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Review: The Boys Season 2 (2020)
This season was still ok but not as strong as season 1 in my opinion. Not bad enough to keep me away from watching season 3, I guess. I think there was some heavy handed writing in which the writers didn’t trust the audience to come to their conclusions and it made for rather cheesy parts at times.
Spoilers.
Story
The story continued in our boys’ continued crusade against Vought. Hughie and Annie were working towards exposing Vought and Compound V. Butcher, now knowing his wife was alive, wanted to save her. Homelander and Stormfront had a budding relationship/partnership. A-Train and Deep were getting back into the Seven. Maeve was outed. We learned more about Kimiko. I won’t get too deep into their stories in this section because there was just so much going on.
At the end of the season, the Boys concocted a plan to save Ryan as he had been kidnapped by Homelander and Stormfront. Butcher had cut a deal to hand over Ryan to Vought, but he changed his mind. Stormfront was outed as a century-old Nazi, and Maeve, Starlight, and Kimiko fought to defeat her, though she escaped to ambush Becca. Ryan killed Stormfront, but Stormfront still managed to kill Becca. Homelander was very angry with Ryan but Maeve stopped him from doing anything, using the video from the plane crash in season 1 as blackmail. So Homelander let Ryan go with Butcher, who handed him off to Mallory to take care of.
As we can commonly expect from Western TV, this season ended with the story being set up. Victoria Neumann was a politician who was campaigning against Vought and their secretive ways. She assumed office. However, after cutting a deal with a cult church, she killed the head of the church with her superpowers and walked away. That meant she was the person who stopped Dr. Vogelbaum from testifying at the trial to reveal their unethical ways. So Neumann is likely using her anti-superhero rhetoric as a front and she is in fact on Vought’s side.
I wanted to point out episode 6 as a visible weak link and the on episode that made me realize the writing wasn’t as strong. In this episode, Frenchie revealed he wasn’t able to capture Lamplighter because his friend was overdosing and he was staying to save him. It was very heavy-handed in wanting to show pity to Frenchie, especially with how MM said that they would have forgiven him. That’s not for him to decide, nor was it necessary to point it out. Later in the episode, Annie and Butcher took Hughie to the hospital as he was very injured and they both commented how he was too good for both of them (particularly as Annie started to feel herself being more cutthroat). We didn’t need them to say it. We knew that already, as Annie was previously outwardly expressing her shock at her own heartlessness.
Production
The production was alright. It’s less new to me now that I’ve seen season 1. I though the acting was okay but the bad dialogue did bring it down. I felt like we had less fight scenes this season. When Maeve, Starlight, and Kimiko were beating Stormfront, I got hyped but realized that perhaps we didn’t have a lot of exciting fight scenes throughout the season. Not that that front was excellent either. It was okay.
Characters
Homelander
Homelander wanted to develop a relationship with his son. He struggled as Becca had raised him to be kind. Meanwhile in the Seven, he was struggling in popularity compared to Stormfront who was the new hot thing. She knew how to use social media to bolster her image and Homelander was threatened. Little did he know, Stormfront wanted to use him to further her political agenda, which Homelander agreed with in part. While Stormfront had a racial agenda, Homelander believed in the superiority of superheros. And that was why he partnered with Stormfront. With Stormfront, he was able to take Ryan away from Becca by exposing the isolation they lived in. Homelander thought all was going well until later on when Ryan was feeling homesick and overwhelmed. At the end of the season, he was lured away from the isolated cabin he had brought Ryan to. He was very upset and murderous when he found Ryan had been kidnapped (and that Edgar had planned to take him away). He was also very upset and murderous when he found out that Ryan had killed Stormfront. He asked Ryan to come to him but Ryan, understandably afraid, sided with Butcher instead. Homelander was threatened by Maeve to let Butcher and Ryan go. Maeve knew that Homelander longed to be loved by the people and the video would expose his complete disregard for human life. So he relented and let them go. In his final scene, Homelander was jacking off to the skyline, convincing himself that he could do anything he wanted.
Now that I think about it, Homelander was more of a plot device this season. He was a plot device to show Stormfront’s rise to popularity (through his insecurity). He was a plot device for Becca to feel fear, for Butcher to feel rage, and for Ryan to finally learn about bad things in this world. But Homelander is a very central character to the Boys as the face of Vought. He thought he craved the love of no one but he was proved wrong time and time again. He craved Stilwell’s love so much that had Doppelganger pretend to be her. He craved Ryan’s love because he never had the love of family. He craved Stormfront’s love because through her he would gain the love of the masses. And every time Homelander would come back to convince himself that he needed the love of no one, only the love of everyone.
Starlight
Annie worked with Hughie to smuggle compound V out to release to the press. Annie blackmailed an old friend Gecko who worked in Vought’s labs to give her the compound. She also had a story line in which she was upset with her mom for lying to her about her powers, as she was raised to believe she was born with them. For a period of time, Annie was in a TV show with Maeve and Stormfront that showed off girl power. She tried to strike up a friendship with Stormfront who only saw her as fake. As things grew dangerous for Annie (and Stormfront was onto her about leaking Compound V to the press), she had her tracking chip taken out and she skipped town with Hughie and the boys, which was how she ended up with them in the final showdown. Her charges were cleared and she returned as a member of the Seven, this time back in her original less revealing uniform.
Annie’s story arc in this season was about her learning that she had to do bad things to do the right thing. She had to blackmail Gecko to get the compound V. She had to hurt the man in the car to take Hughie to the hospital. And she was more shocked that she started to feel indifference to the hurt she was causing, which oddly made Butcher gain respect for her, which she did not like. I’m sure that Annie will continue to be a central character of the Boys, siding with Hughie and being against Vought’s evil ways.
Queen Maeve
Maeve’s story line was partially about her sexuality and partially about her trying to stand up to Vought and Homelander. Homelander knew about Maeve’s secret on-and-off again girlfriend Elena. He forcibly outed her against her will and made her star in TV shows with lesbian relationships as a way to humiliate her and to show his power over her (due to his knowledge of Elena’s existence). In the end, Elena found out about the plane video and she was so distraught that she had to leave, which left Maeve feeling upset.
Throughout the season, Annie continued to ask Maeve for her help and Maeve constantly denied her help. After Elena left, I think Maeve was feeling hopeless and since she had nothing to lose, she decided to finally confront Homelander and blackmail him with the video, as a way to gain power back over him.
Stormfront
Stormfront was the new hero in the Seven after the Deep was removed. She was hip and young, was constantly livestreaming, and had little respect or reverence for her other coworkers. At first, Anne kind of admired her for saying it like it is, for standing up to lies. However, Stormfront did not return the energy and there remained a distance between her and the other heroes. Homelander felt especially threatened by her because she was able to gain popularity just through the power of memes. She admitted she just needed to hire some people to make memes to twist the narrative. Homelander eventually sought her help because she was so effective.
We were only alerted to something strange when it was revealed by a witness that Stormfront used to be a hero by the name of Liberty. She was shuffled around and given a new identity like Catholic priests to shield her past of violence and racism, but it also meant that she was much older than she appeared, as the witness had seen the crime many years ago as a child and Stormfront looked the same.
