Infiltrating Sage Grove, MM, Frenchie, and Kimiko discover captive Compound V patients. Frenchie recognizes an orderly as former Seven member Lamplighter, causing a scuffle that allows patients to break out.
Forced to work together to survive, the Boys learn from Lamplighter that Vought is attempting to stabilize Compound V in adult subjects. They bring Lamplighter to Mallory, who nearly kills him for killing her grandchildren until Frenchie convinces her to spare Lamplighter over his remorse.
Stormfront tells Homelander she is the first successful Compound V subject and Vought founder Frederick Vought's widow, wanting him to lead Supes to world domination.
Maeve obtains a video of Homelander abandoning a hijacked airliner they failed to save as leverage against him. Unstable patient Cindy escapes Sage Grove. A-Train is lured into the Church of the Collective.
Tropes for this episode include:
- Accidental Murder: Annie tries to diffuse a situation with a man whose vehicle the group is trying to commandeer. She panics and lets her powers out, fatally blasting the man.
- Acid Attack: One of the inmates at the Compound V facility features acidic spit as his superpower.
- All for Nothing: Frenchie ditches tailing Lamplighter to help out his best friend, which leads to the death of Mallory's grandchildren and the breakup of the team. And then his friend overdoses and dies a few months later anyway.
- Always a Bigger Fish: Lamplighter and The Boys are facing off when Cindy—a Supe who is Immune to Bullets and can turn people to Ludicrous Gibs just by clenching her hand—causes them to flee. Cindy in turn is defeated effortlessly by Stormfront.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Stormfront to Homelander, whom he sees as the culmination of her husband's work.Stormfront: You're everything that we dreamed of. So I love you with all of my heart. How could I not? Everyone I have ever loved is in the ground. And then I found you.
- Apathetic Citizens: In the opening scene, Homelander and Stormfront brutally torture and murder a petty crook before loudly having sex, in broad daylight maybe twenty feet from a busy city street. While it's understandable that they couldn't see it happening, it's incredibly unlikely that none of the people walking by heard the man's screams and cries for help.
- Artistic License – Physics: When Cindy crushes the gas bomb to stop it, realistically all it would have done was spew out gas even faster instead of containing it, especially since the release valve on the top of the bomb is still intact.
- The Atoner: Lamplighter is regretful of his actions and follows the team into the forest to accept whatever they and Mallory are planning for him. Frenchie acknowledges this about himself, and realises that saving Kimiko is not going to fix things.
- Awesome by Analysis: Mother's Milk is able to recognize Lamplighter on security footage outside of his outfit, even before Frenchie could.
- The Bait: Hughie is surprised when Butcher invites Starlight to come on their investigation, but Butcher just says that if things go South, Vought will be more interested in pursuing a treacherous celebrity Supe than The Boys.Butcher: Never go into shark-infested waters without chum.
- Bedlam House: Sage Grove Center, a Vought-owned psychiatric hospital, is one for Supes.
- Blackmail:
- Lamplighter was originally held on a leash by The Boys with this. He tried to retaliate by murdering Mallory, only to accidentally kill her grandkids instead.
- Maeve has The Deep retrieve footage of her and Homelander leaving Flight 37. She plans to use it to keep him from hurting her and Elena.
- Blatant Lies: Homelander's trailer burns down after Stormfront fails to show up as promised. When she asks what happened, he claims that it was an electrical fire.
- Blood-Splattered Innocents: It happens to Hughie again, though this is a much tamer example due to it coming from Frenchie's removal of Annie's tracking chip. This happens so often that Frenchie acknowledges it before the surgery.Frenchie: I understand, Petit Hughie. And though you've been covered with entrails of many a person, even a sea mammal, it's always harder when it's someone you love.
- Boxed Crook: Mallory in the past is impressed by Frenchie's ability to neutralize supes and pull off successful crimes. She uses the threat of prison not just for himself but for his partners.
- Brain Bleach: Milk's reaction to realizing someone just tried to throttle him with an enormous penis.
