Recap / The Boys S01 E08: "You Found Me"

The Pentagon classifies Compound V as a controlled substance and the Boys as fugitives while Annie confronts her mother.

Angry at being racially profiled while out of costume, an injured A-Train relapses with Compound V. Butcher takes Hughie to Colonel Grace Mallory, his former supervisor. She refuses participation, but informs them about Homelander's connection to Stillwell and warns Hughie about Butcher's desire for vengeance.

The Deep learns that Stillwell has denied his return to the Seven and suffers an emotional breakdown. Hughie asks for Annie's help, but she refuses out of distrust.

After seeing her old self reflected in her, Maeve opens up to Annie, asking her to be herself. Homelander confesses to Stillwell that he secretly made the super-terrorists, and they have sex.

At a black site, Hughie helps Frenchie and MM free Kimiko following their capture, before Annie rescues them. A-Train arrives and fights Annie until he suffers a heart attack. Hughie applies CPR, but Annie takes over so he can escape.

Butcher takes Stillwell hostage and fits her with explosives to bait Homelander, who kills Stillwell himself. Butcher detonates the explosives, but Homelander saves him and reveals to him that Becca was hidden away to raise Homelander's son.

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Tropes for this episode include:

• Abandoned Warehouse: The black ops team who snatch the Boys are using it as a Black Site.
• All for Nothing: Billy Butcher's eight-year Roaring Rampage of Revenge is meaningless, as his wife Becca has been alive the entire time.
• Alone with the Psycho: For Stillwell, this is what it's like to be alone with Butcher.
• Ambiguous Situation: The ending puts a new interpretation on Becca's behavior. What her husband assumed was shame over being raped could just have easily been the shame of having an affair and finding out she was pregnant from it.
• And I'm the Queen of Sheba: When A-Train goes shopping while using crutches, courtesy of Kimiko sneaking up from behind and Knee Capping him, he's followed around a clothing store by a racist security guard. When he calls out the guard saying "I'm A-Train!" the guard responds "Yeah, and I'm Homelander." The guard only backs off when some fans recognize A-Train, but A-Train only believes that the guard's apologies are because he realized he's bothering a famous superhero, and nothing else.
• And Your Little Dog, Too!: Butcher knows no weapon can touch Homelander, but killing Madelyn will at least cause him the same pain he's had to live with. Unfortunately Madelyn lying about Homelander's son has broken any hold she had over him, and he murders her before Butcher can.
• Apologetic Attacker: Played for laughs with Non-Action Guy Hughie shouting, "I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY!" as he blazes away with an automatic weapon.
• Arson, Murder, and Admiration: On finding out that Butcher doesn't have an endgame; he just intends to blow up Madelyn to hurt him, Homelander responds with approval. "Wow, fuck! You are dark...and I kinda like it."
• Autobots, Rock Out!: Rock the Casbah by The Clash as Homelander wipes out the terrorists.
• Beneath the Mask: Madelyn admits that Homelander scares her. Homelander congratulates Madelyn on finally telling the truth, then shows her fear is justified.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: His entire plan having gone tits up, Butcher just smirks and releases the Dead Man Switch even though he knows it won't kill Homelander. He wakes up on the lawn of Becca's house, Homelander having saved him from the blast.
• Beware the Superman: Homelander finally makes it clear that no-one is controlling him, not even his surrogate mother Madelyn Stillwell.
• Be Yourself: Maeve encourages Annie by telling her to be original.
  "Be the annoying goody two-shoes asshole that you are."
• Big Damn Heroes: Starlight saves the Boys after they run out of ammo.
• Brass Balls
  • When Hughie turns up again after Starlight tried to arrest him in the last episode, she says in Sarcasm Mode that he has plenty of balls. Hughie quips, "No, just two of them."
  • Homelander is impressed with how a mere man like Butcher can face him down without experiencing pants-wetting terror.