Stormfront was attracted to Homelander and they eventually had a sexual relationship. But he was suspicious of her still, so she revealed her past to him. She was born in 1919 and married the founder of Vought, who injected her with Compound V. She maintained close ties with the German Nazi party. She carried racist beliefs, which were consistent throughout the season as she killed a black man as Liberty and also Kimiko’s brother while shouting a slur. But she believed that with the help of Homelander, they could use superpowers as a way to fight back against white genocide.
Stormfront and Homelander ganged up on Becca to try to get Ryan to their side, and they eventually did by forcibly showing him the world. She was also disappointed that Homelander respected Ryan’s feelings at times, and wished he’d push harder.
In the end, Stormfront fought against the boys. She was threatening Becca and so Ryan shot his laser eyes at her, but she still managed to kill Becca.
Stormfront as a character was grating which was maybe the point, but she wasn’t convincing to me as a character who was very old. I thought an old character might be less in touch with social media, but maybe it’s because she’s in touch with new trends that she was able to avoid suspicion for this long. But it was also surprising when she wasn’t able to connect with Ryan given that she’d lived through so much. I’m kind of glad she’s dead because I disliked her. Which maybe was the point.
Black Noir
Black Noir remained a mystery. We saw him carrying out work on behalf of Vought but we still never saw a face. All we learned about him was that he had a nut allergy.
Deep
Deep was thrown out of the Seven because of his sexual assaults. This season, he was recruited by a cult church who convinced him that he could rehabilitate his image to re-enter the Seven. He bought into the cult ideologies, and married a woman of their choosing. He did PSAs against sexual assault and assault which were all very forced. At one point, he tried to do the Seven a solid by stopping the Boys.
Deep tried to connect with A-Train, telling him he would be able to help him go back into the Seven. A-Train didn’t really believe him at first, but he later did join the church. At the end of the season, Deep was very disappointed that A-Train could re-enter the Seven but Deep could not, and he finally denounced the church and left.
I could do with or without Deep’s story line. I could see its appeal in exploring cults but with all that was going on, it barely made a dent in the main story. He didn’t even re-enter the Seven. The only relevance he had was that A-Train used his connection with the church to steal evidence about Stormfront.
A-Train
A-Train and Annie had a tense relationship this season as he knew she stole the Compound V but she knew he killed Popclaw. As well, A-Train was to be removed from the Seven and he was given a big send off through a TV show. What was awkward was that he had a rap song written for him…written by a white guy. What a microaggression.
At the end of the season, he stole information about Stormfront from the Church of the Collective to give to Annie. He knew that Stormfront was a racist and with her gone he would get a chance back in, which he got. He unapologetically did not feel sorry to Deep for not getting back in.
Stan Edgar
Stan Edgar was an upper level executive at Vought, higher in hierarchy than Stilwell had been. Stilwell was supposed to follow in his footsteps later but that clearly didn’t happen. While Edgar was the Vought management person of this season, I appreciated that he did not just fill the same role as Stilwell. He was more forceful and confident than Stilwell was. When Homelander didn’t approve of something, Edgar was confident enough to stand up to him. He also had sufficient military personnel to back him up.
Butcher had cut a deal with Edgar at the end of the season for Ryan, and so Edgar’s people had infiltrated Homelander’s cabin. Except, Butcher had decided to take Ryan back so he could stay with Becca, so Homelander come back to a cabin full of Edgar’s men and no Ryan. He killed them all of course. I think the relationship between Homelander and Edgar will continue to be tense and exciting in the next season.
Ashley
Ashley was the PR person who took over Homelander’s account after Stilwell died. However, she was clearly way out of her depth and Homelander immediately strong armed her out of any power. He made it clear that he called all the shots and Ashley had no say in the matter.
With regards to other projects, Ashley was the same, a corporate shill. Always looking for the next marketing campaign to push the heroes, no matter how tasteless. After Elena had left Maeve, Ashley worried about the TV show that was based on their relationship, and Maeve told her to actually be a person for once. Ashley apologized for the breakup, but it showed that she was somewhat aware of her attitude.
Elena
Elena was Maeve’s love. We saw a bit of her in season 1. From what we found out, they loved each other but they knew it was too difficult to be together. Homelander threw a wrench into that by exposing Maeve’s sexuality. Vought now had to capitalize on her sexuality (pinkwashing) and they went as far as to writing a TV show based on Maeve and Elena’s relationship. Maeve decided they would tough it out for a bit and she would get them out.
Elena saw what the out was, the video of the people on the plane that had pleaded for Homelander and Maeve to save them. She understood that Maeve’s hands were tied but it haunted her and she decided to go to her sister’s for a while. Maeve was very upset by it, but something tells me Elena may be back.
Hughie
Hughie with Annie continued in their quest to expose Compound V, which they successfully did. Otherwise, he spent his time with the boys in their quests, with varying degrees of displeasure. He wanted to be a hero, but none of the others really believed in him. Though MM and Frenchie were proud of him for leaking the compound V, Butcher basically didn’t care about any of his exploits. Towards the end of the season, when it was revealed that Starlight was ‘arrested,’ Hughie came to Vought to save her.
At the end of the season, Hughie decided to leave the boys and try to go about things through the right channels. He wanted to join Neumann’s office as a staff member, which is already setting him up for season 3. In the next season, he’ll be the guy sneaking information about Neumann to the boys who will find a way to expose her or take her down.
Butcher
Butcher’s main goal last season was to avenge Becca, but now that he knew that she was alive, his goal was to save her. The big problem was Ryan. Butcher hated supes and naturally he hated Ryan. So his plan was to save Becca and leave Ryan to Vought. He even planned to do that, cutting a deal with Edgar. But he saw how happy Becca was when they found Ryan and he couldn’t bring himself to do it; he knew Becca would hate him forever. As Becca lay dying, she told Butcher to tell Ryan that it wasn’t his fault. Though Butcher was still very wary of Ryan, he tried to bring him some comfort after his mom died, giving him his pendant that Becca had gifted to him. It was a good idea to put Ryan in Mallory’s care though, because we know Butcher wouldn’t be able to do it.
We also learned more about Butcher’s family. He had a poor relationship with his father, and he also had a younger brother Lenny (who was timid like Hughie) who had killed himself. His abusive father particularly showed why he turned out the way he did, and didn’t care much for father-son relationships.
Butcher remained his same cutthroat self this season. He didn’t care who he hurt. His goal was Becca. The boys were aimless at one point in the season so they contact Butcher to help them, which he did. At one point they failed to get Vogelbaum to testify so Butcher swooped in to help. He basically physically threatened Vogelbaum’s entire family; no one was off limits. Vogelbaum despised him for doing so but it worked.
I think Butcher will continue his vendetta against Homelander. Through his relationship with Ryan (if it exists), Butcher is going to have to come to turns with his hatred of superheroes too. It will be interesting to see where that goes.
MM
M.M. didn’t have that much to do this season. He was just a part of the boys. He revealed that he had negative feelings about superheroes due to what happened to his father. It was random and was forced into the story to give him a way to talk to a witness though and was barely brought up again. Mallory offered him an out to be with his family and at the end of the season it looks like he took it.
Frenchie
Frenchie only had slightly more to do than M.M. His tragic backstory was that he couldn’t catch Lamplighter because he was helping his friend who overdosed. As I mentioned, I thought this was really heavy handed and didn’t fit the tone of the show or even the scene. But that was why he was so intent on capturing Lamplighter who went on to kill Mallory’s children.