- Breaking the Fellowship: We already knew Lamplighter killed Mallory's grandchildren and the team broke apart as a result. But this episode's flashback reveal The Boys lost a large part of themselves afterwards. Even Butcher seemed to be in a better state mentally, while still as obsessed with Homelander.
- Brick Joke:
- Frenchie criticizes Kimiko for bringing in a gaudy brass knuckle in the shape of the word BOSSY when they're trying to go undercover. Later on, Kimiko punches Love Sausage so hard that it leaves an imprint of the knuckle in his forehead.
- Ashley shows a demo recording of a corny A-Train theme song to A-Train, who is not impressed. She says they're hoping to get Lil Nas X to sing it, which he does during the credits.
- Broken Pedestal: After Elena plays the video of Homelander and Maeve abandoning the passengers on Flight 37, Maeve tries to tell her that the video is their chance to be free of Homelander, but Elena just stares at her in horror.
- Brutal Honesty: Encouraged by the head of his church, The Deep confesses to various resentments he had towards A-Train.
- Bullying a Dragon:
- The Boys under Colonel Mallory blackmail Lamplighter into becoming their spy and openly mock him, despite Mallory knowing that a man like that is inherently dangerous. Sure enough, when he realises that Frenchie isn't following him, Lamplighter goes to Mallory's house and tries to murder her, only to end up killing her grandchildren by accident.
- Giving involuntary human test subjects superpowers can backfire if they happen to get out of their cells.
- Call-Back: As in "Get Some", Homelander brushes aside the hair of a love interest while putting a menacing hand on her throat.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Starlight knows the only reason Stormfront hasn't come after her is that Stormfront has other plans for her.
- Casting Gag: Shawn Ashmore appears here as Lamplighter, a Supe who can manipulate and increase open flames, using a regular common Zippo lighter in many scenes. A major previous role of Ashmore's was as Iceman in the Bryan Singer X-Men trilogy, where he faced off against Pyro, a mutant who had the same power set and used a Zippo lighter.
- Chekhov's Gun: Kimiko apparently got herself a fancy gangsta fist-ring that says "Bossy" with her Mafia hit money. When Milk gets throttled by Love Sausage, she takes him down with a One-Hit KO that leaves a reversed "Bossy" on his forehead.
- Conflict Killer: Annie presses Butcher's Berserk Button by comparing him to Homelander, but just when they're facing up to each other Stormfront zooms overhead.
- Coming and Going: Homelander crushes the head of a robber while Stormfront sexually stimulates him; they then have sex up against the wall of the alley.
- Commonality Connection
- Homelander is naturally taken aback when Stormfront reveals she's a hundred year-old Nazi, but she gets through to him by confessing her loneliness and desire to be loved.
- Butcher and Annie finally bond over their mutual affection for Hughie. Kimiko finally makes up with Frenchie on realising he harbors the same feelings of vengeance and guilt.
- The Deep tries commiserating with A-Train over how they've both been dumped from The Seven, though as in The Deep's case it's only the prospect of getting back in that draws A-Train's interest.
- Continuity Nod: When Starlight runs into Butcher again, she naturally brings up him shooting her with a .50 rifle in "The Self-Preservation Society".
- Corrupt the Cutie: Annie admits that she would have cried over killing the driver earlier in her life, but now she has come to accept acting under dire circumstances.
- Cruel Mercy/Cruel to Be Kind: Frenchie advises Mallory to let Lamplighter live since killing him would just end his self-induced torment of living with the knowledge that he killed children weighing down on him every day for the rest of his life. However as he also recognizes his own pain in Lamplighter, it might be a genuine act of mercy.
- Did You Just Have Sex?: Butcher and Kimiko can tell Stormfront and Homelander are having sex from an interview.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Homelander and Stormfront decide to just murder a petty criminal instead of turning him over to the police since they say the criminal justice system is too overworked or lenient. It's really just a flimsy excuse for them to commit an act of brutal sadism as foreplay.
