Line #1 Recap/TheBoysS01E05GoodForTheSoul


1	At the Believe Expo, Annie is quietly directed to push Vought's agenda while Butcher has Hughie use her to meet Ezekiel, the Expo host and their next lead. Feeling guilty for letting the airliner crash, Maeve visits her ex-girlfriend Elena, but leaves before explaining herself fully.
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3	Butcher talks with his sister-in-law, Rachel, over putting a tombstone to his wife Becca. After A-Train kills Popclaw for betraying him, he returns to her apartment and finds surveillance footage of Frenchie.
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5	Once Ezekiel is alone, Hughie extorts him for information about Compound V, while Homelander rallies the crowd with an impromptu hardline speech. Annie breaks script to speak candidly on Christianity, her sexual assault, and the compromises she made for her corporate employer. Hughie later sympathizes with her, telling her about Robin's death and its toll on him.
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7	In a hospital, Butcher and MM discover Vought is using Compound V on infants to manufacture Supes years in advance. Frenchie discovers Black Noir is looking for him. While attempting to escape, he is told to leave the Female behind but releases her out of sympathy. She seemingly dies protecting him from Noir, but her wounds immediately heal.
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9	----
10	!!Tropes for this episode include:
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12	* AsTheGoodBookSays: Homelander rouses the crowd with, "He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked!" (Psalm 58:10).
13	* ArmouredClosetGay: The Christian supe Ezekiel, who espouses right-wing religious fundamentalist rhetoric is the same guy that Hughie and Butcher saw having a threeway with two men at the club they visit in the first episode.
14	* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: The Female pulls a BigDamnHeroes and rescues Frenchie from Black Noir.
15	* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: Ezekiel implies he believes that Jesus was able to walk on water because he was a supe.
16	* BrickJoke: The first thing we heard Butcher saying in the first episode was him asking how many people shook their babies. After the baby's EyeBeams take out two mooks and then stop while there's still one alive, Butcher shakes the baby (gently), as if it's a malfunctioning piece of equipment.
17	* TheCameo: Creator/BillyZane AsHimself playing the villain in the movie Popclaw starred in.
18	* CaughtOnTape: When A-Train revisits the sex tapes of him and Popclaw, he stumbles upon the footage showing the Boys and especially Frenchie's face.
19	* ChekhovsGun: Butcher recorded Ezekiel having sex in the club he visited in the first episode, and wants Hughie to use it to blackmail him for information. Also one of the nanny-cams he was examining in that episode was in Popclaw's apartment, enabling A-Train to get a lead on Frenchie.
20	* TheChosenOne: This is the line being pushed at the Believe Expo, but Butcher discovers the existence of Supes has more to do with MadScience.
21	* CrucifiedHeroShot: Invoked twice at the (appropriately enough) "Believe Expo." Ezekiel does it up to eleven thanks to his stretchy arms, and Homelander appears this way hovering over the crowd. All part of selling the "Capes for Christ" angle to the conservative base.
22	* DidntThinkThisThrough: Getting baptized kind of fucks with your cell phone, Hughie.
23	* EquippableAlly: Billy uses a baby with EyeBeams to [[MookHorrorShow mow down mooks]] at the hospital.
24	* EvilIsPetty: Homelander is helping with the baptism as he's an ordained minister. When Hughie claims to be afraid of water to explain why he's nervous, he makes a point of holding him under water longer than necessary.
25	* EveryoneHasStandards: Ashley, for all her faults, looks genuinely disgusted while listening to a young girl in the Christian panel who has been indoctrinated to think it's her "responsibility" to convert her Hindu friend to Christianity.
26	* FauxAffablyEvil: After A-Train confesses to his misdeeds and proves his loyalty by killing Popclaw, Homelander gives him a big hug and assures A-Train that he'll be watching over him. Of course, [[FalseReassurance you could take that statement either way.]]
27	** A-Train himself counts. He emotionally manipulates Popclaw by telling her all the things she wanted to hear and lying to her about going public with their relationship, all so she would let her guard down so he could kill her by inducing a heroin overdose.
28	* FireForgedFriends: Frenchie and the Female become this after being attacked by Black Noir.
29	* {{Foil}}: This episode emphasizes who Annie is this to both Homelander and Maeve. She and Homelander both go off script to give a RousingSpeech, but his an EagleLand lie intended to get him more power and hers is passionate and from the heart. His gets a standing ovation and hers goes over like a lead balloon. Maeve reveals herself to be a BrokenBird who used to be idealistic like Annie, but now she's just trapped, terrified of Vought and Homelander.
30	* GetOut: Queen Maeve's former girlfriend Elena is insistent that she leave her apartment. Maeve complies after a moment of KissingUnderTheInfluence.
