The season finale of Season 3 of “The Boys” has been one of the most anticipated ever. It’s honestly been so much fun watching the excitement ramp up each week for each episode.  

It was a brilliant decision on Eric Kripke and Prime Video’s part to release the episodes over five weeks instead of all at once. Especially with the insane promotion we were treated to each week. I watched the whole season before it streamed in the press screeners, but I still felt entirely swept up in the anticipation and excitement (and, let’s face it, dread!) each week. “The Boys” earned 6 Emmy nominations last season, but I can’t imagine it not getting at least one for this incredible season!

The cast traveled to Brazil for four wild days of promotion, which only served to amp up the anticipation even more. We were treated to interviews and red carpets and the cast all having a bloody good time.

Now that everyone has had a chance to watch it, this is the spoilery recap and review of the season finale, so…

SPOILERS ahead. LOTS OF THEM!

I’ve been watching this show since its beginning and have loved it since then, but Season 3 has been a whole different ballgame. My friends at Movie TV Tech Geeks had let me know that it was a whole different type of show from “Supernatural” and “Walker.” Were they ever right, but I’m glad I jumped on like they did.

As a passionate “Supernatural” fan, the addition of Jensen Ackles as Soldier Boy meant that I was even more excited about this season, but even I wasn’t prepared for just how much I’d be drawn in by the character or just how complicated my feelings about Soldier Boy would be.

He’s an asshole and a bigot and a bully, but Ackles also portrays him with vulnerability and humor and at times he’s almost charming. I feel like I should not have been hoping for any kind of redemption arc for Soldier Boy, and yet I found myself nervous as hell going into the finale, hoping that a) he wouldn’t be killed off and b) he might find at least a little bit of redemption. Help save the day, maybe?

Well… I should know Eric Kripke better than that by now!

I’ve been writing a lot about this season of “The Boys” being all about choice, and the season finale sees every main character have to make some difficult ones.

Passing It On From Father To Son – Or Not

This season is also about the intergenerational transmission of trauma, and the toxic masculinity messages that are passed down from fathers to sons. One of those messages is about strength and power. All the men whose fathers were abusive, with either physical or verbal violence or both, have a hard time not repeating the cycle.

Butcher’s father was both, and those toxic messages are ever-present in his head, bleeding out of him in eruptions of physical violence and caustic, cruel barbs thrown at enemies and friends alike.  In this episode, he vacillates wildly between giving into those violent impulses, laser focused (heh heh) on taking down Homelander and willing to use anyone as a weapon to do that, and trying to hang onto the caring part of him that wanted to protect Lenny and now wants to protect Hughie.  

He never does tell Hughie about the Temp V being fatal, but he unceremoniously knocks him out with a punch and shoves him in a convenience store bathroom to keep him from taking it again. So, a few points at least in his favor?

On the other hand, he’s been fine with using Frenchie and Kimiko and now Soldier Boy to get the revenge he wants, and he’s as manipulative as ever in this episode, as he repeatedly tells Soldier Boy that Homelander is not really his son. We see Soldier Boy’s ambivalence several times, hesitating to kill his own son and emotional about having a child – but Butcher knows to play to the rage he feels at being tossed aside and replaced, focusing that rage on Homelander by telling Soldier Boy that he is his replacement and the reason he was tortured. Well played, Butcher, but chillingly cruel.

Homelander was not just abused but neglected, deprived of not just a father but a mother too. A sensitive boy like Butcher seems to have been, he too had that knocked out of him with cruelty, absorbing the same message that to be “a man” you must not only be strong and powerful but unfeeling too. Showing vulnerability is weakness, unmanly. Both men struggle to have any kind of healthy relationships – even Butcher’s with his wife was doomed once Ryan existed – and both have been increasingly isolated and alone as this season progressed.

Homelander’s cruelty has been shown vividly (RIP Timothy!) and in this episode, he is brutal to his remaining ‘loyal’ team members, ridiculing The Deep and A Train and Ashley (by forcing her to take off her wig. Damn but Colby Minifie was amazing in that scene!). Homelander rejects them all, saying he wanted his team to be his family but they aren’t his family – they’re not worthy. Little does he know that idea is about to come back to haunt him. He also rejects his ‘friend’ Black Noir in this episode, in a very final way. He can’t tolerate the perceived betrayal of Noir not telling him that his father was alive, the hurt unbearable and the violence that results his only allowable way of expressing it.

Homelander longs for family and repeatedly tries to create it for himself, but he also is stuck reiterating the abuse and rejection that he himself experienced every time he finds it. He clearly wants a relationship with his new-found father, watching old movies of Soldier Boy liberating a Nazi camp. It’s a script, of course, but it’s hard not to see a little sincerity in Soldier Boy in the extended footage as he says he’s not there to take credit, the boys here are the real heroes.

You get the feeling that he buys into his own heroism, at the very least. I wish we knew a little more about what Soldier Boy really did and did not do back in the day – he seems to have done some actual fighting, and he may have even done some good in the world despite being an asshole.

Maybe? Or is that just me wanting to believe that?

We learn in this episode that Soldier Boy’s trauma history started way before he was so horrifically tortured, and it too is about the trauma passed down from fathers to sons. His is a more common type of abuse, verbal not physical, but it clearly cut deep just the same. A rebellious son, a father who demeaned and rejected him. A son who went to great lengths to win his father’s approval and was still met with rejection.

The abuse, much like Butcher’s and Homelander’s, was delivered wrapped up in misogynistic and homophobic insults, the implication that he wasn’t a “real man” and wasn’t good enough. That’s been a defining theme in Ben’s life ever since, and it has had the same effect of cutting him off from any real relationships as he bullies and abuses others, channeling the violence and insults he learned from his own father.

Frenchie and Kimiko’s story runs parallel to and touches on some of these themes. Frenchie was abused by his father too (it’s perhaps the most pervasive theme in the entire show). His response has been different but no less pathological – he’s taken refuge in drugs or tried to take control of violence meted out to him by making the choice to engage in it with lovers like Little Nina.

He plays it out with Butcher too, allowing Butcher to use him and verbally abuse him as another twisted father figure. In this episode, MM confronts him about his drug use, and eventually Kimiko does too. And she finally gets through to him, in one of my favorite scenes from the finale, as she slaps him away from doing more coke. Frenchie insists he did his part, but Kimiko signs ‘We’re not finished, asshole!”

Kimiko: Our past is not who we are. I thought I’d always be broken – but you saw something in me. I see it in you.

That’s where the show differs from Freud a little bit, making the case that we don’t have to be forever defined by the traumas of our past, that we can do something different and be something different. Frenchie finds his strength in this episode, not only saving the day in the stereotypical way by mixing the deadly nerve agent they need to subdue Soldier Boy, but by finally standing up to Butcher and refusing to be used or mistreated anymore.

Butcher: You shut your fucking cakehole, Frenchie!

Frenchie: No, my cakehole will remain open! You will never command me again. I deserve respect – and we all deserve paid vacation days…and a dental plan!

Kimiko beams at him, proud. I laughed out loud, but I was also beaming.

Hughie and Annie have been butting heads for half the season over another version of toxic masculinity – the question of who should save who and what it means if you’re the one saved versus the one doing the saving. Hughie’s dad is the contrast to all the toxic fathers in this show, but Hughie hasn’t realized it until now.

Because even if we’re not raised with that toxicity, it’s always there in the culture, and we all absorb those messages, like it or not. Hughie has swallowed them too, scared that Annie being stronger and “saving” him somehow makes him less of a man, and ridiculing his own father for being too passive and not actively (stereotypically) “heroic.”

In this episode, Hughie has a revelation – and it’s another of my favorite scenes of the season.  Annie comes to pick him up at the convenience store, giving her explicit permission to say ‘I told you so’ to him – which she does with great relief.

I love Hughie and Annie’s dynamic together, and it was great to see them back on the same page. Hughie realizes that Butcher knocked him out in a backhanded (heh heh) way of saving his life. He also realizes that his actual father was much more of a hero than he ever gave him credit for.

Hughie reminisces about his dad making them pizza rolls after his mom left, sitting with Hughie to watch “Remington Steele,” never fighting back for her or for anything, just eating pizza rolls.

Hughie: I spent so much time thinking he was sad and weak and a loser. But Dad was there, taking care of me during the worst days of his life, trying to keep the lights on and a roof above our heads. He wasn’t weak – I didn’t know what strength was.

Hughie’s realization is the biggest push back against all the toxic masculinity messages that the show has been grappling with this season. Beautiful writing by David Reed and Logan Ritchey and perfect delivery by the oh-so-talented Jack Quaid.

Annie and Hughie put their money where their mouths are as far as understanding what strength really means (and that collateral damage is not something they’re okay with) by putting a lot of energy into trying to warn all the people working in Vought Tower that they need to evacuate as the showdown is imminent. Hughie is also determined to try to save Butcher, insisting there’s still good in him deep…deep….DEEP…inside him.

Hughie: We save everyone, even if they don’t deserve it. Especially if they don’t deserve it.

That’s a refusal to buy into the collateral damage is okay that’s on another level than we usually see in this show, from either side.

Missing Fathers, Found Fathers

The other portion of the intergenerational theme, of course, is the parenting part of fathers and sons. While Hughie finally realizes that his dad did a pretty damn good job of it under near impossible circumstances, the other characters are struggling with it.

Butcher tried to be a father figure to Ryan and couldn’t do it, eventually mirroring his own father’s cruelty and walking away even though he clearly still cares about Ryan. Homelander tried parenting Ryan too, messing it up enough to push him off a roof top and leading to an estrangement – until this episode. When he finds Ryan, he forgives him for what he accidentally did to his mother – and probably the only one who really understands what that feels like. The dialogue here is spot on, and so is Starr’s delivery.

Ryan asks, hesitant and fearful, if Homelander isn’t mad at him for what he did.

Homelander: It wasn’t your fault, right? Son, when you’re as strong as we are, accidents happen. Things break, and sometimes they’re the things you love the most. But that’s all it is, an accident. Nobody knows that better than me. That’s why I’m always gonna love you no matter what you do. I’m not going anywhere, I’ll always be here.

It could be viewed as manipulative except it’s so clearly exactly what Homelander himself has longed to hear his entire life. I’ve been writing all season about the idea of “collateral damage” and the ethics of how we view it (which is a real-life question as well).

It’s one of the things that makes Soldier Boy not a good guy – he doesn’t go out of his way to hurt people, but if they get in his way or trample on his ego, collateral damage doesn’t really bother him very much. We’ve seen how much it bothers someone like Queen Maeve with the plane incident – and how comparatively easily Homelander shrugged off the deaths of all those people. You get the feeling it wasn’t always that easy for him to do, but he’s convinced himself over time that it’s inevitable, part of the price he pays for being the “hero” he is. When you’re that much more powerful than everyone else, there is bound to be collateral damage. A lot of it. Sadly, that may be true for Ryan too.

It’s a theme that reminds me of one of the later seasons of “Supernatural” (because everything reminds me of “Supernatural”), when Jack, an all-powerful Nephilim who is sincerely trying to be a good person and not hurt anyone, nevertheless manages to hurt some innocent kids who he’s just trying to impress. That’s a tragic lesson (and it had a relatively happy ending for Jack) but we all can’t help but wonder how this is going to end for the clearly very powerful Ryan.

Ironically, the one who comes out looking the least horrible at the end of this episode when it comes to parenting is Homelander (and believe me, he still looks plenty horrible!). When it comes down to it in the middle of the epic fight scene where everyone is tearing apart everyone else, it’s Homelander who is more concerned about Ryan than revenge, at least momentarily, turning on Soldier Boy to protect Ryan and even teaming up momentarily with Butcher to do so.

Mother’s Milk also didn’t have the toxic upbringing that some of the others did, but his father ended up being neglectful after the trauma of what Soldier Boy did to their family, so he carries some of those same scars and has the same violent impulses and need for revenge. Unlike Butcher, though, he struggles not to give in wholeheartedly to them, genuinely distraught when he loses his temper in front of his daughter and punches Todd (though every single person watching thought Todd totally deserved it…).

