In “The Boys” season 2 finale recap, Becca turns to Butcher for help and the Boys arm themselves for a showdown with The Seven…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
It’s hard to encompass everything that unfolded in “The Boys” season 2 finale with only two words but these seem appropriate.
Holy shit.
There were more than a few jaw-dropping moments in the last episode of the season as Becca Butcher turned to her estranged husband Billy in order to rescue her son Ryan from his sociopathic — not to mention unstoppable — father Homelander, who kidnapped him a week ago.
The penultimate episode saw Homelander take his son away from the only home he’s ever known while growing closer and closer to his new girlfriend Stormfront, who is no longer keeping her agenda all that quiet. She’s a full blown Nazi with plans to make white people great again and Stormfront is willing to take whatever measures necessary in order to finish with Hitler started with World War II.
Meanwhile, Hughie risked his life to save Starlight after she was tossed out of The Seven and exposed as a traitor. After Lamplighter literally set himself on fire, Hughie managed to save Annie’s mother while Maeve pitched in a helping hand to rescue Starlight from a beatdown courtesy of Black Noir.
And finally, the end of last week’s episode saw a Congressional hearing turn very bloody after the mysterious Supe who has the ability to blow people’s heads apart attacked the meeting while slaughtering a number of people including Dr. Jonah Vogelbaum, who was set to testify against his former employers at Vought International.
Now as we pick up the season 2 finale, the Boys are forced to regroup after Congress failed to expose Vought while also attempting to help Butcher rescue Becca’s son from the most powerful man on the planet.
With that said, let’s recap “The Boys” season 2 finale titled “What I Know”…
Kill Em All
In the wake of the Congressional massacre, Vought’s power is growing exponentially much to the chagrin of Congresswoman Victoria Neuman as well as Grace Mallory. While Homelander is now filming public service announcements to teach school children how to deal with a super villain invasion, the U.S. government is about to pass an emergency order to allow Vought to super charge as many people as possible with Compound-V in order to stave off whatever attack is seemingly coming.
Despite the Congresswoman and Mallory’s pleas, the Secretary of Defense tells them that his hands are tied — Vought is about to become the biggest arms dealer in the history of the world by handing out doses of Compound-V to police, first responders and other people deemed worthy of becoming “heroes.”
Back at Vought Tower, Homelander is watching the coverage of all this unfold while still perplexed at what exactly happened during that Congressional hearing. As calm as he appeared just before Dr. Jonah Vogelbaum’s head exploded, it turns out he had nothing to do with the massacre that took place. It seems Stormfront has no clue how the exploding heads happened either but she’s definitely satisfied with the results.
While Black Noir is unresponsive after eating an Almond Joy and Starlight has disappeared, Vought is more powerful than ever before. Stormfront is now convinced that this is exactly the opening they need to build a powerful army that will serve her ultimate purpose of making the white race the masters and rulers of the world.
As for the Boys, they are arming themselves to the teeth with all sorts of weaponry to take a shot at Vought through The Seven. Butcher now knows that Black Noir can be crippled by tree nuts and Frenchie has built a weapon that he believes can cut through Stormfront’s electromagnetic power. Obviously there’s not much they can do about Homelander but for now killing as many Supes as possible is the best plan that Butcher and the team can come up with now that Lamplighter is dead, the Congressional hearing turned into a bloody disaster and the government is ready to hand the keys to the kingdom over to Vought.
Hughie tries to preach patience but even Mother’s Milk is hell bent on vengeance.
That’s when Annie pitches one more idea — she asks Butcher to give them the rest of the day as she teams up with Hughie in order to try and secure a new witness to go after Vought publicly.
Her idea is to convince Queen Maeve to finally break loose of the promotional shackles placed on her by Vought public relations and the twisted hold Homelander has over her through fear that he’ll kill any and everyone she’s ever loved.
But after arriving at Maeve’s home — as she comments how she could split Hughie open like dry driftwood — Starlight asks her to do the right thing and testify against Vought. Unfortunately, Maeve just isn’t interested.
She’s already saved Starlight by attacking Black Noir and losing Elena was the last straw in her life when it comes to somebody she loves. Going after Vought would just be suicide and as much as Maeve is consumed with self-hate right now, she doesn’t want to die.
Later that same day, Alastair Adana — the leader of the Church of the Collective — finally has his sit down meeting with Stan Edgar from Vought. He pitches Edgar on welcoming back the Deep and A-Train to The Seven now that the church has gone above and beyond to rehabilitate their images.
Of course, the church stands to reap financial benefits from having two of its members in The Seven but that’s not a conversation Alastair wants to have right now.
