Congresswoman Victoria Neuman schedules a hearing against Vought, with Lamplighter as the chief witness.
After Vought uncovers Annie's betrayal, Hughie convinces Lamplighter to join him in a rescue attempt, which results in the latter immolating himself. Annie escapes with the help of Maeve, who subdues Noir.
Despite the loss of Lamplighter, Butcher strong-arms Vought scientist Jonah Vogelbaum into testifying against Vought. However, the hearing is attacked by the assassin who killed Raynor, resulting in the deaths of Vogelbaum, among others.
Meanwhile, Homelander and Stormfront manipulate Ryan into leaving Becca. A-Train grows suspicious of the Church of the Collective. Maeve and Elena break up over the former failing to save the airliner.
Tropes for this episode include:
- Abusive Parents:
- Butcher's father beat both him and Lenny, and believed in a "sink-or-swim" mentality behind life.
- Vogelbaum pushed Homelander into what he is, applying the weight of the world onto his shoulders as the best Supe.
- All for Nothing:
- Lamplighter agrees to testify against Vought, but Hughie's mission to save Annie gives him an opportunity to do what he wanted all along: kill himself in the Seven's conference room, ruining another chance to get Vought indicted.
- Becca's attempt to stop Billy from going on the path of vengeance was already a failure. Now her choice to stay with Ryan and leave Billy also fails when Homelander turns Ryan against her and takes him to be raised by him and Stormfront, ensuring that he'll grow up to be even worse than his father.
- Maeve's plan to take down Homelander, her humiliation from being outed on live television and Vought's attempts to suppress her sexuality, and everything else she endured to keep Elena safe and close by her side amount to nothing after Elena leaves for her own safety before Maeve has a chance to put her plan into action.
- Billy convincing Vogelbaum to deliver a damning testimony against his former employer goes nowhere as the hearing turns into a blood(and brain chunk)bath instead.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Billy makes it perfectly clear to Vogelbaum that his appearance in front of Congress is needed… unless he wants his whole family to die.
- Anti-Hero: Butcher is fully prepared to murder innocents if Vogelbaum refuses to testify.
- The Atoner:
- Donna tries to further her efforts in reconnecting with Annie, to the point where she called Vought to terminate her contract with them.
- Jonah Vogelbaum allows Billy into his estate, knowing the pain that Homelander caused him.
- Audience Murmurs: The audience at the Congressional hearing is heard murmuring when Vogelbaum enters, prompting the House Chairman to call out for silence.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- After Homelander makes the announcement that they have taken Starlight in for betraying the Seven, it cuts to Hughie in shocked disbelief. Because he was reacting to one of the porn movies' scenarios. Then it shows Annie's arrest on the news to him.
- Frenchie asks if Kimiko can teach him her version of sign language. She pulls a gun out from their equipment, and he decides to stop asking. Kimiko clarifies that she wanted to start by teaching him how to say "gun".
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Black Noir roughs up Starlight and smashes her face several times. There's not a paper cut or speck of dirt on her face by the time it's all over. Justified due to her super durability.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Elena has constantly said she wanted to know the "real" Maeve. However, after seeing the video and how seedy Vought's environment really is she cannot stay with her. A sudden outburst of temper leading to Maeve hurling a table across the room only shows her just how dangerous her lover is.
- Big Damn Heroes: Maeve rescues Starlight right before Black Noir strangles her to death, and reveals his weakness as well.
- Black Dude Dies First: Chairman Richardson is a black man who is leading the hearings, and he is the first of many to get his head blown up.
- Black Is Bigger in Bed: Black Noir's porn parody uses this trope. Funnily enough, he's revealed to be black in this episode.
- Blood-Spattered Innocents: A lot of it during the ending. Including on Ashley, given this season everyone and everything is out for her.
- Boom, Headshot!: The clerk at the bodega dies this way in the open.
- Borrowed Biometric Bypass: After Lamplighter burns himself alive, Hughie dismembers his hand to access Vought HQ.