31	* GodIsEvil: Mother's Milk has to haul away Butcher when he tries arguing that God is a cunt at the Believe Expo.
32	* GraveMarkingScene: Subverted; on discovering that his sister-in-law has made a gravestone for his missing-presumed-dead wife, Butcher smashes it up with a sledgehammer.
33	* HeteronormativeCrusader: Conservative anti-gay propaganda is everywhere at the Believe Expo, made even more galling by the fact that one of it's main attractions, the Christian supe Ezekiel, has sex with men regularly.
34	* HeelRealization: Maeve's ex-girlfriend has a mild one when she yells for her to "go back to Homelander" and Maeve collapses, sobbing.
35	* HealingFactor: Black Noir stabs the Female [[AgonyOfTheFeet in the foot]], slashes her stomach open and leaves her to die. Frenchie is mourning over her body when she does an EyeAwaken and he sees her wound close up.
36	* HollywoodAtheist: Butcher is a RageAgainstTheHeavens variety.
37	-->'''Butcher:''' I'm just saying, if there is some geezer up in the sky watching over us, he's a world class cunt.\
38	'''Christian guy:''' Did you just call God [[CountryMatters the c-word]]?
39	* IKnowYoureWatchingMe: Homelander is using his X-Ray vision to spy on Madelyn again, and is startled when she calls him on it, having seen him on the CCTV cameras.
40	* ImprovisedWeapon: Exaggerated with Butcher using a Supe baby with EyeBeams to take out three men armed with machine guns. Diabolical!
41	* InLoveWithYourCarnage: While trying to buck up Maeve, Homelander talks of how she killed a hostage taker by [[ThePenIsMightier throwing a pen]] [[EyeScream into his eye]].
42	* InternalReveal: Everyone in the world learns that Annie was raped.
43	* ItsAllAboutMe: Annie's mom, a former StageMom, insists that Annie's desire to go off book and tell the truth is bad for ''her''.
44	-->'''Donna:''' All my friends will be watching, sweetie.
45	* LapPillow: Madelyn seduces [[PsychoticManchild Homelander]] back under her control by having him sit down on a couch and rest his head on her lap while she lets him suck on her fingers.
46	* MadonnaWhoreComplex: The pastor at the Believe Expo clearly doesn't want to have Starlight admit she's had premarital sex. She lies and says she's a virgin, but later on comes clean in a heartfelt speech about this, among other things.
47	* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: A-Train kills Popclaw via using his SuperSpeed to inject four needles full of heroin into her arm, making it look like she died from a heroin overdose.
48	* MetaphoricallyTrue: Hughie gets out of a couple of snags this way:
49	** When his cell phone holding the video of Ezekiel having gay sex is busted thanks to his baptism from Homelander, he claims that he was one of the men Ezekiel had sex with in the club.
50	** When Starlight is furious with Hughie using her to get VIP tickets to see Ezekiel, he admits that his girlfriend died recently and that he's looking for answers on how to deal with it.
51	* MissingMom: Turns out Homelander wasn't spying on Madelyn just because of a lactation kink, it's because he has ''severe'' mommy issues, and she's aware of this and more than happy to use it to control him.
52	* MoodWhiplash: InUniverse, for A-Train. He finds a thumb drive and starts watching. At first he's tearful because it's a sextape he made with Popclaw, but then it turns into the blackmail footage of her killing her landlord while yelling at him to admit he's a filthy pig and he's horrified, then Frenchie's face is revealed on the footage and he's laser focused and furious.
53	* ObliviousGuiltSlinging:
54	** Maeve having to listen to Homelander read out the [[TheDeadHaveNames names of those killed on Flight 37]].
55	** Starlight having to tell people that they shouldn't have sex before marriage, when in reality she believes that it is perfectly natural and normal, causes her to go OffTheRails with her speech.
56	* OffTheRails: Both Homelander and Starlight cast aside their prepared speeches at the Believe Expo.
57	* OffWithHisHead: A security guard's head is blasted off by the EyeBeams of a super-powered baby held by Billy Butcher. Notably, there's no clean cauterization of the wound as usually expected with beam wounds, and instead, there's thick gore from both the neck stump and the separated head.
58	* OhCrap:
59	** Ezekiel goes from furious to confused and terrified when Hughie mentions Compound V. He's caught in a terrible position - lose everything for being outed as a god-awful hypocrite, or get on Vought's bad side by talking about their shit.
60	** Deep freaks right the hell out when Annie confesses to the world that someone raped her (though she doesn't name him).
61	* OnlyOneFindsItFun: Hughie is the only member of the audience who finds Annie's RousingSpeech inspiring rather than horrifying.