Frenchie reassures MM that while he’s as broken and fucked up as the rest of them, nevertheless he’s the best man Frenchie knows. For the most part, MM is able to curtail his impulses and save the violence for when it’s actually needed – instrumental aggression, if you will. His definition of “being a man” doesn’t require violence; in fact, being a strong man and a good father to MM and his family mean curtailing it and “keeping your fucked up shit” away from your kids. Protecting them.

By the end of the episode, he’s no longer hiding what he’s fighting for from Janine, and she calls him her hero.  The message that the struggle against violence is part of heroism is one we don’t hear very often, and it feels important.

Black Noir has perhaps the most tragic arc in this episode, since he’s the only one who doesn’t survive it. The reason for his death, ultimately, is that he kept the secret of Homelander’s father from him, which is something Homelander cannot forgive. The cartoon voices in his head convince him that he can face his fears, so he makes the mistake of going back to Vought Tower and insisting to Homelander that they have to kill Soldier Boy. (It breaks my heart a little that he spells it “SOLDIR BOY”). 

Their reunion goes from Homelander embracing his friend (with cartoon hearts floating around them) to Homelander realizing that Noir must have known that his father was alive all this time. It’s a reiteration of all the times people kept Homelander (and more to the point, young John) from the people he needed and left him horrifically alone.

Homelander punches Black Noir so hard, his fist goes right through, with all the gory shots of bloody spilling out entrails and squishy sound effects you would imagine in the aftermath. Noir was not a good guy either and we all know it, but it was hard to watch him fade away, his cartoon voices reassuring him right to the end.

Homelander: You shoulda told me.

To Supe Or Not To Supe

This is the question that’s all about choice.

A Train makes the choice to go back to being a supe, even if it means sacrificing his family (and isn’t that really the theme of this episode?). On the road to full recovery, he wants his brother to be his trainer again, wheelchair or not, but Nate has had it with him. He refuses, furious that A Train killed Blue Hawk in a rage of vengeance instead of letting justice play out and afraid for the example that will set for his children.

The theme of parenting plays out again, as Nate tries to do the right thing for his kids even though he must be full of rage himself. A Train is torn, and he wants to be part of his family’s life, but not as much as he wants the fame and fortune of The Seven. He’s bought into some pretty messed up ideas of being a man too, including the power that comes from being “famous” and having money. He can’t walk away from that, it’s too key to his identity and we’ve seen he feels like nothing without it, plunged back into being a target of stereotyping and prejudice. The reality side of that makes the story all the more compelling.

Hughie and Annie resolve their struggle as a couple about who should save who by making a different choice – teaming up and collaborating to save the day together, Hughie turning up all the lights to give her extra power instead of giving in to taking more Temp V. Annie rejects the trappings of superherodom altogether, dropping her super suit and boots down the trash chute and officially becoming one of “The Boys.”

Maeve also ultimately gives up being a supe, though not entirely by choice.  Maeve escapes (and yes, those van drivers were collateral damage, though we can feel better about it if we decide they were evil Vought employees…).  She reunites with Annie and Hughie at MM’s, inexplicably greeting poor Hughie with “It’s like you wear a neon sign that says raw dog me, I’m a bottom” – a rather pointed illustration that it’s not just other men who prop up the tropes of toxic masculinity.

Ep 8 maeve acklesism (cap acklesism)

Maeve is almost as focused on getting revenge on Homelander as Butcher is, siding with him in the ultimate showdown to make sure that happens. Annie is disappointed in her, saying she thought that deep down Maeve really was a hero, but Maeve tosses it off, saying there’s no such thing.

Maeve: Annie, I don’t want to hurt you.

Soldier Boy saunters in at that moment and tells it like it is.

Soldier Boy: But I will.

Me: Nope, not hot at all, should not be hot, nope…

But in the end, Maeve sacrifices herself by tackling an about to explode Soldier Boy out the window, saving the others but losing her supe powers in the process. (And an eye to the brutal fight she had with Homelander).

Kimiko, on the other hand, embraces her supe status having now chosen it freely. While Frenchie mixes the neurotoxin that will subdue Soldier Boy, she fights off the guards – making it a twisted dance routine to “she’s a maniac, maniac on the floor…” as she violently dispatches them. (Again, collateral damage, maybe Vought bad guys, maybe just hapless employees, who knows, yada yada.

I’m not a big fan of the ultraviolence even when it’s the ladies doing it – it’s not any more empowered when ‘girls get it done’ necessarily either. But that’s for another day).

Soldier Boy, We Hardly Knew You

And then, there’s Soldier Boy.  The character, we’ve known from the start, would play out the theme of toxic masculinity that Season 3 was so much about. What we didn’t know is that so much of it would also be about the underlying theme of fathers and sons that runs through this entire season, and that somehow made Soldier Boy’s arc so much more emotional.

We’ve heard Soldier Boy, in those moments of vulnerability that Ackles makes so compelling, admit how much he wanted kids. Finding out that Homelander is his son clearly moves him; there’s a part of him that wants to connect with his son and have that kind of relationship.

Throughout the first half of the episode, every time Butcher reminds him that Homelander isn’t “really” his son, Soldier Boy just glares and then walks away. There’s a lot of ambivalence there and a lot of emotion, though we don’t get to hear what a lot of it is. Luckily, Ackles’ expressive face lets us know that whatever it is, he’s feeling a lot of it.

As Maeve puts it, “if we put Soldier Boy and Homelander in a room together, are they gonna fight or fucking hug?”

For most of the episode, we don’t know – which makes for some great tension.

My conflicted feelings about Soldier Boy continued through this episode, with both my empathy for him and my revulsion for him increasing – which makes for a lot of confusing contradictory emotion, let me tell ya!

My favorite scene in the episode is the quiet scene between Soldier Boy and Butcher, the two understanding each other even though they’re enemies. (Okay, that’s a favorite fanfic trope, so of course, this was a favorite scene).  They are both holding up their best stereotypical portrayal of a tough guy, knocking back stiff drinks and speaking in gruff voices and knowing when to avoid eye contact, and yet they are also reaching out to each other, sensing the similarities between them and some part of both of them knowing there’s vulnerability underneath – because it’s underneath for both of them.

Soldier Boy laughs that he used to sneak his Dad’s manhattans.

 Butcher shares that he didn’t have to sneak nothing from his dad, who would get him and his little brother lagered just for the hell of it.  (Grace Mallory calls, and Butcher must know it’s about Ryan, but he doesn’t pick up – single minded on keeping Soldier Boy on task as the weapon to take out Homelander).

Soldier Boy asks if Butcher has seen “The Soldier Boy Story,” the film that chronicled his fake life – and when Butcher says no, he tells the real one.

Soldier Boy: It’s a classic. We lost best picture to “An American in Paris” that year, but at least I got to ass fuck Jane Wyman in the coat check. All about how a poor kid from the streets of South Philly discovers he’s got incredible powers to match his heart of gold.

He looks up, considers – then spills the truth. You get the feeling he’s been needing to share it with someone for a very long time. Keeping up a persona is exhausting, and ultimately soul destroying. Soldier Boy has been doing it for a hundred years.

Soldier Boy: It’s all BS. My father owned half the steel mills in the state. I went to boarding school. Got kicked out of boarding school. Because I was a fuck up. But he made sure I knew it.

This Butcher can relate to, intimately.

Butcher: Use a belt, did he?

Soldier Boy: Never laid a hand on me. He couldn’t be bothered. Said I was a disappointment. Not good enough to carry his name. So, I went to his golf buddies in the War Department and they got me into Dr. Vought’s Compound V trials.  I became a superhero. Strongest man alive, fuckin’ ticker tape parades when I came home.

He says it all with bravado, trying to keep the persona up even as he’s finally telling the truth. It may seem like not laying a hand on his son was a mercy, but what comes through loud and clear is that his father cared so little about him – actively disliked him and was disgusted with him so much – that he couldn’t be bothered to discipline him.

It also implies that he was disinherited, literally losing his father – rejected.  Of course, in reality, most boys don’t try to become supes to make themselves feel better, but they do go to great lengths to try to prove they ARE worthy of love – unfortunately sometimes by trying to emulate that strength, power and cruelty.

Butcher gets it.

Butcher: What’d the old man say then?

Soldier Boy smiles at Butcher knowingly, knows he gets it.

Soldier Boy: Ah. He said I took a shortcut. That a real man wouldn’t have cheated.

There it is, that ruthless attack fueled with misogyny and homophobia. That disgust that his son wasn’t a ‘real man’ and that complete rejection, even after Ben had transformed himself completely into what he was certain his father wanted him to be. Surely, he must have thought, my father will love me now.

Ackles makes Ben’s confession intensely painful. His eyes water and he looks down, breaks eye contact with Butcher, the defensive smile disappearing from his face as he gets emotional remembering. Clears his throat, takes a drink to restore that manufactured masculinity.

Realizes he’s let himself show some vulnerability, tries to cover it up. Changes the subject by asking Butcher if he’s got kids, and then saying he always assumed he had some out there, and always wanted them – because he thought he could do it better than his father did.

It’s not a bad goal, to want to parent better than a flawed parent was able to parent you. Some people can do it, it happens all the time. But you get the feeling that Soldier Boy also wants to do it better than his father not for the sake of his child but for the sake of besting his father, who he’s still in unrecognized competition with long after the man is dead and gone. And that is a recipe for disaster.

Butcher is a master manipulator though, saying Homelander isn’t his, not really.

Soldier Boy: He’s the only blood I’ve got left.

Butcher: It don’t matter. You didn’t name him, didn’t raise him. Vought grew him in a fucking test tube – to take your place. He’s the fucking reason they left you to rot. Look mate, we had a deal.

Soldier Boy knocks back his drink, macho.

Soldier Boy: I’m gonna get some air.

After a scene like that, how am I supposed to NOT root for him to survive the season??

Soldier Boy can also be a grumpy adorable (killer) grampa, so that’s part of so many of our struggle to really truly hate him. I wonder if the fact that Ackles kept referring to him as a grampa all season was a way of telegraphing that he was in fact Ryan’s actual grampa – much like the “Supernatural” fandom will never forget his cheeky description of the season finale in which Dean opens his eyes and they’re demon-black as “it’s gonna be a real eye-opener” (thanks to bhorton314 and maevesdean on twitter for putting that idea in my head).

Anyway, he wakes up in the back seat of Butcher’s car as they head to Vought Tower, looking for all the world like a sleepy Dean Winchester and asking about Hughie with “Where’s the cum guzzler?”

Okay, Dean Winchester is definitely nicer. But he lies back down, still grumpy and still kind of adorable, so there’s that.

Father Vs. Son

The eventual, inevitable confrontation between Soldier Boy and Homelander was every bit as epic as expected, but unexpectedly painful to watch. That first moment when Homelander turns around to face his father – who’s he longed for all his life – was so full of tension that I think I was biting my nails. And I don’t even bite my nails!

Homelander says he killed Noir, “because he didn’t tell me about you.”  That he knows what it’s like to have your team betray you, but with the two of them together, nobody would stand a chance.

Soldier Boy: Unless we kill each other first.

Homelander says that’s true, but argues that nobody else matters, they’re nothing, they’re human. Butcher is still manipulating Soldier Boy like a puppet, reminding him that “he ain’t your kid.” Soldier Boy looks conflicted as he comes closer, emotional but stoic too.

Homelander: Yes I am! I’m your blood, that’s all that matters.

Soldier Boy: Maybe.

Homelander brings out Ryan, tells Soldier Boy that they’re a family, that Soldier Boy has him and “you have me.”

I honestly thought that would get through to Soldier Boy. It’s what he wanted, and especially with Ryan, it could be a chance to raise a child and “do it better”. But Soldier Boy is confronted with a son who personifies all the things he hates most about himself – weak, longing for approval and love, the opposite of a “real man”. Wearing a cape. And he can’t look past it, although it’s clear part of him very much wants to.