Eventually, Edgar agrees to welcome back the Deep now that he’s undergone significant changes including the addition of a wholesome wife after apologizing for assaulting Starlight on her first day as a member of The Seven. Sadly, Edgar won’t be taking A-Train back because one old member returning is redemption — two of them coming back looks like desperation.
Add to that, Edgar says that Stormfront has a problem with A-Train and considering she was once a member of the Church of the Collective, he’s rather certain that Alastair knows her issues. In the end, Alastair is satisfied that he got one of his members into The Seven as he shakes on it with Edgar to see The Deep return to rejoin his former teammates.
Of course that doesn’t sit too well with A-Train, who was standing in the next room listening to his career get flushed down the toilet in one mighty swirl.
The Enemy of My Enemy
Back at the Boys’ home base, Butcher is called upstairs where he finds a frantic Becca awaiting him. She was able to escape the Vought compound and she’s here to ask for help to rescue Ryan after Homelander snatched him away.
Inside, Becca is greeted by a team that has heard all about her for several years as they are astonished to finally meet the woman that Billy Butcher loved. As nice as this moment might be, Butcher now has to figure out a way to get Ryan away from Homelander, who could slice them all apart with a blink of his eye.
That’s when Billy decides to call on the one person with a hope of controlling Homelander — his boss Stan Edgar.
Billy sits down to lunch with the Vought CEO to pitch him on the idea that he can get Ryan away from Homelander because that boy is the only contingency plan the company has against the world’s most powerful superhero. If things ever go really bad, Ryan might be the only person capable of stopping his father.
A very cold Stan Edgar ultimately agrees after also explaining why Stormfront was a necessary evil despite her prejudices. It seems Edgar’s only purpose through all of this was to keep Vought’s stock prices high and after Compound-V was exposed, this was the best method to make the public forget about what his company was doing to children and instead get them angry enough to demand even more Supes get made.
In order to keep Homelander under control, however, Edgar still needs a trump card and that’s where Ryan comes into play.
Butcher offers to retrieve Ryan from his father and once that happens he’ll signal Edgar, he’ll send in reinforcements to retrieve the boy. Oh and one more thing — Butcher tells Edgar that Becca will be staying with him rather than running away with her son. He wants his wife back and he believes the little Supe bastard can find a new mom.
As ruthless as Edgar might be, he may have just met his match in Billy Butcher.
As for Hughie and Starlight, they head back after being shot down by Maeve. Along the way, Hughie explains to Annie how his mother used to listen to Billy Joel records when he was a kid, which explains his obsession with the Piano Man, but more importantly he reveals that she left him when he was only six years old.
One day, she just decided she didn’t want to be a wife or a mother any longer and disappeared. Ever since then, Hughie has been so terrified of losing the people that he loves that he clings onto them through the good and bad because he doesn’t want to be abandoned again.
Before Annie can console him, both are scared shitless when A-Train appears out of nowhere and jumps into the backseat of the car. He’s not there seeking vengeance but rather to pass along some information to them about Stormfront. It’s the kind of information that will not only expose her but get her kicked out of The Seven.
A-Train knows that’s his only way back in while simultaneously paying Hughie back for saving his life when he had a heart attack.
“Cause I want back in. So I need her gone. Fuck that Nazi bitch.”
~ A-Train
As for Homelander, he’s doing his best to play father to Ryan but it’s not an easy job. After leaving the kid with Ashley for the afternoon as she pulls out more of her hair while playing babysitter, Homelander and Stormfront decide to give Ryan a taste of the big city.
They take him to Planet Vought — a Planet Hollywood knock off — where they attempt to sit down to dinner as a family. Sadly that plan gets interrupted by the hordes of fans who want to meet Homelander and Stormfront and Ryan ends up panicking with so many people and so much noise around him.
Homelander eventually flies him away to a remote cabin where he’s still struggling to connect with his son. Stormfront manages to give him a pep talk and after returning inside, Homelander actually manages to become fatherly for a few minutes.
He explains to Ryan how scary it was when he first started using his powers and how people terrified him just as much. Ultimately, people were just scared of him so Homelander never actually had any kind of real upbringing because everything in his life was based on fear.
So he decides to help his son adapt and learn the powers that he’s been born with.
The lesson gets interrupted however when Stormfront receives some shocking news.
A story breaks that photos and archive footage has been released that proves Stormfront is actually a Nazi born over 100 years earlier. She was a close confidant to Adolf Hitler and the wife to Frederick Vought. The photos have been authenticated and Stormfront’s career as well as her agenda are being dismantled before her very eyes.
That’s courtesy of Annie and Hughie, who passed along that information courtesy of A-Train that exposed Stormfront for her true identity. They drop that news bomb just before the entire team mounts up in order to go after Ryan and rescue him from Homelander.
