Accent Slip-Up: Gunpowder regularly speaks with a thick Southern accent. It disappears when Butcher beats the crap out of him.
Adaptational Context Change: The Title Drop happens when Homelander is talking to a suicidal woman on a building, rather than while carrying a car of a Christian family through the air (that he would thereafter drop out of the sky).
Analogy Backfire: When Homelander starts making Christian references to Chelsea, the teen he's supposed to talk out of committing suicide on a ledge of a tall building, the girl points out she's Jewish and has no idea what he's talking about. Though Homelander likely doesn't care.
Badly Battered Babysitter: One of the Red River employees seen wears a cast on one leg, the result of tending to a group of superpowered children who haven't mastered the use of their powers. It used to be worse - the caretakers of Nadia had a nasty tendency to explode when she was a toddler and had absolutely zero control over her power.
Becoming the Mask: A very mild example. Annie comes to Hughie's rescue at work, telling Neuman that the reason he was late is because they had a big, public fight. Hughie plays along, but then his insecurities kick in, turning their conversation into an actual fight, making it incredibly easy for Neuman to believe Annie's story.
Bizarre and Improbable Ballistics: After bouncing off a column, then a pipe, then passing through two panes of tempered glass, then bouncing off another column, there's no way a bullet from a handgun could be dangerous to Butcher. Hell, it probably couldn't even get through the second pane of glass, maybe not even the first.
Bullying a Dragon: Someone in the audience at Homelander's birthday yells "Hey, Homelander, your Nazi died!". The reason this isn't Too Dumb to Live is because Vought's been so good at covering up his sociopathy.
Call-Back: A-Train confirms that Seth was telling the truth at the collateral damage meeting; Ice Princess really did accidentally snap his dick off.
Becca really was telling the truth about Billy being one bad day away from pounding someone to death in a parking lot as that’s exactly what he does to Gunpowder here. And it’s literally in a parking lot.
The Cameo: Billy Zane shows up in the trailer for "Not Without My Dolphin", playing Alistair Adana.
Connected All Along: The Boys' founder and benefactor Grace Mallory was involved in a CIA operation in Nicaragua where Soldier Boy went missing.
Damned by Faint Praise: Ashley compliments A-Train's projects as "Well told" which is code for "she fucking hated it".
Embarrassing Cover Up: After the Red River employee realizes Hughie works for the FBSA rather than Vought, he claims to have been interested in adoption because he's sterile with sperm like "fat, dead tadpoles".
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Edgar appears to have a genuinely loving relationship with Neuman and her daughter.
Eye Beams: Butcher gains orange-colored eye beams after taking the V24, using them to slice Gunpowder's head and car in a fit of rage.
Harmful to Minors: Several children get a good view of Crimson Countess accidentally killing a Voughtland mascot. Kimiko is troubled by this.
Hollywood Atheist: Homelander reveals he doesn't actually believe in God (although a part of his public image is supposedly being a devout Christian and minister) while "talking down" a suicidal young woman, saying it's only him up there in the sky. This is right before he makes her jump, instead of saving her.
Immune to Bullets: Billy receives this superpower from the V24 much to Gunpowder's dismay.
Impossible Pickle Jar: Twice. First time, Hughie has trouble opening a jar of jam prompting Annie to open it for him. Not much later he proves unable to open a jar of mustard. It's an analogy of their power differential that frustrates Hughie because he feels too weak to protect Annie from harm.
Insecure Love Interest: In addition to the stress of having just learned his boss is a mass murderer and a supe and that he's been working for Vought for the last year, subverting all the success he thought he'd had, Hughie's feeling emasculated by Annie's strength, represented by his repeated failure to open jars (which might be because she's not careful enough about closing them).
Butcher is ready to let go of his rage and start working within the system (if not just retire entirely), only for Hughie to inform him of Neuman's real identity and declaring that Butcher had the right idea the whole time. This gives Butcher his (very dark) Heroic Second Wind, convincing him to take the V24 and beat the information out of Gunpowder.
The suicidal girl tells Homelander that she's gonna jump. But after Homelander's rant following the news of Stormfront's suicide, she changed her mind but Homelander pushed her.
Kick the Dog: While already insensitive and cruel towards a suicidal girl, when Homelander finds out that Stormfront committed suicide, he then forces the poor girl to jump. He also repeatedly insults and threatens A-Train for petty reasons.
Killed Offscreen: Stormfront commits suicide in her hospital bed, but the audience as well as Ashley and Homelander only find out after the fact as a giant news announcement.
Metal Detector Checkpoint: Butcher walks through one and it goes off, he apologizes and pulls out a handgun... and the guard compliments him on it and waves him through; it's a gun expo.