It’s tragic that, in the final moment, Soldier Boy can’t shake loose of his father’s brutal definition of what it is to be a man. All he can see is Homelander looking silly, weak. Unmanly. All those things that Ben’s father called him, and that he constantly fears in himself, and so he can’t bear to see that in his own son. He lashes out, recapitulating his own father’s rejection and cruelty.

Soldier Boy puts his hand on his son’s shoulder, Homelander clasping his father’s arm in return.

Soldier Boy: Maybe if I’d raised you, I could’ve made you better… not some weak sniveling pussy starved for attention…but there’s no fixing that now.

Homelander looks genuinely stricken, Antony Starr making me feel way too much.

Homelander: Weak? I’m you…

Soldier Boy: I know. You’re a fucking disappointment.

He looks anguished, close to sobbing, channeling the words of his own father, his face collapsing, but there’s so much rage there too – at his father, at the betrayal that kept him from raising his own son, at himself – full of self-loathing and now confronted with it in his own child.

I had a really hard time watching that scene and I don’t think I can rewatch it for some time. I wanted Soldier Boy’s vulnerability to win out, and it didn’t. I wanted him to actually DO what he says he wanted to do – be different than his father. Be a different type of man and a different type of parent to his son (and grandson).

He wants it, but he’s too flawed to actually do it, having bought into the same impossible standards his father set for him. It wouldn’t be nearly as painful if a) it wasn’t Jensen Ackles and Antony Starr absolutely killing it, and b) it didn’t happen that way in real life sometimes too.

Soldier Boy attacks Homelander, choking him. Ryan yells at him to stop, and then all hell breaks loose.

It might have been different with Ryan if Ryan hadn’t immediately chosen his father’s side when Soldier Boy attacks him, lashing out at Soldier Boy with his laser eyes. You don’t get more than one chance with Soldier Boy – he’s hypervigilant for betrayal of any kind, and Ryan’s defense of Homelander flips a switch in him that’s horrifying to see.  Even if the switch hadn’t switched, though, you get the feeling that Soldier Boy would never have been able to do that “better job” he wanted to, his expectations just as fucked up as his own father’s were. Soldier Boy cannot tolerate betrayal and his ego cannot take being bested, even by his own grandson.

Soldier Boy: You little shit!

He attacks Ryan, and Butcher attacks him, laser eyes fended off by his shield. One of the best moments of the fight was Homelander and Butcher both trying to protect Ryan and teaming up against Soldier Boy, laser eyes joining to send him flying backwards and crashing through a glass wall. They exchange a glance, a moment of solidarity – for Ryan’s sake. Father figures united to protect a son.

The Final Showdown

Soldier Boy staggers up, broken glass all around him, and the long-awaited confrontation with Butcher finally happens.

Soldier Boy: What the fuck are you doing?

Butcher: Not the kid

Soldier Boy: I thought you said blood doesn’t matter, that’s the whole fucking point!

That was a painful, because that’s been Butcher’s manipulation all along, and Soldier Boy bought into it in a tragic way. Butcher confesses that Ryan is his wife’s son, and Soldier Boy is incredulous, saying Homelander fucked his wife and now he wants to save the brat?

Soldier Boy: So, this is it – everything you wanted, he’s right fucking there, and now you blink?

Butcher: Stand down.

Soldier Boy: Fuck you!

Me: Damn it, that should not be hot. Damn it, GUHHHHHH.

Soldier Boy: You’re weaker than he is.

It’s all about that to him, all about showing strength, being the strongest. He has nothing but derision for weakness of any kind – including his own.

While Butcher and Soldier Boy slug it out in a fight scene that is AMAZING, Homelander comforts Ryan, saying the right things that he himself always wanted to hear: I’m right here, you’re okay.

Maeve takes that moment to attack Homelander, who tries to get her to back down, but she refuses, finally seeing her chance and unwilling to give it up even if Homelander’s right when he says there are “bigger fish to fry.”

Soldier Boy tosses Butcher across the room and then advances on him, stalking like a fucking predator and raising his shield – and we know what he can do with that shield. At that second, MM and Starlight and Kimko join the fight and together, they manage to shatter Soldier Boy’s shield. Like a metaphor for the fake persona of invulnerability he’s built around himself, he looks shocked and exposed when that happens, his face slashed and bleeding.

There’s a final confrontation when Starlight, powered up even more by the extra light Hughie throws on for her, manages to fly; lights blowing and sparks flying as she rises up and Soldier Boy looks on, looking way too pretty in the glittery lights.

He makes a run at Starlight, and she throws Soldier Boy violently back. He staggers up, bleeding, and it’s a reiteration of the cartoon scene when his team turned on him in Nicaragua as they all hold him down and put the mask on him, and not gonna lie, my heart bled a little.

MM: You ain’t no hero, just another racist piece of shit we can’t seem to get rid of. This is for my family!

I’m fully aware I’m supposed to cheer at that line but honestly the words stuck in my throat. Soldier Boy starts to power up, roaring in rage and anguish, screaming that he’s “not going back in that fucking box!”

Butcher makes the right choice in the end, leaving the fight to take down Soldier Boy to try to protect Ryan. Maeve does too – she gives Homelander one last shove and then tackles Soldier Boy out the window before he goes nuclear and kills them all, the explosion happening when they’re safely away from the building.

In the aftermath, Queen Maeve is proclaimed a role model for little girls everywhere as a “strong proud lesbian who made the ultimate sacrifice.” In real life, she says goodbye to Annie and leaves with Elena, headed for a quiet life on the farm as Elton John sings about it.

Butcher gets the bad news that he only has a year to live.

MM finally tells his daughter the truth about what happened to their family and embraces that his father spent his life trying to get justice – and that he now does too. (I quibble with the characterization of MM’s dad as a hero because he did that and neglected his family to do so, but…)  Janine says he’s her hero, and that is mostly what MM wanted. I hope he can find the balance that will let him be one in a way that’s not just about revenge.

The Deep stays loyal to Homelander, taking out the VP candidate to make room for Victoria Neuman to take that spot, which means we get a little glimpse of Jim Beaver playing a Robert Singer who is not at all the Bobby Singer we knew and loved in “Supernatural.” 

The Deep is not in good shape by the end, however, watching his wife’s betrayal on TV as she promotes her new tell-all book. (I like that The Deep is often treated as the flip side of gender role stereotypes in his skintight suit and tearful Doritos eating.)

Grace Mallory watches as they wheel a naked unconscious Soldier Boy in on a gurney, gas mask over his face again, and seal him into a metal tube. Elton John sings “you can’t trap me in your penthouse, I’m goin’ back to my plow…”

Annie throws her super suit and boots away, saying it never gave her power, that “has always just been me.” She’s unanimously welcomed as one of “the boys.”  On the TV, Victoria Neuman is announced as the VP candidate with Dakota Bob, and Soldier Boy’s statue is toppled.

Protestors attack the media, dressed in red, white and blue, flags everywhere, tee shirts with “Sorry, Snowflake” and Homelander on them. Todd is there, indoctrinated in the crowd.

Homelander descends, and introduces the adoring crowd to Ryan, who hesitantly floats down beside his father. A random guy in the crowd throws something and it hits Ryan. Homelander lasers him and his head explodes – and for a moment Homelander is scared, thinking he’s gone too far. Then Todd starts clapping – and the mindlessly adoring crowd follows.

Homelander, relieved, smiles. (And if you didn’t think about standing in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shooting someone without losing voters, I’m shocked because, as Kripke says, this show ain’t subtle).

But it is at times brilliant.

Ryan takes it in. Then, slowly, he smiles too.

And that chilling image is what ends Season 3.  A suitably twisted instrumental score starts to play, Chris Lennertz’ brilliance always enriching what is happening on screen.

Wow.

What a season and what a finale! I was a mess of conflicting emotions by the end – but mostly impressed by every single performance.

And yes, I admit I’m glad Soldier Boy is alive. I feel like we got just enough of a taste to whet our appetites for more, and I really really hope that we get it.  

Jensen said in an interview that once he found out that Soldier Boy is Homelander’s father, he took note of what Antony Starr was doing with that character and emulated it a bit. Both Starr and Ackles are so damn GOOD that when they show their characters’ vulnerability, you really feel it – and you really believe it.

Maybe that’s why no matter how much I remind myself they are both class A assholes, I also feel empathy for their trauma and tragic circumstances. So yes, I want Soldier Boy back!

Ackles is already busy filming the next season of Big Sky, but Kripke has already said that Soldier Boy will be back at some point, and Jensen has already said that he’s game, so I’m hopeful we’ll see more of him soon. Thanks to the entire cast and crew of “The Boys” for an amazing, exhilarating, thought-provoking wild ride!

The season finale of “The Boys” Season 3 has all the over the top fight scene showdowns we would expect  from a finale episode – but it also has so much more. And much of that is a dizzying mix of heartbreaking and hopeful.

Those emotions are so far apart that rocketing back and forth between them is what I called in my review of last week’s episode a mindfuck, and this week is even moreso. Back on the roller coaster for the finale, though – I’ve admitted that the twists and turns and speed are both terrifying and exhilarating, so I keep opting to climb right back on.

There are a lot of reckonings in the final episode. Some of the characters find their lines and then pick a side – and it’s not always the one we’re expecting them to pick. I went into watching this episode holding my breath, because despite all of us knowing he’s a Class A asshole, most of the show’s fans do not want Season 3 to be the last we see of Jensen Ackles as Soldier Boy.

The character is a big departure from Soldier Boy of the comics, from his overt cowardice to his origins (and now being the father of Homelander). That left Kripke and company the room to create a character that is much more nuanced and complex, and then to cast someone as brilliant as Ackles to portray him. The cast has been effusive in saying that Jensen “fit right in” and Ackles, in his customary humble way, has said that he was just hoping not to mess up a dynamic that was already working perfectly. All of that shows. Soldier Boy, Butcher and Hughie was the trio I had no clue I needed until they were on my screen – and now I definitely want MORE.

As I pushed play on this episode, now knowing that Homelander is Soldier Boy’s son, I had about a thousand hypotheses of which direction things could go. Suffice it to say, I bit my nails a lot while watching – and that I was still shocked. And once again, I felt more than I anticipated and more than I wanted to. No spoilers in this article for tomorrow’s episode, but HANG ON TIGHT! Here are my non-spoilery thoughts after watching the season finale, now that I’ve (sort of) composed myself. (This episode will actually air tonight (Thursday) on Amazon Prime.)

The final episode revisits the main themes of the season, including toxic masculinity, which Kripke and many of the actors have talked about in interviews throughout the season. Almost every character struggles with what that means and what that role entails. Is masculinity inextricably linked with ‘strength’ and ‘saving people’ and if so, how is that defined? Who gets to define it?

The theme extends beyond gender. “The Boys” has an interesting twist to the “saving people, hunting things” mantra that Kripke wove into “Supernatural,” asking if it really matters who’s doing the saving. And there’s an underlying theme that’s deeper, and one that struck me as very real life – what does it do to the person who needs to be saved?

Does being saved translate to weakness and saving to strength? Would we even be asking that question if we weren’t as a culture obsessed with being badass in some oddly strict definition of the word, no matter how we identify?

It’s part and parcel of the whole superhero genre, but is that a message that’s actually helpful? Sometimes being strong isn’t about being able to laser someone in half or throw them across the room. Sometimes it’s about being there for someone else when they need it, even if that doesn’t look very badass. As a psychologist, I am awed when I see that kind of strength in my clients – ordinary human beings doing extraordinary things to help others. That’s a whole different definition of badass.

And what of the definitions that our culture instills in us? All those gendered stereotypes about what strength looks like, the strict boundaries of “what it means to be a man”. As this entire series has vividly shown, and perhaps this season especially, some of those rules and norms are toxic, harming the individual and everyone around them. Driving people away.

