This episode is unlike others. The team is in disarray, unaware of how to approach this looming supe-killing virus. They are contemplating the future of making it, as Butcher is all for it and the others are weary. However, the team decides to call on Butcher for help on a mission to infiltrate a Vought cocktail party under the identity of Webweaver. Butcher is busy using his kind of tough love to bribe a scientist to get the virus up and running fast.
Webweaver however, is on a bender and trades his suit to Mothers Milk for heroin, under one condition. In the process, Mother’s Milk is squirted in the face with some liquid from Webweaver’s butt. MM’s about had it, along with the audience, after the disturbing outcome. The Boys once again has a way of pushing the bounds of uncomfortability with the audience in this season’s end. This scene felt like too much until you see the super serious Mothers Milk realize he hates his “job” that much more. It gets a laugh.
Behind the scenes, Hughie gets in the very smelly suit and raids the party on the lookout for information on Sage. Missing check in, the team has a bad feeling that he could have been discovered . Later at the cocktail party, Starlight runs into Firecracker, she is put into a corner and is forced to apologize to Firecracker once more for her past, but only to distract as she drugs her and drags her out of the room. Despite this being a traitorous scene, it didn’t make Starlight feel any less sincere in her apology. It’s been enjoyable to watch Starlight’s off-guard takedown scenes this season.
Hughie, unfortunately, is found immediately at the alt right cocktail party and meets Tek Knight who invites him to his underground dungeon. Hughie quickly realizes that this is actually a sex and torture dungeon. Vought’s Ashley is also there to partner in this fantasy as well. He desperately tries not to give up his identity by guessing Webweaver’s safeword. Failing, Tek Knight rips off the mask revealing Hughie’s identity. But the play doesn’t stop as Hughie begins to scream for help.
Kimiko goes through a lot of trouble but finally finds Starlight. The two find the basement and stop Tek Knight as he is about to carve new holes into Hughie. After realizing torturing him won’t work, Tek Knight’s former sidekick breaks free of his chains and convinces them to drain his wealth to liberal causes. Eventually, Tek Knight cracks and tells them his plan with Sister Sage. Homelander plans to use Knight’s private prisons as internment camps for those who dissent when they invoke the 25th Amendment. This was a very creative scene with great comedy.
Deep in the Vought headquarters, The Deep and Black Noir struggle to see the point of being a superhero if they feel they actually are bad guys. Black Noir decides to quit Vought and try to live normally, telling the Deep he does not like violence. All The Deep has to offer to try and have him stick with being a supe is that “it feels good to have power over your enemies.” He questions why he would ever give that up. It is lines like these that feel like an allegory for our current political system being translated through the show.
At the very fancy cocktail party, we see that there are bothered guests: particularly, Victoria Neuman, who does not want to be here. But Homelander reminds her that they need her support on the supes bill and she must start her schmoozing. Not only this, but she must tell them about her identity as a supe. Later at the party, there is an incredibly funny scene where Victoria is trying very hard to care about a congressman mansplaining the lack of necessity for abortion rights and her head explodes; a great gore moment from The Boys.
There is a brilliant monologue from sister sage at the alt right cocktail party, directed at Victoria after she asks her how she puts up with everyone’s nonsense here. Sage spewed very sad things about her backstory, like her grandma died of cancer. She learned from this experience of creating a cure for her cancer and still being denied a listening ear or help; that the rich will get their cake no matter what so get ahead by having one hand in their pockets and the other slitting their throat. This revealed a lot about the hidden character behind Sage, and her real motives; it seems that she is evil for a different reason. It is because after a lifetime of having her brains and still not being able to garner respect from others she had become jaded and hardened. Much different from the characters of Homelander and Firecracker who wear it because of both past trauma and their sadism bug.
At the cocktail party they are not so silently crashing, Sage is back up but her brain is regenerating and at the age of a 13 year old. This is because she had caught Mothers Milk and Kimiko at the party trying to get into the basement earlier and he had shot her in the head. After this fight Mothers Milk is down and ATrain luckily walks in and Kimiko begs him to take MM to the hospital and he does. Homelander knows Sister Sage can’t speak and goes off the cuff at the party to state his plan about the 25th amendment. Then Victoria gets up there and tells people that the country is not a democracy because the people in it are stupid and just the labor force. She doesn’t say that she is a superhero.
The next day Homelander finds out from Firecracker that Starlight and the team had been at the cocktail party. Firecracker tells him that Tek Knight is dead too. This is when Firecracker tells Homelander that Sage had been lying or going behind his back and that she was the leak. Homelander questions if it is Firecracker, and she proves her loyalty to him and lets him drink from her boob to prove it. Yes it does get weirder. Its hard not to be reminded of Sister Sage and The Deep’s Dynamic with these two. Except Homelander is the one who claims he is not sexually attracted to Firecracker, and in episode 4 we see Sister Sage begging the deep to lobotomize her so that they could have sex. It is odd that Sister Sage and Homelander have, finding disgust in their partner, as a shared trait in relationships. It is up in the air whether or not Firecracker and Homelander are a couple to seriously look out for, but Firecracker’s devotion to Vought is, this evil team gives her a scary amount of purpose and she will do anything to keep that.
We then see that Kimiko is eagerly still trying to get in touch with Frenchie; however this is all for nothing as we have recently refused to visit Kimiko in person. She tries again at the end of the episode all for the sheriff to pass align her note and tell her that her inmate does not want to see her.
There is a large wake up call at the end of the episode, as Butcher realizes that there is now a way to wipe out all supes and create genocide amoung them, he deals with two voices in his head contemplating out loud about this issue. He realizes that these visions of his past might be his tumor getting more serious. This entire season we have seen him weave in and out of reality and in this episode Joe Kessler reveals that he is the ultimate devil on his shoulder suggesting genocide. This is something that I felt a bit at odds about, as the writers made it so that Butcher is faced with an ultimatum. Either complete his lifetime goal of taking out Homelander with this new virus but must lose Ryan, Kimiko and Annie to it as well if it gets out. Seeing that this is a choice or something that is being almost justified on the show was very dystopian and unsettling. Overall this episode can feel a little bit too close to home or on the nose, because of how close to reality it is especially now.
Rating: 8/10