Tear Jerker / The Boys (2019)

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

It should come as no surprise that for all the horrors of superheroes gone bad, there would be moments in The Boys (2019) showing the emotional impact it has on both civilians and occasionally supes themselves.

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General

Season 1

Episode 1 - "The Name of the Game"

• Hugh Campbell Sr. telling Hughie that he doesn't have the fight in him to go through with his lawsuit. It can especially strike with people who have trouble with confrontation or whose parents didn't believe in them. Even more so because we at this point don't know for a fact that he's wrong.
• Hughie goes into a store to buy beer...and sees that most of the store is littered with A-Train sponsored items^note For context, A-Train killed Hughie's girlfriend, Robin, earlier. The poor guy just about makes it to the counter before suffering a panic attack.
• The scene between Starlight and the Deep initially seems sweet, with him welcoming the nervous new girl to the team and the two having a nice, friendly conversation...until Starlight confesses she had an innocent crush on him which he immediately take as free rein to drop his pants which understandably freaks out Starlight and causes her powers to flare up. When Starlight tries to leave, he forces her into giving him oral sex by threatening to have her kicked out by lying that the damage she accidentally caused was her attacking him.
• When Starlight is on the phone with her mom and about to tell her that The Deep sexually assaulted her... then her mom talks about how impressed her friends are that Starlight is in The Seven. After that, Starlight just says everything is fine, hangs up and cries.

Episode 3 - "Get Some"

• When Hughie gets home after killing Translucent, he looks around at all his supe merchandise and then just starts smashing it all and ripping it all apart. He only stops when he sees he knocked down a picture of him and Robin. Then he just picks it up and stares at it for a moment.
  • Which of the supes did Hughie have the most merchandise of? A-Train.
  • Right after, Hughie's dad tries to get Hughie to talk to him, but Hughie just brushes him off and screams about how he has been unhappy with his life for a long time and never told him. However, at least Hughie stops to say he's sorry before he leaves.