- Doesn't Trust Those Guys: Billy has a hard time accepting Annie as helpful for The Boys, disdainful of her company for much of their mission. He even finds himself struggling with the urge to shoot her again, after putting Annie in the sights of another anti-materiel rifle.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: Maeve tells Elena that the video of Homelander leaving Flight 37 is "their way out" as he'll do anything to prevent it coming out he left a planeful of people to die. She fails to grasp that Elena's look of horror is her reaction to the woman she loves being just as guilty of doing this.Maeve: Why are you looking at me like that?
- Endearingly Dorky: Billy and Annie share anecdotes about Hughie's sense of hygiene with the rather childish products that he uses, then follow it up with how much of a Morality Pet he is for the both of them.
- Enemy Mine: Lamplighter allows The Boys to follow him to a safer area in the infirmary during lockdown, while Supes terrorize the rest of the building.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Although Lamplighter was a Seven member and regularly burns inmates at Sage Grove, he seriously regrets killing Mallory's grandkids, implying that he draws the line at harming minors (he earlier expressed reluctance over Stormfront's instruction to kill a kid there too).
- Expy: For the Hulk, there's "Behemoth," a Supe with rage-based powers and strength who reverts to a powerless state when not angered.
- Facial Horror: One of the supes at Sage Grove has super acid vomit. Kimiko knocks him on his back and he vomits on his own face, dissolving half his head.
- Family of Choice: Lampshaded by Frenchie re The Golden Girls. Unfortunately he gets in a conflict between his two families of choice: The Boys and Cherie/Jay.
- Feet-First Introduction: When Cindy exits her cell through the burned door, the camera focuses on her bare feet, a sight that gives Lamplighter an Oh, Crap! moment.
- Fiery Cover-Up: Lamplighter is assigned to terminate test subjects at Sage Grove this way.
- Fire-Forged Friends:
- At the start of the episode things are tense between Butcher and Starlight, and Kimiko and Frenchie; but the events of the episode end up bringing them all closer.
- Even Lamplighter gets in on the action, lying to Stormfront so the Boys can get away.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Stormfront has a Hitler Youth knife in her trunk, seen a minute before she expounds on her past as an old-school Nazi.
- Flashed-Badge Hijack: Subverted when the driver, clearly seeing Butcher is not FBI, draws a gun and Starlight ends up killing him.
- Foreshadowing:
- When Lamplighter is talking to Stormfront in the previous episode, he's shown nervously playing with his lighter and expressing reluctance to kill a teenager on her command, both hinting at his identity and The Reveal that he never intended to kill Mallory's grandchildren.
- Early on, Stormfront complains that it is getting harder to deal out justice because people record everything. It later turns out that Deep has brought Maeve video evidence from a passenger of her and Homelander abandoning Flight 37.
- When the CCTV shows the rampaging escaped Supes massacring the hospital staff, with explosions of blood galore, one intern is merely snagged by a tentacle. It's not actually a tentacle.
- Gag Penis: Mother's Milk takes note of one of the Supes at Sage Grove having this thanks to Compound V. It's his power.
- Gilligan Cut: Frenchie brags that he never gets caught. Flashback to Frenchie in custody after robbing a bank, whereupon he's recruited by Mallory.
- The Glomp: Everyone watches with apprehension as Kimiko approaches Annie...only for Kimiko to hug her instead.
- Gold Makes Everything Shiny: Frenchie criticizes Kimiko for using her blood money to buy a big, gaudy ring that covers most of the fingers on one hand and says "BOSSY".
- Happy Flashback: Just before they set the events in motion that will lead to the death of Mallory's grandchildren, we see Milk showing the engagement ring he's bought to Frenchie; the rest of The Boys are all happy for him, with even Butcher cracking a genuine smile.
- Heal It With Fire: Billy has Annie cauterize Hughie's wound, though she has to find a working vehicle first to draw on its power.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: After being attacked by a Supe with acidic vomit, Kimiko makes the Supe puke on himself, burning his own face off.
- I Can Explain: Stormfront tries to find an excuse to Homelander for why she did not show up at the Tower but he interrupts her saying that she doesn't have to explain anything to him. Later this episode she finally shares her backstory with him.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Annie reasons that they had no other option after the driver pulled a gun on them.
