Tropes for this episode include:
- Ambiguous Situation: It isn't clear if Payback was in on the plan to have Soldier Boy killed or if it was only Crimson Countess, although she states that the rest of the group hated him as well. Later it is revealed that indeed the rest of the group, with the exception of Gunpowder, was in on it.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Annie gives a brutal one to A-Train when she confronts him over telling Homelander their plan to kill him, which leads to Supersonic's death in the previous episode.Starlight: Why are you so desperate to be with people who hate you?
- Asshole Victim: Crimson Countess made Soldier Boy one back in Nicaragua. He makes her one in the present.
- Blatant Lies: Ashley claims Maeve has gone to rehab, at her own requests. Of course, Annie knows this is a lie, since Maeve has been sober for months.
- Brought Down to Normal: After being attacked by Soldier Boy, Kimiko apparently lost all her powers. Unlike typical scenarios like that, she's ecstatic about it, since she always wanted to be normal.
- Buy Them Off: Blue Hawk donates $10,000 to the community center in an attempt to silence the discontent over his over-policing of the area.
- Coincidental Broadcast: At his daughter's place, M.M. catches a glimpse of a news report about Soldier Boy's explosion in Manhattan.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Soldier Boy was tortured for years in Russia with every tool at the Russians' disposal.
- Cowardice Callout: Starlight calls A-Train a coward after she's discovered that he betrayed Supersonic's trust by selling him out to Homelander (with a predictable end result for Supersonic) in his desperation to, in Starlight's words, "be with people who hate [him]". What prompts Starlight to use the trope's first word is A-Train not having the balls to even admit to what he did off the bat when she confronts him about it.
- Creator Cameo: Series executive producer Seth Rogen does his Once a Season cameo, as Crimson Countess's Supeporn client.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Downplayed. After reuniting with Crimson Countess, Soldier Boy kills her by blowing up the trailer with both of them in it. While Soldier Boy is left unscathed, Crimson is left as a completely charred corpse. She is somewhat lucky as it was undeniably a very quick death.
- Destructo-Nookie: Not explicitly shown, but when Butcher and Maeve have at it the sounds suggest considerable collateral damage.
- Didn't Think This Through: Homelander is head of Vought, great, but unfortunately for him, he has no idea how to run a massive company, and he's like a fish out of water during his first board meeting.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Homelander's assurances that it's safe for people to go outside and to go to restaurants sounds very similar to the Trump Administration's insistence that these same activities were safe during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: Blue Hawk, like a lot of real life people against BLM, misinterprets the crowd at the community center chanting "Black Lives Matter" as "ONLY Black Lives Matter". In response, he starts shouting "All lives matter" and "Supe lives matter".
- Enemy Mine: Even though Soldier Boy is MM's personal nemesis, Butcher makes a deal with him, handing over the life of Crimson Countess in exchange for Soldier Boy's assistance in taking down Homelander.
- Face Death with Dignity: After Butcher ties up Crimson Countess, she panics, knowing that Soldier Boy will kill her. However after he reaches her, she simply coldly states she never loved him and accepts her fate.
- Fantasy Sequence: As always with her voiced scenes, Kimiko first imagines herself regaining the ability to speak and then it evolves into a singing number, silly Spontaneous Choreography included.
- Feedback Rule: Blue Hawk's apology speech is made more awkward by the mic giving off a feedback when he starts speaking, apparently caused by the metal in his helmet.
- First-Name Basis: Homelander knows very well what Maeve is up to when she uses his given name.Homelander: Don't you "John" me.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: For all intents and purposes, Soldier Boy jumped directly from mid-'80s to modern times. As a result, he has some issues catching up with all the changes around him.
- Given Name Reveal: Soldier Boy, who Crimson Countess addresses as "Ben".
- He Cleans Up Nicely: Soldier Boy's first appearance is that of a ragged, shaken man with a Time-Passage Beard and unkempt hair, wide-eyed and paranoid. When he shows up later in the episode, he is clean, in his old costume, with his hair trimmed and more importantly, collected and completely calm.
- Hidden Disdain Reveal: Soldier Boy learns Crimson Countess, whom he loved and thought loved him, had hated him, and had betrayed him to the Russians without even asking for payment. According to her, the other members of Payback did as well (as seen with Gunpowder, who kept asking to be re-assigned to a different team).