Music/Age Dissonance: Supersonic's biggest hit is a song called License to Drive, about being attracted to a girl who just turned 16. Yeah. Supposedly he originally sang it in his late teens/early 20s, where it was still inappropriate but it's so much worse now that he's in his late 20s and still singing it.
"No More Holding Back" Speech: Homelander delivers a decidedly unheroic one at the end of the episode, which turns into a rant against unpowered people holding him back and how much he's superior.
No, You: When A-Train's agent tells him that Ashley hates his project and pointed out that everyone knows he doesn't care about his African roots, he tells his agent that "he has no dick".
Oh, Crap!: Ashley gets several, thanks to Homelander. She knows he's going to respond poorly to Stormfront's suicide, and that it happens in the middle of a rescue mission just makes the situation worse. Then he goes on a Super Supremacist rant on live tv, startling everyone in the audience, disgusting Edgar, and scaring Starlight and Ashley.
Pinball Projectile: Gunpowder shoots at Billy from an impossible angle this way.
Rage Breaking Point: Homelander once again loses someone he cares about, when his sick relationship with Stormfront ends in her suicide, driving him to accept Stormfront's supremacism and murder a teenager. Then someone taunts him at his birthday celebration and when Starlight tries to cover for him, he instead goes on a massive rant declaring himself better than everyone in the audience.
Rape as Drama: Subverted. Butcher believes Gunpowder was sexually assaulted by Soldier Boy due to a complaint he once filed over Soldier Boy's "habitual abuse", but he denies it, even after Butcher beats the truth out of him. It turns out this was physical abuse, hazing which went too far in Gunpowder's words.
When shooting down Homelander's attempt to make Starlight sing him a happy birthday on her show, Stan replies to his pissy fit by telling him that "It's your party, you can cry if you want to."
When Stormfront commits suicide by biting through her tongue, Ashley references Million Dollar Baby, where the paralyzed protagonist makes several attempts at suicide, one with that same method.
Ashley tells the cameraman filming Homelander's confrontation with the girl not to be afraid of using the zoom because he's not Roger Deakins, a clear nod towards the famed cinematographer's real-life distaste for using zoom lenses.
Reaction Shot: Homelander's speech cuts to Stan Edgar in the crowd who is scowling because he knows this probably won't do Vought any favours, Ashley in the editing room who is gawking in silent horror, Hughie at home who is angered and helpless as Starlight is right there... and Todd who seems to be enjoying it.
Sickening "Crunch!": When Butcher kills Gunpowder via a newly super-powered No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, he does so by repeatedly bashing his face in, with each hit getting progressively more gruesome sounding, the final hit sounding like Butcher either broke Gunpowder's neck or crushed something in his skull. In all likelihood, Gunpowder was probably dead even before Butcher lost control and lasered him.
Crimson Countess is shown to have a D-list singing career belting out extremely corny power ballads.
A-Train plans to rebrand himself around his Blackness in order to stay relevant. However, his campaign pitch is so painfully in-your-face about riding the coattails of African-American culture it's too much even for Ashley, who previously never had any qualms about commercializing social issues. The Ashleys hate his pitch and Seth looks uncomfortable or even disgusted the whole time.
The food stands at Vought Land are terrible attempts at rebranding Vought after Stormfront's reveal. In Brave Maeve's Inclusive Kingdom, you'll find BLM BLTs, Rainbow Pops, Woke Wok, LGBTurkey Legs.
Subverted Catchphrase: Homelander's typical "You're The Real Heroes" is inverted hard in his final speech, signaling the beginning of his going off the reservation.
Homelander: You're not the real heroes. I'm the real hero.
The scenes at Voughtland are one to corporate America's commercialization of LGBT issues. Fittingly, the episode first streamed invokedthree days into Pride month.
A-Train heavy-handed attempt to rebrand himself and focus on his African ancestry is a not-so-subtle jab toward Disney's massive marketing campaign around Black Panther (2018), where they were trying to up-sell a superhero movie as the biggest social event of the decade and the most relevant thing, but mostly just blatantly targeting African-American demographic.
Supersonic's aforementioned Stylistic Suck ballad is one to the unfortunate number of famous singers who have songs about girls who are 16.
The people on TV chanting "Stormfront was right" are carrying tiki torches, like the alt-right neo-nazis the night before the deadly rally in Charlottesville.
Talking Down the Suicidal: Subverted. Rather than helping the suicidal woman by preventing her death, Homelander actively kills her instead. And before this, his attempts at talking her down amount to being really cruel and demeaning.
Teeth Flying: Gunpowder spits out teeth after getting curb-stomped hard by Billy.
The Television Talks Back: When Billy shoots up V24, he is having a discussion with Homelander talking back to him from the TV screen.
