While Homelander’s popularity continues to decline, it yields some bizarre, and bloody consequences (imagined or otherwise). Filming begins on Dawn of the Seven, a VCU movie, as The Boys come head to head with Black Noir. Billy reels from the fallout with Becca, and while we delve into his past, we also meet a good dog named Terror.
For a recap, before you read on, check out FlickLuster’s review for Episode 4.
As we stray beyond the halfway point into Amazon Prime’s second season of The Boys, the pieces of a much larger puzzle are beginning to fall into place. The newest member to the Seven, the chillingly evil Stormfront (Aya Cash), was last week revealed as a supe called Liberty, who’d committed a racially-aggravated murder in the 1970s.
At one point, Stormfront makes a call to Shawn Ashmore’s character (of Killjoys fame), a nurse holding a cigarette lighter. Engraved on its surface reads Titty Committee. Nope, me neither, no clue at all. Ashmore’s nurse works at the Sage Grove Center. The plot thickens but offers no answers. Yet.
But while her past remains a secret, in the present Stormfront is also helping boost Homelander’s dwindling popularity with the American public. Footage leaks online of Homelander’s intervention against a supe-terrorist attack. However, his intervention is later cited, by Congresswoman Victoria Neuman, as a war crime. Homelander swoops down and speaks to the crowds gathered, but they turn against him.
Then my jaw drops. Homelander blitzes the crowds en masse with his laser-eyes. It’s an astounding, devastating turn of events, but one we’d all expected. However, this is all in Homelander’s imagination. It does remind us, however, that Antony Starr’s supe is still one, if not the most deadly of the Seven, and with very little effort, is capable of decimating hundreds upon hundreds of people.
Elsewhere, Billy is wallowing in self-pity following his failed rescue attempt to save Becca. He heads to the suburbs, where we meet his Aunt Judy and Terror, who is perhaps the most lovable dog on the show. Butcher is later surprised to discover Black Noir has tracked him down. No surprise Billy, as you swore at a security camera, alerting Black Noir to your presence within Vought’s secret compound.
No matter. A tense showdown ensues between Black Noir and The Boys, with Butcher threatening Stan Edgar in exposing the truth of Homelander’s child with Becca if Noir kills any of them. On a more uneventful note (bar one awesome face-ripping moment), Kimiko continues to grieve for her brother Kenji, following his awful death at the hands of Stormfront, while taking on hit jobs from Cherie, Frenchie’s former lover/accomplice. It’s all a bit slow and lackluster and leaves me wanting more from Kimiko in the final three episodes of the season. Despite this, Frenchie and Kimiko’s friendship hits a serious rock in the road, leaving things uncertain going forwards.
Meanwhile, The Deep is now a happily married man. Maeve makes an intriguing proposition to the aquatic supe, promising him a place in the Seven for his help, but what this proposition entails is unknown. I’d bet it’s connected to Homelander. Stormfront is now the second member of The Seven to learn of Starlight’s betrayal, in leaking Compound V. But Starlight keeps her cool, threatening her knowledge of Stormfront’s past as Liberty.
Stormfront is by now equally as despicable as Homelander. Once a member of the Church of the Collective, she makes a questionably racist remark at A-Train, citing the church was once pure before they began to let “all kinds of people in”.
The final confirmation we need of her awfulness comes in the final scene of the episode, as Stormfront has some violently hyper-charged, wall smashing sex with Homelander. Whatever floats your boat. Of course, this can’t end well at all. What’s worse than one sadistically ruthless supe?
And what happens when the two form a romantic attachment? I’ll reckon it ends in bloodshed.
