The Boys Season 5 Finally Reveals Soldier Boy's Real Backstory

Contains spoilers for "The Boys" Season 5, Episode 4 — "King of Hell"

Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) just had a big week on "The Boys." The undying supe takes Sister Sage's (Susan Heyward) hint to accompany Homelander (Antony Starr) on his mission to Fort Harmony and stop him from acquiring immortality with the V-One serum. However, Soldier Boy ends up getting far more than he bargained for when Homelander — who's increasingly done with his biological father's constant snark and dissing — verbally tears him apart. 

Homelander openly challenges his dad's tough man act by revealing that he's fully aware of the truth about Soldier Boy: Instead of some sort of war hero or a Captain America-style plucky kid who became a WWII-era supersoldier, Soldier Boy was a nerdy rich kid. He was so jealous of his war hero brother that he begged his dad to get him into Frederick Vought's Compound V trials, where he acted like a scared child.

If this wasn't bad enough, the gruff Soldier Boy later comes face to face with someone who actually knew him back in the day: Quinn (Kris Hagen), the rage-filled, plant-themed supe who's stuck inside Fort Harmony. This causes Soldier Boy to launch into an angry monologue, which essentially confirms that his contemporaries despised him as a spoiled brat and considered him completely unworthy to win the superpower lottery. Ouch.

By the time Frenchie (Tomer Capone) calls Soldier Boy out and lures him into defeating Quinn with his chest blast, the supe is a shell of his usual self. When Homelander eventually breaks free from the radiation cell Soldier Boy locked him in and arrives to confront him, even he is shocked to see Soldier Boy reduced to a sobbing mess who has absolutely no fight left in him.

Interestingly, this development shows that, deep down, the supe father and son are far more similar than fans could ever have guessed. Both are superficially hard men who nevertheless feel secretly inadequate. Homelander has abandonment and confidence issues to go with his delusions of grandeur. Meanwhile, Soldier Boy's manly man antics hide a lingering insecurity that stems from the knowledge that he's a fraud and a poser. 

Will this revelation bring father and son closer together? It's too early to say. For now, it appears that Homelander is tentatively willing to bury the hatchet. If Soldier Boy is willing to do the same, the Boys are likely going to have a pretty bad time — especially since "The Boys" Season 5 is bringing back some of the show's other big villains, and there are also some surprising "Gen V" cameos to further complicate matters.