- Brick Joke:
- The Brave Maeve food brand has expanded to frozen dinners, and Becca is seen cooking one for dinner.
- The Deep is still the butt of bestiality jokes, with one being made into a porn movie.
- Broken Pedestal:
- Elena breaks up with Maeve following the reveal of Flight 37 from the last episode, and they both note how she wanted to see the "real" Maeve.
- Ryan turns against his mother on when Homelander and Stormfront show him the outside world that had been kept from him.
- Brutal Honesty: When Butcher asks Vogelbaum if he ever considered how his actions would destroy his life, Vogelbaum admits it was "barely a blip on his radar."
- Built with LEGO: Ryan shows off a LEGO Stop Motion recreation of The Blind Side, while noting he did it for other movies his mom likes.
- Casting Gag: Turns out Denethor is still a shit father even when Eomer is his son.
- Church of Happyology: The Church of the Collective declaring now ex-member Eagle The Archer the Persona Non Grata is yet another clear jab at a certain known cult, this time their "Suppressive Person" practice.
- Coincidental Broadcast: When Hughie switches off the porn movie, a news broadcast comes on about Starlight being a traitor.
- Collateral Damage: When Lamplighter's powers manifested, the first fire that he lit burned his entire house down. His father didn't care - he was just happy to see his son be a Supe.
- The Corrupter:
- Stormfront's broadcasts and message becomes ingrained into a paranoid man's mind, leading to him shooting somebody that he perceived to be an enemy.
- Billy's father beat his children in an attempt to get them to be tough in the world. Billy violently grappling him in response to his dismissal of Lenny is exactly what he wants to see.
- Homelander, with Stormfront's assistance, succeeds further in doing this to Ryan.
- Crossing the Burnt Bridge: Vought wishes to recruit The Deep and A-Train back into The Seven after Starlight's status as The Mole is made known.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Both battles between Black Noir and Starlight are painfully lopsided in Noir's favor. Starlight's Super-Strength and light blasts barely slow him down, and she's reduced to being his punching bag.
- Dark Lord on Life Support: Downplayed example. After Homelander's interrogation in Season One, Vogelbaum has been confined to an electrical wheelchair and is assisted by his daughter in day-to-day life.
- Disneyland Dad: Stormfront is turning Homelander into a Type II for Ryan, complete with visits to "Vought Land".
- Driven to Suicide:
- Lenny's fate is revealed to have been this.
- Lamplighter by Self-Immolation in the Seven conference room. He intended to do it in front of his statue, but finds they've already replaced it with Starlight's.
- Easily Forgiven:
- Ryan accepts Homelander's apology for tossing him off a roof, and then sides with him against his mother later on.
- After losing Lamplighter by suicide, the whole crew is reasonably upset with Hughie. Fortunately though for him, Billy ends up getting Jonah Vogelbaum! Hughie is immediately forgiven.
- Fantastic Racism: Homelander and Stormfront's rhetoric is almost exactly like right-wing anti-immigration claims, simply with the addition of superhuman terrorists as allegedly infiltrating the country.
- Genghis Gambit: Stormfront reveals that she kept Starlight alive in order to unite the two rivaling fractions of Americans behind Vought against a common traitor.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Vogelbaum's daughter looks after him, sacrificing some of her time to take care of him. Billy takes advantage of this, threatening the life of his daughter, his sons and their families if he is not given the information that he asks for.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Even A-Train looks horrified by all the heads exploding during the hearing.
- Expecting Someone Taller: When meeting Vogelbaum in his wheelchair, Mallory jokes that she expected him to be taller.
- Fantastic Racism: An avid listener of Stormfront is seen constantly taking in all of her anti-Super-Terrorist messaging, and he begins to suspect that the cashier that he had been interacting with daily was one of the Supes that she was trying to warn about. He shoots him in paranoia.
- Flipping the Table: Maeve does this when she realizes Elena is leaving her for good and there's nothing she can do to stop it. Elena is terrified by this sudden display of her Super-Strength.
