In the third episode of the third season of The Boys, “Barbary Coast,” we open with a flashback to 17 years ago, when a young Annie was performing at Vought’s Little Miss Hero pageant. Her mother watches proudly from the audience, but despite Annie’s smile, this isn’t what she wants. In the present day, Homelander drops a bombshell on Starlight, Frenchie gets himself into trouble, and the Boys get the scoop from Grace about what happened in Nicaragua in 1984.
Warning: This article contains spoilers and descriptions of mature themes not suitable for all audiences.
The Boys are back together
The Boys are finally all back together again, and M.M. is in full cleaning mode while Butcher pukes his guts up in the sink. When Hughie arrives, Butcher is more than pleased to rub the fact that he was unknowingly working with a Supe in his face. In order to have a convincing reason to be out of the office without making Victoria suspicious, Hughie asks Kimiko to break his arm. What a champ.
The power struggle continues
Backstage at American Hero, the team discusses the remaining contestants, and Starlight reminds them all that she gets the final say on the winners … not Homelander. Pulling Alex aside to talk privately, she gives him a heads up that they want to pick him. She begs him to say no because there’s something terribly wrong with Homelander.
Homelander arrives to talk to Starlight about her choices for the winners and surprises her with his grand idea: the return of The Deep! The Supe in question gives her a necklace with a large, gold dolphin on it as a peace offering. After, Starlight proceeds to flip out on Homelander, threatening to release the footage from the plane incident. Unfortunately, he doesn’t care anymore. He’ll rule with fear if he has to, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop him anymore. Panicked, Starlight calls Hughie and tells him she wants to leave The Seven. But she can’t. They’re working on a plan to kill Homelander, and she needs to buy them time.
Homelander invites The Deep and his wife for dinner, purposely serving seafood to make the other Supe uncomfortable, and he forces him to eat his pet octopus, Timothy. (R.I.P. Timothy.)
Nicaragua, 1984
Butcher, M.M., Kimiko, and Hughie make their way to Grace’s latest safe house (and everyone is amused to see how excitedly Ryan greets Butcher). Hughie asks M.M. why he came back, and he reveals that Soldier Boy killed his family. Kimiko plays a game of Connect Four with Ryan and the two commiserate over how they feel about their powers.
The Boys tell Grace the truth about Victoria, and when she asks how they’re going to eliminate her, Butcher catches her off guard and asks about Soldier Boy instead. Grace initially acts like she doesn’t know what he’s talking about, so Butcher begins to make threats against her agents. She caves and tells them that she was in charge of trafficking cocaine from Nicaragua into minority neighborhoods in the U.S. and using the profits to buy weapons.
Grace recounts the day that she met Stan Edgar and Payback when they arrived in Nicaragua. They wanted to test the idea of using Supes as soldiers, which was an awful idea, in her opinion. They were all … pretty terrible. She eventually runs into Soldier Boy, and she’s not even slightly amused by his cocky, incessant flirting. Elsewhere, Black Noir argues with Stan about being forced to wear his mask.
When an enemy attack closes in on the camp, the Supes are essentially the exact opposite of helpful. It’s a chaotic bloodbath; they don’t even know who they’re supposed to be shooting at. Grace gets knocked out. When she wakes up, Crimson Countess runs over to her and tells her that Soldier Boy was killed with some kind of weapon, and the Russians took his body.
After she finishes, Grace tells Butcher that the weapon probably won’t work on Homelander. Butcher storms out, and when Ryan follows him, he tells him that he’s not going to see him again because it’s not safe. The boy grabs on to him, refusing to let go, and Butcher hits him with a low blow by saying that he doesn’t want to look after him after what he did to Becca. Ryan’s eyes light up red for a moment, and then he rips off the pendant Butcher gave him.
Little Nina
Frenchie goes to meet up with Cherie. She tells him that she’s gotten herself into trouble, and she needs to get away. Cherie attempts to convince him to go with her, but he can’t, so she kisses him goodbye. On his way back to the base, Frenchie is grabbed by Little Nina’s men. His old employer makes him an offer, but he’s not interested. When he tells the Boys what happened later, Butcher is intrigued. He asks Frenchie to set up a meeting with her; the Boys are going to Russia.
#Homelight
Alex finds Annie and lets her know that he was planning on bailing out of the contest, but he changed his mind. He wants to be there for her and have her back.
The American Hero winners are announced — The Seven’s newest (and returning) members are Supersonic and The Deep! And to further spice things up, Homelander announces to the world that he and Starlight are in love. He simply can’t keep it a secret anymore.
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.