- History Repeats: The scene where Maeve tells Homelander that she always hated him even when they used to date mirrors the scene where Crimson Countess says basically the same thing to Soldier Boy.
- Humans Are Flawed: Butcher reveals that he hates when he's on the Temp V because it makes him even worse than he normally is. He comes to the conclusion that humans in general are fucked up and superpowers just bring all the worst parts of themselves to the surface.
- I Need a Freaking Drink:
- Discussed and then played straight. Before Hughie recaps to Annie what exactly happened in Russia, he tells her she will want to have a White Claw first. Smash Cut and she's emptying her third can, clearly shaken and pissed.
- A version with a candy bar happens when Anika first offers Starlight a half of her current Almond Joy. Once Annie learns from her the Deep has fired most of the Crime Analytics department, she digs on the candy.
- Impossibly Cool Clothes: Soldier Boy has recovered his outfit, and it turns out it's somehow immune to his chest beam, even though it can tear down buildings.
- In-Universe Catharsis: It's implied that the recordings of the Russian scientists torturing Soldier Boy are this for M.M. given how he watches them without blinking.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- While Billy is insensitive to MM after the fiasco with Soldier Boy, he's right that Marvin is putting his own problems and prejudices before stopping Homelander, who has explicitly stated he will massacre millions just to massage his bruised ego. While Marvin has legitimate reasons to hate Soldier Boy, he's allowing them to get in the way of protecting many innocent people.
- Butcher also makes a pointed argument, despite being drunk off his ass with Maeve, that emphasizes his awareness that the real problem with Supes isn't their superpowers in themselves, but their true selves after having been exposed to Compound V himself; which in truth, sums up the real danger of Supes all along is that so many of them have no sense of responsibility or compassion with their powers due to being a bunch of covert narcissists that have been fed with a silver spoon almost all of their lives like Homelander, and a problem that so many, especially individuals like Vogelbaum and even Stan Edgar himself admitted to being a problem at play, and that it'd come to bite all of them in the ass if they didn't do something about it before it's too late.
- Turns out Edgar was correct, and Homelander immediately starts running Vought into the ground.
- Jump Scare: Maeve, distracted by Homelander, is ambushed by Black Noir.
- Last-Second Word Swap: When talking with A-Train, Blue Hawk is indignant at being accused of over-policing the black community.Blue Hawk: Hey! This has nothing to do with [Beat] African Americans!
- Locked Out of the Loop: Because they haven't been at the hospital, Hughie and Butcher don't know that Soldier Boy's chest beam completely depowered Kimiko, so they don't know just how effective he could be against Homelander and Hughie's arguments to Annie aren't as convincing as they could be.
- Mood Whiplash: A newly appointed board member asks Homelander a technical questionnote and it becomes apparent to everyone in the room that their new boss is absolutely clueless about corporate lingo. The resulting awkward silence is initially Played for Laughs, but the situation quickly gets tense as Homelander makes it very clear she made him feel shown up, and Ashley might have inadvertently saved her life by kicking her out of the room.
- Off the Wagon: Butcher and Maeve both start drinking after having been sober for months, or a year in Butcher's case.
- Oh, Crap!:
- The whole boardroom has this reaction when it becomes apparent that even harmless business questions will get them in trouble, simply for making Homelander feel humiliated over his own incompetence.
- Homelander again also has this reaction himself, when he sees the revived Soldier Boy in a news broadcast leveling a Manhattan street, which is unsettling enough to him that he visibly struggles for the rest of the conversation after to recompose himself, cutting it short instead.
- Crimson Countess freaks out when she learns Soldier Boy is still alive.
- Ordered Apology: Blue Hawk makes one in Trenton, clearly not meaning a word of it and barely even reading his lines from a slip of paper. The audience in the community center does not buy it.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Blue Hawk makes a fake apology for over-policing black communities, but after being questioned he goes on a racist rant about how black people are more likely to be criminals.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: Homelander has the whole board restaffed with sycophants who applaud his every move. Their behaviour is justified, as at this point, even so much as mildly scratching Homelander's ego can put someone in mortal danger.
