The Boys “The Innocents”

Um, is it mean or clever casting Haley Joel Osment as a washed up child star known for his psychic abilities?

Regardless, that happens.  Osment plays Mesmer, a former TV star and mind reader.  He reads minds through physical contact, and Mother’s Milk decides to recruit the guy and see if he can find out where the Female came from.

No one asks Butcher about that, and for good reason:  Butcher hates supes of all kinds.  He thinks they’re all bad, and spends a good chunk of this episode trying to convince Hughie that this is true.  The support group for people hurt by supes?  Doesn’t quite work.  Finding out why Butcher hates Homelander?  That still doesn’t get through.

Butcher says Homelander raped Butcher’s wife, and then she disappeared because either she ran off or Homelander took her.  Either way, he thinks she might still be out there somewhere.

Hughie still thinks Annie is basically a good person, and she’s fighting back against Vought.  Stillwell basically figured out the Deep is the one who assaulted Annie and, first, forces him to publicly apologize and, second, sends him to Sandusky, Ohio as a punishment.

Most of the rest of the stuff with the Seven shows them doing a lot of reality TV.  It’s sadly appropriate.  Maeve comes around to supporting Annie in the end, and maybe the company does too.  Hard to say.  I get the impression that this is bigger than Annie.  And Maeve.

By the by, Homelander’s real childhood looks really warped and wrong.  Big surprise.

But what about the Female?  Mesmer does manage to get through to her, even if the first attempt results in a lot of memories of the fight with Black Noir and a possible broken hand for Mesmer.  With help from Frenchie, she calms down enough to get the rest of the answer.  Her real name is Kamiko.  She was kidnapped along with her brother by a terrorist army that it looks like Vought is selling Compound V to in order to make super-terrorists.  That would make it much easier to get the military to let supes in.

Butcher tries to take all that evidence to the CIA, but his contact will do all that Butcher asks…except go after Homelander because he is really freakin’ scary.

Butcher walks.

Then he interrupts Hughie’s date and reminds Hughie that Starlight probably won’t like it if she learned Hughie killed Translucent.

Butcher is a bad friend.

Also, Homelander has seen his face because Mesmer takes photos of all the Boys to the Seven…