After arriving at the remote cabin, the Boys set up the traps necessary to drag Homelander away from his son long enough that Becca and Butcher can get him. The plan involves a sharp, sonic sound that only Homelander and Ryan could possibly hear. While Homelander has adapted to his super hearing, Ryan is tortured by it.
So Homelander flies away to find the source of the noise, which gives Becca and Butcher the time to get into the cabin to pull him away. While there, Butcher begins to have second thoughts about his plan to tear Ryan away from Becca so he calls Stan Edgar and leaves his phone behind, which is where the Vought forces will converge.
Out at the bunker with the rest of the team, Butcher comes lean with Becca that he was planning on turning Ryan over to Vought while keeping her away from her son. He just couldn’t go through with it and Becca wastes no time forgiving him while asking Butcher to join them in the new life that Grace Mallory has promised them.
Butcher knows deep down he could never care for Ryan much less be a pseudo-father to him, especially after the example he had in his own house. So he sends Becca away with Ryan in order for them escape Homelander to a location that Butcher will never find.
But just as their car is driving away, a giant lightning bolt strikes it down and sends the vehicle flying with Becca, Ryan and Mother’s Milk inside. Stormfront has arrived and she’s really pissed off that her secret has been exposed.
Girls Get it Done
After dispatching the speakers producing the sonic boom that was hurting Ryan’s ears, Homelander returns to the cabin to find his son missing but instead a group of Vought soldiers are there waiting on him. It doesn’t take Homelander long to surmise that this was a set up — Vought was trying to take his son away from him.
Homelander then begins slaughtering the soldiers to get them to tell the truth.
Back at the rendezvous where Becca was trying to make her getaway, Stormfront has arrived to kill each and every one of them but not before she’s facing off with a determined Starlight as well as a motivated Kimiko, who still wants vengeance for her brother. Thanks to sharing her secret sign language with Frenchie, she’s even able to pass along a message to Stormfront before the fight begins.
“She says the truth is, she’s gonna stick her boot up your Nazi kitty.”
~ Kimiko via Frenchie
A split second later a fight ensues as Starlight and Kimiko attack Stormfront but sadly the 100-plus year old Supe eventually gets the upper hand. She blasts Starlight and breaks Kimiko’s neck much like her brother. Unlike her sibling, however, Kimiko has healing powers so she’s able to put herself back together but not before Stormfront wipes out the weapon that Frenchie built to stop her.
It appears that Stormfront is about to exact her revenge when out of nowhere Maeve shows up to issue a beatdown of her own. It seems Maeve was done being on the sidelines and along with Starlight and Kimiko, they begin kicking the ever-loving shit out of Stormfront.
Just when it appears Stormfront has been defeated, she flies away and none of the heroes on the ground are capable of following her.
As Butcher, Becca and Ryan are trying to run away, Stormfront eventually finds them. She blasts Butcher and she’s prepared to choke the life out of Becca while back at the cabin, Homelander is covered in the blood of the Vought soldiers he just massacred.
Just as it looks like Stormfront will snap Becca in half, Ryan’s powers finally switch on and he lets out a mighty blast with his laser vision. When the dust settles, Stormfront has been cut into pieces and she’s been burned beyond recognition. She’s barely able to sputter German phrases from her lips as she lays there dying.
Sadly, Becca suffers a similar, yet less gruesome, fate.
Her neck was sliced open from Ryan’s laser attack and she’s bleeding out. Ryan is horrified at what he’s done to his mother and she pleads with Billy that it’s not his fault. Before dying, Becca asks Butcher to take care of Ryan and make sure he has a good home away from his father. Butcher agrees as he says goodbye to his wife while Ryan stands a few feet away bawling his eyes out.
That’s when Homelander arrives to retrieve his son but Ryan has no intention of returning to his father.
Instead, Ryan stands behind Butcher but that’s barely a human shield considering Homelander could slice them both in half. Once again, it’s Maeve who saves the day as she arrives to warn Homelander not to harm a hair on the head of Billy Butcher or his son.
She then shows him the footage from that fateful plane crash he helped cause that saw hundreds die a tragic death. Maeve threatens to release the footage if Homelander doesn’t leave Billy and Ryan alone while also demanding that he stops going after Starlight as well as no longer bothering her and Elena.
Homelander knows that he could kill every single one of them but Maeve reminds him that it would all be worth it because that footage would essentially end his career and the one thing he loves more than anything else.
Homelander: “If you do that, I’ll destroy everything and everyone”
Maeve: “Great. As long as everyone sees what a fucking monster you are. As long as no one ever loves you again.”
