reactions (and the amusingly named Other Ashley's reactions) are great. Lastly, I really enjoyed MM's story. He's trying so hard to be there for his family, but without Monique to anchor him, it's all too much for him to handle and he finds himself succumbing to his OCD and his need to continue his father's work. MM opening up to Monique about his struggles is genuinely heartbreaking, and it necessitates him making the decision to go back to The Boys despite the fact that he so desperately wants to be with his family. Even though we should be celebrating MM returning to The Boys, his story is tragic and emotional because of how much depth that the show has given to MM. He's quickly become one of the more enjoyable characters, and I would love to see more stuff like this. Deep continues to be really funny whenever he's on screen. His brief commercial at the start of the episode was quite funny, and I would pay good money to watch his new movie/TV show. I love this show's commitment to the "Brave Maeve" branding. Poor Maeve got outed against her will and now has inclusivity branding all over the place. Having her own inclusive theme park was hilarious, and the stall names including "BLM BLTs", "Woke Wok", and "LBGTurkey Legs" are fantastic. The Bad: I loved the stories in this episode, but there were too many going on at once. This made it tough to invest in the episode in the way that the best episodes of TV can get you to. If the episode had been more streamlined I certainly would have enjoyed it more. As it stands, this is a little bit too much for an hour of content, and that diminishes the impact of some of these great storylines. Crimson Countess killing a random civilian in the middle of a theme park was a shockingly stupid decision. With how public it was, it's next to impossible for Vought to cover it up and I'm baffled by her decision to commit murder instead of just running away. Furthermore, why didn't Kimiko and Frenchie even try to keep up with her? This continues the pattern of slightly subpar writing when it comes to setpieces which started in season two. The sloppiness continued later with Butcher's escape from Gunpowder feeling a bit too convenient for my liking. Gunpowder should be practically invincible, he shouldn't face much risk from openly going after Butcher before he gets away. Hughie's emotional arc in this episode relies on us understanding how close he was with Neuman. But since they have only known each other for one episode before he was given the revelation about her, I didn't realize how close they were until he told Starlight that they were basically best friends. This is the problem with having long timeskips between seasons, sometimes it damages the emotional stakes because we don't get to experience what the characters experience. I found it tough to buy into Hughie's deteriorating mental state in this episode because I was unable to understand that he was very bothered by the Neuman reveal since it never felt like they were that close. The Unknown: Is Soldier Boy actually dead? Does Crimson Coutness know more than Gunpowder? What did Gunpowder mean about his death being a cover-up? Did Soldier Boy die in a different way? Why was it covered up? Why was Mallory involved? Why hasn't she said anything about this? Will Butcher go after her? What is the extent of Edgar and Neuman's relationship? Can one be used against the other? I greatly enjoyed their scenes as it brings more depth to both of these main villains, making them feel more human. I'm curious to see more of their dynamic. Was Homelander really immaculately conceived? Will Hughie and Starlight actually end up with a kid after Hughie signed them up for adoption? How will the public react to Homelander's speech? How will Vought handle this? Best Moment: Homelander's speech at the end is a huge moment, and it feels like a long-time coming. Finally, the world is going to see Homelander for who he really is and this will likely turn everything upside down. It felt like an Earth-shattering moment, and it was helped by Antony Starr's terrific, vitriolic performance as he highlighted the extent of Homelander's narcissism. A fantastic scene. Character of the Episode: Butcher. Conclusion: As a fan of character-centric storytelling, I loved how this episode gave compelling conflicts to almost every central character, allowing us to dive deeper into who they are. Unfortunately there were a few too many storylines going on, but this was still great stuff. 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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