The idea that you don’t need anyone, that relationships aren’t important, that everyone is a threat to your place in the hierarchy. That you can never be the one who needs saving. The reiteration of a hierarchy that says someone has to be the alpha male and everyone else has to fall in line – and that if you are that alpha male you have to hang onto that spot no matter what or who gets sacrificed.  Do you have to internalize those rules you learned from a flawed parent and live by them, or can you decide to make your own rules? And will it be too late if you do?

I said in my review of the last episode that “The Boys” comes from a very Freudian perspective – that we are inevitably shaped by our pasts, whether we want to be or not. Especially, as Freud believed, those early years and our first caregivers. But neither Freud nor “The Boys” would say that there’s no escaping that early experience, even if it was traumatic. As Kimiko says in this episode, “Our past is not who we are. I thought I’d always be broken, but you saw something in me.” The question is, which of these characters can see that something in themselves, and will it be enough for them to break away?

The heartbreaking answer is that for some, no it will not.

One of the reasons this season, and especially these last few episodes, hit me so hard is because they also echo some of the main themes of “Supernatural.”

There’s a reason I was and always will be so emotional about that show. This season of “The Boys” looks at family and its importance in our lives and its many definitions, just as “Supernatural” did. Family by blood, family by choice, family by shared time in a foxhole trying to survive. Family as the support system who gets you through, and family as abusive and controlling and ultimately soul-destroying. Family as the people who give you those ideas about what it means to be a man or a woman without leaving any space for any other options, and demonstrate those rules with the abuse that makes them unforgettable.

Sometimes. Sometimes the cycle doesn’t get broken – and I hate that.

There are vivid reminders that abuse doesn’t always mean beating the shit out of someone (though sometimes it does). Words can do lasting damage just as easily, and sometimes those are even harder to forget or fight back against – because it’s your own self you’re talking back to. (“The Boys” makes that literal at times, which I invariably love an unreasonable amount).

The voices in our heads can talk us out of irrational thoughts that hold us back, or they can talk us into staying afraid and trying to stay safe the only way we’ve learned. With all the trauma and PTSD in “The Boys,” it’s inevitable that both of those voices exist – and are sometimes given voice themselves!

The messages about fathers and sons in this show are Freudian in their flavor too. There’s a tremendous fear of betrayal, the darkest side of competition, mixed with heartbreaking longing, very Oedipal.  Sometimes I hope desperately that the message will be different, but this show has never been one to avoid the dark side.

The season ultimately turns out to be all about choice – as Kripke’s shows often are. Do you choose to have power if you can, or do you turn it down? Is there something worth giving it up for? Conversely, is there something worth holding onto it for, even if there is a price? There are no easy answers for any of the characters, and that holds true in the real world too.  

I love that a show that’s entirely ‘out there’ rings so true for what is right here in front of us every single day. I love that it reflects the worst of humanity, specifically mirroring the things that make my stomach turn on a daily basis – and that it also reflects the best.

It’s dark as hell, and disturbing, and sometimes truly painful to watch, but it makes me think and it makes me feel. It gets the wheels turning as fast as that roller coaster barrels down the steepest hill and leaves me just as breathless.

One more ride? Sign me up.

Do not miss the season finale of “The Boys” this Friday, and be prepared for some of the twists and turns  not being what you expect. Season 4, anyone? Again, you can catch “The Boys” early Thursday night here.

Only one more episode of Season 3 of “The Boys” to go, and I don’t think anyone is ready for this wild ride to be over! This week’s episode, ominously titled “Here Comes A Candle To Light You To Bed” brought one of the biggest revelations of the series, and delivered it in a way that ensured it left a powerful impact.

I know some people guessed what was coming, but I wasn’t one of those people, so it left me gobsmacked and repeating WTF more than once. Luckily, I love it when this show can surprise me, so this is far from a complaint.

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD, SO BE SURE YOU’VE WATCHED THE EPISODE FIRST!

It’s been amusing, as a long time “Supernatural” fan, to watch the rest of the world discover Jensen Ackles’ acting brilliance as they watch this season of “The Boys.” He gave a tour de force in this episode, once again making me feel a ridiculous range of emotions that shouldn’t be possible for one character – especially one like Soldier Boy. And yet…

More than anything, this episode was about agency and choice, as many of the characters confront their own fears and make decisions about their trajectories in life that acknowledge those fears but refuse to be constrained by them. 

Homelander and Vought (as now personified by Ashley) continue to hold power by wielding that fear, Ashley utilizing their voicepiece Cameron Coleman to cast doubt on Annie’s accusations. Surely no one can take her seriously when she’s clearly just a woman scorned, and oh by the way, doesn’t she have ties to known terrorists and human traffickers? No wonder she started a home for runaway girls!  Imagine a world where the real bad guys take the moral high ground to silence a voice for change and people just believe it…oh wait.

Maeve is one of the characters who has faced the worst case scenario and decided she’s willing to lose it all to go up against Vought and Homelander. He visits her to see if he can find out where Butcher and Soldier Boy are, trying to scare her by saying that Soldier Boy has already killed seven supes and fried the power out of others – reminding her that could happen to any of them. His fear mongering doesn’t work on her anymore though.

Maeve: That’s the difference between you and me. You need to be a supe; I can’t wait til it’s over.

In one of the many parallels in this episode, Homelander recalls almost fondly that at one time he wanted to have kids with Maeve, just as Soldier Boy recalled the same about Crimson Countess previously. In an eerily prescient theme for what’s going on in the real world right now, Homelander assures her that he’d never force himself on her – but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t harvest her eggs against her will to make himself some kids. It’s a shocking attempt to control her body and her reproductive decisions and how the hell are Kripke and this show always so good at predicting the dystopian future?

Maeve refuses to give him the upper hand though, saying that the day is still a top three for her, because she saw him scared. Touche.

Later, Homelander speaks at a rally and attacks Starlight once again when he’s supposed to be rallying in support of candidate Robert Singer (“Supernatural’s” own Jim Beaver). Homelander is losing it a bit though, hallucinating Soldier Boy in the crowd, his eyes glowing for a second before he gets himself under control.

Walking it off, he ends up in a nearby barn where a cow is plaintively mooing. As ‘Crimson and Clover’ starts to play, the scene goes surreal, Homelander milking the cow and looking positively orgasmic while doing it and then drinking the milk right out of the bucket.

Only on “The Boys,” seriously.

Neuman catches him at it and tells him to pull himself together, offering him some information and a working alliance. That should go well.

A Train wakes up in the hospital with a new heart and an Ashley-written fake news story about how he got it that involves Soldier Boy killing Blue Hawk just as he and A Train were getting along again. Nice cover story, tying up all the loose ends. A Train is ambivalent about going along with all this, but you get the feeling he’s going to cave, drawn back in by the fame and fortune – and Ashley knows it.

Black Noir, on the run and hiding from Soldier Boy, also faces his fears – with the help of Buster Beaver and his cast of cartoon characters. Nathan Mitchell somehow manages to convey all kinds of emotions without saying a word, and it’s a brilliant use of cartoons to depict Noir’s backstory (as this show has done before).  Much like Homelander’s heart to heart with his own mirror image, Black Noir’s dream sequence in his head gives voice to his own self-doubt and trauma without him having to utter a thing.

Buster reminds him of times in the past when he tried to hide (after apparently paralyzing some poor kid at an actual Buster Beavers – which brings back memories of way too many trips to Chuck E Cheese ball pits for me, frankly).  He tries to avoid the memories, but the cartoon parts of his subconscious encourage him to remember, and eventually, he does.

It’s a damn good thing this part was in cartoons, because it was brutal and upsetting even animated. We finally see just how much of a controlling, abusive bully Soldier Boy was back in the day.  Like any insecure narcissist, he can’t stand anyone else on his team taking the spotlight, yelling that he’s not good enough when Noir tries, that he’s not the movie star (like him). He threatens to put his own team in the ground if they don’t stay in line, terrorizing all of them through his brutality to Noir.

It was a nauseating scene even in cartoon. We haven’t really seen Soldier Boy be like that in the present, so it’s a little hard to reconcile with what we have seen, which I suppose is the downside of not having Ackles portray him in the memory.

We learn that Edgar encouraged Black Noir to get rid of Soldier Boy once they had a replacement, at the time just a child but who would be stronger than Soldier Boy. And can fly. Hmmmm.

Black Noir and Payback attack Soldier Boy, who didn’t see it coming, beating him brutally, but he eventually breaks free and attacks Noir, smashing his head to a pulp before Mindstorm arrives and they gas him and overpower him. Once again, violence results in violence, and it’s all equally hard to watch. Black Noir’s dream sequence ends with the cartoons assuring him that it’s okay to be sensitive and scared, that bravery isn’t having no fear, it’s doing it anyway…

Even The Deep confronts some fears in this episode – specifically his fear of letting his wife know he wants to spice up their sex life with a threesome. An unusual threesome. You can imagine how that goes, but it’s an amazing scene because it’s set to “More Than Words” and it includes the perfect line:

1) She’s a mollusk, and 2) She has feelings.

And it ends with Cassandra storming out with a very sincere “You’re an idiot, Kevin!”

Frenchie and Kimiko have their own journey about fear, love, family and making choices.  They come to MM and Annie for help, saying Butcher is everyone’s problem now.  While Annie takes care of the still injured Kimiko, Frenchie and MM watch the old footage of the Russians torturing Soldier Boy, trying to figure out what they used to anesthesize him. Frenchie realizes it’s not halothane and eventually figures out what it is – a Russian nerve agent that they plan to go get.

Me, totally inappropriately as that happened: Oh no! Don’t kill the Danger Grampa Baby Murder Kitten!

Before that happens, however, MM confronts Todd about taking Janine to a Homelander rally. He tries to convince a brainwashed Todd that Homelander is lying to them, but Todd only believes the news he sees on the Vought channel. MM ends up punching Todd right in front of a shocked Janine when he says Todd isn’t her father and Todd retorts that someone’s gotta be.

Ouch. Also that scene may have been a wee bit cathartic for anyone who has had similar conversations in the real world with real world Todds…

Kimiko tells Annie and then Frenchie that she wants her powers back. Frenchie is at first confused about Kimiko’s choice, saying she can walk away, have her freedom and her humanity. But Kimiko has made a choice.

Kimiko: At first, I hated having powers, because I didn’t choose. Now it’s my choice. I blamed my powers for my problems, but that’s not true. The V isn’t good or bad, it depends on the person using it.

She says she wants to do good with her powers, fight for the ones she loves. That their kiss felt weird because they are more than that – he is her family, and she wants to protect her family. Annie gets the V, and in the process discovers research notes that make it clear that Temp V is dangerous and will eventually cause brain damage and seizures. Homelander confronts her as she’s leaving, but she refuses to be intimidated by his threats.

Annie: I’m not scared of you anymore. I see who you are, how small you are.

She pulls out her phone and starts recording and he realizes he has to back off, letting her go. Smart way to use your 1.9 Million followers, Starlight!

And then there’s Soldier Boy.

What we find out about Soldier Boy and what we see of Soldier Boy in this episode is the most we’ve seen yet (well, not physically, because that first scene…), but it’s also as confusing and contradictory as you can imagine. We veer wildly from Soldier Boy singing and dancing in an old musical to finding out the horrific things he’s done in the past.

The first is footage that The Legend is watching of an old movie musical in which Soldier Boy sings and dances and cavorts while smoking a cigarette and making ridiculously adorable faces.  

Showrunner Eric Kripke tweeted that the musical number is his favorite Soldier Boy moment. It’s based on a very real album by Robert Mitchum back in 1957 and thanks to Ackles it looks and sounds a lot like the original (except Ackles is even more attractive and we get to see clean-shaven Soldier Boy sans helmet with all that hair somehow slicked back). ‘The Logical Thing To Do’ is both offensive and ridiculous, and yet he makes it somehow endearing anyway.

Soldier Boy walks off-camera with his characteristic “fuck this,” and I snorted.

