This week’s final episode of the second season of The Boys has many highlights to offer. As is customary for a proper season finale, it has some shocking reveals, unexpected plot twists, and astonishing deaths. In addition, the episode ends in a climax that has never been seen in any series before.
General spoiler warnings apply! Reader beware!
Stay calm and follow the L.A.W.
L.A.W. is short for “Lock all doors and windows | Arm yourselves | Wait for a hero“. This advice is given by Homelander (Antony Starr) in the security video VOUGHT made for schools. The record with the title “How to survive a Supervillain attack at school“ was made after the attack on the Capital and should prepare teachers and students for the rising threat of Supervillians. Even if it has not yet been possible to clarify who carried out the attack and it cannot be ruled out that it was one of the “Good” Supes.
Annie (Erin Moriarty) and Hughie (Jack Quaid) manage to convince the rest of The Boys to get someone inside VOUGHT to testify against the company instead of killing all the Sups. Due to false accusations, Annie cannot do this herself, so the two pay Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) a visit. Maeve is in a pitiful state and has let herself go since Elena left. Tired of the fight against Homelander and the injustice she is convinced that “nothing will change” anyway, and throws them both out of her apartment.
Hand in hand with the enemy
On their way back, Hughie opens up to Annie about his mother who left him as a kid. This intimate moment is abruptly destroyed by A-Train (Jessie Usher), who takes a seat in the back of the moving car within milliseconds, giving both of them a great shock. Hughie stops the car and A-Train gives them a secret file he stole from the archives of the Church of the Collective. He previously had overheard a conversation between the boss of VOUGHT, Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito), and Church leader Alastair Adana (Goran Visnjic), in which they made a deal about Deep and himself. In revenge, he stole the file on Stormfront (Aya Cash), a former important member and supporter of the Church.
Becca needs help
The kidnapping of her son by Homelander and Stormfront causes Becca (Shantel VanSanten) to flee the VOUGHT property. She manages to track down the pawnshop in which Butcher (Karl Urban) and The Boys have set up their hiding place and now begs her husband for his help. Butcher and the others decide to help Becca and prepare for a rescue mission, not knowing that Butcher is hiding his true intentions and his plan to achieve them. He secretly meets with the head of VOUGHT and makes an agreement with him: he would rescue Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) from the clutches of Homelander if Stan Edgar and VOUGHT agree to put Ryan in a safe place – without his mother. Butcher wants his wife to be with him again, but not her son.
The unexpected soft side of “Homelander”
Stormfront and Homelander discuss the current situation and wonder who might have perpetrated the attack on the Capital. Homelander fears that injecting more people with Compound V could be a short-circuit reaction because it could hit the wrong people. But Stormfront, who is very happy about the “new world”, tries to calm him down: she convinces him that her former husband, VOUGHT founder Frederick, still had a solution for every situation and that it will go well in this case too.
Meanwhile, Ryan has to wait for the two of them in the care of Ashley Barrett, actually the Senior Vice President of Hero Management at VOUGHT (Colby Minifie), who got degraded as a babysitter. That was of course not how Ryan had imagined being around his father. To make amends, Homelander and Stormfront take him to the PLANET VOUGHT Restaurant, where of course their presence does not go unnoticed and they are quickly besieged by fans. Little Ryan is frightened by this situation and panics. Surprisingly, Homelander actually acts as a father when he realizes this and brings the boy away from the crowd. He flies him to the remote cabin and opens up about his own childhood and the fears he had back then.
After a while, Stormfront joins them and persuades the boy to resume his training to control his powers. But Ryan has a hard time, he rejects the tip that he should use his hatred to activate his powers: he doesn’t hate anyone. Stormfront is getting impatient and manipulates the boy by telling them that they are under attack. She fervently tells of the enemies who hate people like him and her only because of the way they look, because of their white skin. She also has the audacity to speaks of “white genocide”. Homelander gives her a disparaging look but says nothing. At that moment, her cell phone starts ringing incessantly and „Stormfront“ gets showered with messages. She returns to the VOUGHT Tower quickly where she realizes, that everyone there and worldwide now knows about her past and her Nazi heritage. And of course, she knows who she owns this too.
Saving Ryan
As the first part of their plan, Hughie and Annie have sent the information out of Stormfront’s file to the local news station, who soon after spread the news about her being a Nazi. The Boys track down Stormfront, Homelander, and Ryan, and take up hidden positions nearby. Somewhat out of the way of the hut the three are at, The Female (Karen Fukuhara) and Frenchie (Tomer Kapon) hide speakers. When they see Stormfront leaving the place, it’s time for the next part of the plan. The speakers are activated and are played with a tone that is unbearable for nearby Sups, including Ryan and his father. Homelander flies away and leaves his son to find the source of the noise. This is the moment Becca and Butcher drive up to the hut to rescue Ryan.
Only a few moments later, troops of VOUGHT storm the hut, following the signal of Butcher’s cell phone. The agreement between him and Edgar called for Butcher to dial a VOUGHT number on his cell phone so that the task force could track him down as soon as he freed Ryan from Homelander’s custody. But Butcher doesn’t have the heart to take the boy away from his mom and his wife, and so the three of them are no longer in the hut when the soldiers march in. Instead, Homelander returns and after he realizes it has been a trap to take his son away, the Sup brutally slaughters all of the soldiers.
