The Boys: Glorious Five Year Plan

June 10, 2022 7:11 AM - Season 3, Episode 4

Episode 4 starts with Soldier Boy's Solid Gold performance of Rapture.

Homelander gets to Neuman. Starlight gets to plotting. Kimiko gets a new set of weapons. Kimiko gets killed. Hughie gets powers. Soldier Boy gets free. Kimiko gets killed again.

posted by Etrigan (26 comments total)

Would enjoy seeing Homelander taken down by a super-powered hamster.
posted by SPrintF at 1:08 PM on June 10, 2022 [6 favorites]

If Kimiko doesn't get better, that might indeed be the table-flipping moment that I mentioned a couple of episodes ago.

And I'm guessing that Neuman and Edgar are playing a deeper game here.

Quite the ep for supe junk, huh? Both the organic and manufactured kind.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:24 PM on June 10, 2022

The Boys get a fourth season.
posted by Etrigan at 3:14 PM on June 10, 2022

Kimiko living (or dying I hope not) but not having her power anymore would be a fascinating turn. Soldier Boy effectively being a supe erasing machine created by Russia. The anti-supe graffiti didn't seem as anti-American as it was "supes are monsters" to me. They took America's golden boy and not only Winter Soldier'd him but turned him into a solution to the whole supe problem.
posted by M Edward at 7:32 PM on June 10, 2022 [5 favorites]

That would feed into Edgar's long-term plan: no permanent supes. And a depowered Homelander would no longer be able to just bully everyone, and we might get some real moments of schadenfreude.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:17 PM on June 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'd love to see a de-powered Homelander at some point. I'm not sure what it would look like but I think Tony Starr could make it compelling.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 8:22 PM on June 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

The show taking the piss out of the Kendall Jenner corporate- bluewashed?- Pepsi ad was just perfect.
posted by Apocryphon at 12:03 AM on June 11, 2022 [8 favorites]

If they kill off Kimiko just to "make room" for a super Huey or similar shit, I'm instantly done with the show.

I was delighted the moment I saw Jamie the hamster because I knew he was going to escape. The mere mortal hamsters us Zebroids had as kids were master escape artists, so I'm a bit surprised they managed to keep Jamie caged (although his escape triggering the red alert seems to indicate it's happened before). I love that Boo Jamie went for the eyes. My only niggle is that they didn't name him Harvey instead of Jamie.
posted by Fiberoptic Zebroid and The Hypnagogic Jerks at 2:46 AM on June 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

Sure, but hearing Serge say “Jamie” is so satisfying.

The moment where he finesses Kimiko into finishing the job before running away to Marseilles was heartbreaking, but doubly heartbreaking given the ending. Kimiko dying there would be so pointless and sad, I do hope she’ll get her wish — being “ordinary” — instead.

Every week I think, this show has no right to be this good. And yet.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:35 AM on June 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

The Supe Hamster Jamie reminded me of the rabbit in Monty Python's Holy Grail.
posted by Schmucko at 11:45 AM on June 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

My wife, who it looks like I'll be quoting all evening, pointed out that Soldier Boy doing Rapture sounded like an American Ian Dury. Again, not wrong.
posted by Grangousier at 1:49 PM on June 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

This show sure is relentlessly grim and awful, isn't it? I knew when I posted about the last episode "I sure hope Super Sonic turns out to be as good as depicted so far" I was courting disaster. Although I suppose it's better that his head got exploded than that he, too, turned out to be some monster.
posted by Nelson at 4:40 PM on June 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

Did we ever get any idea of what Supersonic’s powers even were?
posted by Etrigan at 5:03 PM on June 11, 2022

When Supersonic agreed so quickly to help Starlight, I assumed he was already in league with Homelander, so seeing him dead was actually a better ending for me. Atrain's total lack of spine still disappointing though. His fight with the Deep was excellent in their ineptitude.

I'm impressed that Neumann and Edgar are still so sympathetic in some ways. Watching Neumann inject her daughter, with her awareness of what would happen, was a good moment.
posted by gladly at 6:11 PM on June 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

If they fucking killed Kimiko to demonstrate that Soldier Boy can kill Homelander I'm gonna be very unhappy.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:12 PM on June 11, 2022 [4 favorites]

They still have some of the V24, don't they?
posted by Grangousier at 1:45 AM on June 12, 2022

Didn’t we see Butcher with three vials originally? Or am I misremembering? That’d be the one he used in the parking lot confrontation with Gunpowder and the two used here.

I would think Hughie would have some conflicted feelings about finding himself to be a speedster given what happened to Robin way back in the first episode.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:50 AM on June 12, 2022

The way Hughie said "sorry" for punching a hole through the mook's body was hilarious.

I'm pretty sure Kimiko's going to be OK, y'all. Also in Peter Pan, Tinkerbell lives whether you clap for her or not.
posted by Nelson at 8:13 AM on June 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

I was thinking Kimiko had to die in order to prove that this is the supe-killing weapon they were looking for.
posted by bleep at 9:59 AM on June 12, 2022

Well she doesn’t have to die if it de-powers her. Because once you’ve de-powered a supe then killing them is as easy as killing anyone else.
posted by wabbittwax at 11:14 AM on June 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

And I mean, if you were Butcher, wouldn’t you rather kill a de-powered Homelander with your bare hands than to just blast him out of existence? Maybe take your time and really savor it. Homelander has probably never felt physical pain. Imagine the possibilities!
posted by wabbittwax at 11:17 AM on June 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

Kimiko's fate was uncertain at the end of this episode, which means she will probably live. This is clearly for dramatic stakes, if they were going to kill any of the Boys off it would either be with a sad definite send-off, and/or abruptly and unceremoniously. This episode already had a fake-out during it (when she was shot in the head and subsequently got better), this show is not above doing it twice to keep the narrative stakes up.

Also super Hughie is clearly a cautionary anti-drugs tale, he looks like completely out of it and drunk on his power at the end of this episode, I don't think we're meant to cheer him sacrificing his relatable human fragility for the sake of violent artificial superpowers.
posted by Apocryphon at 2:18 PM on June 12, 2022 [2 favorites]

If Homelander becomes killable, candidates for the administration of the coup-de-grace would be lined up round the block. They could raffle the opportunity for charity.
posted by Grangousier at 3:54 PM on June 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

maybe the depowering is only temporary (like Kimiko's powers come back and save her... either way i imagine if she lives, it drives both her and friend away)
posted by kokaku at 1:18 AM on June 13, 2022

I would think Hughie would have some conflicted feelings about finding himself to be a speedster given what happened to Robin way back in the first episode.

He’s not a speedster, he teleported. That’s why his clothes were left behind.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:19 AM on June 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

That could be; I assumed he just moved so quickly his clothes were left behind (and the inertia allowed the ultra-high-speed punch). Maybe running at lightning speed is tough on one’s street clothes and the outfits that fast mover heroes wear is secured against such problems. A-Train has been in every episode but one, it seems, and I am not sure we have ever seen him run in his civvies.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:48 AM on June 13, 2022