- Impersonating an Officer: Butcher tries his FBI shtick when trying to take a bystander's vehicle. It fails as the driver knows he isn't even American.
- Impossibly Tacky Clothes: How The Boys consider Lamplighter's superhero outfit.
- In Love with Your Carnage: Homelander and Stormfront use the slaughtering of a robber as their basis of foreplay.
- Internal Reveal:
- Elena finds out about Maeve abandoning Flight 37.
- Stormfront tells of her agelessness to Homelander, shown alongside more of her backstory.
- Interplay of Sex and Violence: Homelander and Stormfront take down a petty criminal and abuse and assault him. Then Homelander slowly kills the man while getting a handy, then they fuck and smear the man's blood on each other.
- Janitor Impersonation Infiltration: The Boys dress as Sage Grove orderlies while infiltrating the clinic. This turns out to be a very bad idea when Cindy gets loose, and doesn't believe they're not with all the other orderlies who have been doing bad things to her.
- Just Friends: When Frenchie says it must be difficult for Hughie watching him cut into a loved one, Hughie stammers out that their love is platonic now because they're just friends.
- Legacy Character: Alastair Adana reveals that Vought intends on doing this to A-Train, planning to give Shockwave the suit and title.Alistair: They're gonna give Shockwave your uniform, you know that? Call him "the next A-Train".
A-Train: No, they can't do that.
Alistair: Why not? "A-Train" is a trademark. You are just another nobody from the South Side of Chicago. - Lockdown: Sage Grove goes into lockdown when the breakout occurs, though some Supes are able to escape regardless. Only Lamplighter knows the combination to unlock the front doors, and he's not dumb enough to tell it to The Boys.
- Logical Weakness: Frenchie devised weaponized Xanax to use against a Supe whose strength is rooted in his rage.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Homelander has sex with Stormfront in an alley next to a headless corpse.
- Master Race: Stormfront intends on stopping "other races" with an army of Supes, and fetishizes Homelander this way.
- Meatgrinder Surgery: Subverted - without the sanitary conditions or a doctorate in medicine, Frenchie just has an expensive-looking diamond saw to remove Annie's tracking chip with. It says a lot that Hughie usually deals with much more blood splatter.
- Mortal Wound Reveal: Hughie is inside the van when it gets rolled over several times. Butcher and Annie are relieved when Hughie staggers out with only a minor cut on his forehead...until they see the bloody lump of metal sticking out of his chest.
- Murder by Mistake: Lamplighter burning Mallory's grandchildren turned out to have been from an attack intended for Mallory, as he targeted a bed that he thought was hers. It haunts him to the present day.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Lamplighter regrets killing Mallory's grandchildren, and Frenchie grieves over not stopping him while he could.
- Annie has a silent one when she accidentally kills the driver and then notices a baby's car seat in the back, knowing that he has a family. Then she tries to shirk the feeling by brushing him off as simply another idiot getting in the way.
- Mythology Gag:
- Coldsnap and Malchemical from the comics gets mentioned here. In this continuity, they had clashes with Frenchie before the events of the series.
- There is also a Supe expy of the The Incredible Hulk called Behemoth mentioned in the same capacity, who didn't appear in the comic, though a Supe called She-Hemoth, an expy of She-Hulk, did appear, implying a Spear Counterpart.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero
- Instead of just getting the driver to help them take Hughie to a hospital (which he was fully prepared to do) Butcher tries stealing his car, and things rapidly get out of control, resulting in Starlight killing an innocent man who was only trying to protect himself.
- Frenchie can't stop glaring at Lamplighter, who recognizes him in turn. The former rushing to attack out of vengeance and the latter's attempt to burn The Boys only results in blasting open a door holding a very powerful Supe with a grudge, who quickly releases all the other prisoners.
- No-Sell: Frenchie constructs a canister of Knockout Gas against Cindy, but it has no effect on her.
- Not Quite Dead: It looks like Cindy dies getting zapped by Stormfront, but the ending reveals she's quite fine and now on the loose.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Annie points out that the way Butcher treats those with superpowers much differently than others is not all that different from Homelander.Annie: You know what? Underneath all that swagger, you're just a bigot and a bully. I know another guy just like that. He's got a flag for a cape.
