The Boys – Nothing Like It in the World

By starrymag | September 17, 2020

By: Ariba Bhuvad

 

 

“Communication is everything,” says a young woman as she proceeds to talk about her fianceé with whom she broke up after he revealed he never wants to have kids. Frenchie (Tomer Capon) is a mess as he continues to get coked up as the news report plays out in the background about Kenji’s (Abraham Lim) “Supe Terrorist” attack, which left fifty-nine people dead. The report goes on to tell its viewers that Kenji was radicalized by the Shining Light Liberation Army and is portraying him as an emotionless person. Frenchie tries to console Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) and tries to kiss her only to be pushed back by her. 

 

Homelander (Antony Starr) is less than pleased with the headlines boasting about Stormfront’s (Aya Cash) heroic efforts in killing Kenji. In an effort to call out Vought, Stormfront is holding a protest and appealing to the masses about all their failures and how Vought isn’t doing anything to prevent the next attack. Whenever Homelander is feeling down, he seeks comfort in Doppelganger, one who takes on the form of of Madelyn Stillwell (Elisabeth Shue)–sexually, emotionally and physically – all while drinking milk. 

 

Butcher (Karl Urban) passes a memorial held in honor of those who died on the day of Kenji’s death on his way to meeting Grace (Laila Robins). She shares a recurring dream she’s been having of being in Carnegie Hall alone and in the audience are all those who have been killed by superheroes staring back at her. Butcher is displeased to share with her that they hit a dead end with Reynor’s death. Grace is even more discontent to hear the excuse from him. She then hands Butcher a “Budweise” ad with someone named Liberty on it (someone he has mentioned to her before). It turns out Liberty was an active second-tier “supe” back in the 70s. Apparently, Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) is the one to talk to about her and given that Liberty was all over Susan’s private server, there is something to explore here. Grace hands Butcher an address located in North Carolina and then reveals that she has found Becca (Shantel VanSanten). She is at a heavily guarded Vought facility, which Butcher is shocked that Grace is willing to share, especially since he couldn’t hold up his end of the deal. She asks him to just take the win and do what he needs to do because, after all, she sort of created this whole mess in the front place.

 

Meanwhile, back at home Homelander and “Madelyn” are sitting together watching some television as he complains about Stormfront taking credit and trying to become the face of the Seven. He misses the real Madelyn because he knows that she would have kept everyone in line. In the middle of their conversation “Madelyn” turns back into Doppelganger (Dan Darin-Zanco) because he can only keep the form for so long before it starts hurting. Naturally, Homelander begins freaking out seeing Doppelganger in his actual form, but calms down once he changes back into Madelyn. 

 

After learning Becca’s supposed location Butcher is getting ready to go find her, but Mother’s Milk doesn’t think that’s a good idea. He’s doubtful that Butcher will even come back and the last thing Mother’s Milk wants is to be in charge. He barely wants to be there as it is and essentially left his family for Butcher’s sake, who doesn’t seem to care much about anything else. He’s not frazzled by how Frenchie or Hughie (Jack Quaid) may feel. 

 

At the Tower Starlight (Erin Moriarty) finds herself in the elevator with Homelander. It’s rather uncomfortable in there and only gets worse when Homelander stops the elevator and gets aggressive with Starlight. He’s pissed off that she didn’t kill Hughie like he wanted and when she lies about it he attempts to choke her. But she manages to convince him when she says that Hughie broke her heart and she is not with him, but she won’t be a murderer. So if Homelander doesn’t believe her, he can kill her. Luckily, he let her go. 

 

Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) wants to track Butcher down and asks for someone to find him any way she can. The last time he was seen it was on the yacht with Kenji and after that they lost him in the storm tunnels. If she finds anything she tells Black Noir she’ll let him know, but when he clearly wants it done right away. So, she begins using facial recognition to track him down. 

 

Stargirl and Hughie meet and Hughie is ridiculously embarrassed over the voicemails he left her and he’d rather not talk about it. It’s a bittersweet moment as they realize that they risked their lives but not much has happened. However, Hughie remains optimistic and understands that it takes time. In the middle of their meeting Mother’s Milk calls Hughie to say they’re taking a road trip to Raleigh, North Carolina. At first Hughie bids Starlight farewell, but she’s still shaken up from the encounter with Homelander. Hughie and Starlight manage to convince Mother’s Milk to let her tag along on their mission to find Liberty. 

 

Back at the Tower A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) is pissed off when he sees Shockwave (Mishka Theébaud) going in for a meeting. When he confronts Ashley (Colby Minifie) about it she claims Shockwave is there for their “Vought for Tots” program, a fitness outreach for children. A-Train believes he should be the one leading that, but unfortunately his pleas turn into Homelander kicking him out of The Seven. It’s a completely unexpected moment for A-Train, but Homelander reveals that he knows something is wrong with A-Train’s heart. And with whatever is going on, A-Train is not going to be able to do anything for them. 

 

On their way to Raleigh Starlight and Hughie bond as they jam out to songs on the radio, but Mother’s Milk shuts it down and asks them to chill. The scene switches to another woman giving some sort of testimonial on love and relationships. 

 

While Butcher breaks into the compound Becca and Ryan live in Frenchie finds solace in the arms of Cherie (Jordana Lajoie). After they make love, he tells her about Kimiko and how he tried to kiss her. Anika tells him to let Kimiko grieve and to give her space while she gets through this.

 

Making a pit stop at a diner Starlight tries to relate to Mother’s Milk and eventually gets through when she starts talking about her parents. He opens up about his family and the simple life. Unfortunately, their moment of bonding is disrupted when they step outside and see a car accident happen in front of them. They’re trying to keep a low profile so Starlight cannot intervene. And while it’s really difficult to keep her away, they drive off as quickly as they can. 