• While the plane scene is packed with Nightmare Fuel, it's also heartbreaking to watch Maeve trying in vain to convince Homelander to at least try something to save the passengers while he shoots down every possible option because he simply doesn't want to. She is in tears as she's forced by Homelander to leave two little girls behind while he just seems annoyed at her for caring at all, falsely assuring the passengers that everything is under control to keep them quiet and docile and then viciously snapping at them once they find out he's going to abandon them to their fate. It's this scene that makes it clear that people mean nothing to Homelander, and if she didn't have superpowers, Maeve wouldn't matter to him, either.
  • A regretful Maeve choosing to take Homelander's hand to escape with him after he tells her not to die with the passengers, all while the passengers plead for her not to abandon them like he has.
  • Maeve is in a complete state of guilt when her and Homelander arrive to the shore where the wreckage washes up, remaining totally quiet during the interview. Infinitely worse is how an unfazed Homelander twists the entire situation to make them look innocent and to fuel Vought's agenda.
• As much as it is meant to cross the line twice, it is still tragic to watch The Deep fail to save the Dolphin, ending with it catapulting through his windshield and then being run over by a truck.
• Frenchie's story about how his abusive father kidnapped him and repeatedly burnt his leg with cigarettes, topped off by how Frenchie tried to run away home to his mom many times.
• Popclaw's death. After telling her how much he loves her, A-Train shoves about six Heroin syringes into her arms. She has just enough time to look at him and ask "Why?" before she dies.
  • Not helping is that A-Train tricked Popclaw into confessing that she gave information about Compound V by claiming that Vought would allow their relationship to be public as well as that the two of them would always have each other's backs.
• Hughie finally telling Starlight about Robin's death. Just before he tells her, she is convinced that he is just another person using her. Then he tells her and you hear him choking up and fighting back tears as he tells her that he doesn't think that anything will make it better. Then it crosses over with Heartwarming as the two hug each other.
  • Speaking of Robin, throughout the season Hughie would hallucinate her staring at him whenever he got too close to Annie. It's not until he opens up about Robin's death to Annie that he's able to let go and move on.
• Butcher's explanation of why he hates Supes so much: Homelander raped Butcher's wife and nobody's seen her since. Butcher actually begins to cry as he explains to Hughie that he knows what it's like to lose someone and that he and Hughie are in this together.
  • Butcher finding out about the rape through footage captured by Mallory of Homelander and Becca entering an office room like normal then cutting three hours later to Becca quietly wandering out beyond worse for wear. He's completely shocked that Homelander, supposedly a superhero, would do such a thing until Mallory states that it's only the tip of the iceberg of what the supes do behind closed doors.
• It doesn't excuse his actions, but seeing toddler Homelander alone in the lab being raised by scientists is still rather depressing to see.
  • The scene also gives context to why he exploded at the documentary makers for including his actual baby blanket in the home they set up for the fake documentary they are making about his childhood. The blanket was one of the very few things he was allowed as a child, a playmate, a toy, something to keep him warm. Probably the only good thing about his past. And then they tarnished it with their lies.
    • Holding this blanket alone provokes the memories and genuine tears from Homelander, and as usual, Anthony Starr magnificently sells the grief.
• While leaving to going with the FBI, Mother's Milk's wife tells him that she never wants to see him again. Then before his daughter leaves too, he stops her to tell her he loves and he hugs her for what will probably be the last time.
• During a moment alone in the bathroom, the normally disheveled Kimiko combs her hair and puts on clean clothes, then tries to speak... but can only make a slight gagging sound with her throat.
• The Deep getting raped by one of his fans. Given his last sexual misconduct, it’s somewhat of a twisted form of karma, but the audience gets no satisfaction out of it. Especially since he's shown to be in a great deal of pain as it happens.
• Homelander's reaction to Dr. Vogelbaum's story about Rebecca's alleged miscarriage. While it is later revealed to be a farce, and in no way excuses the fact that Homelander himself raped her, he seems genuinely shaken and saddened at the thought of his newborn child dying. As Vogelbaum points out, all Homelander truly wanted all his life was a family who genuinely cared for him, and for a moment Homelander believed he had lost his only chance to have that.
• Unlike the Dolphin scene, The Deep failing to save the lobster is played surprisingly straight with the clerk stabbing the knife right into the lobster's head as The Deep is trying to stop him.
• There’s also The Deep shaving his head. As deplorable as his actions are, the amount of self hatred, shame, and regret on display makes you feel for him.
• Starlight confronting her mother about Compound V. Just like all other superheroes, Annie was given Compound V as an infant to make her a Supe. Donna pushed Annie into becoming one of The Seven for her entire life and denied her the chance to decide for herself what she wanted. After months of being worn down by Vought's corruption and Hughie's manipulation, Annie finally loses it and rips into her mother about all the lies she told her and the life she pushed her into, and Donna doesn't even seem to understand just how much she hurt her own daughter.
  • Annie also learns that her father left the family when she was a kid because he couldn't stand using and lying to her anymore, whereas before she thought he bailed on them due to money troubles.

