Spoilers

On the trail of Soldier Boy…

This is a big episode. A bunch of plotlines converge and we see some absolutely superb acting – notably from Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty and Jack Quaid.

Let’s tackle Antony Starr first who delivers acres of meaning and feeling with little more than his face. There is meat here. We see the vulnerability, the insecurity and the rage and emptiness that pretty much forms 95% of who Homelander is. He is searching for something to be but believes it should arrive on a platter for him because he is convinced that he is the epitome of humanity. Regarding himself as above the rest of us he feels the bit that wants connection is his greatest weakness while also knowing for sure it’s the only bit that can deliver worth and meaning.

All of this has been on display before but in this episode Homelander is presented in distilled format – literally debating with himself who he is and who he wants to be.

It is a fantastic performance.

Then there’s Jack Quaid’s Hughie who, having finally been given power reverts to the type of person he previously eschewed. It turns out he only abandoned being that kind of person because he was resigned to being a nobody. This episode allows him to express that, now he has access to power, he’s going to be exactly the kind of person he previously attacked. It’s the heart of The Boys – that power reveals the corruption in all of us and in Hughie we see the most mundane version of it. You could see Hughie’s actions in standing up to both A Train and Homelander as heroic but they’re anything but – he does so because now he has power he feels confident. It is grim and Quaid delivers his understated performance in a way that still makes Hughie seem less dangerous than the others around him despite the fact that he’s the one abandoning everything he considered moral now he can do so.

He is ‘Scorched Earth’ Butcher’s mini-me.

Lastly, but far from least, comes Erin Moriarty’s Starlight. Let me be clear that finally granting proper agency to a female presenting character is definitely too little too late. There is no excuse for us to reach the end of this season and only now find one woman with agency.

With that said, Starlight sees Hughie and goes in the opposite direction. She stands tall and chooses what most people would consider the right choice. Not only that but she does good by helping other people do good.

Too often, and in no small part thanks to superhero stories, we reach for violence as the fantasy of dealing with the troubles which beset us. It’s why the MCU has to have a beat down at the end of every movie – its characters are predicated on using violence to solve their problems.

Starlight refuses this narrative and it’s the most powerful decision in the show.

In a week when it seems people without accountability have made decisions about others that they will never feel or be held responsible for, Starlight’s actions remind us that survivors need our help, that even under the greatest pressure we can resist and do what is right.

It also reminds us that there is no middle ground. We either resist evil or we become co-opted by it – either into silence or into accompanying it. This is the terror of populism – that it makes us choose – because extremist ideas do not create space for dialogue but instead create barriers to define who is inside and who is outside and those on the outside are less than human by definition.

While titans fight we can still act and in this Moriarty gives Starlight a powerful dignity and, it turns out, there may be one good person in The Boys after all.

As for the show there’s almost too much going on to talk it through. I imagine people are going to be talking about a couple of key scenes but for me Soldier Boy finally meeting Homelander is the key moment.

There is no resolution to this meeting, but it does give us a path to the finale. With Butcher and Soldier Boy ready and able to take Homelander down once and for all we can expect there to be frantic manoeuvring next episode.

It would be easy to claim the preceding episodes have set this payoff up and in some ways they have. Having said that, I think we could have been here much earlier and the quality of this episode wouldn’t have suffered.

Rating? 9 resolutions out of 10.

Stewart Hotston