Emmy Catch-Up: The Boys

Every year, I watch the six submitted episodes of every series I don’t regularly watch that’s up for one of the Emmy series prizes. Last year, I started watching the entire season of each show to get a better idea of the quality I missed, and I’ve decided to continue that this year.

The Boys: Season 2, Episode 6 “The Bloody Doors Off” (B)

For most people, learning that a romantic interest isn’t who you thought they were isn’t quite as unnerving as getting the full truth that they’re actually a 100-year-old Nazi, but Homelander is not your typical American hero. Vought seemed nefarious enough as a company before this, but to learn that Stormfront is from the generation that engaged in genocidal practices and still believes in that ideology is chilling, not to mention the ease and warmth with which Homelander embraced Stormfront’s compliment about him being everything they always imagined. As if Maeve was on Elena’s good side, her finding the video evidence of them leaving a plane full of people behind to die has made that relationship’s survival, and likely Elena’s by extension, seem near-impossible. The Deep has embraced the Church’s Fresca-loving outreach approach, and A-Train was not prepared or happy about the meditation session he was brought into without his knowledge. I enjoyed the attitude that Starlight was giving Butcher when he made snide comments to her, though their situation got a lot more serious after their fragile alliance with Lamplighter under very precarious circumstances. I did appreciate recognizing Jason Gray-Stanford from “Monk” as the driver who chose not to give his car up to the supposed FBI agents who stopped him in the street. Cindy’s powers are utterly terrifying, and though she didn’t need to be an enemy for the Boys, I think she’s definitely going after anyone she feels has wronged her. In some ways, she’s more frightening than Homelander or Stormfront, though she’s not necessarily deliberately evil, though that could be the case too.