Why The Boys Fans Are Disappointed In Starlight's Season 2 Finale Fight
Spoilers for the season 2 finale of The Boys to follow.
In The Boys' season 2 finale, Ashley's (Colby Minifie) promise that "girls get it done" pays off when Starlight (Erin Moriarty), Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), and Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) team up to take on Stormfront (Aya Cash). And while the scene was undeniably cool, some The Boys fans are disappointed in Starlight's performance during the big fight. After waiting all season to see Starlight and Stormfront go head to head, fans were hoping to see Starlight use her ability to harness electricity to absorb Stormfront's power. Instead, she largely engaged in hand-to-hand combat, while barely stunning the Nazi supe when she did unleash her superpowers.
Reddit user biggw0rm pointed out that they "thought she'd get supercharged for the fight since she draws her power from electricity and that's SF's main weapon." Meanwhile, another user added that the fight took place in a field full of energy towers, which presumably should have given Starlight plenty of power to absorb. To see her join in with Kimiko and Maeve's display of brute force made for a great scene, but it also felt like a missed opportunity to show the full extent of her abilities.
As it stands, it's unclear whether Starlight was holding back or if she's simply not as strong as viewers previously believed her to be.
Just how strong is Starlight supposed to be, anyway?
The Boys' Starlight problem stems from the fact that it's never fully been established just how strong she truly is. In season 1, it's revealed that she possesses a degree of superhuman strength that allows her to lift cars, punch through brick walls, and easily take down street criminals. Additionally, her skin is incredibly tough, but it's not impenetrable, as Frenchie illustrated when he used a bone saw to remove her tracking device in season 2.
Since the series began, she's engaged in fights with Black Noir (which didn't go well for her) and Stormfront, who wasn't too bothered by her use of an energy blast in the finale. With that in mind, it tracks that she's on the lower end of the power scale in terms of the Seven — unless she simply hasn't fully grasped how to harness her energy absorption abilities completely. It's important to remember that even though Starlight has been encouraged by her mother to use her powers since a young age, she was largely putting on shows at Christian rallies and beauty pageants.
From a marketing perspective, her image and built-in conservative fanbase were more appealing to Vought than her abilities as a hero. That's not to say that she isn't strong, but her strength definitely wasn't the deciding factor in her entry into the Seven.
Starlight may surprise fans with an explosive display of power in the future
Unlike other members of the Seven, Starlight is cautious with her abilities, because she's conscious of the potential danger to human life. On multiple occasions, she's warned non-supes to guard their eyes when she uses her powers, and she wants to minimize collateral damage at all costs. With that in mind, the presence of Hughie (Jack Quaid), Mother's Milk (Laz Alonso), and Frenchie (Tomer Kapon) in the field during the finale showdown may have kept Starlight from displaying her full strength for fear of them getting caught in the crossfire.
However, there may come a time when Starlight is pushed to a point at which she has no choice but to go nuclear on the enemy. During season 2, she showed that she is willing to attack a normal human when they put someone she loves in danger, as seen when she and Butcher (Karl Urban) needed to hijack a vehicle from a passerby in order to save Hughie's life. And now that Hughie is unwittingly working for the dangerous Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit), she may end up surprising viewers by displaying her full strength in season 3.
Granted, that doesn't make Starlight's season 2 finale fight performance any less frustrating, but it does mean that the well-meaning hero's big moment could be still to come.