Frenchie had a budding relationship with Kimiko. At one time he tried to kiss Kimiko after her brother died which was the wrong move. She left the boys, and became an assassin which Frenchie disproved of. But he told her that she never taught him how to communicate with her so that was why he couldn’t understand her and what she needed. They eventually reconciled, with her slowly teaching him sign language. They were on good terms by the end of the season.
Kimiko
Kimiko located her brother in this season, who was helping the organization that had hurt them in the first place. She tried to rescue him out, but they got into an argument because she thought his beliefs were all wrong. They had to part ways because of it. Eventually Stormfront caught up to them and killed her brother, which launched Kimiko into a hateful rampage. She left the boys to be on her own for a while, and took on hit jobs. All of this is hazy because it was a fairly secondary plot, but they eventually reconciled and were on friendly terms again.
The fact that I can barely remember Kimiko’s story line with her brother is unfortunate because it seems like she’s meant to be part of the gang so of course her personal story line should be important. But I felt that it was just overshadowed, especially since her brother died within the same season.
Becca
Butcher only saw Becca for a brief moment at the beginning of the season before Homelander yeeted him off into the middle of nowhere. Becca was raising her son in a compound that was controlled by Vought. She raised him to be a normal boy, not nurturing his superpowers at all. She was obviously very ratted a Homelander’s appearance and his intention to have a relationship with Ryan. He would constantly try to undermine her as Ryan’s dad. However, given that Homelander did understand the importance of parent-child relationships, he struggled with pleasing Ryan. So he wasn’t fully able to just take Ryan away. Butcher wanted to take Becca away. However, she could not leave without Ryan. Even when Butcher said they could take Ryan with them, she knew that he was lying and that was why she had to stay in the compound, and she bid farewell to Butcher forever (that was her intention).
Things grew difficult for Becca with the introduction of Stormfront to the picture. She ganged up on Becca with Homelander. It was probably due to her influence that Homelander showed Ryan the truth, that they didn’t live in a neighbourhood with neigbours but instead lived in isolation and that their entire neighbourhood was fake. Becca tried to explain but Homelander took Ryan away.
Becca was completely distraught and snuck out of the compound to seek Butcher’s help. She came to save Ryan with Butcher but the plan was changed last minute because Butcher decided last minute that he couldn’t become the person who made Becca part with her son. So he had to protect both of them. Becca tried to protect Ryan from Stormfront but obviously struggled as a normal human. She died, but was just glad that Ryan was safe, and she insisted to Butcher that he tell Ryan that her death was not her fault.
Ryan
Ryan was the son of Homelander and Becca. Homelander tried to build a relationship with Ryan but encountered difficulty because of Ryan’s disinterest in superhero things. We saw in one scene that he liked making movies with his legos to reenact movies. He also internalized the rules his mom made for him, like speaking Spanish on certain days at breakfast, not hating things, etc.
The first time Homelander tried to induce Ryan’s powers, he pushed him off the house and it really upset Ryan so Homelander went away, later coming back to apologize. But we knew that he did have powers, because Ryan’s eyes would glow red sometimes.
Ryan was upset that his mom lied to him about the neighbourhood so he willingly went with Homelander and Stormfront to the city. However, he grew lonely and homesick after a while. It appeared he was a little violent with Ashley too. Homelander and Stormfront took him to a superhero amusement park but after they got swarmed by fans who wanted autographs, Ryan grew really agitated and wanted to go away. Homelander took him away to a cabin and gave him space. Stormfront insisted that as Ryan’s dad, Homelander had the right to encroach on his space, but Homelander did not.
While Ryan was wary of Butcher when he came to break him out, Becca insisted to him that he was a safe man, because he was Becca’s husband and would take them to safety. So Ryan saw Butcher as a safe person. I think Butcher recognized this and that was what gave him a change of heart. When Stormfront was threatening his mom, he grew agitated and killed her, but also accidentally killing his mom. Ryan was incredibly regretful of it. We didn’t have the conversation of Butcher telling Ryan that it wasn’t his fault, but presumably it happened.
At the very end, Butcher and Ryan had some chats as they waited for Mallory. I felt that Ryan was obviously missing his mom. Butcher had some life advice for Ryan, but he also gave Ryan a pendant that was from Becca so that Ryan would have a piece of his mom’s protection with him.
Mallory was to take Ryan to safety, so presumably we’ll be seeing more of them in the next season. I’m really intrigued to see what will become of Ryan as he grows up. Will he internalize what Becca taught him or will he be overtaken by the supe ideologies? Will he continue to see Butcher as a safe person?
Grace Mallory
Grace served as a person that the boys could go to for connections. She got them information, meetings with people. Lamplighter killed her grandchildren so she had a vendetta against him. However, she couldn’t bring herself to kill him and after a cheesy conversation with Frenchie, she did not. As mentioned, Mallory took Ryan to safety at the end of the show so maybe she’ll see him like she did her grandkids.
Lamplighter
Lamplighter used to be a member of the Seven but he accidentally killed two kids. Since then, he’d been working in a facility that was used to test compound V on people. He helped the boys escape the facility from the out of control superheroes. And as mentioned, Mallory couldn’t bring herself to kill him as revenge so they had t keep him.
He was technically the star witness for the case that Neumann was putting together against Vought. But after he came out of the compound, Lamplighter basically became a degenerate. He just watched porn all day. He kept ruing his glory days.
When Annie was captured by Vought, Hughie convinced Lamplighter to come with him to save Annie. Apparently Lamplighter still had security access to the Vought building which I found was a flaw. This doesn’t even happen in your most typical companies; employees lose access as soon as they’re terminated. Anyway, Lamplighter’s idea was to light himself on fire to activate the fire alarm which would make it easier for Annie to bust out of her jail cell. Before Lamplighter died, he said he’d hoped to die in front of his own statue and if I remember correctly he basically said he’d wanted to be someone his dad was proud of.
Lamplighter was a very weird character because of how many different things he was. He was someone with past history with Frenchie and Mallory, he was a criminal who’d killed kids, he was regretful of killing kids and wished Frenchie had stopped him, he was a porn addict, he was someone with low self worth, he was someone with too much of an ego. He was too many things wrapped into a character who was on screen for too little time to flesh any of that all out.
Jonah Vogelbaum
Vogelbaum used to be the Chief Science Officer at Vought. The boys kept trying to get him to testify about the development of compound V. He refused until Butcher unapologetically threatened his entire family. However, at the trial, he was killed mysteriously.
Victoria Neumann
Throughout the season, Neumann was calling out for Vought to answer for their crimes. She was the main anti-supe politician. She was the one who put together the case to go against Vought, taking testimony from Lamplighter. Soon after she was voted into office, it was revealed that she and the Church of the Collective had collaborated, with the church working in line with her goals to take down Stormfront with the evidence of her Nazi past. The leader of the church had asked for tax exemptions which Neumann agreed to. However, after the phone call, she killed him, in the same way the killer at the trial had killed people: by bursting their heads open.
So what does that mean? I initially wondered if Neumann was a superhero who believed in transparency and accountability for superheroes. But considering she killed Vogelbaum and others at the trial, I wonder if she was planted by Vought to pretend that Vought had people who were against them.
At the end of the season, Hughie joined her office, so I’m sure he’ll pick up on suspicious behaviour from her.
