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.
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.
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.
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.
Tropes for this episode include:
- As the Good Book Says...: Homelander rouses the crowd with, "He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked!" (Psalm 58:10).
- Armoured Closet Gay: 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.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: The Female pulls a Big Damn Heroes and rescues Frenchie from Black Noir.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Ezekiel implies he believes that Jesus was able to walk on water because he was a supe.
- Brick Joke: The first thing we heard Butcher saying in the first episode was him asking how many people shook their babies. After the baby's Eye Beams 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.
- The Cameo: Billy Zane As Himself playing the villain in the movie Popclaw starred in.
- Caught on Tape: When A-Train revisits the sex tapes of him and Popclaw, he stumbles upon the footage showing the Boys and especially Frenchie's face.
- Chekhov's Gun: 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.
- The Chosen One: This is the line being pushed at the Believe Expo, but Butcher discovers the existence of Supes has more to do with Mad Science.
- Crucified Hero Shot: 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.
- Didn't Think This Through: Getting baptized kind of fucks with your cell phone, Hughie.
- Equippable Ally: Billy uses a baby with Eye Beams to mow down mooks at the hospital.
- Evil Is Petty: 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.
- Everyone Has Standards: 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.
- Faux Affably Evil: 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, you could take that statement either way.
- 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.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Frenchie and the Female become this after being attacked by Black Noir.
- Foil: This episode emphasizes who Annie is this to both Homelander and Maeve. She and Homelander both go off script to give a Rousing Speech, but his an Eagle Land 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 Broken Bird who used to be idealistic like Annie, but now she's just trapped, terrified of Vought and Homelander.
- Get Out!: Queen Maeve's former girlfriend Elena is insistent that she leave her apartment. Maeve complies after a moment of Kissing Under the Influence.
- God Is Evil: Mother's Milk has to haul away Butcher when he tries arguing that God is a cunt at the Believe Expo.
- Grave-Marking Scene: 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.
- Heteronormative Crusader: 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.
- Heel Realization: Maeve's ex-girlfriend has a mild one when she yells for her to "go back to Homelander" and Maeve collapses, sobbing.
- Healing Factor: Black Noir stabs the Female in the foot, slashes her stomach open and leaves her to die. Frenchie is mourning over her body when she does an Eye Awaken and he sees her wound close up.
- Hollywood Atheist: Butcher is a Rage Against the Heavens variety.Butcher: I'm just saying, if there is some geezer up in the sky watching over us, he's a world class cunt.
Christian guy: Did you just call God the c-word? - I Know You're Watching Me: 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.
- Improvised Weapon: Exaggerated with Butcher using a Supe baby with Eye Beams to take out three men armed with machine guns. Diabolical!
- In Love with Your Carnage: While trying to buck up Maeve, Homelander talks of how she killed a hostage taker by throwing a pen into his eye.
- Internal Reveal: Everyone in the world learns that Annie was raped.
- It's All About Me: Annie's mom, a former Stage Mom, insists that Annie's desire to go off book and tell the truth is bad for her.Donna: All my friends will be watching, sweetie.
- Lap Pillow: Madelyn seduces 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.
- Madonna-Whore Complex: 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.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: A-Train kills Popclaw via using his Super-Speed to inject four needles full of heroin into her arm, making it look like she died from a heroin overdose.
- Metaphorically True: Hughie gets out of a couple of snags this way:
- 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.
- 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.
- Missing Mom: 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.
- Mood Whiplash: In-Universe, 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.
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging:
- Maeve having to listen to Homelander read out the names of those killed on Flight 37.
- 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 Off the Rails with her speech.
- Off the Rails: Both Homelander and Starlight cast aside their prepared speeches at the Believe Expo.
- Off with His Head!: A security guard's head is blasted off by the Eye Beams 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.
- Oh, Crap!:
- 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.
- Deep freaks right the hell out when Annie confesses to the world that someone raped her (though she doesn't name him).
- Only One Finds It Fun: Hughie is the only member of the audience who finds Annie's Rousing Speech inspiring rather than horrifying.
- Production Throwback: 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 Preacher, a series also co-produced by Seth Rogen and based on a Garth Ennis comic book, one of the things Jesse Custer confronts God about is children with cancer.
- The Reveal: On finding a baby with Eye Beams on an IV bag of Compound V, the Boys realise that Supes aren't born naturally, they're made in a lab.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: 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.
- Rousing Speech
- We see Homelander does have team leader skills, with him pulling A-Train and Maeve into line.
- Homelander throws aside his politically neutral speech and rouses the true believers at the Believe Expo, followed by a floating Crucified Hero Shot.
- 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.
- Rubber Man: Ezekiel uses his stretching powers to symbolically embrace his audience, and throttle Hughie from across the room.
- Sex for Solace: 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 Cannot Spit It Out (or is unwilling to risk her life by doing so) and just leaves.
- Sink or Swim Mentor: 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.
- Slow Clap: Hughie starts one after Annie finishes her Rousing Speech, but he's the Only One Finds It Fun.
- Spanner in the Works
- 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.
- 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.
- Butcher lifts a swipe card from a nurse, but using it activates a silent alarm that brings men with automatic weapons.
- Spit Take: Deep's reaction when Starlight reveals she was sexually abused on live television.
- Stunned Silence: The reaction to Starlight going Off the Rails. Hughie is the only one who claps.
- Stylistic Suck: A-Train watches Popclaw staring in a hammy action movie.
- Take That!: Homelander's Rousing Speech to the audience at Believe Expo is basically a giant middle finger to everyone in the Bush administration.
- Tastes Like Friendship: 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.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Annie rips Hughie a new one for getting her to get him a $15,000 VIP pass.
- Would Hurt a Child: 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, 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.
- You Can't Go Home Again: 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.
- You Have Failed Me: 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.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame:
- Mother's Milk is impressed at how well Hughie's taking to the kind of work The Boys do.MM: You are a natural, kid. You're like the fucking... Rain Man of fucking people over.
Hughie: Hehehe, not a compliment. - 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.
- Mother's Milk is impressed at how well Hughie's taking to the kind of work The Boys do.
- Your Television Hates You: 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.