- Not Worth Killing: Lamplighter states that this is why The Seven don't retaliate against The Boys even if they have them in their sights. However, it turns out the real reason is that he never told anyone about The Boys in the first place.
- Oh, Crap!:
- The Boys when Stormfront flies over their heads and lands at Sage Grove while they're in the middle of infiltrating it.
- Lamplighter freezes in pure terror when he realizes whose cell he just opened up by accident, and Cindy steps out. The Boys don't get it until Cindy gets shot at by a guard, and in retaliation explodes him like a paint bomb, making them realize how dangerous she is and run for it.
- Maeve freaks when she sees Elena has found the incriminating video of Flight 37.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: In-Universe, it's incredibly subtle, Stormfront's accent reverts to her native German when she mentions German names like "Berlin" and "Heinrich Himmler".
- Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You: Lamplighter offers Mallory the chance to kill him and avenge her grandchildren as penance.
- Power Incontinence: An escaped Supe loses control of his powers, releasing a shockwave that sends their van rolling across the ground. Butcher guns him down on the spot even before finding out what's happened to Hughie.
- Prehensile Tail: A prehensile penis, courtesy of Love Sausage.
- Really 700 Years Old: Turns out Stormfront was born in 1919 and is the first supe.
- Required Secondary Powers: Inverted with an acid-vomiting Supe. One escaped Supe can vomit acid but apparently isn't immune to his own acid. The results are... messy.
- The Reveal:
- Stormfront's backstory is further revealed. She was the first successful Compound V injection, is a Nazi taken from WWII rather than just a Neo-Nazi, and her plans about leading an army of Supes to carry out the Third Reich's ideas are made clear.
- We finally get the full story on what happened the night Mallory's grandchildren were killed by Lamplighter.
- Compound V works well with infants, but it's more risky for adults. Powers, freaks, or explosions. Sage Grove is tying to stabilize for more predictable results and no more Homelanders.
- Revenge Before Reason: Frenchie and Mallory are determined to exact revenge on Lamplighter when they cross paths again. When Frenchie calms down, he eventually tries to talk Mallory out of it.
- Running Gag:
- Hughie is splattered with blood from others once again, Lampshaded by Frenchie.
- The Deep offers a can of Fresca to A-Train.
- Butcher again impersonates an officer and again his inappropriate British accent is noted, though this time it doesn't work.
- Say It with Hearts: Homelander has a heart-shaped bouquet of roses done up for Stormfront. When she blows him off to attend to affairs at Sage Grove, he burns not only the bouquet but his entire trailer.
- Shame If Something Happened: Alastair offers A-Train the chance to get back into The Seven if he joins the Church of the Collective. A-Train refuses, but then starts listening when Alastair claims that Vought may be planning to give his title and costume to Shockwave.
- Shout-Out:
- The episode's title is taken from the most famous line in The Italian Job (1969), following on the previous season's episode "The Self-Preservation Society" being named after its theme song.
- Frenchie's a fan of The Golden Girls, comparing Cherie to Blanche, Jay to Dorothy, and himself to Betty White. The episode ends with their theme playing.
- Hughie says that things don't seem too bad in their lair if you think of the rats as Pokémon with Hepatitis C.
- Cindy, a bald teenage girl with psychic powers, is an obvious expy of Eleven.
- Vought is planning to have Lil Nas X officially cover A-Train's theme song.
- Sincerity Mode: Homelander discovers that Stormfront lied about where she was going, so to regain his trust she reveals everything about her past and intentions.
- Slow-Motion Pass-By: The scene goes into slow motion when Frenchie and Lamplighter cross paths in the asylum's corridor and recognize each other.
- The Spymaster: The Church of the Collective have an entire network of people watching over many worldwide events, including Vought's plan for replacing A-Train.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: While watching an interview of Homelander and Stormfront, Butcher and Kimiko can tell there's a sexual relationship between them.
- Super-Toughness: Cindy is one of the only test subjects at Sage Grove to survive the riot (Love Sausage only got knocked out), and even manages to survive Stormfront and is last seen hitching a ride somewhere away from the facility.