Themes
Racism
Stormfront being a Nazi was a big one. We saw that she often killed people for racially motivated reasons, which were clear in the way she called non-white people slurs. Throughout the season she was insisting to the people that superheroes were needed. It funneled into her white supremacy ideals, that there was a master race. She tried to spread this to Ryan, telling him that there was a white genocide going on.
To a smaller extent, I felt like A-Train was being microaggressed against when he was portrayed as the hip hop rap guy in his TV show. His demo for his theme song was rapped by a white guy, which must have been really weird. This was only briefly mentioned into, but it looms in the shadows as long as A-Train exists. Unfortunately, non-white people commonly experience microaggressions everywhere every day.
There was also that story line in the background about superhero terrorists. The word terrorist in the 2000s up until now is a rather racialized term due to 9/11. And I felt that was taken advantage of by Vought to drum up people’s fear and the perceived need for local heroes to protect them. Because superhero terrorists are sneaking into their country and wanting to hurt them apparently.
Queerness
I admit that when Maeve’s romantic plotline was brought in last season, that I thought it was just going to be token queer representation. I appreciated seeing this season who queer relationships can be taken advantage of and exploited in the entertainment industry. First of all, Maeve was outed against her will, and then Vought (directed by Homelander) turned her into a lesbian icon (though she herself identified as bisexual). But it was humiliating that Maeve just suddenly turned into the lesbian hero, instead of who she was as a hero. All of her TV show parts were about her having romantic moments with another woman. It showed that it can be equally humiliating and frustrating when a person is reduced to only their sexuality and nothing else.
Big Pharma
Near the beginning, I forgot which character said that Vought wasn’t a superhero company, it was a pharmaceutical company. The point of superheroes was to eventually supply a compound V that they could sell on the market. I just thought it was interesting how everything comes back to Big Pharma. I think maybe compound V and the pharmaceutical aspect of the show will come back in later seasons.
Arms Industry
I feel that weapons is always a looming theme in superhero movies. This was a theme in season 1. Superheroes are weapons themselves, and Vought would contract them out to various cities in the USA.
One thing that struck was during a PSA for kids on how to deal with superhero terrorists. In the PSA, kids were advise to do certain things like close the windows, and each teacher was meant to have a gun in their desk that only they would have access to. This is a terrible, terrible idea. One day a kid will find out how to break into the safe box and get access to the gun. Not to mention, teachers should not need to have arms training. Their job is to teach, not to protect. But it felt a bit like an ad for the arms industry. Imagine how many guns would be sold if each teacher in the USA needed a gun.
Cult
The Church of the Collective was a cult. Right from the get-go, we saw the lady (consultant? I don’t know her position) mouthing the words that Eagle was saying to Deep, implying that she trained him to speak that way. The lady and Eagle tried to get Deep to understand their way of thinking going to lengths such as locking him in his room until he started hallucinating. They also went as far as picking his wife for him. The lady insisted that Deep getting married would rehabilitate his image as a family man, a man that was safe to be around. After interviewing candidates, Deep chose a woman that he felt he had sexual chemistry with him, but the lady told him that he was going to pick another one. That being said, Deep did seem like he was doing well with his new image, he seemed happy, like he was having fun. But after he was snubbed from the Seven again, he revealed that he thought everything the cult did was dumb and that they coerced him into marrying a wife he didn’t even like. So anyway we saw that the Church was very controlling of Deep and gaslit him into thinking that he was making those decisions himself.
At various times, people who made the Church look bad were called toxic personalities and were basically excommunicated. This happened to Eagle, who was a representative of the church when he came to Deep, but somehow became a toxic personality overnight. And at that, Deep immediately changed his tune, went from saying Eagle was like a brother to that he agreed he was toxic. The Church said the same after Stormfront was outed as a Nazi, though it seemed she’d been a member for a while so it wouldn’t surprise me if the Church also had some Nazi tendencies.
Good and nice
Near the beginning, Starlight told Stormfront she admired her straightforwardness. Stormfront said that she didn’t believe the fact that nice meant good, and that just because she was kind of rude didn’t mean she was a bad person. However, now that I’m thinking about it, this was only said in order to be a recurring theme for Starlight, and not for Stormfront. Stormfront ended up being both mean and bad.
But for Starlight, over the course of the season, she found herself becoming meaner but in order to carry out a cause she believed in, which was to stop the exploitation by Vought. This reminds me of a book I read recently, Doubt by John Patrick Shanley, in which a nun says that you must stray away from God to be closer to him or something along those lines. Well, this is a theme in many works if I’m being honest. In the process of working towards exposing Vought, Annie has had to blackmail people, she’s had to threaten people, she’s lost some of the sympathy she had for other humans. And it didn’t feel good to her.
Perhaps to her disliking, she’s becoming more and more like Butcher. To be honest, I don’t consider Butcher to be good, at least I didn’t in season 1. But in season 2, I think there was a push to begin to turn him into the asshole with a heart of gold. He was a little more exciting as a complete asshole to be honest.
Social Media
Stormfront was taking control of her own narrative using social media. She was always livestreaming, and she hired people to make memes that boosted her popularity and put down her detractors. Homelander didn’t understand it, but he later enlisted her help with memes to gain popularity.
It’s scary how easy misinformation spread through social media. A video was released of Homelander killing innocent civilians. Stormfront just had her people make memes calling the video fake and Homelander’s crime was swept under the rug. Even in the world of superheroes, public opinion can have this much power, though maybe only because Homelander allows the public to hold this much power over him.
Superheros
This was more related to Butcher’s hatred of superheroes. We saw he was incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of Becca having a superhero as a child. He masked it by lying, but Becca could tell immediately that he was uncomfortable and never planned on protecting Ryan. Butcher continued to see superheroes as all despicable, but he was thrust in more situations to have to be near them.
One such situation was with Annie, when she joined their crew for a bit. He hated being around her, but she basically kind of forced him to work with her. Annie noticed that Butcher approved a bit when she used force to take control of the car and funnily enough it made Butcher see her more agreeable, much to Annie’s displeasure. Perhaps it was because that act played into Butcher’s idea of superheroes being heartless and violent people. Or maybe he just respected that she wasn’t hiding between pretty words and used force to get what she needed.
But of course the big relationship was between Butcher and Ryan. He was still very uncomfortable with Ryan when they went to save him. But he saw the close bond between Becca and Ryan and he felt bad about splitting them. He felt bad that he would break Becca’s heart, and he felt bad because he saw that Ryan was indeed just a kid. When Homelander saw that Stormfront was dead, he was upset with Ryan (knowing that only Ryan’s laser eyes would be capable of killing her) but Ryan sought protection from Butcher. After Maeve threatened Homelander, Butcher picked up Ryan and they went on their way. Maybe Butcher did that with a burst of adrenaline, but we saw that even afterwards he tried to talk to Ryan like a kid. He couldn’t be Ryan’s father, not at all, but he could be someone who loved Ryan’s mother intensely. It appeared he told Ryan not to be a cunt but he also gave him the pendant from Becca because that keepsake would mean a lot to Ryan. So I think Butcher reluctantly accepted Ryan but only as long as he was far away. I’m sure their relationship will go through more tension as Ryan grows up and learns more about the true state of the world around him and what he can do as a supe.