Season 2

• In the teaser for Season 2, Homelander, here a boy no older than eleven years, is sitting alone with a tutor showing him a slideshow of what he loves about America. When he sees a painting of a family eating together, he asks if she can be his mommy, and she goes along with it. He gives her a hug, and accidentally breaks her back and crushes her internal organs, killing her. After the scientists who have been monitoring them go into the lab and say they'll just get him another tutor, one of them notes to Vogelbaum that the boy is suffering from depression as a result of being isolated and alone.
• An unintentional one is Translucent's funeral, owing to the series being released just a week after the death of Black Panther (2018) actor Chadwick Boseman.
• The Deep continues his humiliation this season, though he's at least being nudged in a better direction... by a Church of Happyology. For the moment, however, he has to deal with Vought downplaying his existence and confronting his inner demons with Eagle the Archer's help. Again, his actions are despicable, but seeing him broken still brings some sympathy to mind.
• The current situation of The Boys is not doing them any well for morale. Now nationally wanted criminals, MM can't see his family and tries to get as much info about them as possible from Raynor, their CIA contact. Frenchie had to quickly make arrangements for them at his gangbanger allies' base, and he's horrified to know that they've been making profits from human trafficking. Hughie states that he no longer has his father, his job, or Annie, which is what pushes him to try to pursue Vought and continue the team's mission.
• Kimiko reunites with her brother, Kenji, but he's also the team's target. He resists their attempt at capture and runs off, causing Kimiko to abandon them in order to catch up with him, much to Frenchie's sorrow.
• Kimiko and Kenji's reunion is rather bittersweet, with them lamenting the horrors that they've faced and how they couldn't be there to protect each other. To make matters worse, Kenji is still allied with Shining Light and wants to pursue their goals, while Kimiko just wants them to return to a quiet village life.
  • Their conflicting views cause them to have a falling out, with Kenji throwing her off but still being very pained in doing so. She eventually decides to apprehend him, and by the next episode she's trying to convince her brother that The Boys can help and that she'll stop any attempts to torture him.
• Homelander continues to forcefully visit Rebecca and their son, Ryan. He makes it clear that he intends to break Ryan into becoming just like him, and his mental torture of Rebecca the whole time is painful to watch. She tries to negotiate with the people behind the deal that she made for Ryan's safety, but they decide not to do anything about Homelander. Becca breaks down badly when she's talking with them, and on the verge of tears. And given what happened between her and Homelander, she's justifiably and absolutely terrified of him and wants him gone.
  • Homelander finds a picture of Butcher in her belongings, implying she misses her husband.
  • Homelander's prodding for Ryan to show his powers continues, with his son now angrily disowning him and standing up to him by using his super-strength to push him off of Rebecca. Poor kid...
  Ryan: I'm nothing like you!!
• Butcher is haunted by the finale of Season 1, keeping track of all the details that he could surmise before Homelander quickly relocated him back into the city. He doesn't know that Rebecca is being held in some sort of compound, but he made sure to memorize every detail of her location that he could.
  • After the botched attempt to capture Kenji, he tries to get the others to follow him. When they refuse because it's Kimiko's brother, Butcher finally breaks down from the realization of Becca being isolated and raising Homelander's bastard son and reveals everything to the others. He stops deflecting Hughie's criticism and is begging for help in the hope he can somehow find her again.
• The Deep and Black Noir's pained reactions to learning the truth about Compound V, with The Deep recalling the effect his powers had on his childhood and how his mother (who would have been the one to give him Compound V) lied about it.
• Going through some storm drains during a mission to capture a super terrorist in Season 2, Hughie is all but broken. He sees Starlight and immediately cheers up only for her to blast him. Homelander appears and gives Annie a Sadistic Choice: Kill Hughie or he will kill both of them. After some hesitation, Starlight's hands light up and you can see that Hughie is done. He is going to die at the hands of the woman he loves and he has no fight left in him. He closes his eyes and waits for the inevitable.
  • Even worse, Annie’s resistance completely folds only after Hughie makes it clear he’s okay with it by nodding subtly. Hughie knows she doesn’t want to kill him, but he doesn’t want Starlight to die.
• Stormfront shows her true colors, slaughtering an entire complex of black civilians when Kimiko and Kenji make their way through it. By the end of their chase and fight, she mocks Kenji as she breaks his hands, chokes him out and hurls a racist remark at him before snapping his neck. All in front of a worn-down Kimiko.
  • As Stormfront makes her appearance to the press during Vought's project to help the civilians at the scene, which places all blame of the damages onto Kimiko's brother, Kimiko is last seen glaring at the television, swearing revenge.
