Butcher and Hughie take Translucent to former partner Frenchie, who makes a meta-bullet to pierce the hero's diamond-hard skin, but it fails to kill him. Butcher turns to CIA Dept. Director Susan Raynor for the "Mallory files", but she refuses.
Stillwell tells Homelander about evidence the Deep found incriminating him for the plane crash, so she handles it while he talks to Deep. While working with the Deep, Annie promises to kill him if he tries to sexually assault her again. Stillwell uses shapeshifting Supe Doppelgänger to blackmail Senator Calhoun into allowing a vote that could enable Vought to contract superheroes to the military.
Annie stops an attempted rape, unaware she is being recorded. Her agent, Ashley Barrett, reprimands her for potentially causing negative exposure and legal implications.
While Homelander searches for Translucent, Frenchie places C-4 explosives in Translucent's colon, who fearfully confesses A-Train was with his girlfriend Popclaw before he killed Robin.
The Boys learn Homelander is nearby, so they cannot risk killing Translucent with the C4. While Frenchie and Butcher create a distraction elsewhere, Translucent escapes and convinces Hughie to let him go. However, Hughie changes his mind and detonates the C-4, killing Translucent.
Tropes for this episode include:
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Translucent on realizing he's got Semtex shoved up his ass.
- Ask a Stupid Question...: When Translucent shouts, "Do you know who I am?" Frenchie notes sardonically that it's not like there are many more invisible assholes around.
- Asshole Victim: Quite literally with Translucent.
- Attack Its Weak Point: Frenchie has a "Eureka!" Moment on seeing a documentary about a tortoise. Translucent's carbon skin makes him invulnerable, but he's still squishy on the inside. He'll vomit up anything forced down his throat, but there's another way...
- Attempted Rape: Two young thugs attempt to rape a woman before Starlight wanders onto the scene and beats them up.
- Bed Trick: A US Senator thinks he's having some kinky sex with a cute, young, female bartender. Instead, he's with a Vought shapeshifter who, after blindfolding him, assumes the form of an overweight, middle-aged male for blackmail purposes.
- Beneath the Mask: Homelander is shown to be chafing at the role forced on him, and would rather be actively helping Madelyn in her schemes.
- Break the Cutie: Hughie killing Translucent by blowing the latter up results in him being covered in blood and guts.
- Break Them by Talking: After his capture, Translucent tries this technique on Hughie but ultimately fails.
- Caught on Tape: Annie gets caught on camera fighting rapists which blows her secret identity.
- Date Rape Averted: Still fuming over what Deep did to her, Starlight works off her frustrations on a couple of would-be rapists. Unfortunately, turns out Supes don't have automatic Hero Insurance; they have to prove a criminal case like anyone else. The unknown girl runs off and the rapists claim they were attacked just for larking about.
- Détournement: Hughie sees a poster in the abandoned restaurant they're hiding out in showing a baby covered in spaghetti sauce and the title Keep Your Hands Clean. At first it looks like he will wash his hands of this mess and do a runner, but it actually inspires him to turn Translucent into Ludicrous Gibs, likely because it reminded him of his own experience being splattered by Robin.
- "Eureka!" Moment: A nature documentary about turtles playing on the television gives Frenchie an idea how to circumvent Translucent's impenetrable skin.
- Foreshadowing:
- Hughie asks Frenchie what it feels like to kill someone. By the end of the episode, he finds out.
- Butcher goes to Susan Raynor and asks for the Mallory files.
- Got Volunteered: Butcher forces Hughie and Frenchie to help him dispose of Translucent, pointing out that he's already seen their faces so they either help kill him or the wrath of the Seven will come down on them.
- Hand Wave: When the Boys are flummoxed on ways to kill Translucent, whose skin is invulnerable, they bring up the ideas of suffocating him. Then they recall that it's been tried before and "didn't work," so they discard the idea. No further details are provided for how or why Translucent could survive that.
- Hannibal Lecture: Translucent to Hughie, and Starlight to The Fish Guy (sorry, Deep).
- Hard-Work Montage: A brief one when Frenchie is constructing a .50 bullet made of carbon to kill Translucent. It doesn't work.
- A House Divided: Translucent quickly pegs Naïve Newcomer Hughie as the weak link in his captors, and works on trying to frighten or persuade Hughie to let him escape.
- Implied Death Threat: After Deep informs Madelyn there was a couple of eye-shaped burn holes in the Mayor's crashed plane, Homelander implies that telling tales like that could be bad for his health. Averted with Starlight who makes it perfectly clear what will happen if Deep touches her again.
- Inelegant Blubbering: All it takes to turn Translucent from a Smug Super to a stammering mess ready to tell everything he knows? A small lump of plastic explosive shoved up his bum. Justified as being Nigh-Invulnerable doesn't prepare you for coping with a situation where you're not.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Discussed when Hughie suggests to Butcher that they get information from Translucent. Butcher dismisses the idea, noting it took six months of waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Muhammad for him to talk (and only once, after 183 sessions), and they don't have that time. This is too much information for the still-innocent Hughie.