Overall
I felt season 2 wasn’t as strong as season 1. Part if it was the quality of writing, and part of it was probably just because the writers had to pick up off from an unfinished season 1 which was bound to have inconsistencies. I’ll still be watching season 3. Hopefully the writing doesn’t continue to be disappointing.
Spoilers.
Story
The story continued in our boys’ continued crusade against Vought. Hughie and Annie were working towards exposing Vought and Compound V. Butcher, now knowing his wife was alive, wanted to save her. Homelander and Stormfront had a budding relationship/partnership. A-Train and Deep were getting back into the Seven. Maeve was outed. We learned more about Kimiko. I won’t get too deep into their stories in this section because there was just so much going on.
At the end of the season, the Boys concocted a plan to save Ryan as he had been kidnapped by Homelander and Stormfront. Butcher had cut a deal to hand over Ryan to Vought, but he changed his mind. Stormfront was outed as a century-old Nazi, and Maeve, Starlight, and Kimiko fought to defeat her, though she escaped to ambush Becca. Ryan killed Stormfront, but Stormfront still managed to kill Becca. Homelander was very angry with Ryan but Maeve stopped him from doing anything, using the video from the plane crash in season 1 as blackmail. So Homelander let Ryan go with Butcher, who handed him off to Mallory to take care of.
As we can commonly expect from Western TV, this season ended with the story being set up. Victoria Neumann was a politician who was campaigning against Vought and their secretive ways. She assumed office. However, after cutting a deal with a cult church, she killed the head of the church with her superpowers and walked away. That meant she was the person who stopped Dr. Vogelbaum from testifying at the trial to reveal their unethical ways. So Neumann is likely using her anti-superhero rhetoric as a front and she is in fact on Vought’s side.
I wanted to point out episode 6 as a visible weak link and the on episode that made me realize the writing wasn’t as strong. In this episode, Frenchie revealed he wasn’t able to capture Lamplighter because his friend was overdosing and he was staying to save him. It was very heavy-handed in wanting to show pity to Frenchie, especially with how MM said that they would have forgiven him. That’s not for him to decide, nor was it necessary to point it out. Later in the episode, Annie and Butcher took Hughie to the hospital as he was very injured and they both commented how he was too good for both of them (particularly as Annie started to feel herself being more cutthroat). We didn’t need them to say it. We knew that already, as Annie was previously outwardly expressing her shock at her own heartlessness.
Production
The production was alright. It’s less new to me now that I’ve seen season 1. I though the acting was okay but the bad dialogue did bring it down. I felt like we had less fight scenes this season. When Maeve, Starlight, and Kimiko were beating Stormfront, I got hyped but realized that perhaps we didn’t have a lot of exciting fight scenes throughout the season. Not that that front was excellent either. It was okay.
Characters
Homelander
Homelander wanted to develop a relationship with his son. He struggled as Becca had raised him to be kind. Meanwhile in the Seven, he was struggling in popularity compared to Stormfront who was the new hot thing. She knew how to use social media to bolster her image and Homelander was threatened. Little did he know, Stormfront wanted to use him to further her political agenda, which Homelander agreed with in part. While Stormfront had a racial agenda, Homelander believed in the superiority of superheros. And that was why he partnered with Stormfront. With Stormfront, he was able to take Ryan away from Becca by exposing the isolation they lived in. Homelander thought all was going well until later on when Ryan was feeling homesick and overwhelmed. At the end of the season, he was lured away from the isolated cabin he had brought Ryan to. He was very upset and murderous when he found Ryan had been kidnapped (and that Edgar had planned to take him away). He was also very upset and murderous when he found out that Ryan had killed Stormfront. He asked Ryan to come to him but Ryan, understandably afraid, sided with Butcher instead. Homelander was threatened by Maeve to let Butcher and Ryan go. Maeve knew that Homelander longed to be loved by the people and the video would expose his complete disregard for human life. So he relented and let them go. In his final scene, Homelander was jacking off to the skyline, convincing himself that he could do anything he wanted.
Now that I think about it, Homelander was more of a plot device this season. He was a plot device to show Stormfront’s rise to popularity (through his insecurity). He was a plot device for Becca to feel fear, for Butcher to feel rage, and for Ryan to finally learn about bad things in this world. But Homelander is a very central character to the Boys as the face of Vought. He thought he craved the love of no one but he was proved wrong time and time again. He craved Stilwell’s love so much that had Doppelganger pretend to be her. He craved Ryan’s love because he never had the love of family. He craved Stormfront’s love because through her he would gain the love of the masses. And every time Homelander would come back to convince himself that he needed the love of no one, only the love of everyone.
Starlight
Annie worked with Hughie to smuggle compound V out to release to the press. Annie blackmailed an old friend Gecko who worked in Vought’s labs to give her the compound. She also had a story line in which she was upset with her mom for lying to her about her powers, as she was raised to believe she was born with them. For a period of time, Annie was in a TV show with Maeve and Stormfront that showed off girl power. She tried to strike up a friendship with Stormfront who only saw her as fake. As things grew dangerous for Annie (and Stormfront was onto her about leaking Compound V to the press), she had her tracking chip taken out and she skipped town with Hughie and the boys, which was how she ended up with them in the final showdown. Her charges were cleared and she returned as a member of the Seven, this time back in her original less revealing uniform.
Annie’s story arc in this season was about her learning that she had to do bad things to do the right thing. She had to blackmail Gecko to get the compound V. She had to hurt the man in the car to take Hughie to the hospital. And she was more shocked that she started to feel indifference to the hurt she was causing, which oddly made Butcher gain respect for her, which she did not like. I’m sure that Annie will continue to be a central character of the Boys, siding with Hughie and being against Vought’s evil ways.
Queen Maeve
Maeve’s story line was partially about her sexuality and partially about her trying to stand up to Vought and Homelander. Homelander knew about Maeve’s secret on-and-off again girlfriend Elena. He forcibly outed her against her will and made her star in TV shows with lesbian relationships as a way to humiliate her and to show his power over her (due to his knowledge of Elena’s existence). In the end, Elena found out about the plane video and she was so distraught that she had to leave, which left Maeve feeling upset.
Throughout the season, Annie continued to ask Maeve for her help and Maeve constantly denied her help. After Elena left, I think Maeve was feeling hopeless and since she had nothing to lose, she decided to finally confront Homelander and blackmail him with the video, as a way to gain power back over him.
Stormfront
Stormfront was the new hero in the Seven after the Deep was removed. She was hip and young, was constantly livestreaming, and had little respect or reverence for her other coworkers. At first, Anne kind of admired her for saying it like it is, for standing up to lies. However, Stormfront did not return the energy and there remained a distance between her and the other heroes. Homelander felt especially threatened by her because she was able to gain popularity just through the power of memes. She admitted she just needed to hire some people to make memes to twist the narrative. Homelander eventually sought her help because she was so effective.
We were only alerted to something strange when it was revealed by a witness that Stormfront used to be a hero by the name of Liberty. She was shuffled around and given a new identity like Catholic priests to shield her past of violence and racism, but it also meant that she was much older than she appeared, as the witness had seen the crime many years ago as a child and Stormfront looked the same.
Stormfront was attracted to Homelander and they eventually had a sexual relationship. But he was suspicious of her still, so she revealed her past to him. She was born in 1919 and married the founder of Vought, who injected her with Compound V. She maintained close ties with the German Nazi party. She carried racist beliefs, which were consistent throughout the season as she killed a black man as Liberty and also Kimiko’s brother while shouting a slur. But she believed that with the help of Homelander, they could use superpowers as a way to fight back against white genocide.