- Foreshadowing:
- Black Noir not only rejected Anika's offer for an Almond Joy three episodes earlier, but made her throw it away. While it seemed like a douchey moment at the time, it hints that he's actually allergic to tree nuts.
- When Starlight is attacked by Black Noir at the Tower, she was just walking by a large framed picture of Maeve, who ends up saving her from Black Noir.
- Friend-or-Idol Decision: Hughie decides to take Lamplighter with him to rescue Annie, rather than keeping him safe so he can testify before Congress. The Boys are furious when he ends up dying on the mission, but it turns out to be the right decision in hindsight since if Lamplighter went to the hearing he would have died anyways to the mysterious head exploding Supe.
- Futile Hand Reach: Becca, when Homelander flies off with her son.
- Heroic BSoD: Congresswoman Neuman as heads start to explode.
- Hidden Villain: The Supe who killed Raynor is back and still out of sight, making sure dead men tell no tales by inflicting their powers on the Congressional hearing.
- Home Porn Movie: Eagle the Archer has his leaked by the Church as punishment for not cutting contact with his mother as they want, revealing he's a furry. It becomes quite a hit and boosts him to top searched on a Supe porn website.
- Hookers and Blow:
- Lamplighter knows he's going to die once he testifies at the hearing, and decides to spend his remaining time watching porn and smoking.
- Maeve is vaping even more than before and starts sleeping around with men to cope with her break up.
- Hope Spot:
- Becca appeals to Homelander's love for his son, and it looks like it worked until Homelander and Stormfront find a way to turn Ryan against her.
- The Congressional hearing to expose Vought's misdeeds gets underway, with Jonah Vogelbaum as its star witness... then Chairman Richardson's head explodes, shortly followed by Vogelbaum and other members of the audience, including Shockwave, which throws the televised event into chaos.
- I Coulda Been a Contender!: Lamplighter laments having been retired by Vought, growing up as a child prodigy, and seeing how proud his father was when his powers manifested.
- I Have a Family: The cashier drops this line before getting shot.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: After the encounter with his father, Billy winds up in a bar.
- Insult of Endearment: The C-word Billy's constantly throwing around is regarded by him as a term of endearment. This is Truth In Television as Englishmen of his class background can easily distinguish between an affectionate use and a genuine insult, and the word is just nowhere near as offensive there to begin with.
- Internal Reveal:
- Starlight's association with the Boys is exposed.
- Homelander shows Stormfront his son, Ryan.
- Homelander and Stormfront show Ryan that his upbringing was being faked.
- The Internet Is for Porn: Hughie advises Lamplighter to just download the porn next time instead of getting physical discs.
- It's All About Me: Joining a cult hasn't changed the Deep's self-centeredness. When he sees all the heads exploding on TV, his only reaction is to make sure he isn't next.
- Jump Scare:
- Just as Annie's mother is discussing leaving Vought and bringing up that she has cleared her from the company, a smokebomb smashes through the window.
- Lamplighter gives little warning before he burns himself alive.
- Kick the Dog: Homelander really hits a new low when he takes Ryan and turns him against Becca.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: The Congressman leading the hearing has his head destroyed when trying to begin Vogelbaum's testimony.
- Media Scaremongering: Stormfront and Homelander are constantly fearmongering and drumming their base up to hate and fear others. One person ends up being radicalized and murders an innocent man out of paranoia.
- Mistaken for Terrorist: Thanks to Stormfront's propaganda and an unfortunate lighting coincidence, a paranoid man becomes convinced that an innocent cashier is a supe-terrorist, resulting in him shooting the cashier in cold blood due to the memes' rhetoric becoming increasingly violent.
- My God, What Have I Done?: The man who shot the clerk in a fit of paranoia immediately regrets it upon seeing his dead body, as he was under the impression that the clerk would have some kind of power that would make bullets useless against him.
- Mythology Gag:
- A poster seen in the fan's room resembles the poster of the original comicbook's Stormfront, even being in the same pose.
- Jack from Jupiter gets a pornographic parody, referencing his comicbook counterpart's scandal with transsexual prostitutes.
