In the previous episode of The Boys, Homelander once again fought for dominance to regain his status as the most twisted character on the show as his concerning way of coping with Madelyn Stillwell’s death (*cough* murder *cough*) was revealed. Meanwhile, Butcher found his way back to Becca, and though the two were quick to rekindle their sparks after so many years apart, things didn’t quite go as planned. Most importantly, though, M.M., Hughie, and Annie made a disturbing discovery on their impromptu road trip — that second-tier Supe from the 70s, Liberty, is actually Stormfront. Keep reading to find out what happened in episode 5, “We Gotta Go Now.”
WARNING: The Boys contains mature subject matter, potentially triggering events, vulgar language, violence, and gore. Those themes may appear in the following recap.
The episode opens on the film set of Dawn of the Seven with Maeve walking around on what appears to be a destroyed city street. She rescues a woman named Ruby, and we see that the script has been modified since Homelander outed her, as her character states that she is gay.
Ashley pulls Homelander aside to show him that an unfortunate and disturbing video of him has leaked. He was off on a mission in another country to take out a Supervillain, but he killed an innocent boy in the village in the process. Now, there’s been a significant amount of blowback over the video and protesters are standing outside of the Vought building, calling him a war criminal. As to be expected, Homelander wants to take care of the issue himself without PR controlling him. Ashley, however, informs him that Mr. Edgar and the legal team have stated that his official position must be “no comment at this time” until the crisis team comes up with a strategy.
Stormfront approaches Homelander, who’s now fuming and stomping off to his trailer. Before he walks off, she tells him, “I’m here when you want me.” Ooookay.
We cut to a bar, where a hardcore show is taking place (featuring Hamilton, Ontario’s own Dead Tired!) Butcher is drinking and wallowing in his sorrows after Becca decided not to leave with him. Being the self-destructive man that he is, he heads over to the mosh pit and decides to headbutt a guy in the face and starts beating him up. The crowd, happy to throw well-meaning punches and kicks at one another while moshing along to the songs, is less than impressed with Butcher and his unwelcome antics. They throw him to the ground and begin throwing kicks.
Butcher drags himself to a store, carrying around a bag of frozen peas for his face (which is worse for wear). Hughie calls him to inform him of their recent discovery about Stormfront’s secret identity, and says that she’s probably the one that murdered Raynor. Butcher, however, doesn’t seem overly concerned with this new information. He tells Hughie he’s heading off the grid — Argentina, maybe — before hanging up and snapping the phone’s SIM card.
At the hideout, Hughie finds M.M. all up in his feels watching Outlander — a.k.a. “a show called eat my dick.” Hughie lets him know that he was on the phone with Butcher and he thinks something is wrong, because the disgruntled, Aloha shirt-wearing, gruff, bearded man was being nice to him for once. When he mentions that Butcher called him his canary, this piques M.M.’s interest, and he asks him to tell him everything he said.
Butcher shows up at his aunt Judy’s house, and the woman begins to nag him about calling his mother, stating that his father is ill. The whereabouts of Butcher’s Bulldog Terror (an iconic figure from the comics) are finally confirmed, as we learn that his aunt has been taking care of him. Butcher takes Terror out for a walk, lamenting over the fact that he used to believe he, the dog, and Becca would grow old together.
Back on the Dawn of the Seven film set, A-Train is unimpressed to see how his final scene was rewritten as his goodbye to The Seven, his farewell speech. To no avail, he attempts to submit a rewrite, suggesting that they leave his story open-ended.
Meanwhile, at a nondescript club, a table of men sits around discussing Hamilton (are there some Hamifans in the house or what?) Kimiko walks in and … well … she murders them, to put it simply. Frenchie, who’s been tailing her, enters shortly after she’s gone and takes in the bloody scene she left behind.
Butcher returns to Judy’s house and finds that, to his dismay, Hughie and M.M. are sitting on her couch. M.M. explains that he put two and two together when Hughie told him that he had heard Butcher squeaking a dog toy over the phone. They’ve come to ask him to help with the Stormfront situation, but also because they were worried about him. Annoyed, Butcher turns around and leaves the house again. Meanwhile, Judy informs Hughie that the giant stuffed pig he’s holding is Terror’s girlfriend. “What?” “His fuck pig.”
Butcher hops into his car to take off, but he’s quick to notice that Black Noir is posted up on a nearby roof. He casually heads back into Judy’s house and informs the others of their latest issue that’s waiting for them outside, one that tracked him down after he was spotted at the compound Becca’s trapped in. He informs his friends (can we call these guys friends?) that Becca didn’t want to leave with him. In a stroke of genius, the Boys buy themselves some time by calling in a gas leak to the local fire department in order to keep the street outside busy and crowded.
Back at the film set, Annie is grabbing food when she sees her mom sitting at a table chatting with Stormfront. Annie isn’t exactly pleased that her mother has shown up unannounced to try and make amends.
Meanwhile, the Vought team is sitting down elsewhere with Elena and Maeve, making outlandish plans to frame their advertising around the fact that she’s a lesbian. Elena is visibly annoyed with the campaign as a whole and the blatant erasure of the fact that Maeve is actually bisexual. Fed up, her girlfriend goes to leave, but Maeve follows her. The Supe tells her that she can’t protect her if she leaves, and she assures her that they’ll take Homelander down.