- Supernaturally Young Parent: Thanks to the anti-aging factor in Compund V. The elderly woman Stormfront is hugging in her picture isn't her mother—it's her daughter (when she was still alive).
- Super Soldiers: All of the new specimens being observed at the compound, leading up to controlled Supes under Stormfront's watch. Those at the compound are more akin to test subjects that are being researched in order to stabilize Compound V for adults, paving the way for this.
- Super Supremacist: How Stormfront wishes to succeed the Nazis' vision, combining this with regular racism.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The Boys try to commandeer a vehicle to escort Hughie to a hospital. Their shady reasons for being out in the middle of nowhere, Billy's attempt to pass himself off as an officer and getting his sidearm ready causes the driver to fight back in a "Stand Your Ground" state, referring to an extremely permissive law in some states about shooting people who make you feel threatened.
- Spies In a Van: At least it's not a black one with flowers on the side, though no-one goes to investigate what it's doing hanging round outside the fence.
- Taught by Television: Frenchie mentions in a flashback that he learned everything he knows from watching The Golden Girls.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: As she's a Supe, Butcher doesn't like Starlight at all despite her attempts to make nice, and comes quite close to trying to kill her again. Starlight eventually returns his enmity, and they work together only because of their mutual relationship with Hughie. Oddly enough, the two get along fine outside of that sour spot.
- Tested on Humans: Vought is trying to develop a form of Compound V that can work safely on adults, enabling the instant creation of an army of superheroes as needed.
- Tracking Chip: Frenchie does some improvised surgery in a jewelers to remove Starlight's chip, causing Vought to lose track of her.
- Unseen No More:
- Although he had a brief appearance in the previous episode, this is the first time we've seen Alistair Adana, the leader of the Church of the Collective, in person. As befits the leader of a cult church he projects authority and charisma in equal measures, coaxing a reluctant A-Train into taking a seat at his table.
- Likewise with Lamplighter; while he was seen talking on the phone to Stormfront in the previous episode, it's only now we discover who he is.
- Vengeance Feels Empty: Frenchie realizes that killing Lamplighter won't help resolve matters, stating that keeping him alive will do worse from how he tortures himself in staying alive. He gets Mallory to accept this notion under the conditions of further using him.
- Verbal Backspace: After Frenchie says "It's always worse when it's someone you love", Hughie insists that he doesn't love Annie, except I mean does, but it's platon, I mean...
- Villainous Rescue: Cindy is only stopped from killing The Boys by Stormfront returning to clean up the mess at Sage Grove. Although Lamplighter could have betrayed their presence he doesn't, instead blaming the escape on a conveniently dead doctor.
- Wall Bang Her: Homelander and Stormfront do it up against the wall of an alley.
- Wham Shot:
- The Boys look over security cameras and find out that Vought is housing many Supes.
- During their viewing of the footage, they watch one orderly preparing a lighter, who then blasts the test subject with fire. It's Lamplighter.
- Stormfront prepares to tell Homelander the truth, and she opens a box of her belongings not only with her outfit as Liberty, but a Hitler Youth knife. This is then followed by showing him pictures of her with infamous Nazi figures, including Frederick Vought himself.
- Wham Line: From Stormfront. "I was born in 1919."
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Stormfront's daughter has grown old and is now dead of Alzheimer's disease. Gone too is the husband who gifted her with superpowers and the Thousand Year Reich she once served. She laments that everyone that she knew and loved is now gone, only finding hope with Homelander and leading a war in favor of Supes.
- Woman Scorned: Gender flipped. Homelander wanted to surprise Stormfront in his trailer with flowers. When she doesn't return in twenty minutes as she promised, he finds out that she lied about going to the Tower and burns his trailer down in a rage.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: After Annie shrugs off killing a bystander as something they had to do, Butcher gives her a nod of respect. She is having none of it.
- Your Head Asplode:
- Homelander crushes some poor criminal's head in his hand until it pops.
- Cindy, once freed, does this to some of the Sage Grove's guards with her telekinesis.