 

Butcher shows up at Becca’s house and asks to go somewhere there are no cameras. She flashes her badge at the surveillance camera and drives to a location they won’t get caught in. She’s happy to see Butcher, but it’s a horrible idea for him to be there. She basically told Homelander that if he hurts Butcher she would kill herself in front of Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) and her last words would be, “Your father did this to me.” Butcher insists they make an escape as a family, but Becca tells him they can’t get out the way he came in. Ryan wouldn’t be able to scale that wall and while Ryan does have powers Becca tells Butcher that is not how she is raising Ryan. They settle on a different solution which involves getting into the garbage truck that comes every morning. She’s going to go back home and get things ready and asks Butcher to stay and hide where he is. After Becca returns home and checks on Ryan, she goes back to Butcher and ends up sleeping with him. They lay in the back of her car catching up and smoking while talking about him meeting Ryan. 

 

After booking two rooms at the motel Hughie awkwardly offers to stay with Mother’s Milk so Starlight can have her own room. That situation doesn’t last for long after Starlight and Hughie meet up at the vending machine later that night. Their conversation leads to a passionate night together and an awkward morning with Mother’s Milk the next day. 

 

Maeve (Dominique McElligott) and Homelander are on a talk show hosted by Maria Menounos talking about Kenji. Maeve says The Seven will protect everyone, but the conversation soon takes a turn as Homelander takes jabs at her for “telling the truth.” And as Maria continues to talk to them about Compound V and diversity in The Seven, Homelander says they are very inclusive as they have A-Train who is African-American and they have a gay superhero. Of course, no one knows who he is talking about until he flat out reveals it’s Maeve. 

 

Given that Homelander knows about her and Elena (Nicola Correia-Damude), Maeve tries to deny that she was ever in a relationship with her. More than that she’s worried he may have done something to her, so eventually she reveals that they were in a relationship at one point. To her surprise Homelander wishes them the best of luck and that he is truly happy for her. 

 

Unfortunately for him what truly is bothering Homelander is all the Stormfront support he keeps seeing on TV. Currently she’s holding a protest against Vought and asking everyone to support her. What she’s unaware of is a very angry, revenge-thirsty Kimiko standing in the crowd looking to kill her on the spot. Before Kimiko can take any action Frenchie grabs her hand from the crowd as Stormfront flies away. As soon as Kimiko snaps back to her angry state, she runs off in pursuit of Stormfront once again. 

 

Hughie, Mother’s Milk and Starlight arrive at the address in Raleigh and are greeted by a woman who turns them away when they ask for Liberty. For a moment they think they might have the wrong address, but when Mother’s Milk tries to knock again he finally gets through to the woman. She’s quite frustrated because she thinks they’re with Vought and claims that she took the money and signed the papers and has kept quiet. When she finds out that they are not there in Vought’s favor she calls them fools and tells them to stop while they’re ahead. 

 

Mother’s Milk tries to appeal to her with a story about his father who was a lawyer that was murdered by Vought. After sharing the story the woman, Valerie (Dawnn Lewis), opens up about what happened with her as a young child (Nana Damptey) 48 years ago. When she was 11 years old she saw her brother get murdered by Liberty because she was trying to force him to admit to something he didn’t do. When he refused she didn’t hesitate to kill him on the spot. Unfortunately, young Valerie bore witness to the entire thing, but when she told her parents to go to the police they thought it was pointless. Instead, Vought offered them $2,000 in exchange for their silence. 

 

Valerie insists that they keep it a secret because if it ever got out that she told anyone the truth Liberty would come and kill her. But they point out that this was back in 1979, so Liberty could be dead by now. But Valerie tells them Liberty is very much alive and points to a picture of Stormfront on the front of the newspaper and says that she is Liberty. 

 

As they head back home Starlight believes that perhaps Liberty/Stormfront’s powers allow her to stay the same age. They don’t know the effects of Compound V on each person, so perhaps that is one of the things that happened to her. Whatever the case is, it’s likely that Liberty/Stormfront is behind all the things happening as of late.

 

Homelander finally confronts Stormfront after spending hours looking at news reports and memes bashing him and supporting her. He says she is undermining him and trying to be the face of The Seven, which is his thing. Her response is that he is being pathetic and just wants to be loved, which pisses Homelander off to the point that his eyes glow red and he looks like he is about to attack her. But their banter sort of turns flirtatious as Stormfront tells Homelander that he needs to change his image and connect with the audience, to which he completely turns her down and says he is capable of doing things without her help. 

 

Becca meets Butcher at the bridge the next morning and informs him she is not going to leave. She knows that he will try to get rid of Ryan eventually and that she cannot go off knowing he doesn’t care about Ryan. Their argument gets heated and eventually Butcher reveals that he doesn’t really think of Ryan as much more than a “supe freak.” As it turns out Becca feels like he always put her on a pedestal and she has never known how to save him. His thirst for revenge and war has been something that has been there long before she came into his life and they just don’t work anymore. Despite his attempts, she threatens to call the guards if he does not leave and drives off with him left on the bridge alone. 

 

We come to learn that The Deep (Chace Crawford) has been interviewing all the women throughout the episode as his potential wife. He really likes a woman named Gianna (Sana Asad), but Carol (Jessica Hecht) thinks that the woman named Cassandra (Katy Breier) is the one for him. That is who he will choose as his wife, even though he was led to believe that it would be up to him to choose.

 

Homelander goes home to “Madelyn” and is in the most sour of moods, so she tries to give him some milk. He turns it down so she asks if she should turn into someone else and proceeds to turn into Homelander himself. Doppelganger tries to go down on Homelander but he grabs him by the neck and calls him pathetic before snapping it and killing him.