At Judy’s, Butcher has made the decision to face Black Noir on his own so that the others can escape — he’s the one he’s after, anyway. However, unsurprisingly, Hughie and M.M. refuse to let him go.
Frenchie continues to follow Kimiko, this time into a church. She meets up with Cherie of all people, who hands her an envelope as payment for the hits that she’s been doing for the Albanians. Frenchie tries to level with Kimiko, attempting to talk her out of her new “job.” Upset, she shoves him and begins to sign to him, telling him that she got her baby brother killed and he’s the only thing that mattered to her. She doesn’t want his help. Frenchie is frustrated, since he still doesn’t understand what she’s saying because she won’t teach him, and so he exits.
We cut to The Deep, who is filming a cheesy commercial for The Church of the Collective. Goran Visnjic’s character is finally revealed — he’s the chairman of the Church, Alastair Adana.
On the film set, Stormfront is chatting with A-Train when Ashley pulls the speedy Supe aside and confronts him about his refusal to do his goodbye scene as scripted. She threatens him, stating that he can leave with his dignity and severance package, or he’ll get fired for using Compound V. And so, he films his scene.
Congresswoman Neuman stands outside of the Vought building, giving a rousing speech against Vought and the Supes to the crowd of protestors that has gathered. Homelander crashes the party, and Ashley watches the live footage from her tablet, on the verge of a meltdown. Homelander proceeds to back himself into a corner, trying to explain what exactly happened in the incriminating video, but the crowd is quick to turn against him. He has a sick fantasy for a moment of lasering the entire crowd to the ground, before he comes to his senses and takes off (but really, would anyone have been surprised if that had actually happened?)
At Judy’s, the fire department leaves the scene and Black Noir is still patiently waiting for Butcher. The Boys, Terror, and Judy take cover and hide in what Butcher’s aunt refers to as her “secret taffy room.” Wink.
Stormfront is in her trailer, talking to the Supe Lamplighter on the phone. He’s flicking a lighter, wearing a uniform for a place called “Sage Grove Center.” Homelander shows up, tail between his legs, and Stormfront shows him the memes that were made for him to help with damage control.
The Boys have set up a trip wire throughout Judy’s house, and then holed back up in the taffy room to wait. Hughie asks Judy who Lenny is, because she had said earlier that he looked like him. She explains that he was Butcher’s little brother, a nervous little bugger like Hughie, but he died. He had a way of making Billy … not be Billy. She says that she thinks Billy needs someone like that.
The trip wires begin to go off, alerting them of Black Noir’s arrival in the house. The Supe drops a gas canister into the room to flush them out. Butcher ushers everyone out of the house, telling them to leave, before swiftly locking them out to take on the Supe on his own. Hughie and M.M. make their way back in, though, the latter taken down by a knife fairly quickly. Hughie comes in blazing hot, following up on M.M.’s shower of bullets with some of his own. Black Noir begins to take off toward Hughie, but Butcher cuts in and says that if he kills him, “You can kiss your fucking career goodbye.” Butcher continues on, telling the Supe that he has photos of Becca and Homelander’s son, Vought’s dirty little secret. And if he lays a finger on any of them … he’ll leak the photos. Thanks to Black Noir’s body cam, they swiftly receive a call from Mr. Edgar himself. Butcher and Mr. Edgar make a deal — don’t release the photos and he’ll call Black Noir off. Sure, easy enough. Especially considering Butcher was lying about the photos, which Hughie is pleased to discover meant he cared enough to make the bluff in the first place.
The Deep is handing out books for The Church of the Collective (much to the dismay of the less fortunate people that have arrived thinking they were getting food … “food for the soul” is more like it). Maeve shows up, cutting the line, and tells him that she’s his best bet to get back into The Seven …. she can help him if he helps her.
At the Dawn of the Seven set, Annie sneaks into Stormfront’s trailer and takes a peek at her email inbox. She sees quite a few emails involving the aforementioned Sage Grove before Stormfront catches her. Annie plays it off, acting like she’s come to confront her for talking to her mom. She tells Annie that she knows she’s the one that leaked the Compound V, and Annie goes right for the neck, insinuating that Stormfront is a racist (ding ding ding!) They’re interrupted by Homelander, and Annie takes this as her cue to leave.
Butcher, M.M., and Hughie, having escaped the torched remains of his aunt’s house, say their goodbyes to Judy and Terror.
In the final act, which can most simply be referred to as “Let the Shitshow Begin,” Stormfront and Homelander have returned to the Vought building, and the former shoves the latter up against a wall and … oh … they’re making out. The two alternate between this and beating the absolute hell out of each other as they throw one another around the room. The infamous scene from the season 2 trailer is revealed as Stormfront insists that Homelander … laser her tits. The room is trashed at this point, the walls are cracked, and … they’re floating. They’re having sex in the air. That escalated quickly, no pun intended.
Though there was no microphone available to drop at the end of this episode, the chandelier will do, I guess.
Episodes 1-5 of season 2 of The Boys are now available on Amazon Prime Video. And don’t forget to watch Prime Rewind: Inside The Boys, the official after-show. Episode 6 will premiere on Friday, September 25. Check out all of our recaps for this season here.