Stormfront and Homelander ganged up on Becca to try to get Ryan to their side, and they eventually did by forcibly showing him the world. She was also disappointed that Homelander respected Ryan’s feelings at times, and wished he’d push harder.
In the end, Stormfront fought against the boys. She was threatening Becca and so Ryan shot his laser eyes at her, but she still managed to kill Becca.
Stormfront as a character was grating which was maybe the point, but she wasn’t convincing to me as a character who was very old. I thought an old character might be less in touch with social media, but maybe it’s because she’s in touch with new trends that she was able to avoid suspicion for this long. But it was also surprising when she wasn’t able to connect with Ryan given that she’d lived through so much. I’m kind of glad she’s dead because I disliked her. Which maybe was the point.
Black Noir
Black Noir remained a mystery. We saw him carrying out work on behalf of Vought but we still never saw a face. All we learned about him was that he had a nut allergy.
Deep
Deep was thrown out of the Seven because of his sexual assaults. This season, he was recruited by a cult church who convinced him that he could rehabilitate his image to re-enter the Seven. He bought into the cult ideologies, and married a woman of their choosing. He did PSAs against sexual assault and assault which were all very forced. At one point, he tried to do the Seven a solid by stopping the Boys.
Deep tried to connect with A-Train, telling him he would be able to help him go back into the Seven. A-Train didn’t really believe him at first, but he later did join the church. At the end of the season, Deep was very disappointed that A-Train could re-enter the Seven but Deep could not, and he finally denounced the church and left.
I could do with or without Deep’s story line. I could see its appeal in exploring cults but with all that was going on, it barely made a dent in the main story. He didn’t even re-enter the Seven. The only relevance he had was that A-Train used his connection with the church to steal evidence about Stormfront.
A-Train
A-Train and Annie had a tense relationship this season as he knew she stole the Compound V but she knew he killed Popclaw. As well, A-Train was to be removed from the Seven and he was given a big send off through a TV show. What was awkward was that he had a rap song written for him…written by a white guy. What a microaggression.
At the end of the season, he stole information about Stormfront from the Church of the Collective to give to Annie. He knew that Stormfront was a racist and with her gone he would get a chance back in, which he got. He unapologetically did not feel sorry to Deep for not getting back in.
Stan Edgar
Stan Edgar was an upper level executive at Vought, higher in hierarchy than Stilwell had been. Stilwell was supposed to follow in his footsteps later but that clearly didn’t happen. While Edgar was the Vought management person of this season, I appreciated that he did not just fill the same role as Stilwell. He was more forceful and confident than Stilwell was. When Homelander didn’t approve of something, Edgar was confident enough to stand up to him. He also had sufficient military personnel to back him up.
Butcher had cut a deal with Edgar at the end of the season for Ryan, and so Edgar’s people had infiltrated Homelander’s cabin. Except, Butcher had decided to take Ryan back so he could stay with Becca, so Homelander come back to a cabin full of Edgar’s men and no Ryan. He killed them all of course. I think the relationship between Homelander and Edgar will continue to be tense and exciting in the next season.
Ashley
Ashley was the PR person who took over Homelander’s account after Stilwell died. However, she was clearly way out of her depth and Homelander immediately strong armed her out of any power. He made it clear that he called all the shots and Ashley had no say in the matter.
With regards to other projects, Ashley was the same, a corporate shill. Always looking for the next marketing campaign to push the heroes, no matter how tasteless. After Elena had left Maeve, Ashley worried about the TV show that was based on their relationship, and Maeve told her to actually be a person for once. Ashley apologized for the breakup, but it showed that she was somewhat aware of her attitude.
Elena
Elena was Maeve’s love. We saw a bit of her in season 1. From what we found out, they loved each other but they knew it was too difficult to be together. Homelander threw a wrench into that by exposing Maeve’s sexuality. Vought now had to capitalize on her sexuality (pinkwashing) and they went as far as to writing a TV show based on Maeve and Elena’s relationship. Maeve decided they would tough it out for a bit and she would get them out.
Elena saw what the out was, the video of the people on the plane that had pleaded for Homelander and Maeve to save them. She understood that Maeve’s hands were tied but it haunted her and she decided to go to her sister’s for a while. Maeve was very upset by it, but something tells me Elena may be back.
Hughie
Hughie with Annie continued in their quest to expose Compound V, which they successfully did. Otherwise, he spent his time with the boys in their quests, with varying degrees of displeasure. He wanted to be a hero, but none of the others really believed in him. Though MM and Frenchie were proud of him for leaking the compound V, Butcher basically didn’t care about any of his exploits. Towards the end of the season, when it was revealed that Starlight was ‘arrested,’ Hughie came to Vought to save her.
At the end of the season, Hughie decided to leave the boys and try to go about things through the right channels. He wanted to join Neumann’s office as a staff member, which is already setting him up for season 3. In the next season, he’ll be the guy sneaking information about Neumann to the boys who will find a way to expose her or take her down.
Butcher
Butcher’s main goal last season was to avenge Becca, but now that he knew that she was alive, his goal was to save her. The big problem was Ryan. Butcher hated supes and naturally he hated Ryan. So his plan was to save Becca and leave Ryan to Vought. He even planned to do that, cutting a deal with Edgar. But he saw how happy Becca was when they found Ryan and he couldn’t bring himself to do it; he knew Becca would hate him forever. As Becca lay dying, she told Butcher to tell Ryan that it wasn’t his fault. Though Butcher was still very wary of Ryan, he tried to bring him some comfort after his mom died, giving him his pendant that Becca had gifted to him. It was a good idea to put Ryan in Mallory’s care though, because we know Butcher wouldn’t be able to do it.
We also learned more about Butcher’s family. He had a poor relationship with his father, and he also had a younger brother Lenny (who was timid like Hughie) who had killed himself. His abusive father particularly showed why he turned out the way he did, and didn’t care much for father-son relationships.
Butcher remained his same cutthroat self this season. He didn’t care who he hurt. His goal was Becca. The boys were aimless at one point in the season so they contact Butcher to help them, which he did. At one point they failed to get Vogelbaum to testify so Butcher swooped in to help. He basically physically threatened Vogelbaum’s entire family; no one was off limits. Vogelbaum despised him for doing so but it worked.
I think Butcher will continue his vendetta against Homelander. Through his relationship with Ryan (if it exists), Butcher is going to have to come to turns with his hatred of superheroes too. It will be interesting to see where that goes.
MM
M.M. didn’t have that much to do this season. He was just a part of the boys. He revealed that he had negative feelings about superheroes due to what happened to his father. It was random and was forced into the story to give him a way to talk to a witness though and was barely brought up again. Mallory offered him an out to be with his family and at the end of the season it looks like he took it.
Frenchie
Frenchie only had slightly more to do than M.M. His tragic backstory was that he couldn’t catch Lamplighter because he was helping his friend who overdosed. As I mentioned, I thought this was really heavy handed and didn’t fit the tone of the show or even the scene. But that was why he was so intent on capturing Lamplighter who went on to kill Mallory’s children.