• Mallory meets with Billy to discuss further missions and research, pointing to a Supe known as "Liberty" that Raynor was keeping tabs on. Before they depart, Mallory divulges the location of Becca to him, despite their arrangements falling through. Billy is hesitant to take it but Mallory insists, recalling a dream where she is looked upon by an audience of people that fell victim to superheroes. She wants one less pair of eyes on her, giving Billy what he's wanted for so long.
• The previous encounter with Stormfront eats away at Kimiko, who continues to watch the television as Kenji is painted as a complete villain on national television. Frenchie, on drugs, tries to ensure her that none of this is her fault and tries to alleviate the pain in a very misguided attempt.
  • He later visits Cherie in a drunken stupor, and when they settle down to speak, he tells her how much trouble he has in connecting with Kimiko. Cherie responds that he needs to give her time to mourn, and she hits a point of contention for Frenchie when she mentions Lamplighter's burning of Mallory's grandchildren.
  • Kimiko heads to a rally held by Stormfront with the intent to fight and kill her there, with the memories of their last fight and her brother's death playing over and over in her mind. Before she can strike, Frenchie stops her to prevent anything from getting worse, and she is left with the image of Stormfront smugly soaring through the air when the rally is done.
• In an incredibly twisted way, Homelander opening up about his childhood to Ryan. Granted, it's all a blatant attempt at manipulating his son into viewing Supes as superior just as he believes, but when Homelander reveals he didn't actually have parents, he quite visibly struggles with what he is talking about. Him talking about the loneliness and isolation a Supe feels is clearly his way of trying to get Ryan on board with his worldview, but as later episodes as well as Diabolical show, he wasn't lying. He spent his formative years as a lab rat, being subjected to horrific experiments and being groomed into the next Supe superstar with his only "family" being the uncaring scientists keeping an eye on him, as well as Vought suits like Stillwell, who aside from being the only "mother figure" he had, also groomed him into a bizarre sexual relationship as he got older.
• Billy finally reunites with Becca, but their reunion is bittersweet. She chooses to stay back in Vought's arrangement for her family as she intends to raise Ryan in a loving environment, while Billy desperately tries to convince her to leave with him and had planned on abandoning the boy (even dismissing him as a "Supe freak"). She further confirms that Homelander raped her, and then explains the circumstances of her disappearance: Becca recounts how the anger boiling in Billy has been there long before she entered his life, and that she feared him snapping one day. Knowing this, she went to Vought before she ever considered going to him, under the worry about what he'd do when he found out about what Homelander did to her. Despite how much she loves him, Becca declines to leave in order to keep raising Ryan and refuses to see where Billy's rampage will end. Butcher's main motivation is now called into question, and his previous hopes for Becca, though already little, are now fully dashed.
• Homelander's Imagine Spot at the Neuman rally where he loses control and just lasers a whole crowd of people who were chanting him down, and instead of satisfaction, his response appears to be confusion and being disturbed of committing such an act. It goes to show that as unhinged as Homelander is, mass destruction and murder doesn't bring him any joy.
• Mother's Milk and Annie bond over their fathers and their experiences with sugared treats. Annie recounts her father going out of his way to sneak donuts for her and would sit down and listen to her speak her mind. Mother's Milk shares a story of his father tasting every flavor at Baskin-Robbins. While embarrassing for him at the time, now that his father is gone, he'd give anything to see his father do it all over again.
• Just outside the restaurant, a car crash happens. Annie wants to use her powers to help, but The Boys remind her that they need to keep a low profile. She hesitantly complies and looks on as someone at the scene calls 911, and they take off discreetly.
• Mother's Milk's backstory is further revealed. His father was a lawyer that believed in justice and that nobody was above the law, not even a force like Vought. So he went to work for many days in trying to tear the company down, taking a toll on his health. Vought would never back down and use every power and corrupt official in retaliation. Their conflict continued until, one day, MM's father died hunched over his old typewriter. His fight was passed down to Mother's Milk, and now MM worries that it could potentially be passed onto his own family.
• Valerie, the person that Raynor's address directed The Boys to, has her own horrible encounter with Supes and Vought. Back in the 70s on one rainy day, the superhero known as Liberty stopped her brother in the middle of a road with her in the backseat. Pulled from his car, her brother was brutally beaten by the Supe, who then said that they were being a hero in "killing a black piece of shit like [him]". Valerie saw half of her brother's face crushed from the blows as he bled to death on the hood of their vehicle.
  • Vought then paid a visit and offered monetary damages to the family afterwards, in an attempt to cover up the incident. The value of her brother's life was only a couple thousand dollars, and she was pressured into keeping everything under wraps as their family had little. Hughie is pained from being all too familiar with this.
