The Boys Season 5 Introduces A Homelander Plot Twist That Makes Zero Sense

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

When tasked with coming up with a way to deter the milk-obsessed Homelander (Antony Starr) from locating and wrecking the Boys as they infiltrate the thoroughly misnamed Fort Harmony, "King of Hell" comes up with the ingenious solution of locking him in a room that weakens him with radioactivity. However, the otherwise bold and brilliant "The Boys" Season 5 forgets to answer a follow-up question: Is Homelander radioactive from now on?  

Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) has joined Homelander's mission under false pretenses, courtesy of Sister Sage's (Susan Heyward) suggestion. As soon as he can, he double-crosses his genetic son, locking Homelander in a supe-proof holding cell. Well, a bit more than a holding cell, actually. The room in question is what Frederick Vought and his ilk used to see if supes could survive a nuke. The radioactivity in there is enough to temporarily incapacitate Homelander, leaving him with radiation burns and in severe pain.

Homelander eventually escapes the trap, but the show doesn't really bother to answer the radiation question: If every supe who survived V-One — and now Homelander — was locked in that room, how come they didn't become so saturated with radioactivity that just being near them is a one-way ticket to the graveyard?

Given the way it works, Homelander and every supe who survived the chamber — which is presumably all V-One users, since Soldier Boy insinuates it was used on them as part of the tests — should indeed be radioactive. This does actually seem to be the case, at least to a certain extent: As the episode closes, we see Mother's Milk (Laz Alonso) and the powerful Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) watching an old Soviet clip of a scientist using a Geiger counter on Soldier Boy. Based on the noise the counter makes, it's pretty clear that his body is profoundly radioactive.

But just how radioactive would a supe be after spending time in the chamber? Well, that depends on the level of radiation they've been exposed to. If Soldier Boy's nuclear weapon tale wasn't hyperbole and the trap legitimately simulates a nuclear explosion, then the effects would most certainly continue after a supe exits the chamber. "Fallout contamination may linger for years and even decades," Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress and Richard Wolfson's book "Nuclear Choices for the Twenty-First Century" confirms (via MIT Press). It adds that "the dominant lethal effects last from days to weeks."

So, what does this mean for Homelander? It's implied that he spent at least a few hours in the trap, since the Boys have time to complete their mission and make their getaway without him immediately spotting and laser-frying them. Is he now Radioactive Man, or what? Perhaps this turn of events will have an impact on the plot as Season 5 progresses, but, right now, it doesn't seem to make much sense.