Warning: major spoilers for season three, episode eight of The Boys, “The Instant White-Hot Wild” ahead!
The Boys finally delivered the showdown fans had been waiting for all season between Butcher, Homelander, and Soldier Boy. But of course, the best-laid plans often go awry, and considering that this is The Boys, after all, Homelander has the bright idea to introduce his son Ryan to Soldier Boy in an attempt to leverage some compassion and come together as a family.
Of course, the flaw in Homelander’s rationale is that Soldier Boy is devoid of compassion, and he learns that his biological father is disappointed to call such as “weak, sniveling, pussy” his son and proceeds to immediately attack him. (What about the phone call at the end of last week’s episode? Doesn’t matter, apparently!) But now, the presence of Ryan throws a wrench into things, as he quickly lasers Soldier Boy off of Homelander, and Butcher finds himself in the de facto position of once again protecting Becca’s son with Homelander at the expense of the mission.
By the end of the fight, Annie, Mother’s Milk, Kimiko, and Frenchie — with some help from Hughie at a safe location — manage to subdue Solider Boy just long enough for him to go nuclear, and Maeve (who showed up to help take down Homelander) manages to blast him out of the Vought tower just in time to explode in mid-air, saving countless lives.
So with Solider Boy out of the picture, taken back to a storage facility that we hope he’ll be able to break out of soon — if for no other reason than having Jensen Ackles around has been an ultimate blast this season — we end not tremendously far off from where we started. Homelander is still an ongoing threat, but now the difference is that he doesn’t care about his image.
This is evident in the final scene of the finale, which brings us to the arguably real villain — or villains of the series going forward. When Homelander touches down at a very Trumpian rally to introduce his throngs of fans to his son, a protester calls him a fascist and chucks a water bottle at Ryan. In response, Homelander pulls an almost quite literal Trump “Fifth Avenue” and promptly lasers the dude’s head clear off.
He pauses, waiting for the inevitable backlash, but is instead met with approval from this freaking guy. Todd (Matthew Gorman), the suburban white stepfather to Mother’s Milk’s daughter Janine, leads the crowd in applause and cheers, considerably changing the stakes going into next season. A cult of personality can’t thrive without the cult, after all, and the bubbling resentment for Todd finally came to a head as fans on Twitter pointed out the real villain of The Boys.
“So main villian nowadays is side characters,” one user pointed out, with a side-by-side comparison to Jason from Stranger Things.
But don’t worry, it wasn’t all hate for stupid Todd, because did we all catch that smile as the episode closed out? It appears that the series is setting Ryan up to be the next, or an eventual big bad, as he clearly is influenced by his famous Supe dad and doesn’t seem to hate the violence?
One user even went so far as to compare Ryan to King Joffrey from Game of Thrones.
Heading into season five, it seems like Homelander is going to be the least of Butcher and the gang’s problems. At the very least, hopefully, someone will laser the crap out of Todd before all is said and done — the fans deserve it.
