The Boys S2E2 Review: The Father, the Son, and the Unholy Supes
Warning! Super Spoilers Ahead!
Read Steve’s review of the previous episode here.
The Boys’ season two debut threw plenty of juicy questions into the air for viewers to salivate over. How did Butcher get away from Homelander? Who killed Raynor? What is the Church of the Collective and what do Eagle and Carol want with The Deep? Some answers would be nice, but “Proper Preparation and Planning” offers only glimpses into these mysteries. There’s also some supe-on-supe action if you’re into that sort of thing.
A lingering question from last episode—and really last season—is the riddle of what Homelander wants from Becca and Ryan. “I’m here to see my son,” he tells Becca after dropping out of the sky and into her front lawn, yet paternal instincts seem far too innocent a motivation for this caped sociopath. On the one hand, his visit is a power trip. Becca is a helpless target Homelander can antagonize to restore his sense of dominance after Stan Edgar knocked him down to size. He revels in Becca’s discomfort at his presence and how there’s nothing she can do to make him leave.
Homelander’s power trip is also a chance for him to investigate his son’s powers. He implores Ryan to throw a ball into the stratosphere during a game of catch and expresses disgust at how Becca is raising the boy to be a normal kid. Homelander doesn’t want his son to have a normal life because he isn’t interested in a son. He’s interested, as always, in himself.
“Sometimes it’s hard, Ryan, being superior to every single other person on the planet,” he says as he tucks the boy into bed. “It’s isolating.” Indeed, a lifetime of emotional isolation has untethered the supe supreme from anything except an obsession with himself and his powers. If Ryan is a normal kid, then he’d be just another lesser being who dulls Homelander’s almighty glow. Powers, however, would make Ryan a living extension of Homelander. It’s an understatement to say he’s a narcissist, but Homelander’s wildest dreams would come true if the person who made him feel less isolated was a younger version of himself. He needs Ryan to have powers to fill the whole in his heart and fully realize his delusions of divinity.
Another supe on a trip this episode is The Deep. After failing the Cult 101 class taught by his shady new friend Carol, his other shady new friend Eagle the Archer gives him some shrooms so he can stop being inhibited by suppressive energy, man. The Deep’s gills start talking to him, voiced by Patton Oswalt, and they say that his body image issues lead him to abuse women. Eventually, The Deep takes a step toward self-love and duets “You Are So Beautiful” with his gills. I enjoyed the scene because my doctor recommended that I increase my daily intake of Patton Oswalt, although I think using self-esteem issues as an explanation for The Deep’s reprehensible treatment of women lets him off the hook too easily. I’m much more interested in whatever plan Carol and Eagle have for him.
Back in corporate America, Vought launches an all-out marketing blitz to promote Stormfront’s addition to The Seven. They’re pushing the message that “Girls Get It Done” because there are not one, not two, but three women on the team now! That’s almost half! Equality! Starlight and Stormfont show off their superhuman strength sitting through countless patronizing interviews until Stormfront pushes back that gender shouldn’t matter as much as how well the heroes do their jobs. It’s refreshing to see a supe who isn’t afraid to knock the wind out of Vought’s PR sorcery, but when Annie tries to bond with this kindred spirit over mutual distrust of their employer, Stormfront dismisses her as fake.
Stormfront even goes so far as to belittle Starlight about being assaulted last season: “If someone sticks a dick in your mouth, bite if off.” We’re led to believe that Stormfront is pretty progressive—she’s from Portland for crying out loud—so her callous jab at Annie feels pretty shocking.
Yet biting the metaphorical phallus is exactly what Annie does later in the episode. A-Train is back, and he wants to make her pay for siding with Hughie against the supes. He discovers she got her hands on some Compound V and tries to use it as blackmail, so Annie responds by threatening to reveal how A-Train killed his girlfriend. The supes end their Mexican standoff by simply backing off each other.
Of course, this isn’t an episode all about supes. With Butcher and the Boys reunited, it’s time for them to dive back into the fray. Butcher strikes a deal with Mallory to find the supe-terrorist recently smuggled into the country and she’ll help him find Becca. They track him to a costume shop only to discover that, small world, it’s actually Kenji, Kimiko’s brother. Kenji, having been radicalized against America and the supes during his time with the Shining Light Liberation Army, attempts to recruit his sister to the cause, but Kimiko subdues him.
Butcher would’ve gladly brought down Kenji himself if Hughie hadn’t interrupted his shot during the reunion between Kimiko and her brother. As the episode ends and the gang takes Kenji into their custody, Butcher punches Hughie right in the kisser and delivers a warning not to cross him again. It doesn’t take X-ray vision to see the tension is mounting between these two. Will they manage to let off steam or will it boil over?
Notes from the Peanut Gallery:
Guys. IT’S ENDLESS PASTA WEEK AT TONY CICERO’S. Someone make a reservation, quick!
I always wondered how my local rinky-dink radio station managed to get celebs like Lady Gaga and Ed Sheeran to do their intros. Turns out these A-listers just record voice overs for the whole country in one sitting. The more you know!
A round of applause, please, for Karen Fukuhara’s performance as Kimiko. She’s always done a great job portraying Kimiko as a badass who wrestles first and foremost with her own trauma, and this week, she communicates her character’s powerful guilt without so much as a word or whimper.