  • To this day, Valerie lives in fear of her life being threatened by Liberty again, refusing to see The Boys under the chance that they're with Vought. Hughie tries to reason that Liberty can't be active anymore since she hasn't been seen since 1979. Cue Valerie pulling up an article featuring Stormfront.
• Even after the road trip and bonding that Annie did with Hughie and Mother's Milk, she affirms that her and Hughie's relationship will not work. They depart, with Hughie wistfully looking on as Annie heads back to Vought.
• The confrontation between Frenchie and Kimiko in the church. He pleads with her to stop killing as a means to process her grief, but Kimiko rejects Frenchie's help in sign language, and he ultimately decides to just leave after telling her, "Fuck you".
• Hughie learns that Butcher had a younger brother, Lenny, who was the only person that kept him from going completely off the rails. It's implied something bad led to his death, as well as the fact that Butcher appears to see Lenny in Hughie.
• Lamplighter finally appears, and after all the buildup of him being one of the worst Supes of all who burned Mallory's grandchildren to death... it turns out he was only after Mallory because she was blackmailing him into informing on the Seven, and had no idea the kids were in the house, but by the time he heard their screams it was already too late. Frenchie is actually moved to beg Mallory to spare his life, even arguing that it would be Cruel Mercy to leave him in his emotional torment.
  • Frenchie tries to offer his condolences again when Mallory arrives, and he quickly makes mention of how he was not welcome at the funeral.
  • When they meet again, Mallory is on the verge of tears and shaking when she trains her gun on him. She admits that she isn't fully over the incident, and Lamplighter is so regretful over it that he's willing to let her kill him.
  Mallory: I thought I was over this... but I'm not.
  Ryan: Then let's both be done with it. Do it.
• Frenchie's backstory is further revealed. Originally a career criminal, he was caught and offered work by Mallory in exchange for no jail time and his friends' freedom. He only budges for the latter half of this offer, showing that they mean a lot to him. On the night that Mallory's grandchildren were killed, he stopped tailing Lamplighter when he got word of his friend overdosing. While he made sure that Jay was fine, he left his friends in order to continue his mission, but in only a short amount of time, he failed both. After Frenchie couldn't stop Lamplighter, Jay cut his ties with the group and overdosed again, this time fatally. The incident has rattled Frenchie since, and it was such a devastating event that it broke The Boys up for a time with Mallory's retirement.
  • Mother's Milk says that The Boys would have let Frenchie off the hook if he had told them of what really happened that night. Whether it be out of obligation to the movement, atoning for his failure on that day or any other similar reason, Frenchie responds:
  Frenchie: What makes you think I want to be left off the hook, huh?
• The Sage Grove compound's patients suffer Vought's inhumane testing, their powers forming (at times uncontrollably and often painfully), and being taken from their homes. Under the basis of declining mental health, at least one test subject loses contact with their family and is given the promise to be able to leave when Vought is done with them. They are all disposed of when no longer needed or when they protest too much, and some of the subjects are minors, causing Lamplighter's hesitation in killing them. Seeing all of the subjects struggle and curled up in balls on the security footage is saddening.
• While she's a racist Super Supremacist with plans to create an army of Supes and wipe out the "lesser races", you can't help but feel a little sad for Stormfront when you learn about her backstory. She was Fredrick Vought's first successful test subject and later wife and mother of his child, both of whom are long since dead. Even if she's using Homelander, you can hear it in her voice that she's desperate to finally have someone who can understand what it means to be alone.
• Right before Lamplighter's suicide, he dejectedly notes that the Seven have replaced his statue and quietly tells Hughie that all he ever wanted was to make his dad proud by becoming a superhero. Despite the fact that the man killed Mallory's grandkids, his guilt over their accidental murder has weighed on him for years. And even if one cannot forgive him over that, the utterly heartbroken look on his face from visiting the place where his life went downhill that had already replaced him is enough to evoke sympathy.
• Elena coming to terms with Maeve's hand in the plane incident. While she's willing to accept it wasn't her fault Homelander left them to die, she starts to question everything else about Maeve's life as a super hero as a result and when she wants out Maeve has a violent outburst and flips the table in the apartment, further horrifying Elena and cementing her leaving.
• We find out that, as the brothers grew older, Lenny killed himself while Billy entered the SAS. Their father, Sam Butcher, brushes him off in favor of the rage-filled man that Billy became.
• There's something just... sad about Noir weakly trying to reach for his epi-pen, only for Maeve to kick it out of his grasp.
• We hear more about Homelander's childhood, that he was a kinder child that Vogelbaum genuinely cared for. Pushing Homelander into the role of Vought's greatest Supe adds more to Vogelbaum's regret.