- Maeve's sleeping with multiple men and sulking in bed calls to mind the imagery of her comic character.
- Nails on a Blackboard: When Vogelbaum tries to apologise to Butcher for his actions, Butcher deliberately scrapes his chair along the floor to drown him out.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- In a misguided attempt to reconcile with Annie, Donna called Vought to terminate her time with The Seven. This leads Black Noir and Vought's forces to where Annie is so that they can apprehend her.
- Hughie tries to have Lamplighter lead the way to Annie to rescue her on a self-imposed mission. Lamplighter proceeds to lead him along until he gets what he really wanted: the right spot for his suicide. Fortunately, Butcher saves the plan.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Downplayed. Lamplighter doesn't lead Hughie to Annie, but his self-immolation causes the alarms to go off, which Starlight uses to fuel her powers for escape.
- Not His Sled: Black Noir is revealed to be African-American in this episode. This means that, unlike his comic counterpart, he isn't a clone of Homelander.
- "No. Just… No" Reaction: When Lamplighter suggests to Hughie that they watch a porn movie of Starlight having sex with A-Train.
- Not Me This Time:
- Vogelbaum claims that it was some other scientist with a god-complex that started and led Sage Grove's efforts.
- Neither Homelander, nor Stormfront were behind the attack on the hearing, even though they're happy to capitalize on it. In fact, Homelander actually looks confused when heads started to implode.
- Opinion Flip Flop: The Deep is well, very deep into the cult mentality of the Church. He praises Eagle the Archer as a brother for helping him out of a tough spot, until Alastair tells him he's been excommunicated from the Church. The Deep immediately switches to badmouthing him without a beat, and can't stand the mere sight of him later on.The Deep: Yeah, fuck him.A-Train: Thought he was your friend.
- Parallel Porn Titles: Lamplighter decides to watch a lot of those based on The Seven, from the cuckold-themed "Homelander: Red, White & Anal" to "Deep Does It in the Blowhole", while asking Hughie on which he'd like next between "Starlight pulls an A-Train", "Queen Maeve the Pleasure Slave", "Translucent and the Invisible Dong" and "Big Black Noir".
- Persona Non Grata: Eagle the Archer is announced by Alastair Adana to be this, decreed to have no contact with any of the Collective's members.
- Pet the Dog: Homelander notices Stormfront forlornly gazing at a woman and her baby (clearly missing her own daughter Adele), and takes her to meet his son Ryan to cheer her up.
- Plot Allergy: Queen Maeve saves Starlight from Black Noir by stuffing an Almond Joy into his mouth, which triggers his tree nut allergy and makes him go into an anaphylactic shock. This removes him from the rest of the season and it's implied he's in a state from which he might never recover, leaving Homelander short of yet another person on his side and leading to serious manpower shortage.
- Pretty Little Headshots: The clerk at the bodega is one of the first victims of violence not to be thoroughly deconstructed.
- Redemption Rejection: Starlight offers to take Maeve with her. Maeve refuses because she has nothing left to live for now that Elena's gone.
- Replacement Goldfish: Homelander had trouble connecting with Ryan because Becca still held too much influence over him. Once Stormfront comes along, he realizes there's no need for Becca anymore so he turns Ryan against her so Stormfront can raise him as his new mother.
- Required Secondary Powers: Turns out Lamplighter is only capable of controlling fire and isn't immune to it.
- Rule 34: Occurs in-universe. Sure enough, there are porn parodies of the Supes, but only Homelander gets his own porn name, Homebanger. Annie's mother is uncomfortable when she finds out there's some of her daughter.
- Self-Immolation: Lamplighter lights himself up.
- Shout-Out:
- Neuman paraphrases Omar Little's "you take a shot at the king, you better not miss" quote from The Wire.
- Stormfront tries to appeal to Ryan by noting what "kids these days" enjoy, such as NBA 2K and PewDiePie. This is as close as the show can get to mentioning the latter's well-known neonazi ties.
- Homelander's movies include "Homelander: In Darkest Day" and "Homelander: In Brightest Night."