As he ponders killing everybody, Homelander hears the cheers in his head of the crowds who adore him and how that all goes away if the video goes public. He takes one last look at his son before flying away into the sky, leaving everyone still alive.
The Greater Good
In the days following Stormfront being exposed as a Nazi, Stan Edgar holds a press conference to claim ignorance to her true agenda while putting a hold on the release of more Compound-V. He also welcomes Starlight back into The Seven after she was exonerated and her crimes blamed on Stormfront.
Even Homelander is forced to speak on the team’s behalf while issuing a heartfelt apology to Starlight for all the accusations against her.
As for the Church of the Collective, Alastair informs Deep and A-Train that the information exposed about Stormfront came from their own archives. But rather than being angry about it, Alastair is happy that A-Train showed such initiative and he now fits into Vought’s new “anti-Nazi” strategy, which means he’s getting back into The Seven.
With A-Train going back, the Deep is no longer getting his slot with the team.
Of course this leads to an irate Deep lashing out at the Church, its president, the terrible blow jobs his wife has been giving him and perhaps the deepest cut of all — he says fuck Fresca.
As for Starlight, she goes to the park to meet with Hughie after she’s been inducted back into The Seven again. While Annie knows that she’s not exactly safe with Homelander around, she also understands that leaving the team would be like allowing the bad guys to win so she’s taking back her spot in hopes of actually doing some good this time around.
In return, Hughie then tells her that he’s going to try the reverse. After clinging onto everybody close to him thanks to his abandonment issues from his mother, Hughie has never really stood on his own two feet. He feels like now is the time to do that.
Annie believes he’s breaking up with her but that’s the furthest thing from his mind.
“Oh god no. I’m still gonna cling onto you. I’m not fucking crazy.”
~ Hughie
It seems Hughie is ready to sever ties with the Boys and strike out on his own as he continues his own kind of fight against Vought International. As it turns out, Hughie might not be the only one leaving the team.
Butcher ends up turning Ryan over to Grace Mallory, who promises to give him a good home while doing her best to ensure he doesn’t turn out like Homelander. Billy gives the kid a medal of St. Christopher that belonged to his mother while passing along some invaluable advice that will stick with him for years to come.
“Don’t be a cunt.”
~ Ryan
After Ryan leaves, Mallory informs Billy that a new Supe task force is being formed and Congresswoman Victoria Neuman is leading the charge. She even managed to put together a budget for Mallory to put together her own team in order to investigate the Supes and their various activities. As a result of their good deeds, the Congresswoman even managed to get all of the criminal charges dropped against Billy and the Boys.
Mallory then asks Billy if he wants to lead her task force but he chooses not to answer as he walks away.
As for Mother’s Milk, he’s finally reunited with his family while Frenchie and Kimiko leave that basement lair to go on a few adventures together, which will probably include some dancing.
And then there’s Homelander flying over top of a building that looks out on the city as he jerks off with his pants around his ankles while chanting that he can do anything he wants.
The next day, Alastair Adana places a call to Congresswoman Neuman because she knows he was the person responsible for the information that ultimately brought down Stormfront. He then informs her that he’s got enough dirt to bring down a dozen more Supes and for now all he wants in exchange is for the Church of the Collective to get tax exempt status.
Congresswoman Neuman believes that’s a small price to pay in order to strike back against Vought.
Just as Alastair is celebrating his victory with a smug look on his face and a chilled can of Fresca in his hands, the church leader’s head explodes into a million pieces.
Outside the nearby gates, Congresswoman Victoria Neuman stands proud as her eyes glaze over and she smiles ever so slightly after wiping out another enemy. Yes, Congresswoman Victoria Neuman is the Supe responsible for blowing up heads all season long — from CIA Deputy Director Susan Raynor at the start of the season to the Congressional massacre that saw her own assistant, Vought’s whistleblower and several more people killed.
Victoria Neuman has been behind it all.
To what end? We don’t know but the episode ends with the Congresswoman returning to her campaign offices where she finds someone waiting to meet with her.
It’s Hughie Campbell — he’s there to ask for a job to work with her in order to bring down Vought International. Hughie’s no longer cut out for the blood and guts required to serve alongside Butcher and the Boys and he believes this is a much safer and more democratic route to topple Vought once and for all.
Little does Hughie know that he’s just stepped into the lion’s den as the real big bad is the Congresswoman who just hired him on the spot.
A shocking end to “The Boys” season 2 and now the long, long wait begins because the show has already been renewed for season 3 but there’s still no word on when filming will begin much less when the series will return. Needless to say there’s a lot that will need to be answered when “The Boys” season 3 finally debuts.