Frenchie had a budding relationship with Kimiko. At one time he tried to kiss Kimiko after her brother died which was the wrong move. She left the boys, and became an assassin which Frenchie disproved of. But he told her that she never taught him how to communicate with her so that was why he couldn’t understand her and what she needed. They eventually reconciled, with her slowly teaching him sign language. They were on good terms by the end of the season.
Kimiko
Kimiko located her brother in this season, who was helping the organization that had hurt them in the first place. She tried to rescue him out, but they got into an argument because she thought his beliefs were all wrong. They had to part ways because of it. Eventually Stormfront caught up to them and killed her brother, which launched Kimiko into a hateful rampage. She left the boys to be on her own for a while, and took on hit jobs. All of this is hazy because it was a fairly secondary plot, but they eventually reconciled and were on friendly terms again.
The fact that I can barely remember Kimiko’s story line with her brother is unfortunate because it seems like she’s meant to be part of the gang so of course her personal story line should be important. But I felt that it was just overshadowed, especially since her brother died within the same season.
Becca
Butcher only saw Becca for a brief moment at the beginning of the season before Homelander yeeted him off into the middle of nowhere. Becca was raising her son in a compound that was controlled by Vought. She raised him to be a normal boy, not nurturing his superpowers at all. She was obviously very ratted a Homelander’s appearance and his intention to have a relationship with Ryan. He would constantly try to undermine her as Ryan’s dad. However, given that Homelander did understand the importance of parent-child relationships, he struggled with pleasing Ryan. So he wasn’t fully able to just take Ryan away. Butcher wanted to take Becca away. However, she could not leave without Ryan. Even when Butcher said they could take Ryan with them, she knew that he was lying and that was why she had to stay in the compound, and she bid farewell to Butcher forever (that was her intention).
Things grew difficult for Becca with the introduction of Stormfront to the picture. She ganged up on Becca with Homelander. It was probably due to her influence that Homelander showed Ryan the truth, that they didn’t live in a neighbourhood with neigbours but instead lived in isolation and that their entire neighbourhood was fake. Becca tried to explain but Homelander took Ryan away.
Becca was completely distraught and snuck out of the compound to seek Butcher’s help. She came to save Ryan with Butcher but the plan was changed last minute because Butcher decided last minute that he couldn’t become the person who made Becca part with her son. So he had to protect both of them. Becca tried to protect Ryan from Stormfront but obviously struggled as a normal human. She died, but was just glad that Ryan was safe, and she insisted to Butcher that he tell Ryan that her death was not her fault.
Ryan
Ryan was the son of Homelander and Becca. Homelander tried to build a relationship with Ryan but encountered difficulty because of Ryan’s disinterest in superhero things. We saw in one scene that he liked making movies with his legos to reenact movies. He also internalized the rules his mom made for him, like speaking Spanish on certain days at breakfast, not hating things, etc.
The first time Homelander tried to induce Ryan’s powers, he pushed him off the house and it really upset Ryan so Homelander went away, later coming back to apologize. But we knew that he did have powers, because Ryan’s eyes would glow red sometimes.
Ryan was upset that his mom lied to him about the neighbourhood so he willingly went with Homelander and Stormfront to the city. However, he grew lonely and homesick after a while. It appeared he was a little violent with Ashley too. Homelander and Stormfront took him to a superhero amusement park but after they got swarmed by fans who wanted autographs, Ryan grew really agitated and wanted to go away. Homelander took him away to a cabin and gave him space. Stormfront insisted that as Ryan’s dad, Homelander had the right to encroach on his space, but Homelander did not.
While Ryan was wary of Butcher when he came to break him out, Becca insisted to him that he was a safe man, because he was Becca’s husband and would take them to safety. So Ryan saw Butcher as a safe person. I think Butcher recognized this and that was what gave him a change of heart. When Stormfront was threatening his mom, he grew agitated and killed her, but also accidentally killing his mom. Ryan was incredibly regretful of it. We didn’t have the conversation of Butcher telling Ryan that it wasn’t his fault, but presumably it happened.
At the very end, Butcher and Ryan had some chats as they waited for Mallory. I felt that Ryan was obviously missing his mom. Butcher had some life advice for Ryan, but he also gave Ryan a pendant that was from Becca so that Ryan would have a piece of his mom’s protection with him.
Mallory was to take Ryan to safety, so presumably we’ll be seeing more of them in the next season. I’m really intrigued to see what will become of Ryan as he grows up. Will he internalize what Becca taught him or will he be overtaken by the supe ideologies? Will he continue to see Butcher as a safe person?
Grace Mallory
Grace served as a person that the boys could go to for connections. She got them information, meetings with people. Lamplighter killed her grandchildren so she had a vendetta against him. However, she couldn’t bring herself to kill him and after a cheesy conversation with Frenchie, she did not. As mentioned, Mallory took Ryan to safety at the end of the show so maybe she’ll see him like she did her grandkids.
Lamplighter
Lamplighter used to be a member of the Seven but he accidentally killed two kids. Since then, he’d been working in a facility that was used to test compound V on people. He helped the boys escape the facility from the out of control superheroes. And as mentioned, Mallory couldn’t bring herself to kill him as revenge so they had t keep him.
He was technically the star witness for the case that Neumann was putting together against Vought. But after he came out of the compound, Lamplighter basically became a degenerate. He just watched porn all day. He kept ruing his glory days.
When Annie was captured by Vought, Hughie convinced Lamplighter to come with him to save Annie. Apparently Lamplighter still had security access to the Vought building which I found was a flaw. This doesn’t even happen in your most typical companies; employees lose access as soon as they’re terminated. Anyway, Lamplighter’s idea was to light himself on fire to activate the fire alarm which would make it easier for Annie to bust out of her jail cell. Before Lamplighter died, he said he’d hoped to die in front of his own statue and if I remember correctly he basically said he’d wanted to be someone his dad was proud of.
Lamplighter was a very weird character because of how many different things he was. He was someone with past history with Frenchie and Mallory, he was a criminal who’d killed kids, he was regretful of killing kids and wished Frenchie had stopped him, he was a porn addict, he was someone with low self worth, he was someone with too much of an ego. He was too many things wrapped into a character who was on screen for too little time to flesh any of that all out.
Jonah Vogelbaum
Vogelbaum used to be the Chief Science Officer at Vought. The boys kept trying to get him to testify about the development of compound V. He refused until Butcher unapologetically threatened his entire family. However, at the trial, he was killed mysteriously.
Victoria Neumann
Throughout the season, Neumann was calling out for Vought to answer for their crimes. She was the main anti-supe politician. She was the one who put together the case to go against Vought, taking testimony from Lamplighter. Soon after she was voted into office, it was revealed that she and the Church of the Collective had collaborated, with the church working in line with her goals to take down Stormfront with the evidence of her Nazi past. The leader of the church had asked for tax exemptions which Neumann agreed to. However, after the phone call, she killed him, in the same way the killer at the trial had killed people: by bursting their heads open.
So what does that mean? I initially wondered if Neumann was a superhero who believed in transparency and accountability for superheroes. But considering she killed Vogelbaum and others at the trial, I wonder if she was planted by Vought to pretend that Vought had people who were against them.
At the end of the season, Hughie joined her office, so I’m sure he’ll pick up on suspicious behaviour from her.
Themes
Racism
Stormfront being a Nazi was a big one. We saw that she often killed people for racially motivated reasons, which were clear in the way she called non-white people slurs. Throughout the season she was insisting to the people that superheroes were needed. It funneled into her white supremacy ideals, that there was a master race. She tried to spread this to Ryan, telling him that there was a white genocide going on.
