The Ending Of The Boys Season 3 Episode 7 Explained
Contains spoilers for "The Boys" Season 3 Episode 7
Episode 7 of "The Boys" Season 3 has a lot of pieces to pick up from the floor. The risqué Herogasm storyline has ended in an explosive fashion when Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) yet again unleashed his explosive power in the middle of it all. The battle between him, Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid) and Homelander (Antony Starr) then finished what was left of the mansion. Starlight (Erin Moriarty) has also publicly denounced Homelander and the rest of the Supes, and quit her career as a costumed superhero.
Going into the penultimate episode, Season 3 of the show still has an astounding amount of plot threads hanging loose, and only two episodes left to weave them into a full tapestry. Fortunately, Episode 7 does a ton of heavy lifting by unveiling a whole bunch of backstory on multiple fronts, while still finding time for a shocking last-minute surprise. The episode sets the table for a truly delightful season finale, and as such, there's a lot to unpack in "The Boys" Season 3 Episode 7. Let's take a closer look at its ending.
Black Noir's inner life reveals many secrets
Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) is a very different character from the comics version, and we now know just how different. His nigh-fatal peanut allergy and various surprising soft spots notwithstanding, the silent Supe has been a mystery for much of the show's duration. In this episode, viewers find out that he's had a rich inner life all along — albeit one that's closer to "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" than deep philosophy.
As Noir sits in his hidey-hole, his imaginary cartoon friends try to convince him to get out of his shell. In their dramatic reenactment of Payback's fateful mission in Nicaragua, we find out that a large part of Noir's injuries weren't from enemy fire, as previously assumed. Instead, the Supe was an active part of the conspiracy to give Soldier Boy to Russians, and paid the price.
Noir's motives to take part in this were entirely personal, since he was tired of Soldier Boy's beatings and mockery. The flashback scene shows that Payback indeed managed to take down their leader. However, the consequences were dire for Noir, who received a terrible beating that, it appears, rendered him to his current sorry state.
Since Black Noir is a deranged backup clone of Homelander in the comics, it's been clear for a while that the show is doing its wholly own thing with the character — but even then, the inclusion of cartoon interludes is pretty unexpected. It remains to be seen what other Noir-themed surprises "The Boys" has in store.
Mindstorm gives a window into Butcher's soul
Billy Butcher isn't the kind of guy who opens up to people. However, when he, Hughie and Soldier Boy go after Mindstorm (Ryan Blakely), Butcher and the viewers get a lot more than they bargained for when the former Payback member traps the Boys leader inside his own mind.
Like many other things in this episode, Butcher's nightmare mindscape is family-themed. In Season 2, viewers meet his violent father (John Noble). Now, they're taken through the torturous home life young Billy and his brother Lenny (Jack Fulton) had to endure in their youth. When Butcher — who, as the older and tougher brother, has endured the brunt of the beatings — has enough and joins the military, Lenny is left alone, and kills himself in desperation.
Hughie eventually convinces Mindstorm to release Butcher. Unfortunately, this is one nightmare the Englishman can never really escape, as it's clear that he blames himself for Lenny's death. Based on the nightmare Lenny's words, that's not the only guilt Butcher carries, either.
See, Butcher's increasingly tragic backstory doesn't appear to do anything to change his fundamental nature — it just makes him feel bad about it. In fact, his hallucinations heavily imply that he's grown up to be the exact same kind of violent and manipulative man his father was. He promptly proves his ruthlessness by deliberately withholding the lethal nature of the temporary V from Hughie, which might just lead to dire consequences.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Starlight fights an information war
After she publicly seceded from Vought and the Seven in last episode, Starlight — who now goes by her real name, Annie January — has become the target of a massive disinformation campaign that falsely presents her as a child trafficker. Given the show's many allusions to real-life populism and extreme movements, this is quite possibly a reference to the real-life Wayfair conspiracy theory (via The Washington Post).
Despite the large-scale smear campaign, Annie still has her supporters, which comes in handy when a Compound V-retrieval mission brings her face to face with Homelander. When he confronts her and attempts to force her back in the Starlight fold, Annie tricks him by secretly broadcasting their entire conversation to her social media followers — all 150 million of them.
Since Vought is in full fake news mode, it's unlikely that the Homelander's threats or even the discussion about him murdering Supersonic (Miles Gaston Villanueva) will actually hurt him in any way. Still, the whole scene definitely counts as a win for Annie, who seems to be building herself into one of the biggest threats Vought has faced — as an influencer, no less.
Soldier Boy's surprising history and family ties
Leave it to "The Boys" to take two of the most dangerous Supes in the whole show and find a way to team them up.
Soldier Boy continues to prove that he's exactly the kind of guy a team member might want to sell out, if only to get a brief respite from all the toxic masculinity. Slapping Hughie around, getting up to no good with some elderly citizens at the Legend's (Paul Reiser) place, and generally acting like the kind of guy who always needs to be the top dog, Soldier Boy spends much of the episode thoroughly ignoring any and all of his allies, uneasy as they may be. We even see him committing crimes against music, courtesy of the Legend.
