What I’m Watching: The Boys

The Boys: Season 3, Episode 4 “Glorious Five Year Plan” (B+)

A defining element of this season is how much these people are all operating within the same universe and how getting the upper hand seems next to impossible given how their plans are so easily discovered. I knew that Supersonic telling A-Train about the plan to take Homelander out was going to be a bad thing, but I didn’t expect the horrifying sight of the “beautiful view” that Homelander wanted to show Starlight. The immediacy with which semi-major characters can be killed off on this show continues to be startling, though there are just as many who are left alive but are retreating from the public eye. Victoria choosing to betray Stan so that she could get what she needed for her daughter is only going to leave Homelander with more unchecked power. I was worried that Stan was going to feel Homelander’s wrath when he showed up to talk down to him, but Homelander still does have an inferiority complex that only some, like Stan, are able to get to by calling him “bad product.” Hughie’s first experience with Compound V had him so excited that he was able to teleport and punch through someone that he didn’t seem to be able to focus on anything else, like Kimiko not healing, an unfortunate development, especially after she took out that entire brothel on her own. I’m enjoying the spotlight on Ashley, who claimed to A-Train that Black Lives Matter was her favorite hashtag and then spent about as much energy exercising her sexual fantasies as she did trying to stay on top of her PR job.