- Prosthetic Limb Reveal: The Legend taking off his prosthetic leg to the surprise of Hughie.
- The Purge: The Deep, now appointed as head of crime analytics by Homelander, fires most of the department for having made past remarks disparaging Homelander.
- Rank Up: Ashley is promoted to CEO, but like her old job, she has little actual authority.
- Recognition Failure: Hughie is too young to know who the Legend is, even if the man was apparently not only a big shot in the Vought, but more importantly, also a high-profile public figure. When Legend starts listing his sexual conquests and adventures, Hughie doesn't know any of those people either. Eventually Legend just tells Hughie to google those people.
- The Reveal:
- MM's crusade against Soldier Boy is based around a brutal murder.
- Crimson Countess betrayed Soldier Boy to the Russians because he was such a Jerkass.
- Sex for Solace: Butcher and Maeve, drunk and despondent over the dead end in Russia, end up knocking boots.
- Shout-Out:
- A shield-bearing soldier hero from times past who was taken out from decades of stasis meets his former lover, who now looks way older than him due to having aged normally.
- Kimiko's musical number in her Fantasy Sequence has her singing and dancing to Judy Garland's "I Got Rhythm" from Girl Crazy.
- Hughie's explanation for how his teleporting works is "I clenched my buttcheeks and jumped".
- Slipping a Mickey: Butcher roofies MM to prevent him from interfering with Butcher's encounter with Soldier Boy.
- Some of My Best Friends Are X: In his Ordered Apology speech, Blue Hawk notes that many of his friends are black.
- Summon Bigger Fish: Essentially Butcher's strategy to use Soldier Boy against Homelander. Soldier Boy is just as strong and resistant as Homelander, but has a superpower-erasing blast to tip the scales in his favor.
- Sure, Let's Go with That: During an interview, Homelander takes a wishy-washy approach to a conspiracy theory that Soldier Boy's attack in Manhattan was actually Stan Edgar's way to discredit him, even if he knows almost for sure it's a false lead.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Running a country-wide company like Vought isn't easy. A person needs to know multiple things to run a company, such as earnings and EBITA margins, things Homelander has zero experience with. Outside of looking great to the public and intimidating others, he's nowhere near qualified to be put in Edgar's shoes and run a business. Also, John's ego is the size of Jupiter; any questions or concerns are considered blows to that in his eyes. The board executives realize this, but by now, it's too late, they just put a powerful Psychopathic Manchild in charge of their company, and they can't do anything about it; otherwise, they're dead.
- Take That!: Ashley scoffs at Lindsey Graham's flowers, calling him a gooch-licker.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Butcher openly tells MM to clench his butt and get over their issues for the duration of finding Soldier Boy, for there are more important things than arguing over taking Compound V.
- Trauma Button:
- Hearing a Russian song in New York triggers Soldier Boy's powers and he ends up blowing a hole through a building.
- Hearing that Soldier Boy has surfaced in Manhattan triggers M.M.'s memory of what the Supe did to his family.
- Tyrant Takes the Helm: A variation. The leadership of Vought has always been deeply immoral, but under Stan Edgar they were at least competent and interested in the company's long-term interests. Once Homelander takes charge, he shows no interest in how the company actually works and simply promotes or ousts people from their jobs based on how sycophantic they've been to him.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Hughie's green vomit during his V24 hangover.
- Wall Bang Her: Butcher and Maeve have sex up against a wall, then a desk and another wall.
- Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: Dropped almost verbatim when Hughie fumbles his attempt to calm down Starlight after telling her what exactly happened in Russia. She instantly calls him out that not lying to her isn't exactly worth anything, but he instantly apologizes and backs down.
- Was It All a Lie?: Homelander confronts Maeve, and reveals he knows she was working with Butcher. He then asked her whether all those years ago when they dated if she ever loved him. She replies that no, she always hated and pitied him.
- Wham Line:
- When The Boys ambush Crimson Countess and reveal that Soldier Boy is alive her only question is this:Crimson Countess: How did he escape from Russia?
- After drugging M.M. and Soldier Boy shows up, Butcher reveals that CC is inside and has an offer or rather...Billy Butcher: What you lot call, a "team up"?
- When The Boys ambush Crimson Countess and reveal that Soldier Boy is alive her only question is this:
