User Reviews

The episode is all about the boys getting Billy to fight back and let him know there is more to fight for. The episode shows what the boys have over the Seven, they may not have super powers but they have the heart to fight for what is right no matter the price. I know that sounds super cringey, but that's what a good underdog story is suppose to highlight and Eric Kripke and team has done this in such relatable manner that it's almost hard not to love this episode. Oh and StormFront and Homelander finally get it on, probably exactly what you expected it to be lol.

Jesus Christ. I dont care about weekly release.

This episode was fricking awesome. Stormfront and Homelander love scene oh my god. I know, Homelander is a monster, but his real smile in the end of the episode was wholesome.

Seriously, how does this series remain both exceptionally cynical and emotional at the same time... It's a master stroke... got to be.

I swear there is literally nothing genuine going on at all in the Vaught universe. Everything has an angle, a cost performance ratio or a social network ratings impact... Nobody is telling the truth.

Black, white, gay, straight, religious, druggie, sweary a.f. ; this episode pokes every precious jelly mould with a stick... No special exceptions, no special treatment... no exceptions... You bring in the money, we bring you in... or push you out... Sayonara A train...

f Still, for me, the golden line (paraphrased) was:

"Let's go with lesbian... I think it sends a clearer message than bisexual."" f'ken died!!! Story of my life (p.s. I'm not lesbian...)

The beginning of this episode felt a little disconnected from the previous episode. I don't know why, but it did. Oh, and I'm referring to the film scenes for Dawn of the Seven with Queen Maeve, as well as the whole bit with Ashley and Homelander. I know the whole thing with Dawn of the Seven isn't random: it's been mentioned before, and given that Homelander just outed Queen Maeve, the context of those movie scenes does make sense - but to start the episode with that ended up feeling a little random. And so did everything after that up to where it switched to Billy. I think the latter would've been much better to have been how the episode began, in my opinion.

Terror! Honestly, that's something that I completely forgot about and never considered, ever. The thought never crossed my mind when I watched the first season, and it never crossed my mind at all with this season - that thought being, where's Terror?

In the comics, Billy had a dog named Terror, a bulldog. All I remember about him is that he started screwing a woman's pig in the first chapter or issue, whatever it's called - the pig plush toy thing is probably a reference to that. And that he would screw absolutely anything, I think. I don't remember anything else about him, or rather anything else that involved him, but I wouldn't be surprised if other craziness happened in the comics that involved him, in usual Garth Ennis fashion. I hope Terror will return, if not in any of the last three episodes, in the next season. I hope he'll have a recurring role in the show from then on, a member of The Boys.

The scene with Kimiko and the Russians is the second reference to the comics in this episode that I got. I don't quite remember what context of it was in the comics. It's vague. It could've been a side hustle type thing, Frenchie's side hustle, and he had her help with it. Doing hits for people, as it seems to be in the show. But I think there was something more to it that specific time, in the comics, because The Boys were watching from across the street. I don't think it was irrelevant to the main plot. Maybe those Russians had superpowers in the comics.

The only changes from that event in the comics compared to this episode that I noticed were: it didn't happen in a house with Billy, M. M., Frenchie, and maybe Hughie watching from across the street in another house, and we were shown what she did to them. In the comics, I think we weren't shown, and all we saw was a lot of blood splatter, lots of screaming, and then one of them flying towards the wall or a window, face-first. Or perhaps I'm thinking of a different event.

Hmm. So, Black Noir is specifically taking orders from Stan. I think I have a good idea of why. I know about Black Noir, and if you do, too, you'll know what I'm talking about. But I haven't gotten to that part in the comics. I spoiled myself, essentially. Meaning, I don't know the details. Now, I don't particularly care that I found out through means other than by reading through the comics. But that does mean that I know absolutely nothing about it other than the obvious detail.

My theory is that Black Noir's purpose is to relay information to Stan, keep him up-to-date with what's happening with The Seven, and he's the one that gets the stuff that truly "matters" done. As far as the comics go, Stan is the show's version of James Stillwell. Anyway, Black Noir is like a double agent. Powerful enough to dispose of The Seven and anyone else if Stan/James deems it necessary. He probably has no allegiance to Homelander, The Seven, or even Vought - I have a feeling that James had an agenda separate from Vought and that Stan possibly does/will, too - and he's loyal to nobody except to Stan/James. Or maybe the first part of that is supposed to seem that way to us, and it's the other way around, in the comics or the show, or both.

Well, well, well. Shawn Ashmore has shown up for the first time as Lamplighter. I remember reading the announcement about that. And I completely forgot about it. For some reason, I figured that Lamplighter was dead based on that scene in the first season where The Deep announced that he retired. You know, "retired." So, when I saw that scene with Stormfront on the phone with him in prison, my first thought was that it's a flashback. A dumb thought, now that I think about it. Stormfront was in her trailer and in-costume. It was obvious that it was present-day. Why was that my first thought?

Anyway, I wonder who the 17-year-old boy is. I'm assuming that Stormfront has some leverage over Lamplighter and is using that to get him to kill people in the same prison that he's in. And maybe she promised him that, in return, for doing all these hits for her, she'll help free him. My immediate assumption was that the boy is black and that she's having Lamplighter kill every black person that shows up in that prison. But I feel like that's a little too on the nose and a little extreme.

My other thought was that the boy is someone that I should know, someone who we've already seen. Maybe someone related to a relevant character. But I can't think of anyone that fits that criteria, which makes me think that my first assumption might be correct or closer to the truth than what I thought after that.

Queen Maeve seems to be tired of Homelander's games, and rightfully so, and it looks like she's had enough. Apparently, she's going to take down Homelander. I have no idea what her plan is, but I don't think it'll work. Hell, maybe it will. She seemingly needs The Deep's help to do it, though. I don't know what that's about. Perhaps, through him, she's going to use the Church of the Collective to take down Homelander, somehow. And she's willing to help bring The Deep back into The Seven, or rather help him along far enough for someone else to do the rest. I'm interested to see where that's going to go.

Remember when Susan mentioned that it's a coup from the inside before her head blew up? And now, at the end of the episode, Stormfront says to Starlight that she'll be a big help to her. I feel like Stormfront is going to take down or take over Vought, from top to bottom. Ultimately, it's probably Stan. I know that, to Starlight, Stormfront said, "You'll be a big help to ME." But I'm not buying it. That's a red herring.

I think Stan is the one that's scheming, and Stormfront is just doing his bidding, like Black Noir. I don't necessarily get the point of doing either one from Stan's perspective. Taking down Vought wouldn't make sense, and taking over Vought wouldn't make much sense, either. There must be nuisances to him that are the reasons he is "taking over" Vought and will go from top to bottom and change everything.

Alright, wow, that's a lot. This episode had a lot to talk about. Despite that, it wasn't miles better than every episode up to now or anything like that, not to me, because I feel like it may come across as that given how I wrote so much for this episode. It was the same as every other episode; enjoyable. Ultimately, that's what matters the most. And I'm gradually becoming interested in the season. The last three episodes are probably going to be action-packed.

Wow! watching homelander unravel is really intense! spoilers ahead. When he is speaking to the crowd and reaches the boiling point and decides to go thermonuclear on all those civilians, I gotta say, my heart skipped a beat and my jaw dropped! That was Horrific and a display of what he Could do if uncorked...Thank God it was a scenerio he was playing out in his mind and Not in reality! Im loving every scene with the asian girl supe, she;s beautiful and convey's so much without speaking a word....and she's terrifying!..My fav scene in this episode was the end where stormfront forms an unholy alliance and become the strangest of bedfellows, literally...Aya cash is Killing that role with her insanely cool way of caustic sarcasm and a cocky arrogance that rivals homelander in everyway. Seeing those 2 together and finally seeing whether she could take homelanders best...his lazer eyes couldnt put a dent in this chick...shes as strong and yeah, she can fly too! Dude has met his match and its great to watch!..I was hoping when she said to him go ahead let me have it! that after that she was gonna say "Ok, now its My turn!" and seeing her eyes light up and and send homelander flying would've been killer cool ...maybe next episode...Love this series ..its better than ever and took itself up a notch if thats possible, for this season.

We're half way through the series & it's still not quite clear what the overall trajectory is but there are a number of possibilities emerging. There are several things going on at present: there is the fallout from the revelation about Compound V; there is Homelander's vs Vought's varying visions of how to restore order within the Seven and relatedly, the mystery that is Stormfront & lastly but not least an emerging plot to take down the big beast: Homelander himself.

But how big is this big beast. Last week he threatened Starlight & officially outed Queen Mauve & seemed as menacing as ever. But there are signs his grip is beginning to falter. When a video leaks of him issuing summary justice to a foreign terrorist & his popularity ratings begin to ebb Homelander's attempt to repair the situation through a direct address to the people goes badly wrong.

There is a seen here which will have many fanboys creaming themselves: in the event it turns out to be no more than a fantasy sequence but in that sequence we discover the full awesome destructive potential contained within his (male?) gaze.

But there is another big scene which the fanboys are creaming themselves over, and this time in some cases perhaps quite literally. This involves Homelander & Stormfront engaging in some very rough foreplay & sex. While this is certainly an entertaining scene, & is done entertainingly, it becomes clear exactly why we were earlier witness within the fantasy sequence to Homelander's unleashing of the devastating potency of his laser vision: it was all done to demonstrate just how powerful Stormfront is. What is armageddon for a vast crowd of human beings is just mild S & M for Stormfront. Last week we Homelander was flattered by someone describing him as the most powerful man in the world. This week he's being thrown across a building & his most powerful weapon is just a tickle for a supremely powerful woman. Are they equally matched? Is Stormfront more powerful than him? We don't know yet, but it's clear from this, from the theme of super females uniting ('Girls get it done') & gay Mauve lecturing the Deep on how creepy he is, it's clear that 'the Boys' may all be about to get get snipped by the girls.

As for the opposition camp, that's already happened. Frenchie is still inexplicably soft for Kimiko, who in this episode becomes an assassin for hire for no discernibly good reason. It's fairly obvious that what we have here is another progressive male w*** fantasy where it is really cool for an attractive female to literally rip of men's faces even though she doesn't know them from Adam. It wouldn't matter if it made some sense within the context of the plot, but it doesn't. She does things worse than a serial killer to random men but all Frenchie does is worry about her losing her soul.

This is actually a betrayal of what 'the boys' used to be all about. The violence in most of the first series was there because it was showing us how incredibly dangerous superheroes would actually be in real life. It wasn't done just to be violent for violence's own sake.

One last annoying thing is the 'knowingness' of some of this episode, particularly in the sequences with Queen Mauve coming out with her girlfriend & "the girls get it done" sequences. It's as though the show wants to be progressive for real, but also portray the utter cynicism of the inner politics of progressivism when those politics come face to face with the corporate power that will sell it to the wider public. Maybe there's some truth to this, but it feels arch & as though the writers don't quite know where they stand on this. Are they going through the motions? Are they cynically representing 'diversity' for the sake of it, or is this what is all about.

The image of Homelander & Stormfront uniting withing an almost literally divine marriage between male & female Gods might suggest the latter, but it's still unclear. It's almost as if they are hedging their bets, trying to be sincere & cynical at the same time.