• Bullet Dodge: Starlight versus A-Train. He's the fastest man alive, but he's not faster than light... but he is faster than Starlight's ability to aim at him.
• Bullying a Dragon: Once again someone goes after Vought. Once again, Vought is untouchable.
• Call-Back
  • In "Get Some", Butcher rejected the idea of a Van in Black posing as a florist delivery van for surveillance. On seeing just such a van outside their motel (plus fresh glass in the windows) he just drives past as he knows it's an ambush.
  • In "The Innocents", Starlight said the story about Maeve breaking her arm from holding up a school bus must have been a Vought PR stunt. Turns out it was true.
  • When talking to Starlight, Hughie brings up their bowling date in "The Female of the Species".
• Calling the Old Man Out: Annie rips her mom to shreds for being a shitty Stage Mom who subjected her daughter to medical experiments.
• Can't Stop the Signal: Averted; Milk is shown on the phone to a journalist, but he's not interested in investigating the story that Vought is behind the Supe terrorists.
• Captured on Purpose: Hughie returns to the hotel so he can be seized by the snatch squad and taken to where the Boys are being held. Good thing they were all put in the same cage or it really would have been the brave and useless gesture that Frenchie initially thinks it is. Instead, Frenchie uses the Improvised Lockpick Hughie smuggled in to free them.
• Changed My Mind, Kid: When Hughie asks Starlight to find out where his friends are being held prisoner, she says she doesn't care and walks off. As she's a real superhero, she naturally turns up Just in Time for a Big Damn Heroes.
• Character Development:
  • After being forced to have sex with the Deep in the pilot episode, Starlight threw up in the toilet but got Tough Love from Queen Maeve, who offered her a tissue and ordered Starlight to not let anyone see her as weak. Hereafter throwing up in the toilet again, she tells Maeve to just cut to the insult, but Maeve encourages Starlight to stick to her ideals instead.
  • Despite joining the Boys out of a desire for revenge on A-Train, Hughie chooses to save his life, even though it would be smarter to walk off and let him die.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: When Starlight asks why she should help save the Boys at all, Hughie can only say, "Because you're a superhero?" Starlight refuses but turns up Just in Time for a Big Damn Heroes.
  Hughie: You came.
  Starlight: Like you said; I'm a fucking superhero.
• Cliffhanger: Butcher discovers his disappeared wife is alive and raising Homelander's son, the first 'natural born' supe.
• Cruel and Unusual Death
  • Homelander cuts the legs off a terrorist, then crushes his head under his boot.
  • Homelander shoots his Eye Beams into Stillwell's eyes and cores out her head like an apple.
• Death Seeker: Butcher knows he can't kill Homelander and he knows the government will never go after him, so he decides to kill Stillwell as the only thing that can hurt Homelander is emotional pain. Butcher had no intention of leaving Stillwell's house alive.
• Disappeared Dad: Turns out Annie's father, who allegedly walked out on his family because of a bad financial investment, actually did so because he couldn't handle what they had done to their daughter.
• Dog Pile of Doom: Hughie, determined to save his allies, walks through the parking to get to them. There's epic rock music, he's striding with confidence, he's ready... five seconds later he's ambushed by some soldiers hiding in between the cars who tackle him to the ground like it's nothing.
  Hughie: What the FUCK!?!
• Drowning My Sorrows: After her meeting with Hughie, Starlight gets so drunk at a Vought corporate party she has to throw up in the toilet. Averted with Grace Mallory, who decided birdwatching was better than drinking herself to death.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Stillwell spends the entirety of the confrontation between Butcher and Homelander begging the latter to take her baby upstairs, away from the bomb.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Turns out Vought had nothing to do with creating Supe terrorists, and Madelyn appears quite shaken when Homelander reveals the truth.
  • Both Madelyn and Vogelbaum agreed on one thing: if Becca wanted to keep the baby, that was her choice but Homelander could not find out. Absolutely not. They both stick to the story for as long as they can that Becca and the baby died, with some minor discrepancies.