Composer Chris Lennertz said that they had so much fun making the video that they collapsed in laughter between takes, which I do not find hard to believe at all.

The Legend laments that he actually produced that “piece of shit” as Hughie interrupts to say that Soldier Boy asked him to tell The Legend he’s out of Astro Glide. I took a moment to go HUH and OH when that line happened, wondering where we were going next. Hughie also takes issue with The Legend’s contention that you don’t make friends with ‘the talent’ because they’re all the same, still wanting to believe that “Soldier Boy was a hero, right? He stormed Normandy?”

Turns out he stormed it two weeks later for a photo op, but he did see some action. Unfortunately, that was in more controversial real-life events like “some target practice at Kent State” and rumors about being at Daley Plaza. In other words, no, not a hero.

The Legend has some of the best lines, and Paul Reiser is perfectly cast.

The Legend: The thing is, to be American means knowing you’re the hero, so we sweep all our filthy shit under the rug and tell ourselves a myth like Soldier Boy. And I get filthy rich selling it.

Well, that was spot on.

Butcher returns and wants to know if Soldier Boy “is still at it” and sure enough, he is. We round the corner through an open door along with Butcher and Hughie and The Legend to find Soldier Boy cavorting with the two maids, who are mature women – who we rarely see naked and messing around with the likes of Soldier Boy on our screens!

I know there are people who have only watched Ackles in roles on The CW who were shocked by the compromising position they find Soldier Boy in, but this was a compromise for Ackles and Kripke and I thought it was a good one (see my interview with Ackles that touches on this scene for more). I won’t say I was expecting to see Soldier Boy jerking off wearing a floral silk robe, but I also won’t say I was complaining about it. I mean, that’s a lot of thigh…

Soldier Boy is strikingly unfazed by having observers, hoping they’ve brought him some more lube.

Hughie: Please don’t make eye contact…

I can’t really fault Soldier Boy for his passionate defense of older women either, comparing them to delicious fine wine (even if he does need more lube…) The whole scene is priceless, with The Legend hurrying the women out with a ‘break time’s over’ and then complaining that he can never fire them and that now the Egyptian cotton sheets on the bed have to be burned.

The Legend: Girls, it smells like sex and Ben Gay in here…

I might have laughed out loud.

Soldier Boy in his silk robe is unimpressed, taking a drag on his cigarette since his other activities were interrupted. That also should not be hot, but here we are.

The poor fandom is terribly conflicted, trying damn hard to hate Soldier Boy and replaying his adorable musical number and drags on cigarettes and other substances that should not be sexy and oh right, there’s that whole bare thigh thing going on.

Long-time fans of Ackles like me also immediately were reminded of another film he did even before “Supernatural,” in which his character memorably wore a floral silk robe (and did some sexy dancing too). My timeline is full of stills from the two decades old film “Blonde” today, just like I knew it would be.

Butcher is frustrated that they’re having to check out all of Mindstorm’s hideouts and haven’t found him (the next member of Payback who Soldier Boy wants revenge on). Soldier Boy dismisses Mindstorm as a paranoid fuck who went crazy from hearing everyone’s “shitty thoughts”, but The Legend corrects him – Mindstorm is bipolar, not crazy.

Hughie has the brilliant idea of checking out pharmacies near the hideouts to see who’s prescribing lithium, and Butcher grins, giving him a pat. You can see how much that means to Hughie; the two are becoming closer and closer, for better or worse (and for Hughie, that’s probably for the worse, let’s face it).

Butcher: Nice one, Hughie.

Soldier Boy: We’re gonna need more reefer.

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He gives a sleazy (yet adorable) grin, and the title card pops up as “I can’t fight this feeling anymore” plays with perfect timing. This show is so damn good. (Also, that song will always be a “Supernatural” call back, with Dean singing it in the car and Sam’s “you’re kidding, right?” ringing in my ears).

We get another “Supernatural” shout out with the famous ‘trunk shot’, this time of Butcher, Hughie and Soldier Boy as they go after Mindstorm, parking the car out in the woods so they can try to sneak up on him. (Soldier Boy with that joint dangling from those lips though….)

He warns Butcher and Hughie not to make eye contact with Mindstorm and assures them that they’ll be fine if they do that. Because that has worked out so well for everyone in Soldier Boy’s vicinity so far!

Hughie: Why do you keep buying him Hefty bags of weed?

Butcher: Better high than mental, takes the edge off his PTSD.

Butcher says he saw it at Herogasm, that’s why Soldier Boy keeps blowing shit up. So, his strategy is to keep him docile as a lamb.

Hughie: So, just to recap, he’s radioactive, highly traumatized and heavily self-medicated? Feels right.

Butcher comes back with a pointed response that cuts. To me at least.

Butcher: Tell me about it. What sad bastard self-medicates like that?

He hands Hughie a syringe of Temp V.

They make their way through the woods, Soldier Boy increasingly paranoid and asking Butcher and Hughie what they said when they were silent. He steps on a trip wire, and it blows them all to the ground. As Butcher wakes up, Mindstorm bends over him and makes eye contact, and Butcher is catapulted into the past, unconscious in real life.

Butcher’s nightmare is a powerful way to show us his backstory and how he got to be the violent, rage-filled man he often is. In the past we see him as a kid smiling and laughing playing cards with his little brother Lenny until their dad comes looking for them.

Butcher hides them, as present-day Butcher watches, yelling at his dad to leave off his brother – to no avail of course. Their dad finds young Butcher and demands to know where Lenny is, but Butcher refuses to tell him and takes a brutal whipping for it, intercut with grown up Butcher whaling away on other people the same way his father whaled on him, all the while calling him a fucking snotty little cunt. (Sound familiar? Intergenerational transmission, anyone?)

When it’s finally over and their dad is gone, Lenny tenderly dabs at his big brother’s wounds while sad music that evokes the oh-so-familiar family theme from “Supernatural” plays and my eyes water. Shades of Sam and Dean Winchester, and oh, my heart.

Later we see young Butcher lashing out in violence just like his dad, who rewards him for it with the message that his violence was him acting like a man, that “some cunts need a slap.” Butcher is conflicted, not wanting to be like his father but still wanting his approval and with only that definition of being a man to guide him.

Toxic masculinity is compelling and pervasive – no wonder it’s so easily handed down from generation to generation.

Their dad turns to Lenny derisively, telling him “you oughtta take a page outta his book, don’t wanna be a fucking little poof all your life.”

The pressure to “be a man” is kept in place by misogyny and homophobia, and it’s frighteningly effective. Butcher takes a drink even as present-day Butcher tells Lenny not to listen to him.

As Butcher dreams, Hughie is distraught when Soldier Boy says Butcher will be trapped in an endless nightmare and then die of terminal hydration, saying there must be a way to wake him up. Soldier Boy admits that Mindstorm could snap him out of it and Hughie is relieved until he goes on.

Soldier Boy: But he’s about to be dead.

That delivery was priceless, Ackles.

Hughie begs Soldier Boy to let Mindstorm help Butcher first, saying then he can kill him, and Hughie won’t care. The two face off as Hughie ignores his fear to confront Soldier Boy.

Soldier Boy: If you get hysterical, I’m gonna slap you like I’m Connery.

He reiterates that he’ll keep up his end of the deal and kill Homelander after Mindstorm though, saying that Butcher would’ve given his life for that in a heartbeat. Once again, collateral damage to Soldier Boy is just…. Well, collateral damage.

The next time he pauses and asks if Hughie heard that, Hughie snaps back that he might want to lay off the weed.

Soldier Boy: And you might wanna gargle my ball sack.

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Once again, priceless delivery. I don’t want to be laughing out loud, but come on. Grumpy grampa is amusing…until he’s just plain violent, that is.

Hughie continues to worry about Butcher, prompting Soldier Boy to ask him how hard Butcher sucked his dick for him to miss him that much.

Soldier Boy: His mouth must feel like a Hoover Deluxe.

Hughie: Every single thing you say is so gross!

It really is. And a perfect reflection of the fear behind toxic masculinity. If I care about someone, does that make me less of a man? If I care about someone, does that mean I want him to suck my dick? The homophobia that props up the toxic masculinity is perfectly conveyed in this little exchange.

Hughie doesn’t fall for it. He explains that Butcher saved him, more than once, and that he owes him. Soldier Boy calls BS, saying they’re on a mission and have to just get the job done, like he did when he fought the Nazis and stormed Normandy.

Soldier Boy: You wanna know what I do when I’m sad or scared? Fucking nothing. Because I’m not a fucking pussy.

That’s a pretty good description of toxic masculinity too, and its roots in raging misogyny, and it’s a mantra that Soldier Boy has adopted wholesale. It’s also tragic, leaving him with no outlet for legitimate feelings of sadness and fear and a lot of reasons to project so he doesn’t have to even recognize them.

(For more on Ackles’ thoughts on this scene and toxic masculinity, see my interview with him about this week’s episode).

Hughie has had it with fear keeping him back though. He gets in Soldier Boy’s face again, saying he didn’t storm shit and that his whole Marlboro Man act is fucking crap.

Soldier Boy punches him in the face.

Yep, that’s how toxic masculinity is enforced. Ouch.

They soon run into a nun and a priest whose car has broken down and they ask for help. Soldier Boy says he’ll take a look and then spins around and shoots the priest, just like that. Hughie screams and so does the nun, but Soldier Boy says that’s Mindstorm’s MO, that they were brainwashed and about to shank them. Hughie insists the nun doesn’t look brainwashed and that Soldier Boy has PTSD and is super fucking stoned so maybe he’s mistaken, putting himself between the nun and Soldier Boy’s gun.

Hughie: She’s a human, a nun, and if there’s one thing I know…

The nun leaps on his back. biting him and yelling die you fucking cocksucker and Hughie starts jumping around yelling for Soldier Boy to do something and omg Jack Quaid and Jensen Ackles killed this scene. Much like “Supernatural: before it, “The Boys” excels in combining humor and dark dark themes.

Soldier Boy grumbles that if Hughie would just stay still…. Then finally shoots her.

Soldier Boy: What’s black and white and red all over? Also, I don’t have shell shock, fuck you. This is being a soldier.

Because admitting you have PTSD would be admitting that you DO get scared and hurt and feel pain, and that you’re not an unfeeling automaton. And that would make you less than the man you think you have to be – as Hughie puts it, the stereotypical Marlboro Man.

The two enter a barn where Mindstorm is hiding, lots of wind chimes hanging outside making an eerie soundtrack. Jensen Ackles and barns will always be evocative for “Supernatural” fans thanks to the finale episode, so that added even more tension.

Soldier Boy is scared, breathing hard, his shield up to partially cover his eyes. As much as he pushes it all away, the attack and betrayal by his former team traumatized him, it’s clear.

Suddenly Hughie teleports away, leaving shoes and clothes behind. And then he tackles Mindstorm and he disappears too.

Soldier Boy: Shit!

Hughie tries to convince Mindstorm to pull Butcher out of his nightmare, and then he’ll teleport Mindstorm away from Soldier Boy.

Mindstorm: I’ve been inside his head, and this guy’s a piece of shit.

Hughie: Doesn’t matter. I don’t wanna be someone who leaves family behind, and for better or worse, he’s family.

It’s the quintessential Kripke family don’t end with blood theme, a major part of this episode.  And a reference to all the abandonments that have traumatized so many of the characters in this show, Soldier Boy and Homelander and Butcher included.

In the nightmare, young Butcher tries to sneak out but Lenny catches him leaving. Butcher promises that maybe at Christmas, Lenny can come to the barracks and see him, but Lenny pleads with him not to leave, saying he can’t stay alone with their dad, that he can’t hack it.

Butcher: You’ll be all right.

In the present, adult Butcher knows the truth, yelling at his younger self that no, he fucking won’t. When Lenny keeps pleading, young Butcher finally snaps at him, saying it’s not his job to look after Lenny – and telling him not to be such a fucking poof all his life.