62	* ProductionThrowback: At the Believe Expo when Butcher goes on a brief anti-Christianity rant, he mentions God having "a hard-on for giving kids cancer". In ''[[Series/{{Preacher2016}} Preacher]]'', a series also co-produced by Creator/SethRogen and based on a Creator/GarthEnnis comic book, one of the things Jesse Custer confronts God about is children with cancer.
63	* TheReveal: On finding a baby with EyeBeams on an IV bag of Compound V, the Boys realise that Supes aren't born naturally, they're made in a lab.
64	* RightForTheWrongReasons: Starlight gets angry when she thinks Hughie is exploiting their friendship to get free tickets for a private audience with Ezekiel. He is, but actually because Hughie needs to talk to Ezekiel in private so he can blackmail him.
65	* RousingSpeech
66	** We see Homelander does have team leader skills, with him pulling A-Train and Maeve into line.
67	** Homelander throws aside his politically neutral speech and rouses the true believers at the Believe Expo, followed by a [[PowerFloats floating]] CrucifiedHeroShot.
68	** Annie throws out the script and speaks her truth. Hughie may have been the only one in the audience to approve of what she said, but he was inspired.
69	* RubberMan: Ezekiel uses his stretching powers to symbolically embrace his audience, and throttle Hughie from across the room.
70	* SexForSolace: A guilt-stricken Maeve visits a former lesbian lover seeking this, but she's still angry over being dumped for the celebrity life of a Supe and is trying to move on. She does try to get Maeve to open up about what's bothering her, but Maeve CanNotSpitItOut (or is unwilling to risk her life by doing so) and just leaves.
71	* SinkOrSwimMentor: Butcher sends Hughie to blackmail information from Ezekiel, despite him and Mother's Milk pointing out that he has no training or experience in this area. Butcher just says that having committed murder already, blackmail should be easy. He's right except for the nearly-getting-throttled-to-death bit.
72	* SlowClap: Hughie starts one after Annie finishes her RousingSpeech, but he's the OnlyOneFindsItFun.
73	* SpannerInTheWorks
74	** A-Train is looking at a sex tape of him with Popclaw, only to find it's been taped over with the shot of her killing the landlord and being blackmailed after. Unfortunately Frenchie's face can be seen, enabling him to be tracked down.
75	** Hughie is supposed to blackmail Ezekiel with the video on his mobile, which stops working from having been held underwater during the baptism. Fortunately he's able to bluff Ezekiel by pretending to be one of the people he had sex with.
76	** Butcher lifts a swipe card from a nurse, but using it activates a silent alarm that brings men with automatic weapons.
77	* SpitTake: Deep's reaction when [[OhCrap Starlight reveals she was sexually abused]] on live television.
78	* StunnedSilence: The reaction to Starlight going OffTheRails. Hughie is the only one who claps.
79	* StylisticSuck: A-Train watches Popclaw staring in a hammy action movie.
80	* TakeThat: Homelander's RousingSpeech to the audience at Believe Expo is basically a giant middle finger to everyone in the Bush administration.
81	* TastesLikeFriendship: Averted; Frenchie prepares a meal for the Female, but she knocks it aside and tries to kill him. However when Frenchie decides to take the risk of freeing her instead of leaving her for A-Train to find, she reciprocates by saving him from Black Noir.
82	* WhatTheHellHero: Annie rips Hughie a new one for getting her to get him a $15,000 VIP pass.
83	* WouldHurtAChild: Mother's Milk tells Butcher to be careful when taking a sample of Compound V from the baby's IV tube because he might give it an embolism, but he's not bothered at killing another Supe, even a baby one. Ironically, [[EvenEvilHasStandards a Vought gunman is reluctant to fire]] with the baby in the way, even though Butcher has just used it to cut his colleagues in half.
84	* YouCantGoHomeAgain: Starlight is hoping the Believe Expo will give her some reassuring childhood nostalgia, but the corporate exploitation of desperate people seeking answers just repels her.
85	* YouHaveFailedMe: After Popclaw confesses to telling the Boys about Compound V, A-Train kills her on what's later revealed to be Homelander's orders, having decided to confess all to him.
86	* YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame:
87	** Mother's Milk is impressed at how well Hughie's taking to the kind of work The Boys do.
88	--->'''MM:''' You are a natural, kid. You're like the fucking... Film/RainMan of fucking people over.\
89	'''Hughie:''' Hehehe, not a compliment.
90	** Hughie is the only one who openly approves of Starlight's improvised speech, but she just rips into him for trying to exploit their connection for a diamond ticket to see Ezekiel.
91	* YourTelevisionHatesYou: Lampshaded when Queen Maeve visits a lesbian ex-girlfriend, who's still angry over Maeve dumping her for the life of a celebrity superhero. She points out that while Maeve can move on with her life, she has to put up with images of her former lover on posters and television screens everywhere she goes.

Context Recap / TheBoysS01E05GoodForTheSoul