- Ryan reenacted a couple of movies with lego characters. Amongst them are Terms of Endearment (which was already line-dropped earlier by Billy) and Dances with Wolves. The one we do see is a remake of The Blind Side.
- Single Tear:
- Maeve sheds one after Ashley reminds her that Elena is gone for good.
- Becca begging Homelander not to take her son from her.
- Snark-to-Snark Combat: Mallory and Vogelbaum have such an exchange when the former comes to the latter's estate to ask him some questions.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: A cover version of "It's a Wonderful World" plays over the scene where the cashier gets assassinated by a fear-mongered extra.
- Swiss-Cheese Security: Vought is pretty lax in its building security, including leaving Lamplighter's biometric data in the system for years after he was expelled from the Seven, while apparently not supplementing that one barrier with anything like CCTV monitoring or guards to prevent Lamplighter and Hughie from getting that far in the first place.
- Take That!:
- Ambiguous example, but Stormfront suggesting Ryan might like PewDiePie may have been meant as an allusion to some of the YouTuber's real-life controversies involving anti-Semitism and racism.
- Lamplighter's unpersoning from The Seven is likely a dig at DC and Warner Bros. treating the Green Lantern franchise as a liability ever since the 2011 film became a critical punching-bag.
- The opening montage is just a horrific demonstration of an isolated young man being radicalized by far right stochastic terrorismnote . He's listening to far right Alex Jones style podcasts, he's on internet image boards, he's a huge fan of Stormfront and catches all her appearances... and he becomes suspicious of the clerk at the bodega where he gets his morning coffee because a passing car's headlights make his eyes look strange for a moment, and murders him. To be clear, the young man isn't really the target of this Take That!, but rather the outlets that caused him to do what he did.
- That Liar Lies: Ryan calls his mother out for lying to him.
- Tough Love: Billy's father believed in this form of parenting.
- Two-Faced Aside: Becca shouts "dinner is ready" while quietly adding "assholes".
- Uncertain Doom: Black Noir is last seen in the midst of a severe allergy attack with his EpiPen several feet out of reach, and does not appear with the rest of the Seven at the Congressional hearing.
- Unperson: This happens to Eagle after his departure from the Church of the Collective. In addition to becoming Persona Non Grata, Alastair makes sure to note that Eagle is to be erased from the members' memory. A-Train as their latest recruit takes the most issue.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Vogelbaum recalls Homelander's childhood, and that his pushing for Homelander to be the best Supe and success that Vought ever had was never what Homelander wanted.
- Waking Up Elsewhere: Annie wakes up in a holding cell after Black Noir knocked her out in a cafe.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Black Noir has a tree nut allergy, which Maeve takes advantage of.
- We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties: How the broadcast for the Congressional hearing ends, but not before showing many heads exploding.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Lamplighter always wanted to make his father happy for his efforts as a Supe. Not being able to causes his suicide.
- Wham Episode: Starlight is outed as a mole and traitor to The Seven, and Lamplighter dies during the mission to rescue her. Homelander and Stormfront successfully convince Ryan to leave Beeca, and Billy blackmails Jonah Vogelbaum into testifying against Vought. The Congressional hearing begins and Jonah Vogelbaum shows up to testify, then people's heads start exploding including Vogelbaum and Shockwave. The Boys are left with no other prevailing solution, much to Billy's frustration and further thinking.
- Wham Line:
- When Congress begins their hearing, Vogelbaum is announced as their witness to testify.
- Ryan is in disbelief and angered that Becca lied to him.
- Wham Shot:
- Vogelbaum coming up to the stand after Congress calls him forth.
- The Congressman's head exploding.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Homelander asks why Vought hasn't executed Starlight yet after capturing her, but Stormfront says keeping her alive as a symbol for their base to hate is better.
- Xanatos Speed Chess: Hughie allowing Lamplighter to die before he could testify is quickly resolved when Billy replaces him with Vogelbaum as the witness.
- Your Head Asplode: At the Congressional hearing, the chairman, a witness then people in the gallery's heads explode by unknown means, causing chaos.