It’s their father’s toxic hurtful words, absorbed and spit back, as Butcher has continued to do all his life when his back is against the wall. The haunting sad theme music plays again, and in the present, Butcher hangs his head in shame. He watches as young Lenny pulls a stool up to the kitchen counter and gets down the gun, saying that Butcher didn’t come to check on him, that months went by, that day in and day out their father beats the living shit out of him and he can’t take it.

Lenny: Everyone who ever loved you, you end up getting them killed. Me, Becca, now Hughie. Everyone who tries to stop you from being a monster, you drag them down to your level.

Once again, the show uses an imagined version of the self to voice the character’s deepest fears, guilt, shame. Lenny shoots himself in the head, blood splattering as Butcher wakes up –  to Hughie bending over him.

Butcher: I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry.

Before Hughie can keep his side of the bargain, a knife flies through the air and stabs right into Mindstorm’s eye. Soldier Boy appears and puts a bag over his head and sits on him and starts punching. When Hughie says hey wait, he punches him too, sending him flying.

Butcher’s eyes glow for an instant as he glares at Soldier Boy, but he doesn’t interfere and Soldier Boy demands to know why Vought gave the green light to have him killed. Mindstorm tells him something we can’t hear, and Soldier Boy looks shocked, saying that’s impossible. In a fit of rage, he cuts Mindstorm to pieces with his shield, grunting with the effort. It’s another scene that’s hard to watch for its violence, even the sound effects nauseating.

In the relative calm after as they regroup, Soldier Boy looks traumatized. Sad.

Butcher looks much the same, tears in his eyes that he wipes away impatiently.

Annie calls and tells him that the Temp V causes brain lesions, that 3 to 5 doses can kill you. She begs him to tell Hughie and he says he will. She doesn’t believe him.

When Hughie returns with fast food, he senses something’s wrong and asks if everything is all right.

Butcher: It’s the Temp V…

There’s a long pause and we think and fervently hope that Butcher is gonna fight off that stupid toxic masculinity trope and put revenge aside to keep Hughie safe – but, heartbreakingly, he doesn’t.

Butcher: We gotta swing by the office and get some more. And then you and me and Grannyfucker are gonna finish this fucking job.

Hughie: Fuck yeah.

Annie keeps calling, saying she’s going to save Hughie even if he doesn’t want her to.

Frenchie injects Kimiko with the Compound V, holding her hand as her wounds heal.

And then we get the bombshell.

DON’T READ FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED THE END OF THIS EPISODE!  

Soldier Boy calls Homelander, who at first attacks him, saying he was just lucky to get the jump on him. Soldier Boy talks right over him, telling him what happened back in 1980 when he was called into Vogelbaum’s office for a genetics experiment.

Soldier Boy: I beat my meat into a cup. Turns out, Vogelbaum made a kid. Born spring 1981.

Homelander’s expression changes; he figures it out. His eyes water.

Soldier Boy is also tearful, speaking softly now.

Soldier Boy: A boy. You know what the bitch of it is? If they’d just kept me around, I’d have let you take the spotlight. What father wouldn’t want that for his son?

They’re tearful. I’m tearful. It’s all horrible and shocking and fascinating and sure to go very very wrong. But wow, what performances from Jensen Ackles and Antony Starr.

So much of what drives Homelander is the longing for a father’s (and mother’s) love and approval. He never had parents; now he’s found out that the man trying to destroy him is actually his father, in a Star Wars-esque twist. What will this knowledge change, for both of them?

Soldier Boy seems sincere in what he’s saying, but it’s ironic because we’ve just seen him beat the shit out of Black Noir for wanting the spotlight, and it seems doubtful that Soldier Boy would easily give that up – to anyone.

“As a fan of the show, I didn’t see that coming,” Ackles confessed to Variety. “I just kind of assumed that the only connection was the fact that they were contextualized in the same way, that Soldier Boy was the original Homelander and got in the way and they replaced him with a shinier, newer version of the same thing. But in no way, shape or form did I think that there was an actual bloodline connection. So it kind of threw me for a loop.”

Eric Kripke had this to say about the twist to Variety.

“When you’ve got a movie script, you’ve got the beginning, middle and end all right there in front of you. You can make all your choices about what you want to do in the beginning for the beginning, middle and end, so that it all ties together,” he told Variety. “But on a show like ‘Supernatural,’ like ‘The Boys,’ I’m kind of along for the ride just as much as the audience is, hoping that the choices I’ve made in the past are going to line up with the future. So I immediately had to sit down and rethink everything I was doing, and make sure that I didn’t make the wrong choices. But Kripke assured me that I didn’t.”

Kripke says he and his team of writers didn’t know right away when breaking “The Boys” Season 3 that Soldier Boy was going to be Homelander’s father, having given his sperm to Vought scientist Vogelbaum in the ’80s and remaining completely unaware it was used to make baby Homelander before Soldier Boy was kidnapped by the Russians. It was a choice that came out of a lot of conversations about the paternal and familial conflicts facing characters including Butcher (Karl Urban), Hughie (Jack Quaid) and Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) in the third season of the Amazon Prime Video series.

“There’s the obvious [reason], which is Soldier Boy was like the first Homelander. So there’s a certain logic that he is the father of the current Homelander,” Kripke told Variety. “But it was more about really slowing down and paying attention to the themes of the season as they were evolving. And really, in so many ways, this season is about fathers and sons. It’s about how fathers can pass their trauma, generationally, to their children, especially this toxic masculinity of policing that their boys have to be society’s version of masculine. There’s all of these themes that are all floating around and it all kind of lands in these father-to-son stories. We talk about Hughie and his dad, Butcher and his dad, Butcher and his son, Homelander and his son. It wasn’t the very first plan from the beginning, but as we were just talking through the mythology of the season, someone pitched it and said, ‘Crazy pitch, but what if…?’ And I jumped all over it. I’m like, of course, because many of our main characters are dealing with issues of their parents and parenting — Mother’s Milk, also — Homelander should have to deal with his dad. So it all fell together.”

“Everyone kept asking, ‘Why aren’t they having sex?’ And I said, ‘Just watch. You’ll understand why. It’s an important difference to what we’re doing with our characters,’” Kripke said. “And they’re just like, ‘They’re afraid to do it!’ I mean, listen, we weren’t afraid to do it. Like, if you’re asking, can we put Antony and Jensen in a love scene together? Both are down and I’m down to shoot it! No one had any problem with it. It was the pesky story point that they’re father and son, which is why we didn’t do it.”

Yes, that would’ve made things far more awkward than they’re already going to be on next week’s season finale of “The Boys,” now that Soldier Boy and Homelander know they’re father and son and Soldier Boy has to decide if that affects his pledge to kill Homelander for Butcher.

“The awkwardness of that realization gets played out more in Episode 8,” Ackles said. “We see that struggle that, not just Soldier Boy, but Homelander is having with that bomb-drop of information. Basically, Soldier Boy has some hard choices to figure out. He’s promised Butcher that he would help him and the tables are turned.”

One more episode to find out exactly what this bombshell will change, for all of them with The Instant White-Hot Wild 3.8.

Stay tuned!

The penultimate episode of “The Boys” Season 3, ominously titled ‘Here Comes A Candle To Light You To Bed,’ releases this Friday on Prime Video, and the little teasers already have everyone bouncing in anticipation (per usual). This is my non-spoilery teaser review of my own reaction to episode 3.7 – and as a “Supernatural” fan, this one is especially for everyone who was already a Jensen Ackles admirer or has joined the party recently and jumped on board in appreciation of Soldier Boy.

The last few episodes of Season 3 are going to be a rollercoaster for Ackles fans the likes of which we have never ridden. My advice is you’d better hold on tight, because this one is like that rollercoaster in the dark at Disney World where it’s extra scary because you never know when there’s gonna be a sudden twist or how violent the turn is gonna be. That also makes it extra exhilarating – for a long time that was my favorite ride there. But when I say my heart was pounding out of my chest and I had to jump up and sort of run around my kitchen a few times to calm down, to the accompaniment of colorful exclamations, I am not exaggerating.

From the perspective of someone who has been a “Supernatural” fan for 17 years, there are all kinds of things that fandom has imagined a character Ackles plays doing – things that a show on the CW could not include, even if it might have made more sense for hardened traumatized hunter Dean Winchester than his PG vocabulary ever did. Most of those things have played out in fanfiction over the years, for sure, but somehow seeing and hearing a character onscreen who is not limited to the CW standards and practices was more shocking than I expected.

No, I am very much not complaining. Seeing Jensen be able to sink his teeth into a role like this, into a character who is raw and fucked up and in many ways the worst of a swatch of humanity in real life – it was awesome. For someone who’s a long-time fan, it was also a mind fuck, in that I could not help but love the character just a little even when I hated him.

We learn about some of the horrible things he’s done in this episode, right alongside more of the things that have been done to him – and right alongside the moments when he lets his guard down a little and says something real and shows some genuine emotion. That is one of the things this show has excelled at from the beginning and why I’ve loved it since Season 1 – it’s always shades of gray, even the worst characters having moments of humanity when I feel for them.

But having one of my favorite actors embody that kind of complexity made it so much more difficult for me to negotiate. I kept wanting to sympathize with him – especially when the traumas of his past are laid out – but each time there’s a punch to the gut that reminds me that I can’t get too pulled in. Talk about a mindfuck!

Luckily, I have enjoyed Eric Kripke and his fictional worlds making me care way too much for nearly two decades, and apparently, I am still enjoying it every bit as much as I did in 2005.

Soldier Boy’s story plays out – and plays into – the theme of the penultimate episode and the season, and frankly the entire show, as we explore how the past keeps impacting the present. By the end of this season, we know a lot more about who each of the show’s characters are – and how they got that way.

Some of it is hard to watch, especially when it mirrors some themes on “Supernatural” that are carved into my heart forever. ‘The Boys’ is fairly Freudian in that it recognizes the importance that our early years and especially our parents play in shaping who we are and how we react to other people. Neither Freud nor the show insist there’s no way to change that, but for some of the characters, that influence is pervasive.

Who can fight hard enough to not repeat the traumas of the past and become someone different is a constant question, and we never quite know who will be successful or whether that success is temporary. I love that – it’s real. It’s why Soldier Boy and practically everyone else on this show makes me dizzy.

Of course, we’ve established that’s a dizziness I like. Another ride on the coaster in the dark, please.

The twists and turns here are of the plot – with alliances that shift almost faster than I can keep up with. Who can you trust – or can you trust anyone? Is everyone just out to achieve their own individual goal, and just using everyone else to get there?  Every time you think someone has “seen the light”, the lure of power (or fame, a version of power) pulls them back in – too often they end up on the dark side as a result. An ancient story played out in a no-holds-barred way that makes it hit even harder.

Homelander continues his descent into being isolated and even more dangerous, with this episode including the highly anticipated (dreaded?) cow milking scene that Antony Starr teased in pre series interviews, and we saw in previews. And okay, I did not know a whole lot about cow milking – but Starr sells Homelander’s nearly orgasmic appreciation of the entire process and the frothy finished product. The use of music in this and so many other scenes is the icing on the cake. I was gleeful when I recognized it!

The character of Todd, MM’s daughter Janine’s stepfather, has become an interesting addition. We don’t know much about him, but he’s presented as the kind of well-meaning everyman who gets pulled into the propaganda that is so damaging. He buys into Homelander and Vought’s PR wholeheartedly, swallowing whole the fear that they are peddling.

The parallel is a little heavy handed at times, but it’s still validating to see it reflected on my screen as ‘real life’ descends farther and farther into a place darker than I ever imagined it could. Give me my fictional media so I know I’m not the only one seeing and feeling (and fearing) it.

The story line twists and turns in unexpected ways for Frenchie and Kimiko, Annie and Hughie, The Deep and Cassandra, and for Black Noir too. Those twists are told in the typical atypical fashion that ‘The Boys’ excels at, some of them definitely not PG rated and some of them just the opposite, at least at first glance. Just hang on tight!

