The Boys “Over The Hill With The Swords Of A Thousand Men”

Well, this is the world we live in now, where Hughie starts to lose it and the Seven actually attempt to fight a bad guy.

Also, there’s a whale involved.

So, here’s the deal:  the Boys are looking to deliver Kimiko’s brother to the CIA out at sea while the Seven do…Sevenish things.  Mostly it amounts to Homelander trying to bond with his son by forcing the kid to use his powers even though Ryan doesn’t seem to want to…until Homelander threatens Becca, then the kid will act.

Homelander is pleased by this.

Not pleased is Hughie, still mad Butcher popped him one and unable to get Annie on the phone even after Annie leaks the existence of Compound V to the press successfully.  A-Train knows what happened, but he’s in as much danger as Annie if Homelander or CEO Gus Fring finds out.

Yes, I am still called that character “Gus”.

The news leak makes Hughie happy.  It makes M.M. and Frenchie happy.  Butcher…shrugs it off.

I actually liked a lot of what this episode did with M.M.  He really does seem to be the glue holding the team together.  When Butcher seems to be getting too obsessed with the mission, M.M. reminds him Hughie, as a civilian new to all this, is the team’s “canary” because if you lose the canary, you’re dead.  Later, when Hughie decides not to move from an admittedly traumatic event, M.M. is the one who gets Hughie to movie by basically moving to sit with the other man until Hughie got going.  That’s good character work.

As for the Seven, to boost public relations after the V stuff gets out, Gus sends them to catch Kimiko’s brother.  Sure, Homelander isn’t doing it for anyone but himself, but that’s him.  Besides, the Deep was already trying to bring the Boys in using a whale and…well, that was messy.  Will the Deep get back to the Seven soon?  Homelander said so in the same sort of tone that said it wasn’t likely, but it’s moments like this that show why the fan base seems more interested in Homelander and the Seven than anything the Boys do.

So, can the Boys deliver Kenji, the one man capable of communicating with Kimiko, or can Homelander get his big one-on-one fight with a supervillain?  Answer…neither.  Annie blasts Hughie, probably to maintain her cover, and while Homelander wants her to kill Hughie, Butcher steps out to distract the Superman wannabe long enough for Kenji to bury Homelander in rubble before the Japanese man makes a run for it, his sister in hot pursuit.

And then Stormfront shows up.

She, well, kills Kenji in a rather brutal way, but not until after doing a number on Kimiko and killing multiple bystanders…all of whom are minorities.  I’ve read the comics with the original Stormfront.  I know why.  That doesn’t make it any less bad.  She gets the kill and the credit, Gus is already blaming the dead Stillwell for Compound V, Kenji is framed for the bystanders’ deaths and the only person who saw it, Kimiko, can’t communicate with anyone anymore since Kenji refused to teach Frenchie Kimiko’s sign language.

That was…not a good day for the Boys.