An epic (girl) fight
Butcher confesses the initial deal with Edgar, yet Becca wants him to leave with them. Ironically it’s Butcher who refuses to go with them and places the order for Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) to drive them away. Just when the car went off, a furious Stormfront returns to the scene and throws the car through the air.
As if by a miracle, all inmates survived. Becca and her son flee with Butcher to the adjacent forest while The Boys prepare for a battle. Stormfront accuses Annie of publishing lies about her. Her twisted perception is that people love what she has to say, they just don’t like the word Nazi. That’s the point the Female has enough of Stormfront’s bullshit and attacks the Supe. But even though it’s Annie and the Female against her, Stormfront has the better cards and unfortunately destroys the Boys’ weapons. Frenchie, Hughie, and M.M. have no choice but to watch the girls fight alone. And so they can’t prevent Stormfront from grabbing The Female and twisting her head so that she falls lifeless to the ground.
Annie almost gives up hope while fighting alone but rescue comes with Queen Meave. And, oh wonder, The Female is not dead at all. Loosely flaky, she adjusts her neck again and gets back into the fight. Now it’s 3 against 1, which is even too much for „Stormfront“. She somehow escapes and follows Butcher, Becca, and Ryan into the woods, leaving the others behind.
By the way: I loved the choice of music for the fight. Seeing The Female, Maeve, and Annie punching and kicking Stormfront, with Hughie, Frenchie, and M.M. watching them while “Boys wanna be her” by Peaches played in the background was just marvelous)
The rise of Ryan the Supe
As expected, Butcher alone has no chance against the Supe, and so he cannot prevent Stormfront from choking his wife. Little Ryan stands desperately to one side and begs in tears that she should leave his mother alone. When this doesn’t work, a wave of anger rises in the boy. What the Supe previously asked of Ryan, namely to use his powers, now happens uncontrollably. The anger towards Stormfront activates his laser eyes and cut off her extremities. To make matters worse, Ryan seriously injures his mother. Before Becca bleeds to death in her husband’s arms, she makes him promise to take care of Ryan, and let him know that her death was not his fault.
Queen Maeve to the rescue
Covered in blood, Homelander reaches the scene seconds later. He kneels down next to Stormfront, who is brutally injured but still alive. She does not recognize him, hallucinates and sees her deceased husband, with whom she shares memories of their daughter in German. Homelander is now torn inside, because, on the one hand, he has lost his girlfriend, but on the other hand, he knows what power is in his son. But when Ryan doesn’t want to come with him but hides behind Butcher, Homelander gets angry and threatens to kill him.
And once again it’s Maeve who comes to the rescue. She, in turn, threatens her colleague to publish the video from the plane if he doesn’t leave them alone, as well as her girlfriend Elena. He laughs at this tiredly and says he would destroy everything beforehand. Maeve remains cold. She replies that would be fine too because then nobody would ever love him again. Since he can’t stand the thought of that, Homelander lets them go.
Back in The Seven
Later that day, the remaining Sups give a press conference, which is mainly ”blah blah” from Homelander. However, he restores Starlight’s reputation. A-Train and The Deep (Chace Crawford) follow that press-conference, knowing full well that chances are high for them to return to the team. Alistair decides, that A-Train did not betray the Church of the Collective by stealing the file, but instead showed initiative. His reward is the return to The Seven, whereas The Deep is left out. He reproaches the leader for only taking advantage of him and robbing him of his money, while he would have sacrificed everything to be one of the seven again. Then he throws him out.
Victoria Neuman
In a subsequent telephone conversation with Congresswoman Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit), Alistair offers her further explosive details about other Supes in exchange for the lowering of the church tax. She agrees to this agreement and Alistair leans back contentedly in his armchair … until his head explodes. Smiling pleasantly, we see Victoria standing outside the church building. What nobody knows: she is also a Supe and it was she who made the heads of other people explode. As if nothing had happened, she returns to her campaign office where Hughie is already waiting for her. In a conversation with Annie earlier, he decided to keep fighting VOUGHT, but to break away from The Boys and work in a real job instead.
The Boys
Mother’s Milk returns to his family, while Frenchie and the Female pack their things and set off together. Meanwhile, Butcher breaks his promise to Becca. Instead of keeping Ryan around, Butcher has called Colonel Grace Mallory (Laila Robins) who should help him keep his wife’s son safe somewhere else. Before handing him over to Grace, Butcher gives Ryan a necklace that he once received from Becca. The way it protected him, it should protect now Ryan.
A happy ending for “Homelander”
Although there have recently been a few moments when Homelander seemed almost humanly approachable and one could even have felt sorry for him, he screwed it up again in the last few meters. As the self-loving asshole he is, he stands on the roof of an elevated building with a view over the city … and jerks off. Well, that’s definitely not a climax we expected for this season.
The Boys was approved for a third season. The announcement was made during a San Diego Comic-Con panel back in July. There is no word as of yet as to when filming will resume.
Read more about The Boys in our articles:
Here is where to get Billy Butcher’s shirt from The Boys Season 2
Frenchie’s Paisley Crew Neck Sweatshirt from ‘The Boys’ Season 2
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