As the dark superhero saga speeds toward its finale, the titular team races Homelander to find the ultimate prize: immortality in a hypodermic. But it turns out that both sides in this race have bigger problems…
SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE BOYS EPISODE “KING OF HELL”
MAKE SURE YOU’VE WATCHED EPISODE 204 BEFORE PROCEEDING
In the last episode, our heroes found something big: It’s possible that the original Compound V—known as V1—still exists. If it does, it would give the user (assuming they survive) immortality and greatly enhanced powers. But with Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) in Homelander’s (Antony Starr) hands, they’re now in a race to see who can get to it first.
Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) finds out about this from Sister Sage (Susan Heyward), who manipulates the veteran supe into going with Homelander—though he clearly has no desire to let his son use whatever they find. (The idea of spending eternity with his “freak” of a son horrifies him.)
And he isn’t the only one playing keep-away. Butcher (Karl Urban) wants to destroy it; Hughie (Jack Quaid) wants to use it to protect Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) and Annie/Starlight (Erin Moriarty) from the supe-killing virus Butcher’s been developing; and the rest mostly want to keep the psychopathic Homelander from becoming a demigod.
…which Homelander thinks he is. He believes that he is God now and that the world should worship him. He confides this to Firecracker (Valorie Curry), a fervent Christian who struggles with this bit of news. Getting past her qualms, she pulls Vice President Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie) and the evangelical Oh Father (Daveed Diggs) into an audacious scheme: create the Democratic Church of America to worship Homelander as a messiah.
The Boys reach Ft. Harmony, where Dr. Vought conducted his initial experiments, finding dead bodies strewn along the way. Once inside, they start to fight viciously among themselves. Harsh, ugly words are exchanged before they come to blows, even as Homelander and Soldier Boy approach the abandoned Army base. Only Frenchie (Tomer Capone) realizes something is terribly wrong; they shouldn’t be acting like this.
The miasma of hatred overcomes Soldier Boy and Homelander too. Soldier Boy tells Homelander how much he hates him, while Homelander shares that he knows Soldier Boy was a rich kid who bought his way into Vought’s program because he was jealous of his war-hero brother. Soldier Boy locks Homelander in a high-radiation chamber, which makes the evil supe desperately sick and depowered, while he seeks out whatever V1 might remain.
Turns out both sides are disappointed. Someone beat them to it and the clues point to a missing first-generation supe named Bombsight, a peer of Soldier Boy’s. But soon enough, Hughie is fighting Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) and Kimiko, Frenchie is running from Soldier Boy… and the cause of the boiling hate-vibes is discovered.
In the basement, amid a tangle of vines, Frenchie and Soldier Boy find Quinn (Kris Hagen), a hideously mutated plant-human hybrid. Trapped in that decayed basement for decades, he projects rage—and has managed to kill everything around Ft. Harmony. Due to his epic drug abuse, Frenchie is immune, so he goads Soldier Boy into using his radioactive blast attack to incinerate Quinn and thus free everyone from the hate.
Without a prize, the Boys retreat, while Homelander spares Soldier Boy’s life. Both sides have a new target: Bombsight and whatever he took from the Ft. Harmony lab. The chase continues…
Elsewhere, Annie January visits her long-missing father Rick (Tim Daly), discovering he has a new family—one that apparently supports Homelander. They have a difficult but necessary conversation, clearing the air and dispelling Annie’s long-held fears about why he left. And when a cop shows up to arrest Annie, Rick puts his family’s life on the line to protect her.
Key Takeaways:
- We learn about the gruff, profane Soldier Boy’s background as a jealous, fearful rich kid who was hardly the tough-as-nails soldier he seemed to be;
- Homelander has gone full-on psycho, truly believing he’s meant to be worshipped and now enacting a plan to make that happen, even as he’s told only a small percent of people might go along;
- Butcher’s obsession spills over into his interaction with the badly beaten Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), who survived a fight with Homelander, as Butcher tells him that he was foolish to take on the supe by himself without the virus as a weapon;
- Annie learns why her dad left and begins healing a very old hurt (and Tim Daly is amazing as her dad);
- There’s no doubt Sage is moving to stop Homelander, pitting Soldier Boy against him;
- Ashley enjoys her fake marriage with Oh Father a lot more than we thought; and
- Black Noir and the Deep’s bitter falling-out comes to light, as Noir (hilariously) doesn’t play along on the Deep’s podcast.
What lies ahead? Well, per everything we know, there are a LOT of deaths coming real soon. Next episode has been hailed as a bloodbath by a few of the lead actors and why would we doubt it? Seems like the decks will soon be cleared and the last battles fought. Stay tuned.
Rating: A
Level of Enthusiasm: 99%
