RIOTUS

Okay, this is getting down to the wire. We’re getting some pieces set in place not only for the series finale next week but also for Vought Rising, the prequel series coming soon.

SPOILER WARNING: IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED S5 EP7 OF THE BOYS,
PLEASE WATCH IT BEFORE READING FURTHER.

The penultimate episode of The Boys Season 5 opens with a rehearsal for a musical production number at the Democratic Church of America, led by Oh Father (Daveed Diggs). This will lead up to a focus group to screen a commercial for Homelander (Antony Starr) declaring himself God. It doesn’t go well.

In the Oval Office, Homelander is savoring his power boost when President Calhoun (David Andrews) and VP Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie) come to get the day’s to-do list. He orders them to make his church the national religion, ban abortions, and stop sales of nut milk; when the president says he’ll run it by Congress, Homelander tells him to dissolve Congress. The president is uneasy—and Ashley (drawing on her back-of-the-head twin’s telepathy) tells Homelander the president isn’t a true believer. In short (messy) order, Ashley becomes president.

Frenchie (Tomer Capone) tries to imbue Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) with Soldier Boy’s (Jensen Ackles) unique radioactive, power-killing blast, but his efforts aren’t getting far enough fast enough. He seeks help from Sage (Susan Heyward), who’s in a self-pitying funk after failing to predict Soldier Boy giving the V1 shot to Homelander. He explains that he is deeply in love with Kimiko; Sage, bitter and cynical, can’t understand that but Frenchie, bonding with her over the show Love Island, gives her some insight… and she comes around.

Elsewhere, the Deep (Chace Crawford) tries to apologize to Homelander for Black Noir’s (Nathan Mitchell) death. Homelander doesn’t care; he’s ending the Seven. Unable to return to the ocean (because everything in the ocean blames him for a catastrophic oil pipeline leak that killed billions of fish), the Seven is all he has. He is talking to his manager when a man drowns right in front of him… and he’s too cowardly to save him, having been told by his former friend Xander (a hammerhead shark voiced by Samuel L. Jackson) to stay away from the water. Forever. And his cowardice is caught on cellphone video, too.

Homelander is mooning over his dream project, HomeLand (a self-themed amusement park/megachurch), when Soldier Boy comes to say goodbye. He gave his son the V1, sure, but he doesn’t like or love him and he wants to get out. Soldier Boy, provoked by Homelander’s neediness, blurts out that Homelander isn’t a god, he just had a wet dream. Unable to tolerate rejection and denial both, Homelander chokes out his dad and puts him back in suspended animation.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team goes to find out what Oh Father is doing at Vought’s studio space instead of his church. Butcher (Karl Urban) and Hughie (Jack Quaid) are knocked out by the murderous telepath Synapse (Steven Yaffee), while Annie (Erin Moriarty) and Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) find the focus group watching Homelander accept Jesus’ crown of thorns. It turns out only six of the thirty viewers believe Homelander is divine—so Sheline (Emma Elle Paterson) and Dogknott (Zach McGowan) are sent in to murder the nonbelievers. Annie and MM break in and kill the murderous supes before getting the survivors to safety with Gen V‘s Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair) and Justin Li (London Thor).

Butcher and Hughie are taunted by Synapse, who takes the form of Joe Kessler (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who died on a mission Butcher should have called off. Turns out Butcher has a history of sacrificing teams to achieve his goals, something Hughie should know. But Hughie uses a clever tactic to distract the telepath, allowing the two to escape.

Unfortunately, Synapse was able to share Sage’s location and Frenchie’s efforts with Homelander, who goes to their hideout. Their last attempt to fortify Kimiko is barely complete before she has to hide with Sage, leaving Frenchie to face Homelander alone. He lures the psychotic supe into a high-radiation chamber and bluffs that they’ve already got Soldier Boy’s trick duplicated. Deterred, Homelander flies off, leaving Kimiko, Sage, and a just-arrived Butcher and Hughie to witness Frenchie dying of radiation exposure.

This was a landmark episode, partly because this is the first member of The Boys to die in action. Tomer Capone gets quite a bit to do in this episode, having a really nice scene or two with Susan Heyward before wrapping up his arc with Karen Fukuhara. All three really deliver an emotional climax to this episode—Sage because she realizes that brilliance can’t outthink love and Kimiko and Frenchie because this is the end.

Starr continues to impress as Homelander’s fragile psyche crumbles. The flickers of expression crossing his face—the bland almost-compassion before he crushes the president’s head, the blink of fury and disappointment as his dad goes to leave, the disgust at Frenchie that switches over to fear… he’s truly a master at these subtle character moments. Frankly, the guy deserves an Emmy.

On the other side is Urban, whose Butcher cultivates a stony facade with occasional smirks and a glint of inspired madness in his eyes. His rage at Synapse-as-Kessler dissecting his flaws and mistakes is masked by grim silence, making his moment of triumph more effective because it’s never over the top. He should get an Emmy too!

Alonso has perhaps his best moment in the series when he explains his nickname to Annie, tying it to loss of hope and how caring—in a world where nobody cares—is an act of defiance and bravery. He gets to deliver perhaps the most inspiring speech in The Boys (though Butcher’s comparison of their plight to Posh Spice in this episode is a hilarious runner-up).

And Moriarty, whose Annie has been maybe the most like a “superhero” of them all, plays burned out and hopeless to a T. Trying to inspire resistance with her “Starlighter” movement has only gotten people killed or imprisoned and she’s over it; but even so, when the focus group is attacked, she still jumps in.

And lastly, Minifie gets some great moments as Ashley and her back-of-head twin Back Ashley (aka Bashley). Bashley is a Jiminy Cricket, trying to get Ashley to do the right thing, but it’s clear that Ashley is traumatized and in survival mode, doing whatever it takes to live another day. Bashley can’t support that any longer and goes silent. Ashley is thrilled, at first, until it sinks in that the only one who cared about her is as good as gone. It’s a subtle bit but damned effective.

So what’s next? Will Butcher be the one to bring down Homelander? Who gets to survive and who’ll be filling a coffin? Guess we’ll find out soon. See you next Wednesday!