• Vogelbaum is absolutely horrified at Billy threatening to kill his entire family if he doesn't comply. This is after he allowed him to enter his property and willingly answered some of his questions, knowing that his creation, Homelander, has brought Butcher much trouble in life.
• Eagle the Archer becoming an Un-person in the eyes of the church. They not only cut all ties with him, but leak embarrassing footage to hurt his public perception. Even worse is how The Deep immediately disparages him despite Eagle trying to help him.
  • There are two ways that you can read The Deep’s words against Eagle. Either he’s just following what the church says, or he’s truly been brainwashed enough by them to actually feel that way about Eagle.
• Starlight mentions that she had previously been inspired by Maeve's autobiography, where she saved a bus load of school children, and now she doesn't even know if it actually happened or it was just something created by a PR team.
  • Maeve later reveals that it did indeed happen, and she used to be a Wide-Eyed Idealist just like Starlight.
  "And then I started giving pieces of myself away, and I guess I gave away everything."
  • While her You Are Better Than You Think You Are speech is mainly heartwarming, it is bittersweet in that Maeve thinks it's too late for her to do any good in the world and accepts "my position is already taken" as the jaded washout.
• It doubles a bit as heartwarming, but Billy deciding to cancel his plans with Edgar to trick Becca into abandoning Ryan and begging her to leave him is heartbreaking. He realizes that her love for her son is strong and genuine, and neither Billy nor Homelander had a healthy childhood. Butcher knows himself too well, and although all he wants is to live happily ever after with his wife and possibly have a family of his own, he can’t, because as long as he’s with either Ryan or Becca, they won’t be safe, and Ryan might end up like either him or his father.
• Butcher pulls a lot of strings and makes a lot of risky decisions, but he finally manages to get Becca and Ryan out of Vought's grasp. Then Stormfront catches them and attacks Becca, her intentions to supplant Becca as Ryan's mother now made clear. Butcher can't even hurt Stormfront, so it's up to Ryan to save his mother. Ryan's heat-vision flares up, everything goes white and we see that he was able to wreck Stormfront. Unfortunately, Becca is fatally wounded, either by Stormfront or Ryan accidentally getting her in the crossfire. Butcher - the man who never shows fear or vulnerability - can do nothing but impotently scream for help. Knowing that it's futile, he savours what few moments he can with Becca.
  Billy: HELP US! SOMEBODY HELP US!
  • Then when Becca dies, Butcher glances to Ryan, then to the crowbar he'd brought along, and it's all too clear he's planning to murder Becca's son in a fit of rage. It's not until Homelander intervenes and Ryan picks Butcher over him that Butcher regains his reason and decides to take care of the boy.
  • One wonder's what's going through Butcher's head when Homelander appears. Is he realizing how afraid Ryan is of Homelander? Is he realizing he's not so different from Homelander and has to be a better man than that? Both?
    • Becca spends her final moments desperately telling Butcher that it's not Ryan's fault, and that Ryan's a good kid, and to make sure he knows that. And all Ryan can do is keep crying and apologizing.
    • Her last moment isn’t telling Butcher how much she loves him-it’s ‘’desperately’’ trying to convince Butcher to forgive Ryan because she knows exactly what Butcher is about to do next.
• The look of rage and sheer loss on Butcher’s face when he picks up a crowbar and prepares to kill Ryan for accidentally killing Becca.
• Homelander's arrival can be seen as tearjerking itself... for him, surprisingly enough. He saw his love burned and mutilated, and any chance of the normal family he could've had is gone. And all that was taken from him.
  • Maeve shows up at the last second to blackmail Homelander and stop him from killing Butcher... and Homelander fights back tears because, once again, he finally found a human connection with someone, it it was ripped away from him again.
• Why does Hughie love Billy Joel so much? Well he explains that he and his mother used to listen to it all the time when he was a kid, and then one day she just... left without explanation. And now it's something he hangs onto.
• It's a quick shot, but during the scene where she's been taking care of Ryan, we see that Ashley is developing a bald spot, probably from the terrible stress of her position.
• An Alas, Poor Villain example comes in the form of Stormfront at the end of the season. After getting burnt to a crisp and her limbs cut off by Ryan, she starts incoherently babbling in German. The translation can definitely stir at least some feeling for her, even if she's one of the most morally reprehensible characters in the series.
  Stormfront: Es war so schön. Wie wir dort zu dritt gesessen, im Schatten eines Apfelbaums. Erinnerst du dich an den Tag Frederick? Chloe hat die Arme aus dem Autofenster gestreckt. Wir haben den perfekten Platz am Fluss gefunden, im Schatten eines Apfelbaums. Es war das erste mal dass Chloe frische Äpfel gegessen hat. ...war so glücklich. Es war herrlich. Ich wollte dass er nie zu Ende geht. ^Translation "It was so beautiful. How the three of us sat there, in the shade of an apple tree. Do you remember the day, Frederick? Chloe's arms out of the car window. We found the perfect spot by the river, in the shade of an apple tree. It was the first time Chloe ate fresh apples.... Was so happy. It was wonderful. I wanted it to never end."

