Season 5, episode 5 adopts a unique style for the show, framing a few character-driven vignettes with title cards. The first segment follows Firecracker as she faces a conflict with her old pastor, who is under pressure from Homelander’s Democratic Church of America. Instead of fulfilling her promise to protect him, she slanders him on her television show to appease Homelander. The next character the episode focuses on is Black Noir, as his dreams in the theater are squandered when The Deep kills his director. The Boys are shown through the perspective of Terror, as they save him from eating chocolate cake. Additionally, Hughie and Mother’s Milk have forgiving moments with Butcher, as Butcher allows Starlight and Kimiko to take the virus antidote. Afterward, Sister Sage is focused on as she schemes with Ashley, hoping the virus will let loose and for supes to kill each other. Soldier Boy and Homelander go to Los Angeles to find out where V1 is from Marathon Man. Everything goes awry, and Soldier Boy kills all of the celebrity cameos. The episode concludes with Firecracker appealing to Homelander, only to be killed.
In isolation, the concept of utilizing this episode to zero in on the perspectives of side characters was an extremely fun idea. However, in terms of The Boys’ general style, the choices this episode made felt extremely strange. Without the title cards or breaks in chronology, this episode of The Boys plays exactly like every other episode, which has always focused on its ensemble cast. With this, it seems the explicit framing devices were used in an insecure way to add arbitrary window dressing to a slower, more character-focused episode. Especially with Terror and The Boys, it feels like the fun framing device was used to distract from how quickly The Boys forgive each other, especially given the previous episode’s tensions. Still, the attempt to have a uniquely structured, gimmicky episode this late into the show was decently interesting, but only in concept.
Since this episode did not intercut its plotlines, each plotline lives and dies in isolation, with some clearly stronger than others. Black Noir’s arc in the episode was a highlight, as his tension with The Deep has escalated to an interesting point. While it’s likely that Black Noir might do something unique, such as run away, it seems pretty clear, given the show’s history, that he will probably rebel against Homelander or die trying. The most notable aspect of the episode, aside from its narrative style, was the celebrity cameos. At first, they were fun to see, but they eventually melted into the rest of the characters in The Boys, serving only as mouthpieces for edgy references and props for shocking gore. To be fair, their placement in a Los Angeles mansion helped justify these cameos conceptually; they just overstayed their welcome a bit despite having some fun banter. The finale scene between Homelander and Firecracker was definitely the highlight of the episode, especially on the heels of Firecracker’s interesting vignette. The kill wasn’t necessarily shocking, but the character dynamics, push-and-pull, and, especially, the acting made the scene quite engaging.
Rating: 5/10