  • Homelander also has a moment where he feels sorry for Butcher, when the latter reveals that he has no endgame, just wanting to make Homelander suffer the loss of the person that he loves the most, as payback for what Homelander did to Becca. He also asks, with genuine incredulity, that did Butcher even stop to get proof that Becca is dead? Was this done on a mere hunch?
• Evil Costume Switch: Starlight, to symbolize how she gave up on her morals and Hughie, dons the stripperific outfit Vought made for her and goes to the corporate party. She switches back for her Big Damn Heroes.
• Eye Scream: Homelander kills Stillwell by firing his Eye Beams directly into her eyes at close range.
• Face Death with Dignity: Homelander murders Butcher's hostage, then turns to him.
  Homelander: Now, what was that plan again?
  Butcher: (wry smile) Ah well... (releases Dead Man Switch)
• Faceless Goons: The Gas Mask Mooks who grab the Boys are from an undefined black ops unit, so we don't feel bad about what happens to them.
• Facial Dialogue: When Homelander reveals that he's behind the creation of Supe terrorists, we see the look of shock on Madelyn's face, then she's facing away from the camera and Homelander, implying that she's pulling herself together after hearing this bombshell. When she does turn to face him, she's all smiles.
• Fire-Forged Friends: MM and Frenchie are both shocked and delighted that Hughie would willingly allow himself to be captured to come in and try to rescue them without Butcher's help. Frenchie declares it an unbelievably stupid act of bravery and loyalty and kisses him on both cheeks.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing:
  • A noise spooks Kimiko and she runs into the living room in alarm, only to find the others unharmed. Then a couple of gas grenades smash through the window...
  • Right before A-Train gives Starlight a curbstomp, he's soaked in sweat, foreshadowing his drug-induced heart attack.
• Foreshadowing
  • When Madelyn is confronted with the sample of Compound V retrieved from a terrorist hideout, she says she has no idea how it got into their hands. This is our first hint that Vought aren't behind the super-terrorists as they'd have prepared an excuse in advance, such as a fake robbery or disgruntled employee.
  • Dr. Vogelbaum said he should have raised Homelander with a loving family. Turns out that's exactly what he's done with his son.
• Headbutt of Love: Followed up by Eye Beams through the eyes.
• Head Crushing: Homelander takes over the raid of an ISIS drug plant from a Special Forces unit, and uses his Eye Beams to behead, dismember, and slice in half everyone inside, and the last remaining gunman, Homelander burns his legs off, and smiles while crushing the gunman's head under his boot.
• Healing Factor: A-Train doesn't have this power, so he takes Compound V which heals the damage overnight, at the cost of overstressing his heart. The battle with Starlight causes him to keel over just when he has Hughie at his mercy.
• Heel Realisation: A-Train finally admits openly that he killed Popclaw, though he still blames it on Hughie.
• Hope Spot
  • Kimiko gets shot in the leg by a tranquilizer but manages to crawl out of sight beneath a car before passing out. But the mooks just check under the car and haul her out.
  • Starlight rescues the Boys, only for A-Train to appear hopped up on Compound V.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen:
  • The Fastest Man in the World is now reduced to crutches, and finds himself being eyed by a security guard as just another black man who might steal something.
  • The Deep is informed that he's not going to be sent to help out the war effort.
• Hypocrite: Butcher accuses Mallory of training and manipulating him into being her weapon against Homelander, only to be discarded when she had no further use for him. Not only was Butcher doing that to Hughie in the first episode, he later shows himself being willing to abandon The Boys to their fate because they're of no further use to his revenge.
• I Got You Covered: When Milk is running to retrieve Kimiko, Hughie has to cover him because Frenchie has been shot, though Frenchie has to help reload because Hughie has no idea how to do so.
• Important Haircut: The Deep shaves his chest and his head.
