Hi folks! This is it, this week’s episode, “Herogasm” have been teased as the most important (and depraved) episode of the third season of The Boys, so, did it deliver what they promised? Well, I think that it wasn’t as nasty as promised, but instead we got one of the most amazing scenes in this year’s television, Let’s dive right in!
1. Bennies and a Hit List
Before going on their manhunt, Butcher and Hughie hide Soldier Boy in a hotel, where they lay out their plan to kill everybody who treasoned him (and Homelander). Then, while they wait, Soldier Boy and Hughie begin watching TV. A weird dynamic started to develop, where Soldier Boy asked about stuff from the present and complained about the lack of manliness in the modern era.
As someone who was born in the 90’s, I tend to think that the eighties, were a relatively modern era, that they were inclusive and accepted ‘otherness’… but then, I remembered. It was Reagan’s era, the time where they blatantly ignored the AIDS epidemic without any empathy for the affected people, the infamous era of the “I don’t have it. Do you?” I remembered that the glam metal was criticizing the fear of men on make-up and long hair, and it all made sense.
The eighties were 40 years ago, people like Soldier Boy, who thrived in that era, are now relics from the past, angry at how things were, how “men were men” and how we have become soft, and Hughie is one of those “soft men,” he cares about his girlfriend, he has empathy and, despite taking unbelievably bad choices, he is not the kind of man that Butcher or Soldier Boy are.
2. Kimiko is still ruthless
In Frenchie’s story arc, Nina kidnapped him, Kimiko and Cherie; Nina forces him to make a choice, which one of them will die? Thankfully both women manage to defend themselves, and once Kimiko is free, she fights for her life.
Even without powers, she is still a badass, she ended up badly injured by Nina’s henchman, but managed to kill him (and in a gruesome way, by the way), she feels sad because she believe that she is the monster, and not the “super” in her, but Frenchie tells her that under the situation they were in, she only reacted as needed to save herself.
3. Even a god can have panic attacks
When Homelander realized that the “terrorist” of the attack in Midtown was caused by Soldier Boy, he began having a panic attack, then we have a hilarious scene where he asks Black Noir for advice, only to receive silence from him, but still, Homelander is happy to have a friend.
We learn a lot from Homelander in this episode, his anxiety is so bad it triggered a buried personality in him from his awful childhood, this personality is the “god” version of him and questions the humanity of the superhero.
So, Homelander was already unhinged, but now his worst version is ready to take over, the worse thing that could happen is to get his ego even more bruised…
4. Herogasm! Hosted in beautiful Vermont
In Herogasm everything can happen, and this year they are celebrating 70 years of depravity, so this one is special, MM who is a person living with OCD and is very particular about his hygiene, ends up poured with semen, but not everything is sex.
Hughie confronts A-Train and asks him for an apology, as we saw earlier, Ashley called on A-Train’s hypocrisy about wanting justice for Blue Hawk’s actions now that he is personally affected by them. So, A-Train apologizes, which baffles Hughie, maybe he is becoming a better person… but then he confronts Blue Hawk and ends up killing him by dragging his body through the street, an awful death for an awful, irredeemable character.
The TNT Twins are discussing Tommy’s proclivities, because he put a hidden camera in the bathroom, then, Soldier Boy appeared, he used his new explosive power to kill the siblings, innocent people, and destroy half of the house, leaving yet another trail of destruction.
5. The great fight
Then, Homelander finally arrived, he realized that he was sent by Butcher himself and he calls off their deal from episode one, and “kills” Butcher, but they start a generational fight between the biggest “heroes” of two eras.
Continued belowLuckily, both Butcher and Hughie took Temporal V, and they help Soldier Boy in the match, and when he starts to charge to kill Homelander, he manages to fly off alive. This was one of the best action scenes on the whole series and may be one of the best action scenes of the year in every media. It was a great fight between supers, but it wasn’t only fanservice, it moved the story forward, because Hughie abandoned Annie, Soldier Boy ended up ready to round two and Homelander arrived home to see himself in a mirror, contemplating his loneliness.
6. Always taking the high road
The last events have caused a new friendship. MM and Annie, both morally betrayed by Hughie and Butcher, are teaming up to try to fix everything, but it’s not going to be easy at all, and they are tired of being the good guys, the morally “incorrupt” members of the team against heroes, maybe it’s time that they start playing dirty…
We learn about MM’s OCD, in order to understand the trauma, you have to understand the history, and he reveals Annie that his grandpa died because Soldier Boy threw a car to him, and he explains how his mind works, if he doesn’t check three times the stove, Soldier Boy is going to come back, and kill everyone else. So, seeing him alive and working with his friends is a special kind of fear that not many people experience in their lives, he is suffering because his nightmare has become truth.
On the other side, Annie is also tired, Neuman asked her for a reunion, and she offered help in Starlight’s mission against Homelander, revealing that she is the head-popper; but Annie is not having it and she doesn’t need help from someone in power that is benefiting from said power.
After the catastrophe in Vermont, Annie does a livestream, revealing the truth of what happened and the one who caused it, she unknowingly starts a campaign, and the hashtag #VoughtLiedPeopleDied, both in the series and weirdly, in real life, became viral.
So, yet again, we have a new change of the status quo in the series, now Annie is without a job and Vought under Homelander is surely going to fall quickly, so, the world as we know it will be different soon.
And that’s it for this episode, was it the best episode of the three seasons? It might very well be, we had great action pieces and moments of laughs and moments of drama, everything in just an hour. What did you think of this episode? Leave your comments below and join us next week for our take on episode 3×07, “Here Comes a Candle to Light You to Bed.”
