Following the success of his memoir, Deeper, it looks like The Deep’s story with the Church of the Collective has been opted for a movie deal — entitled Not Without My Dolphin. Meanwhile, in the second episode of season 3 of The Boys, “The Only Man in the Sky,” Hughie and Annie dig deeper into Red River, the Boys hunt down Payback, and Homelander has an epic meltdown.
Warning: This article contains spoilers and descriptions of mature themes not suitable for all audiences.
Red River
After doing some research, Hughie and Annie discover that Red River (the place that Tony mentioned to Victoria before she killed him) is a group home owned by a subsidy of Vought. It’s where Victoria — Nadia — grew up. Hughie is still distraught from the news that the head-exploding Supe was Victoria all along.
Annie is busy, so Hughie pays a visit to Red River Institute on his own and he finds out that it’s a group home for Supe children. Unfortunately, the woman giving him a tour recognizes him because a television segment is playing in the background with footage of him on the red carpet with Starlight for Dawn of the Seven. He manages to come up with a quick excuse about how he’s sterile and interested in adopting a child, and the woman buys it. She sits him down in front of a computer to show him more about the children, and he secretly slips a flash drive into the USB port to copy the files. When he gets home, he comes across an old video of Victoria as a child, and we learn that Stan Edgar is the one that adopted her from Red River.
“It’s your party, you can cry if you want to”
It’s Homelander’s birthday, and he pays a visit to Stormfront, eager for her to wish him a Happy Birthday. However, she ignores him. He makes his way to the soundcheck for his televised birthday special. Starlight pushes back over the birthday number that he wants her to perform, because she thinks it’s demeaning. Homelander tries to pull rank on her, but Stan pops in over the intercom and calmly tells him that Starlight doesn’t have to sing if she doesn’t want to.
Hunting down Payback
Butcher shows up at M.M.’s house, conveniently carrying a gift for Janine in tow as a peace offering to buffer the real reason for his visit. He tells M.M. about the Soldier Boy plan: Frenchie and Kimiko are going after Crimson Countess, and he’s going to take care of Gunpowder. Butcher tries to convince M.M. to help them, because this would give him a chance to close the book on Soldier Boy once and for all … for his dad, and for his family. After he leaves, M.M. pulls out a stack of newspaper clippings about the Supe. Later, when he’s dropping Janine off, he tells Monique what’s going on. She encourages him to go back to the Boys and do what needs to be done.
Frenchie and Kimiko go to VoughtLand, and they sit down to watch Crimson Countess’ Soldier Boy musical. Kimiko enjoys herself, but Frenchie … not so much. They find the Supe backstage afterward and initially play nice as she offers to show Kimiko a new song of hers. However, Kimiko then pins her up against a wall, and Frenchie tells her they want to know the truth about what happened to Soldier Boy. Crimson Countess makes a run for it, killing one of the park mascots in the process and traumatizing every child within a hundred-foot radius.
Elsewhere, Butcher finds Gunpowder at … you guessed it … a gun convention. He follows the Supe into the bathroom and threatens to blackmail him by telling the public that Gunpowder filed a complaint against Vought for Soldier Boy’s “habitual abuse.” Gunpowder denies it and leaves. Afterward, as Butcher gets into his car in the parking garage, Gunpowder shoots out the back window of his car. Gunpowder grazes his cheek with a bullet, and then Butcher shoots multiple cars to set off their alarms and makes his escape.
Back at the Boys’ new base, Kimiko laments to Frenchie about how she and her brother never had the chance to have a real childhood. She’s upset over what happened at the theme park, because she’ll never be a normal girl. She’s broken and can never be fixed. Butcher wraps up the bullet wound on his leg, and he finally decides to watch the video that Ryan said would make him feel better. It’s a stop-motion movie set to a voicemail from Becca. Emotional, Butcher calls Hughie and tells him he was right. Hughie is beyond himself, shocked that Butcher wants to give up, so he shares an important piece of information that lights the dying spark inside of him once more: Victoria Neuman is a Supe.
Butcher returns for round two with Gunpowder. The Supe shoots him multiple times, and Butcher collapses to the ground. However, moments later he gets back up, and the bullets fall out of his chest … thanks to the V-24. They fight, and Gunpowder admits that Soldier Boy used to slap him around a little bit. When Butcher asks what killed him, Gunpowder can’t give him an answer. He was just a kid. The most that he can tell him is that they were working with the CIA in Nicaragua in 1984, and Grace Mallory was the case officer. Butcher loses his cool, punching Gunpowder repeatedly and then eventually cutting him in half with his laser eyes. Whoops.
(Nearly) caught
Hughie arrives at the Bureau, and he’s startled when he runs into Victoria, making up an excuse about working from home. She casually asks him who Nadia is and why he didn’t tell her about the man that was looking for her. Noticing his hand, which is bandaged up from cutting it open on a jar earlier, she then inquires if there’s something that they need to discuss. Annie shows up in the nick of time, blaming Hughie’s odd behavior on a fight that they had. Afterward, Hughie shows Annie what he found at Red River (and informs her that he may or may not have signed them up to adopted a child).
Homelander unravels
A girl named Chelsea stands at the edge of a rooftop, and a crowd watches her down below. Homelander flies up to her for his annual birthday save, but just as he begins to try to talk her down, the giant screen on the building behind them reveals a breaking news story — Stormfront has died by suicide. Spiraling, Homelander begins to babble as he admits that his birthday was chosen for him by his marketing department. He encourages Chelsea to jump, but now she doesn’t want to. Growing angry, he tells her it’s no longer a suggestion, and his eyes glow red. Chelsea jumps. Afterward, Homelander lays in Stormfront’s empty hospital bed beside a pool of her blood.
Homelander’s birthday special is nothing short of a chaotic mess. After Supersonic’s performance, A-Train hops onstage with his new rebranded costume that wasn’t approved by Ashley (and she’s furious). Starlight and Homelander come out next, and Starlight announces her new venture: The Starlight House, a nonprofit foundation dedication to helping homeless and at-risk youth. Someone from the crowd calls out to Homefront, “Your Nazi died,” and Starlight pipes up by saying that everyone makes mistakes and deserves second chances. She tells the audience that Homelander will be donating 10 million dollars to her nonprofit. Losing his carefully practiced composure, Homelander interrupts Starlight and corrects her: he’s stronger, he’s smarter, and he’s better than everyone else. Backstage, Ashley frantically tells the producers to cut to a commercial, but Homelander commandingly tells them not to. He carries on with his rant, because he’s the only one that can save people, after all.
He’s the real hero.
The first three episodes of the third season of The Boys are now streaming exclusively on Prime Video. Catch the next episode on Friday, June 10, and stay tuned for all of our coverage on the series, including episodic recaps and more.