Still, Soldier Boy may be a self-aggrandizing jerk, but he still proves to be capable on the field. He handily sees through Mindstorm's possession trap, and ruthlessly finishes his former ally when he finally gets the opportunity. However, he walks away from the encounter with concerning new information: Homelander, it turns out, is Soldier Boy's lab-created son.
It's clear that Soldier Boy was never going to play ball with the Boys for long, and when he reveals the situation to Homelander at the end of the episode, it's clear that this fragile alliance has reached its end ... and a new, far more dangerous one between the father and the son might rise from the ashes. Still, family or not, can these two egomaniacal Supes even hope to coexist peacefully?
Homelander finds his family values
While Soldier Boy seems delighted to find a long-lost son, Homelander is getting desperate for offpsring of his own — the more powerful, the better.
After his fight at Herogasm, Homelander is happy to eschew physical violence in favor of mental torture in this episode. Once again, however, he ends up in the receiving end far more often than he'd like. His attempts to threaten the imprisoned Maeve (Dominique McElligott) end in a sound defeat when she notices the concealer he's using to hide his bruises, and has a field day over his disheveled state. Homelander's later attempt to give a grandiose populist public speech devolves into a borderline incoherent rant about Annie, who's clearly under his skin even before she pulls the live broadcast trick on him. Even Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) calls him out for his lack of focus.
Still, dairy-based coping mechanisms and bumbling overall performance aside, the episode makes clear that Homelander's still very much in the game. His focus is merely shifting from immediate personal gratification to matters of legacy. The reason he keeps Maeve around is to harvest her eggs for reproduction, and one can only dread the moment he remembers the existence of Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) — who, as it happens, must feel pretty betrayed by his other father figure at this point.
Against this background, the endgame revelation that Soldier Boy is Homelander's father is a potential game breaker ... and indicates that "The Boys" Season 3 finale might just be setting up a three-generational team-up of ultra-powerful Supes for the Boys to deal with.
Meanwhile, the other Boys
"The Boys" Season 3 Episode 7 continues to stealthily establish the unlikely couple of Frenchie (Tomer Capone) and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) as the show's emotional center. After they return to fold, Frenchie also quickly figures out a way to take Soldier Boy out with Novichok — the infamous Russian nerve agent that was used in the Salisbury poisonings. This will likely be the Boys' ace in the hole in the season finale ... at least, one of them. The other one will more than likely be Kimiko, who convinces Annie to bring her some Compound V so she can repower.
The reason behind her desire to get back her powers is both practical and heartwarming: Instead of having her powers thrust upon her like before, she now chooses to be strong enough to protect the people she cares about, especially Frenchie. During the tender dance the two share, it becomes clear that they fully plan to explore their budding relationship, even though they disagree on how to do this. Frenchie would like them to run away from their violent life, but ultimately understands the reason Kimiko wants her powers back. This, incidentally, is perfectly consistent with the comic book version of Frenchie, who's fully aware of the self-destructive path the Boys are on and considers leaving ... but ultimately always goes with what's best for Kimiko's comics version.
Meanwhile, the usually unflappable Mother's Milk (Laz Alonso) continues to struggle with his day-to-day, due to his obsession with Soldier Boy. In this episode, he loses it when the conspiracy-minded Vought believer Todd (Matthew Gorman) takes Janine (Liyou Abere) to a Homelander rally, and gets a bit too vocal about MM's parenting. This causes the already stressed-out MM to punch Todd in front of his daughter, which is unlikely to do any favors for the father-daughter relationship.
Two kinds of heartache for the Deep and A-Train
The Deep's (Chace Crawford) tendency to love aquatic lifeforms a bit too much comes to a head in this episode, as he decides to further explore his fling with the octopus he met during Herogasm. He also once again demonstrates his colossal inability to understand human beings when he draws the clearly revolted Cassandra (Katy Breier) into the situation, and the two break up over it.
While the Deep seems convinced that he's got a handle on his life and career, it's pretty obvious that he's been rampantly ignoring the media-savvy Cassandra's considerable influence over his reemergence. Now that he's turned her into an enemy, the eternally incapable Supe may well be heading toward yet another highly embarrassing downfall.
Meanwhile, A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) may have managed to kill Blue Hawk (Nick Wechsler) and even survived the ensuing heart failure, but it came at a cost. As Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie) gleefully informs him, A-Train now has Blue Hawk's heart in his chest. Since Vought has once again covered for him by blaming the racist Supe's death on Soldier Boy, A-Train will likely have to play ball for the foreseeable future.
This is an extremely "The Boys" turn for A-Train's plot thread. Interestingly, it's also become a bit of an Ashley plot, as the new Vought CEO seems to be slowly asserting herself as a powerful and fearless player. She likely still feels out of her depth with Homelander, but since she's very good at controlling the likes of A-Train, she might very well grow into her role. Could we see her as a Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) figure in the future, or will she succumb to her stress?