There are multiple “Supernatural” call backs in this episode too, which only served to make me even more emotionally raw as I was watching.  I might have said “Damn you, Kripke!” out loud more than once. Even Bobby Singer isn’t sacred anymore. (I am thrilled to have Jim Beaver on “The Boys,” playing a character much darker than his Supernatural father figure ever was – and killing it!)

Both Soldier Boy and Butcher end up even more fucked up than they began in this episode, and both Urban and Ackles show their characters’ reluctant vulnerability. There’s a poignant scene between them where both actors made me feel way too much, knowing that all that emotion was inevitably going to fuel things that would turn my stomach. It’s what “The Boys” does! And did I see the gigantic and agonizing twist coming? Maybe I should have, but no. I was too off-balance with all those turns.

So. More roller coaster rides, or have you had enough?

Apparently not. There’s one more episode to Season 3 with The Instant White-Hot Wild.

And thank Kripke there’s a season 4! Stay tuned for my deep dive recap and review once everyone has had a chance to watch this episode – and remember to hang on!

The sixth episode of “The Boys” third season was possibly the most anticipated one of all, and the title explains why. ‘Herogasm’ is a decadent, drug-fueled supe orgy taken from the pages of the original comics, and I’m fairly certain Eric Kripke is still giggling gleefully at somehow being given the green light to depict it in the series too.

It is as over the top as advertised, though I’m guessing there were plenty of people who were hoping that there were more participants, such as some of our favorite supes, not just in the “I’m here” way but in the “take my pants off” way.  Though we certainly do get some memorable moments with The Deep, don’t we?

This is the spoilery recap and review of the ‘Herogasm’ episode, so make sure you’ve watched before you read – hopefully your eyes are still working after some of the shit you saw!

The lead up to this episode was so much fun, with multiple ‘warnings’ including one from a shirtless Jensen Ackles standing in the Caribbean that should have come with a warning itself and a final warning on the episode itself as viewers were about to stream it.

There were even some real-life screenings if you were lucky enough to be a town where that was happening!

There’s actually a lot going on in this episode that is not Herogasm though.  It’s an episode full of crisis for Homelander, who is increasingly isolated and legitimately traumatized by the desertion of so many of his former team.  He is also traumatized by finding out that there’s a new and unanticipated threat on the scene as he views the footage of Crimson Countess’ death.

Homelander: Soldier Boy…

The ever not helpful Ashley: Someone cosplaying maybe?

The Deep: CGI?

But Homelander knows what he’s seeing, and he’s rattled, freaking out and muttering that it’s not fair like a two-year-old before he pulls himself together.

He instructs Ashley to bury all the footage (complicated by Vought’s serious technical problems now that The Deep fired all the tech people and then blamed Ashley) and belatedly tries to shore up some support from Black Noir, saying he’s glad to have Black Noir on his team to count on and calling him “pal”.  As a member of Soldier Boy’s Payback team, though, Black Noir knows he’s got a target on his back, and he knows who’s the biggest danger to him right now. He carves the chip right out of his arm in an elevator, handing it to a shocked and sobbing woman.

Woman: Uhhh, thank you…

The dark humor in this show, I love it.

The Deep, loyal to the end, tells Homelander about it, and Homelander, of course, takes it as yet another personal desertion, sending him into a spiral of desperation. This episode has one of my favorite scenes in the series so far – and no, it’s not Herogasm. It’s the quiet scene that follows the news about Noir, and it packs a tremendous psychological punch. Homelander, alone, upset. Feeling abandoned. His own image in the mirror talks back to him – literally – feeding his narcissism with reassurance that he can handle it, he’s at the top of the food chain.

When Homelander is still unsure, his mirror image reminds him that when they were kids “I got us through it…in the bad room…and now I’ll get us through this, as long as you and me stick together.”

It’s another vivid illustration of just how damaged young John was, enough to have him dissociating and projecting, constructing another stronger personality to try to get him through the bad times in the “bad room.”  Homelander worries whether Stan was right, that it was a mistake to take over Vought, that everyone will soon find out he’s a fraud. Imposter syndrome strikes hard, but the mirror image won’t allow it, forcing him to admit (to himself) that he still wants to be loved.  He taunts him, saying it never seems to work though – not Madeline, not Maeve, not Stormfront, not even his own son, as Homelander sobs.

Mirror image: Deep down there’s that dirty shriveled part of you that still mewls for approval and love and a mommy and daddy, boohoohoo. We gotta cut that part out like a cancer. Then you can be who you were meant to be. Pure, clean, like marble.

That was a brilliant scene, and Antony Starr was so incredible I almost forgot I was watching a fictional series. Homelander is determined to excise any perceived weakness – love, affection, caring, empathy – so he can’t care and can’t be abandoned and can’t be hurt again. So he can become unfeeling; a stone cold killer.

Externalizing that other voice to a mirror image? Perfection.

In other supe news:

A Train works on his new social media initiative about searching for his roots in Africa, frustrated that Ashley refuses to hold Blue Hawk accountable for the temper tantrum that injured his brother. Blue Hawk is claiming he felt threatened, which sends A Train over the edge.

A Train: In a room full of black people without super powers??

Ashley: It’s a time for healing…

A Train: My brother is paralyzed! I want charges brought – I want some fucking justice!

Ashley yanks out a big chunk of hair, going off about how she’s spent hours covering up all his BS including all three straight up murders, accusing him of not giving a shit about the collateral damage until it happened to him personally.

She’s not wrong. Caring about so-called “collateral damage” is a theme in this season, a less obvious but telling barometer of the genuineness and limits of someone’s caring.

Starlight joins Homelander and Neuman on a talk show. When the interviewer presses them on the 19 people dead and wounded by the recent mysterious explosion, Homelander snaps.

Homelander: What kind of nasty question is that? I don’t have time for your mediocre ambush. The American people, they know when someone is telling the facts and when the media is lying to them. There is no problem, and it is safe to go out. Period.

There have been some posts recently about Redditors who didn’t know that “The Boys” was a parody or see the rather striking at this point resemblance between Homelander and Trump, but I have to assume they did when they saw this episode!

Turns out that Neuman knows that Hughie knows she’s the one exploding heads but insists that she’s not going to hurt either of them or their families. She just wants some of Annie’s influencer status to get an education reform bill passed, in fact. Annie is fed up to here and not having it, with the best line of the episode.

Annie: I’m so fucking tired of listening to people tell me I need to be shitty in order to win. Fuck you and fuck Homelander and fuck Vought, I’m done. I’m not doing it anymore.

You tell her, Annie!

Frenchie disappears and Kimiko worries it’s because she kissed him, texting “are you mad at me because [kiss emoji]?” but there’s no answer – because he’s been abducted by Little Nina for not following her orders. Kimiko and Cherie soon join him, unfortunately. Little Nina taunts Frenchie once again as she likes to do, giving us more of his backstory of horrific child abuse, forced to kneel on shards of glass by his father when he accidentally broke one. 

She tries to force him to choose who will die, Cherie or Kimiko, but Kimiko manages to break out and fight her way to freedom. It’s a brutal fight, bloody and violent, Kimiko’s hair red with it when it’s over. But she prevails, super powers or not.

And then there’s Soldier Boy. There’s a lot more time spent with Soldier Boy in this episode, which means we get to know him a bit better. He’s nostalgic for the past, grumpy about some of his favorite things that they don’t have anymore and drowning his sorrows in booze and lines of coke that the boys supply for their dangerous and volatile secret weapon. Talk about playing with fire!

Soldier Boy is also not so keen on a team up, asking what he needs a team for when the last one got him handed to “the Reds”. Butcher is good at plying him, though, reminding him that they served up Crimson Countess to him “wrapped up and delivered like a fucking Christmas turkey” and sometimes I don’t know which of the two are winning in the be awful competition.  Collateral damage, once again.

When Soldier Boy insists he can find Payback on his own, Hughie does some plying of his own.

Hughie: You sure? You know what GPS is? Bluetooth? Internet?

Grumpy Soldier Boy: You made those words up.

At least half of the fandom: Ahhhhh stop making grumpy Soldier Boy so cute, Ackles!

They offer again to help him, and all they want in return is for him to add one more name to his list: Homelander.

Butcher: You’re not the only one who wants payback.

Hughie and Soldier Boy spend some time together, watching Soldier Boy starring in some old movies, playing the manufactured hero he never really was.

Their conversation is both disturbing and hilarious, swinging wildly from Soldier Boy’s contention that real men wouldn’t be caught in “pussy gear” like baby carriers and holding up Bill Cosby as the epitome of a good dad to insisting that he fought for his country and was left to rot in return by his own team.

He also opens up a little once again, a strange mix of vulnerability and misogyny that makes you want to slap him and console him simultaneously. Which is really confusing (and of course feels just the same in real life). He confides to Hughie that he wanted some rug rats of his own with Crimson Countess.

That seems heartwarming at first, but then he adds “Couple little boys, raise ‘em up to be men.”  You get the feeling that a daughter wouldn’t have been all that welcome, and that the ominous sounding ‘raise ‘em up to be men’ would be a reiteration of the most toxic tropes of masculinity you can imagine. Shades of Butcher’s oh so toxic dad.

Hughie asks him what happened in Midtown, and Soldier Boy admits he doesn’t know. At first, he bristles when Hughie persists, then softens and answers.

Soldier Boy: I blacked out…about ten minutes. When I came to, the damage was done. I didn’t mean to hurt those people. I’m not a bad guy.

Hughie: That won’t happen again, right?

Soldier Boy: Only if they got it comin’.

It’s clear that he doesn’t think of himself as a bad guy, and equally clear that he’s a judgmental prejudiced asshole who buys into his own hype. But he also doesn’t seem to want to hurt anyone other than Payback (though his concern for collateral damage is not very compelling).

Butcher returns with an address (bloody) and he and Hughie shoot up with Temp V while Soldier Boy suits up and watches.  

And so everyone heads to the home of the TNT Twins in Vermont. The Deep arrives first, sent to find Soldier Boy by Homelander. He bonds with Tommy, the twin wearing nothing but gold lamé undies. It’s hard to feel too bad for this member of Payback, since he seems as bad as Soldier Boy himself, saying that The Deep got railroaded with “that Starlight” and that “nowadays you can’t even pay a lady a compliment”. He also apparently put a camera in the toilet.

The Deep: You guys having a party?

He sure is. It’s Herogasm!

Now that I’ve seen it, I can only imagine what it was like to be on the set that day. Jensen Ackles shared his own experience with us at a convention in Denver shortly after filming it.

Jensen: They had rented out this huge mansion, just gaudy and perfect, and I see the A camera operator, his mask down, eating a sandwich and he looks a little traumatized. I was like, hey man, what’s goin’ on, you good? And he just shakes his head nad says “I seen some shit, man. I seen some shit.” He was already PTSD and we hadn’t even gone to lunch yet. And he was right. I can’t unsee it, can’t put that toothpaste back in the bottle. There was the set dec stuff brought in by the art department and let’s just say there were a lot of sex toys all around, and in addition there were just like vats of lube. The problem was they looked very similar to the covid hand sanitizers that they had spread throughout the set, so every now and then you’d hear an expletive because somebody had done an entire pump of lube on their hand and was like oh crap!

Jensen to “Supernatural” costar Jared Padalecki standing next to him: I don’t know that you’re old enough to see this. (He then played it for Padalecki on their recent flight to another convention).

Realizing that Soldier Boy is going after all of his old team, Mother’s Milk and Starlight head out to find the twins too, hoping to save some people and prevent that collateral damage when Soldier Boy inevitably comes for them. MM has pretty much had it. When Starlight says that she’s pissed too, but that they need to keep their heads on straight, he bristles, asking why he has to take the high road.

MM: White folks can get mad, but I gotta turn the other cheek? Fuck the high road. And fuck Butcher and Hughie!

