The Boys “Life Among The Septics”

Well…Homelander doesn’t seem like he’s as big a problem right now.

To be clear, Homelander is still awful.  His son Ryan’s first public save is, as designed by Sister Sage, supposed to be a solo save (with the Deep and the new Black Noir standing nearby) with a stuntman that has befriended Ryan going wrong when Homelander showed up, spooks his kid, and encourages him to hit the stuntman way too hard.  Then Homelander doesn’t understand why the boy is upset.  This is all signs of why Homelander is a problem.

New Noir is a problem because he doesn’t get that he needs to be silent.

But no, this episode shows that the real threat may be Sister Sage.  She’s just the smartest person on Earth, to the point where I just knew Marvin was wrong when he thought Sage didn’t know he’d bugged her phone.  That seems to be something like a trap.  It was a trap, and the fact Marvin fired Butcher doesn’t help.  Butcher may be an asshole, but he isn’t wrong when he notices before anyone else that Kimiko is drunk.  He also ends up saving the Boys from a supe named Splinter, a pal to Q-Anon-ish supe Firecracker that splits himself.

There’s a lot of dong in that scene.

However, the whole encounter was a set-up by Sage, and her plan for Ryan’s public debut probably would have gone much better had Homelander followed the script by not even being there.  Homelander can’t stand the idea of stepping aside, and his fear of aging is something that is clearly bothering him.  The thing is, this is nothing new to the series, and the one-man army of naked men, while not a stunt the show has pulled before, does seem like the sort of shock value moment the series does all the time.  Sister Sage, however, is an adversary that is something that, on paper, should be something the Boys can handle easily.  The problem is, she is far smarter, making her an adversary to pretty much everybody.

I really don’t think she’s doing anything to benefit anyone, especially Homelander.  Telling the Deep how to talk to Ashley is not really helping anyone aside from maybe the Deep, and he doesn’t really deserve it.

On a final note, Hughie’s long absent mother appears for the first time, and casting Rosemary DeWitt is some really smart casting even if this is her only episode.

That said, there is one plotline I’m not feeling:  Frenchie’s relationship.  I don’t mind that Frenchie is gay or bi.  I just don’t like how this guy I don’t think I’ve seen before is supposed to be so special to him, but I have long hated the “love at first sight” sort of trope in TV anyway.  Yes, there’s more to it than that, but it’s still not a trope I like all that much.