- Littlest Cancer Patient: As part of Vought's ad campaign, A-Train visits a hospital to see a child with cancer. The teenager is not impressed because his Last Request was to see his idol Translucent. A-Train desperately attempts to divert his attention away from the disappointment... and only manages to make things even more awkward.
- Military Superhero: Vought International wants to have their superheroes handle national defense, but the senator points out that it's a non-starter. Too many politicians have their fingers in the US arms industry, and the military aren't too happy about it either.
- My Friends... and Zoidberg: Used for misdirection by Butcher when he asks for a peek at the CIA files on a couple of superheroes...oh and maybe the file on Translucent as well. Raynor isn't fooled.
- Narcissist: Starlight finds Homelander staring at a huge poster of his own face. However after she leaves it's revealed that he's actually using his X-Ray vision to spy on Madelyn who is milking her own breast-milk.
- New Old Flame: Butcher tries to get help from his former lover Susan Raynor who's now Deputy Director of the CIA, but even she's not in a position to help him, and refuses to get involved.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero
- While off duty Starlight beats up a couple of rapists but gets caught on camera, exposing her Secret Identity and putting her job in jeopardy.
- Butcher tries to shoot Translucent, but the bullet just ricochets off him, tearing a hole in the signal-blocking foil allowing his Tracking Chip to transmit.
- Hughie gives Translucent a glass of water. Having been hydrated, he then pisses in the glass and throws it on the power cords, shorting them out so he can get out of the cage.
- Noodle Incident: The incident with the edible arrangement that Susan Raynor is still annoyed at Butcher over.
- Not Afraid of You Anymore: On their second private encounter, Starlight makes it perfectly clear to The Deep that she is no longer afraid of his threats and is willing to use her Eye Beams on him if he ever tries to touch her again.
- The Presents Were Never from Santa: Hughie has gone along with Butcher under the assumption that he's an FBI agent, so the federal government is backing them up. Turns out he's not with the FBI or any other government agency, just some murky CIA connections that are no longer valid.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Homelander comes across as this in his interactions with Madelyn. Turns out she never sent Homelander to shoot down the mayor's plane; he did it after overhearing him blackmailing her. In doing so he turned a business negotiation into an act of mass murder.
- Punch a Wall: Hughie does this, getting bloody knuckles as he's not a Supe.
- Punk in the Trunk: Or the boot.
- Putting the Band Back Together: For his plot to bring down Vought and the supes, Billy gets "the Boys" back together.
- Reading Lips: Translucent does this to find out that Homelander is in the area searching for him.
- Rhetorical Question Blunder: When Hughie mentions how Translucent and A-Train grew up together, Translucent says sarcastically, "What are you, a fan?!" In the next episode we find Hughie actually was a fan of the Seven.
- Rule of Cool: Awesomeness aside, Translucent's blood-splattering demise is actually illogical. As pointed out by the creators, Translucent's indestructible skin should have contained the explosion.
- Shapeshifting Squick: Used to blackmail the senator who is blindfolded, then Chained to a Bed. The woman having sex with him then shapeshifts into a flabby middle-aged man who records the scene on "his" mobile.
- Shooting Superman: The Driving Question of the episode. How do you kill someone who is Nigh Invulnerable? According to Frenchie there's only been a few superheroes killed, because while each has a Weaksauce Weakness, it's unique to them and the problem is finding it.
- Smuggling with Dolls: Starlight and The Deep bust a gang smuggling fentanyl in Homelander Junior Seven Kuddle Buddiez.
- Taser Tag Weakness: Translucent can at least be knocked unconscious with a cattle prod and restrained with an electric cage, if not killed.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Starlight isn't happy to be teamed-up with Deep to fight crime. Starlight tries to argue that I Work Alone, but her corporate minders won't let her (ostensibly because team-ups are good for ratings, but also because they're worried she might make a mistake, which does in fact happen once she's by herself).
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Discussed Trope when Deep complains that The Seven only send him in for things in or around water. It turns out that the rest think he's pathetic and a joke, to his annoyance.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Averted; Hughie doesn't want to kill Translucent at first and even appears to let him go at the end, only to detonate the radio-trigger and blow him up.
- Took a Level in Badass: Hughie takes the first step towards this by deciding to kill Translucent.
- Too Much Information: Butcher casually discussing the waterboarding of terrorists at Guantanamo Bay is this to Hughie.
- Tracking Chip: Translucent is chipped, so they put him in a room covered in RF shielding foil. Unfortunately a failed attempt to kill him with a carbon bullet tears a hole in it, enabling Vought International to at least work out the general area he's in.
- Trespassing to Talk: Butcher nearly gets shot by his ex-girlfriend when doing this.
- Trunk Shot: Of Billy and Hughie looking at Translucent after heaving the latter into the trunk of their car.
- We Need a Distraction: Frenchie has his girlfriend blow up a building to divert the attention of Homelander who is searching for Translucent.