• Improvised Lockpick: Hughie has a dental retainer that he fastens inside his upper jaw with polygrip so it seems like a permanent bridge. Unfortunately it doesn't come free easily, so Milk has to punch him in the mouth to get it out (Laz Alonso actually punched Jack Quaid during filming.)
• Incest Subtext: Homelander clearly has mommy issues and Stillwell has been exploiting that to the hilt all season. This episode, they fuck, and she tells him he's a good boy and she's proud of him.
• Instant Sedation: The gas grenades take down Frenchie and Milk fast, and the injector pistol takes only about 30 seconds to knock Kimiko out.
• Ironic Echo: Mallory telling Butcher that she regrets making him what he is now is mirrored by Vogelbaum's remark to Homelander that creating him is his greatest failure.
• Kick the Dog: Even though he's a terrorist, the man Homelander slowly crushes under his foot is still crippled, terrified and helpless, making his murder needlessly sadistic. What makes it especially cruel is that Homelander could have killed him quickly with his eye beams (like everyone else), but since there was no one there to stop him, he decided to indulge himself.
• Kindness Button: Starlight points out that despite being a superhero, she's never actually saved anyone. She's confused when Hughie brings up how she took him to the bowling rink and was just there when he needed it.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Hughie chooses to rescue his True Companions—he not only succeeds but is able to reconcile with the woman he loves. Butcher chooses to abandon them for revenge. He not only fails in his task, but finds everything he's done for vengeance is based on a lie.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Homelander says the existence of supervillains will lead to 'sequel after sequel'. Well a second season at least.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: The final lines of the season are Homelander introducing himself to his son. The boy's eyes glow in response.
• Mad Science: Homelander says using V to create Supe terrorists from adults could be pretty messy.
• Match Cut: From Homelander holding a vial of V he found in the terrorist hideout, to the same vial being shown to the Secretary of Defence.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: We finally get to see Starlight take the gloves off. She's fucking awesome.
• Nothing Can Stop Us Now!: The bill to approve military superheroes has passed and Madelyn Stillwell is being groomed for the top position in Vought. While the bill passes, Homelander kills Madelyn after Butcher takes her hostage and he realizes that she lied about his baby having miscarried.
• One-Man Army: Homelander lands in front of a special forces team sneaking up on a terrorist hideout in Syria and tells them to take a coffee break while he kills everyone in the building single-handed. After telling them they are The Real Heroes, of course.
• On Three: The 'straight to three' version when Milk punches the retainer out of Hughie's mouth.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Starlight is shown flirting and getting drunk with a handsome military officer, while wearing the revealing costume that she hates. Maeve notices and snaps her out of it, telling Starlight that she has to be herself and not a pawn for Vought.
• Outside-Context Problem: When the Secretary of Defense threatens to have Vought Hauled Before a Senate Subcommittee for perpetuating the Compound V fraud, Madelyn Stillwell lays out the facts - super terrorists are out there who can make all conventional weapons (missiles, bombers, tanks) obsolete, and Vought has a monopoly on the only force that can fight them.
• Pet the Dog: When Madelyn recounts to Homelander that Becca came to her and Dr. Vogelbaum for help after being pregnant with Homelander's baby, her expression uncharacteristically softens. As a mother herself, she understands the difficult situation Becca was in due to no Supe ever being naturally born. She also begs Homelander to save Teddy but leave her.
• Post-Rape Taunt: Subverted; Homelander tells Butcher about the night he raped Becca, saying she was little more than an easy groupie who enjoyed the sex so much she came three times. Butcher doesn't rise to the taunt, because that's just what you'd expect a psychopathic rapist to say. By the end of the episode, enough lies have come to light that it's left unclear whether the sex was consensual or not. By Season 2, however, it is confirmed that Becca was raped.
• Profiling: Days after Kimiko breaks his leg, A-Train goes clothes shopping while using crutches and sees a white security guard eyeing him. He tries to ignore him, but the guard starts tailing him through the store, and when A-Train confronts him, the guard says he's just "keeping an eye on things." After some fans recognize A-Train, the guard backs off, but A-Train angrily asserts that the only reason he backed off is that he just realized he was harassing a famous superhero, and nothing else.
• Pulling the Thread: Dr. Vogelbaum told Homelander his child drowned in its mother's blood after cutting its way out of her during birth. Madelyn tells Homelander his child died from a miscarriage. This discrepancy is enough to make Homelander go back and force the truth out of Vogelbaum.
• Revenge Before Reason: Butcher has based his entire crusade on the belief that Homelander raped and murdered his wife. Homelander points out Butcher never actually had any evidence that he'd done either.
• Rule of Symbolism: We get an Over the Shoulder shot of Mallory, with Butcher in the middle, and Hughie behind him—showing three generations of The Boys.
• Save the Villain: Done from both sides.
  • Hughie and Starlight call for an ambulance for A-Train, even knowing that he'd never stop coming after Hughie.
  • Homelander saves Butcher, probably just to taunt him with the truth.
  • From Starlight's point-of-view, this is what Hughie is calling on her to do.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Hughie refuses to go with Butcher when the rest of the Boys need rescuing.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Kimiko locks herself in the bathroom (to the annoyance of Mother's Milk) puts on clean clothes, brushes her hair and does her nails. Frenchie is noticeably charmed when she comes out. Then the grenades come through the window...
• Shooting Superman: Right after Homelander takes over the mission, he announces himself to the ISIS gunmen, who immediately open fire. As hundreds of rounds bounce harmlessly off him, Homelander calmly walks through the building, using his laser eyes to behead, dismember, and disembowel everyone inside. Once he declares the area cleared, Homelander spots a terrorist gunman fleeing the massacre, and stops him before he gets too far.
• Showdown at High Noon: The climactic showdown between Starlight and A-Train is framed like a duel between cowboys.
• Smug Snake: Madelyn Stillwell, right up until she realises she has no control over Homelander at all.
• The Speechless: Kimiko finds a clue in the origami boat, but is unable to communicate its importance to Frenchie, even when she tries writing it.
• Speed Sex: Homelander doesn't even last a minute with Stillwell, climaxing very shortly after they engage in intercourse.
• Spotting the Thread: Homelander mocks Stillwell on how "you and Vogelbaum should have gotten your stories straight." While they lined up a lot, there were just enough inconsistencies between their accounts of how the baby died for Homelander to realize they were lying and his son was still alive.
• Stage Mom: Turns out Donna January agreed to her daughter being put on Compound V because she wanted a daughter with superpowers. Annie rips into her about how she spent a lifetime training to be a superhero because her mother told her she had been chosen by God, and now she realizes she was deprived of any other life choices she might have made.
• Strapped to a Bomb: Butcher has Madelyn strapped into an explosive vest, with a radio detonator as a Dead Man Switch.
• Super-Strength: A-Train is shown getting back in shape by hauling a locomotive. His brother is not impressed, given that he knows where this miraculous recovery is coming from. He drives off in disgust while A-Train claims You're Just Jealous.
• There Are No Coincidences: Homelander points out that it's a hell of a coincidence that a Supe terrorist turned up just when Vought Industries needed it. Turns out he was the one behind that.
• Title Drop: For the series when Butcher finally refers to his Cape Busters as The Boys.
• Token Good Teammate: Invoked when cynical corporate sell-out Queen Maeve tells Starlight she was no different when she was young, wanting to just Save the World.
  Queen Maeve: Be the annoying goodie two-shoes that you are. One of us has to be.
• Took a Level in Badass: Hughie allows himself to be captured to try and rescue MM and Frenchie. They both love him for it but declare he's a complete idiot. It works. Frenchie uses Hughie's retainer, polydented to the roof of his mouth to look like a bridge, to pick the lock on their cell and they escape.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Mallory says that if Butcher wants to kill himself that's his business, but not to take the rest of The Boys with him. Despite this, Butcher not only refuses to rescue his colleagues, he tries to convince Hughie to come with him, even though it's later revealed his only plan is to kill Madelyn as a final act of spite towards Homelander, so Hughie would have died for nothing.
• Tranquil Fury: Butcher doesn't respond to Homelander's taunting, and Homelander notes that he's angry rather than afraid.
• True Companions: The Boys sans Billy, who chooses revenge over saving his friends. Starlight and Hughie also face A-Train together, cementing their relationship after their previous estrangement.
• Undisclosed Funds: Stan Edgar offers Stillwell a promotion. With it comes a bonus figure which is never revealed, just written on a piece of paper silently handed to Stillwell.
• Vengeance Feels Empty
  Grace: Vengeance isn't a path to glory, Hugh. It's a one-way ticket to a dead end, looking at fucking birds.
• Wham Episode
  • Homelander was organizing the entire super-terrorist scheme behind Madelyn's back, using A-Train as a courier to run the Compound V to various terrorist groups.
  • Starlight finally is shown kicking ass, including a face-off with A-Train. She also allies herself with the Boys by rescuing them. However, A-Train knows what she did and is still alive to tell the rest of the Seven.
  • Homelander murders Madelyn Stillwell to become The Unfettered.
  • Billy Butcher finds that his wife has been alive the entire time, and is raising Homelander's son.
• Wham Shot:
  • We are told throughout the series that Butcher's wife was raped by Homelander and that she later died because of him. By the end, we see that she in fact is still alive and she's raising Homelander's son. This completely puts Butcher's motivation into new context, becoming far more tragic.
  • At the start of the series, the audience is led to believe that all superheroes are miraculously born with powers and it's eventually revealed not to be true, with the implication being that all superheroes were drugged by Vought as babies and that drug gave them their powers. The final shot of the first season then reveals Homelander's son having heat vision, strongly implying both that the boy inherited Homelander's powers and that supes can in fact be born with their abilities.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Hughie is horrified at many of Butcher's actions, but the last straw is when Butcher won't help him rescue the Boys after his long speech to Mallory about loyalty.
• What You Are in the Dark:
  • In the climax, A-Train suffers a heart attack. It's the perfect moment for Hughie to run and for Starlight to cover for him. Instead, he curses and starts applying chest compressions while ordering Annie to call for an ambulance. Starlight points out that if A-Train lives, he will chase Hughie forever. Hughie merely says, "I know" and keeps pumping.
  • A dark example in the opening scene where Homelander slaughters the terrorists. When there is only one remaining, he slices off his legs with his laser beams, and with no witnesses around, decides to slowly finish him off by crushing his skull. And he's smiling, showing that this is fun to him. Even worse, he could have easily killed him with his eye beams like everyone else, but drew it out anyway.
• Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: A-Train admits he's the one who killed Popclaw, but he still blames Hughie for it.
• Wicked Cultured: At a Vought reception, Black Noir sits down next to the pianist and stares at him until he hastily moves aside so he can pound out a few tunes himself.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • Lamplighter burnt Grace Mallory's grandchildren.
  • Homelander brings Madelyn's baby to where she's wired up to an explosive vest and refuses to remove him despite her pleading. Butcher has no problem blowing up Teddy too.
• You Have Failed Me: Homelander discovers that Madelyn is moving up the corporate ladder without him, so he reveals how the fortuitous arrival of super-terrorists that saved her career was actually his doing. When he finds out she lied about his son not surviving his birth, he kills her.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Starlight is understandably incredulous when Hughie not only seeks her out but asks her to help rescue the superhero-murdering crew he's with, saying he's got many sets of balls.
• You Owe Me: Cited by Butcher to Mallory, who never delivered on her promise to bring Homelander to justice.

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