We also finally hear the story of what happened to MM’s family, and it’s extra heartbreaking. No wonder MM has such a vendetta against Soldier Boy. Young Marvin was the one who woke up his beloved grampa because he was so excited that Soldier Boy was fighting outside, and when Soldier Boy threw a Benz right through their house, his grampa went with it.

MM: And I woke him up. I put him in that spot.

In other words, Soldier Boy didn’t care about collateral damage, or who was in the line of fire – and that’s what it results in. That’s when MM’s OCD began; gotta check the burners or Soldier Boy might come back.  He’s determined to get that out of his head and is convinced that killing Soldier Boy is the only thing that will do it. They too knock on the door, and the supe who answers (I’ll leave that a surprise just in case someone hasn’t seen it yet) is reluctant to admit MM since he’s not a supe. Annie isn’t taking no for an answer though. I love this newly unfettered Annie a lot.

Annie confirms that he’s with her: He’s very good at cunnilingus. He just gobbles that vagina right up, mm mm om nom nom…

Herogasm is in full swing as they enter, complete with full frontal male nudity, flaming cocks, crystal dildos and flying vibrators. And lots of sex workers who are probably not being treated super great by a bunch of self-centered narcissistic C list supes.

MM: Frenchie will be so sad he missed this.

They’re determined to try to get everyone else out of there before Soldier Boy arrives and explodes the place to kill the twins, but in the meantime, poor MM with OCD gets uhhh…. substances… all over him multiple times and is freaking out and Laz Alonso makes it hilarious.

Butcher and Hughie arrive with Soldier Boy, who apparently founded Herogasm back in 1952 (with ‘that firecracker’ Liberty … aka Stormfront). Hughie’s face when he hears that is priceless. Hughie is also one of the few worried about collateral damage.

Hughie: There are a lot of people in there.

Soldier Boy: Well, as long as they stay out of my way, they’ll be fine.

I feel like that is a bit overly optimistic.

Butcher and Hughie plan to tell him exactly where the twins are so that nobody gets in his way, but this seems like a risky plan to me, just saying. Soldier Boy once again seems to be entirely focused on taking out his former team and not hurting others, but so far, his level of control is… questionable.

Starlight, bless her heart, even tries to convince a naked Blue Hawk to leave, but he mansplains to her when she insists Soldier Boy is real, telling her she could be a little better informed. Touche, show!

Hughie teleports inside, fitting right in since he’s now naked. He walks around holding his junk and politely turning down invitations and Jack Quaid absolutely slays it. Meanwhile, The Deep has forgotten his mission because there’s a seductive octopus there, so you can figure out how that goes.

Hughie runs into A Train and inexplicably chooses this moment to demand an apology for Robyn. Surprisingly, he gets one, A Train saying that he is sorry, that he fucked up and that seeing somebody you love get hurt like that is fucked up. He has tears in his eyes and he does seem sorry, but he apparently couldn’t access any empathy until he was impacted himself with his brother’s injury. Now the idea of ‘collateral damage’ hits home in a personal way.

Starlight even gives A Train a warning to get out, refusing to go along with Hughie and Butcher’s plan because “you don’t get to decide who to serve up on a platter.” She is determined to stop Soldier Boy, but Hughie teleports them both outside.

Hughie: I saved you, Annie. All I want is to save you.

She protests that she doesn’t need him to save her, and he gets angry, saying that he has to always be the weak one, she has to be so much stronger than him. She reminds him that he said he didn’t care about that, but he admits that he does. Sometimes. A little.

Once again, Annie reiterates that she thought the V had fucked him up – but it was just him.

MM also has his long-awaited confrontation with Soldier Boy, throwing a grenade at him – which he calmly blows out. MM accuses him of killing his family, and Soldier Boy asks, unconcerned, “which one?” They’re interrupted by Butcher, who tells Soldier Boy the twins are in the next room. He nods and keeps to the plan, going in search of them.

MM is furious at being denied his chance at revenge, accusing Butcher of being able to go after Homelander, but not letting him go after Soldier Boy. But Butcher won’t let him do it, using his temporarily super strength to hold MM back.

Soldier Boy confronts the Twins, who insist that it wasn’t their fault – it was Black Noir’s. Soldier Boy realizes Noir wouldn’t do anything without Vought’s say so and feels even more betrayed.

He snarls, flashbacks to Russian music taking him over as the explosion builds in him.  Once again, Ackles shows us the depth of emotion that comes with Soldier Boy’s enactment of revenge – the reservoir of hurt and rage that are embodied in the shock wave. It takes out half the building, and Hughie and Annie hear it. He tries to stop her from going to help, and she throws him across the roadway.

In the aftermath of the explosion, naked and bloody people make their escape. A Train confronts Bluehawk and takes his revenge in a way that’s pointedly historically accurate and incredibly violent, but the effort he puts in to move that fast takes its toll on A Train too.

Homelander arrives (with some bad timing for Termite…) just as Soldier Boy walks out.

Butcher: Sorted?

Soldier Boy: What happened?

Homelander confronts them both, saying that Soldier Boy was his hero growing up, the only one nearly as strong as him. Soldier Boy’s toxic masculinity brings a retort that cuts.

Soldier Boy: Buddy, you think you look strong – you’re wearing a cape. You’re just a cheap fucking knock off.

Homelander: Oh no, I’m the upgrade.

There’s an epic fight, with Butcher and Hughie and Soldier Boy teaming up against Homelander while Annie convinces MM to help the people who need it instead of pursuing revenge.

Annie: MM please, he doesn’t control you.

That was such a small moment, but it was so important – the idea that someone who has wronged you only controls you if you let them, if you make revenge the only thing that’s important to you. If you do that, it controls your life, but it doesn’t have to.

Homelander, alas, manages to escape. Soldier Boy, Butcher and Hughie walk out together, Starlight and MM glaring at them.

Frenchie patches Kimiko up; she’s had an epiphany, saying that she blamed the V for making her a monster, but that wasn’t true – it’s just who she is.

Homelander is home alone, again, staring at the wall.

Starlight, in the midst of ambulance sirens, asks MM to hold her phone to take a video. And then she tells the truth, to all her social media following.  Welcome back, Annie January.

Two more episodes to go in Season 3 – stay tuned for another new episode next Friday!

Episode 6 of “The Boys” Season 3 has a lot of anticipation around it, simply because – as its title announces – it’s the Herogasm episode. It’s still amazing to me that the series was able to pull off the supe orgy event from the comics and put it on streaming video. Herogasm is every bit as zany as everyone expected, and surprisingly humorous too.

I didn’t expect to laugh out loud when there were such … creative… things going on. Flying vibrators? Sex with a…. Okay, you have to watch. This show is good at that, though – mixing the sexual with the violent with the humorous with the occasionally touching. And not just the Herogasm kind of touching!

Here’s my non-spoilery teaser review of Episode 6, which everyone should watch when it drops on Friday (or Thursday night if we’re lucky). Stay tuned for a spoilery recap and in-depth review once everyone has had a chance to watch.

 I won’t give away what actually happens at the Herogasm bash, or who ends up being there to join in the fun (or pursue other goals while others have fun). Let’s just say that a lot happens, and it is both disturbing and darkly funny. I will forever appreciate “The Boys” for being able to combine all those things with a drug-fueled supe orgy that had so many pump bottles of lube on the set that many a hapless crew member apparently mistook one for covid-protocol hand sanitizer.

So yes, that happened. The underlying theme of the episode plays out before and alongside Herogasm — the slow but sure desertion of anyone who is truly “on his team” for Homelander. Because anyone who has watched Eric Kripke’s shows for a long long time knows he can bring the OMG and the OHMYHEART and the OUCH all in one episode.

Homelander is increasingly isolated, in one poignant and disturbing scene left with only himself to talk to – literally. He also talks back, which is never a good sign but makes for fascinating fictional media. It makes horrifying sense that it’s the persona created in childhood when John needed to dissociate, still with him after all this time – probably more and more present as the stress and isolation build up.

It’s the ‘strong one’ who got him through the trauma that happened in the ‘bad room’, who at first tries to give him(self) a pep talk about being better than everyone and not needing anyone, then resorts to taunting him for the part of himself that still longs for love and approval. There’s the suggestion that he carve those parts of himself out, leave him pure, clean.

You get the feeling that’s exactly where Homelander is headed. Impermeable. Cold. Unfeeling.

Makes sense when you’re a helpless, traumatized child – shut off your feelings, make yourself like stone. Make the pain stop. My little bit of empathy for Homelander reappears briefly every time I hear about his horribly abusive childhood – his defenses make sense, but they are so far from helpful at this point, they’re likely to take everyone around him down. And there’s no justifying that, even if you can see how he got there. His lack of remorse when he kills, even innocent bystanders, is absolutely horrifying.

In contrast to Homelander’s coldness, Starlight in this episode runs hot and takes no shit. She’s increasingly fed up with everyone and their brother and sister who keep “telling me I need to be shitty in order to win.” You can tell she wants to give a big fuck you to all kinds of people in this episode, including Victoria Neuman, who is so damn pleasant even though you know she could pop everyone’s heads like a melon. That’s scarier than someone who actually looks scary! Annie January takes the spotlight in a different way in this episode, and I was cheering.

We also get more backstory of Frenchie’s childhood and how much it messed him up, which is for sure the theme of this entire show. We get more backstory on Mother’s Milk too, including exactly what happened with his family and Soldier Boy back in the day, the origin of his OCD and his current obsession to confront Soldier Boy and get some kind of revenge. For many of the characters, revenge seems like the only way to end that kind of obsession. Mother’s Milk is looking for that with Soldier Boy, Hughie is looking for that with A Train, and A Train is looking for it with Blue Hawk. Round and round and round we go.

And that brings us to Soldier Boy and Butcher. Butcher’s looking for that with Homelander; Soldier Boy is looking for that with the team who abandoned him. The utilitarian partnership between Butcher and Soldier Boy, with Hughie along for the ride, is a lot more fascinating than I expected it to be. Soldier Boy’s return shakes everything and everyone up, supes included. Having someone else on the playing field with at least as much power as Homelander is a game changer, but while there are plenty of similarities between the two, there are also differences.

I was thrilled that we get to know Soldier Boy better in this episode. Ackles brings unexpected depth to his character once again, much to my distress – he’s a jerk who’s stuck in the racist misogynistic homophobic ideas that were so common in his time, and that have clearly always worked just fine for him so why would he change them? They’re beliefs that have probably hurt countless people over the decades and he remains uninterested in changing them.  But he’s surprisingly open in sharing his feelings and how lost he is in this new world. A world that, as he says, forgot him.

He doesn’t seem interested in causing harm to anyone except the team that betrayed him.  Like Homelander though, he’s also a man who has nothing and has lost everything; and that, as we’ve seen before, is a dangerous man. Especially when they have great power. He may not be out for revenge against anyone but Payback, but he also can’t control his explosions that destroy city blocks and he’s not very concerned about collateral damage.  Not exactly a caring, compassionate chap.

The underlying theme of this episode is how much blame to give other things – whether outside influences or substances like V – for when people do bad things. Is it the V who turns people evil, corrupting them, or does it just bring out who they really are? It’s a metaphor both for the power and privilege someone gains and what that allows them to do and also, for the ways in which we absolve ourselves of blame for the things we do that hurt others – it’s not my fault, it’s the people who hurt me in the past. It’s the drugs. It’s the V. Or is it?

The episode is also very much about the mantra of Eric Kripke’s earlier show, “Supernatural.” Saving people, hunting things. What does it mean to be saved and what does it mean to be the one doing the saving? There are some pivotal choices made in this episode around that question. Mother’s Milk, Starlight, Kimiko and Hughie all make decisions about what’s most important to them, confronting some hard truths about themselves.

This is perhaps the most powerful episode yet of Season 3, with every actor stepping up with compelling performances, and twists and turns to make your head spin. One of the things I love most about this show is that I almost never know what’s coming. I don’t like it when things are predictable, and that is one thing The Boys has never been.

And just so you know, there are two episodes left of this season, and you can count on that unpredictability to remain. And then some!