The Boys – The Female of the Species

By: Nicole Rodenbaugh

Butcher (Karl Urban) is in bed making love to his wife (Shantel VanSanten). She asks him to take her to a Spice Girls concert. He offers to let a friend go instead of him. A bulldog is laying in its bed near the window. He wakes up from his dream in an empty room. He makes breakfast and watches surveillance footage of his wife sitting in a park on the bench. The footage is dated January 24, 2012.

Agent Susan Raynor (Jennifer Esposito) walks into her office where Butcher is waiting. He offers her information about The Seven so that she can prevent the supes from infiltrating the military. She asks for sample the drugs and refuses to help him until he provides tit. Butcher leaves and calls PopClaw (Brittany Allen). He asks for more information about Compound V for their deal. She tells him the drop off is somewhere near noodle Palace.

Hughie (Jack Quaid), Frenchie (Tomer Kapon) and Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) are in the van waiting outside the Noodle Palace. They spot a delivery man from Noodle Palace that is carrying a gun. They followed him into a small convenience store and into a hidden entrance through the freezer room. They sneak around looking for the Compound V. Frenchie spots a woman (Karen Fukuhara) locked in a room. She is dirty and not speaking. Frenchie frees her from the room. The men guarding her emerge with guns and she attacks them one by one. She breaks open one man’s skull. Another man shoots himself rather than being killed by the woman. Frenchie, Mother’s Milk and Hughie lock themselves in the caged room to get away from her.

The Deep (Chace Crawford) is in a therapy session complaining about how The Seven never listen to him about slaughters against dolphins. He tells the therapist that dolphins have a great sense of humor and regional accents. The therapist encourages him to speak up to the others.

Hughie, Frenchie and Mother’s Milk are still locked in the room when Butcher appears in order to free them. Frenchie picks up a blanket and finds a ticket for A-Train hidden under it. Mother’s Milk finds a needle filled with V. Butcher confirms that A-Train is running drugs to the Noodle Palace and the guards were dosing the woman. Starlight texts Hughie making his phone ring. Butcher asks if it is Starlight. Hughie confirms yet refuses to allow the team to hear all of his conversations with her, insisting she’s not bad.

Stillwell (Elisabeth Shue) is in her office trying to figure out how to deal with Translucent’s death. She decides to tell the public he is on a secret mission. She receives a phone call and is in shock. The call was a notice that hijackers have taken control of a plane over the Atlantic. She asks Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) and Homelander (Antony Starr) to intervene. They agree and Stillwell insists this will lock the supes contract to work for the military.

Frenchie gets drugs from his girlfriend to knock out the woman that ran away. A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) is now at the drop site and becomes angry when he sees the police taking out dead bodies. He goes back to Popclaw’s house and proceeds to grill her about giving information about V anyone else. She tells him that she never told anyone. He tells her to pack a bag before Homelander finds out.

The woman who escaped the Noodle Palace walks in to a nail salon and kills a lady counting cash in the back.

Hughie and Starlight (Erin Moriarty) are on a date bowling. Starlight tells him that her first kiss at prom was when she was eighteen years old. Hughie has a flashback of when he blew up Translucent.

On a plane terrorists are seen speaking in Arabic and threatening passengers. Maeve breaks through the door and throws a terrorist to the ground. Homelander uses his heat vision to kill another terrorist and shuts the door behind him. The plane passengers clap and cheer feeling their now safe. Maeve goes to the door to the cockpit and pulls it open to see another terrorist with a gun to the pilot’s head. The terrorist is surprised. He starts to move and Homelander uses his heat vision to kill him, accidentally destroying the controls of the airplane. The passengers are flying out of their seat while Homelander is telling them everything is okay. Maeve asks Homelander if there’s anything they can do. He proceeds to move towards the exit while the passengers ask for his help. He tells them it will be okay. Maeve has teary eyes while she walks towards the back of the plane. She asks if she can take a small child and mom with them. Homelander refuses. He tells Maeve she can stay and die with the rest of them if she chooses. Maeve sadly leaves with Homelander. Homelander and Maeve hover in the air watching the plane crash in the distance.

Butcher, Mother’s Milk and Hughie walk in to the crime scene at the nail salon pretending to be officers. A-Train arrives at the site and the men leave before A-Train can spot them. Frenchie notices the woman locked in the room had a bottle of blue nail polish that was missing from collection at the salon. He tells them it was the escaped woman and he knows where she’s going next, Penn station.

At the bowling alley a commercial displays on a monitor featuring Starlight who will be appearing at a religious event. Hughie catches Starlight pretending not to be good at bowling just to make him feel better about the date. He asks her to do her best and he’s okay with it.

A-Train, Butcher and Frenchie walk into Penn Station and separate to find the missing woman. Frenchie finds the woman in an electronics shop. He texts Butcher that she is there and Frenchie tries to calm the woman instead of using the drug to knock her out. The TV startles her and she runs away. Butcher and Mother’s Milk arrive to see Frenchie looking around.

At the bowling alley Hughie and Starlight are having a nice conversation when Hughie has a vision of Robin standing behind her. He decides to bug Starlight’s phone.

Mother’s Milk is angry that Frenchie is making bad decisions. He tells Frenchie that he is responsible for Mallory’s grandchildren’s death. He explains that Frenchie was supposed to tail Lamplighter and didn’t. As a result Lamplighter went to Mallory’s and killed the children. Frenchie punches Mother’s Milk and Butcher steps in between. He stops Mother’s Milk and Frenchie from walking away. He tells him them both that the team is like the Spice Girls. No one knows what they are doing separately because they were better as a team. Frenchie and Mother’s Milk recognize the truth in Butcher’s speech and agree to stay together and look for the woman.

The Deep is in a white van speeding away from Oceanland Marine Park. There is a dolphin in the back that he is speaking to. A cop is seen in the rearview mirror. Distracted by the dolphin the Deep drives into a police car sending the dolphin crashing through the front window and landing in an intersection. A large truck drives right over the dolphin smashing it to pieces.

The Boys and the woman both spot each other at the same time on the subway platform. The woman runs and jumps down onto into the train tracks to get away from them. They watch as the subway car approach the platform. In slow motion, at the exact same time, A-Train grabs the woman and is running down the tracks with her. A-Train and the woman are now physically fighting in a space behind the platform. The Boys notice the fight and scream to the awaiting passengers “It’s A-Train.” The passengers all surround A-Train to take selfies. The woman escapes. The Boys follow her into a dark dead end. Frenchie insists on trying to talk to her instead of using the drug to knock her out. She attacks him. Butcher activates the drug knocking out Frenchie and the woman.

Maeve and Homelander are at the scene of the wreckage from the plane. Homelander hears a news report and insists on the live footage that if they had a chance to save the plane no one would’ve had to die. The only reason they were called is because they were in the chain of command. He says that if The Seven were part of the military nothing like that would ever happen again.