To a smaller extent, I felt like A-Train was being microaggressed against when he was portrayed as the hip hop rap guy in his TV show. His demo for his theme song was rapped by a white guy, which must have been really weird. This was only briefly mentioned into, but it looms in the shadows as long as A-Train exists. Unfortunately, non-white people commonly experience microaggressions everywhere every day.
There was also that story line in the background about superhero terrorists. The word terrorist in the 2000s up until now is a rather racialized term due to 9/11. And I felt that was taken advantage of by Vought to drum up people’s fear and the perceived need for local heroes to protect them. Because superhero terrorists are sneaking into their country and wanting to hurt them apparently.
Queerness
I admit that when Maeve’s romantic plotline was brought in last season, that I thought it was just going to be token queer representation. I appreciated seeing this season who queer relationships can be taken advantage of and exploited in the entertainment industry. First of all, Maeve was outed against her will, and then Vought (directed by Homelander) turned her into a lesbian icon (though she herself identified as bisexual). But it was humiliating that Maeve just suddenly turned into the lesbian hero, instead of who she was as a hero. All of her TV show parts were about her having romantic moments with another woman. It showed that it can be equally humiliating and frustrating when a person is reduced to only their sexuality and nothing else.
Big Pharma
Near the beginning, I forgot which character said that Vought wasn’t a superhero company, it was a pharmaceutical company. The point of superheroes was to eventually supply a compound V that they could sell on the market. I just thought it was interesting how everything comes back to Big Pharma. I think maybe compound V and the pharmaceutical aspect of the show will come back in later seasons.
Arms Industry
I feel that weapons is always a looming theme in superhero movies. This was a theme in season 1. Superheroes are weapons themselves, and Vought would contract them out to various cities in the USA.
One thing that struck was during a PSA for kids on how to deal with superhero terrorists. In the PSA, kids were advise to do certain things like close the windows, and each teacher was meant to have a gun in their desk that only they would have access to. This is a terrible, terrible idea. One day a kid will find out how to break into the safe box and get access to the gun. Not to mention, teachers should not need to have arms training. Their job is to teach, not to protect. But it felt a bit like an ad for the arms industry. Imagine how many guns would be sold if each teacher in the USA needed a gun.
Cult
The Church of the Collective was a cult. Right from the get-go, we saw the lady (consultant? I don’t know her position) mouthing the words that Eagle was saying to Deep, implying that she trained him to speak that way. The lady and Eagle tried to get Deep to understand their way of thinking going to lengths such as locking him in his room until he started hallucinating. They also went as far as picking his wife for him. The lady insisted that Deep getting married would rehabilitate his image as a family man, a man that was safe to be around. After interviewing candidates, Deep chose a woman that he felt he had sexual chemistry with him, but the lady told him that he was going to pick another one. That being said, Deep did seem like he was doing well with his new image, he seemed happy, like he was having fun. But after he was snubbed from the Seven again, he revealed that he thought everything the cult did was dumb and that they coerced him into marrying a wife he didn’t even like. So anyway we saw that the Church was very controlling of Deep and gaslit him into thinking that he was making those decisions himself.
At various times, people who made the Church look bad were called toxic personalities and were basically excommunicated. This happened to Eagle, who was a representative of the church when he came to Deep, but somehow became a toxic personality overnight. And at that, Deep immediately changed his tune, went from saying Eagle was like a brother to that he agreed he was toxic. The Church said the same after Stormfront was outed as a Nazi, though it seemed she’d been a member for a while so it wouldn’t surprise me if the Church also had some Nazi tendencies.
Good and nice
Near the beginning, Starlight told Stormfront she admired her straightforwardness. Stormfront said that she didn’t believe the fact that nice meant good, and that just because she was kind of rude didn’t mean she was a bad person. However, now that I’m thinking about it, this was only said in order to be a recurring theme for Starlight, and not for Stormfront. Stormfront ended up being both mean and bad.
But for Starlight, over the course of the season, she found herself becoming meaner but in order to carry out a cause she believed in, which was to stop the exploitation by Vought. This reminds me of a book I read recently, Doubt by John Patrick Shanley, in which a nun says that you must stray away from God to be closer to him or something along those lines. Well, this is a theme in many works if I’m being honest. In the process of working towards exposing Vought, Annie has had to blackmail people, she’s had to threaten people, she’s lost some of the sympathy she had for other humans. And it didn’t feel good to her.
Perhaps to her disliking, she’s becoming more and more like Butcher. To be honest, I don’t consider Butcher to be good, at least I didn’t in season 1. But in season 2, I think there was a push to begin to turn him into the asshole with a heart of gold. He was a little more exciting as a complete asshole to be honest.
Social Media
Stormfront was taking control of her own narrative using social media. She was always livestreaming, and she hired people to make memes that boosted her popularity and put down her detractors. Homelander didn’t understand it, but he later enlisted her help with memes to gain popularity.
It’s scary how easy misinformation spread through social media. A video was released of Homelander killing innocent civilians. Stormfront just had her people make memes calling the video fake and Homelander’s crime was swept under the rug. Even in the world of superheroes, public opinion can have this much power, though maybe only because Homelander allows the public to hold this much power over him.
Superheros
This was more related to Butcher’s hatred of superheroes. We saw he was incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of Becca having a superhero as a child. He masked it by lying, but Becca could tell immediately that he was uncomfortable and never planned on protecting Ryan. Butcher continued to see superheroes as all despicable, but he was thrust in more situations to have to be near them.
One such situation was with Annie, when she joined their crew for a bit. He hated being around her, but she basically kind of forced him to work with her. Annie noticed that Butcher approved a bit when she used force to take control of the car and funnily enough it made Butcher see her more agreeable, much to Annie’s displeasure. Perhaps it was because that act played into Butcher’s idea of superheroes being heartless and violent people. Or maybe he just respected that she wasn’t hiding between pretty words and used force to get what she needed.
But of course the big relationship was between Butcher and Ryan. He was still very uncomfortable with Ryan when they went to save him. But he saw the close bond between Becca and Ryan and he felt bad about splitting them. He felt bad that he would break Becca’s heart, and he felt bad because he saw that Ryan was indeed just a kid. When Homelander saw that Stormfront was dead, he was upset with Ryan (knowing that only Ryan’s laser eyes would be capable of killing her) but Ryan sought protection from Butcher. After Maeve threatened Homelander, Butcher picked up Ryan and they went on their way. Maybe Butcher did that with a burst of adrenaline, but we saw that even afterwards he tried to talk to Ryan like a kid. He couldn’t be Ryan’s father, not at all, but he could be someone who loved Ryan’s mother intensely. It appeared he told Ryan not to be a cunt but he also gave him the pendant from Becca because that keepsake would mean a lot to Ryan. So I think Butcher reluctantly accepted Ryan but only as long as he was far away. I’m sure their relationship will go through more tension as Ryan grows up and learns more about the true state of the world around him and what he can do as a supe.
Overall
I felt season 2 wasn’t as strong as season 1. Part if it was the quality of writing, and part of it was probably just because the writers had to pick up off from an unfinished season 1 which was bound to have inconsistencies. I’ll still be watching season 3. Hopefully the writing doesn’t continue to be disappointing.