Season 3

• Kimiko gets an Imagine Spot where she performs a beautiful rendition of "Dream a Little Dream of Me", the she spends some time struggling to play the song on a little electronic piano. It shows what she's lost and how it haunts her.
• In a sendup of All-Star Superman, Homelander is set up with the opportunity to talk a girl out of killing herself. An entire camera crew is watching from the ground, which immediately cheapens the moment, followed by Homelander's rather apathetic attempts to reason with the girl. Then when Homelander finds out via a newscast that Stormfront killed herself while he was out, he just loses it and coldly orders his intended rescue to kill herself. Made worse by the fact she appeared to have calmed down and decided to live while he was distracted, only to jump off when it became clear that Homelander was not going to let her get off the roof any other way.
• Despite the horror and sheer ridiculousness of the situation, you can’t help but feel bad for Termite after the death of his partner, given his emotional reaction.
• Even though he's the last person in the series to deserve pity, Homelander has to maintain his public image by starring in a movie where he kills Stormfront, the only woman in his life who actually gave a shit about him and could actually survive the relationship with him. The entire corny scene in the movie where Homelander unites with The Seven has him give a look that says "Why are you making me do this?"
• Homelander undermines Starlight by bringing the Deep back to the Seven. You can just tell that Starlight is seriously triggered by his appearance.
• Butcher tells Ryan he can no longer see him. When Ryan tries to stop him, Butcher makes the boy leave by telling him he was responsible for Becca’s death. Ryan just tells Butcher he hates him and leaves. The look on Butchers makes it clear that he regrets having said that to him.
• The Deep befriends an octopus he named Timothy. Homelander forces Deep to eat him alive. And since the Deep can talk to sea life, he can hear Timothy begging for his life the whole time. Not helping is that Deep's sham-wife is also pressuring him to eat Timothy.
• Hughie discovering that Victoria Neuman is not just the head popper, but Stan Edgar's adopted daughter. He's spent the last year believing he was fighting Vought 'the right way,' only to discover it's been all for nothing.
  • And later when telling Annie to stay close to the increasingly unstable Homelander. They are both distraught that they are forced to agree with Butcher's methods. That they have to be as 'mean and fucked-up' as Neuman and Homelander despite how much they hate doing it.
  • The man Victoria kills is an old friend from Red Rivers and she is very conflicted over having to do it. Despite attempting to kill her in self-defense, Victoria is still fighting back tears and doing her damned hardest not to cry after killing him.
• Black Noir, in the past, was a plucky and talkative guy who wanted to get some exposure as a superhero. Then after being whatever happened in Nicaragua hit him, he was left mute and disfigured, staring up at Mallory like a wounded puppy and trying to murmur at her through a mouthful of blood.
• While he's only trying to stay relevant, it's tough to watch A-Train try to bring attention to an overly abusive hero terrorizing black neighborhoods only to get shot down by Homelander and The Deep.
• Whatever the Russians did to Soldier Boy, it gave him the ability to nullify super powers via an explosive chest ray. The Boys find out first-hand when Kimiko pushes Frenchie out of the blast zone, but she doesn't heal from it.
• Supersonic's brutal murder by Homelander. Annie is shown his mangled body and is reduced to hopeless tears as Homelander threatens to do the same to Hughie if she tries to plot against him again.
  • Heck, Annie's situation in general. Not only is she being forced to interact with The Deep, the man who sexually assaulted her, once more, an utterly heart-wrenching situation, but Homelander is also forcing her to be his stage girlfriend and basically dance to his tune otherwise he'll destroy the world.
• Maeve revealing to Starlight that she's secretly been training so she can have a chance, however small, to take out Homelander. She's clearly haunted and guilt-ridden over the doomed flight, and doesn't care if she dies in the attempt.
• Sure, Edgar is a son-of-a-bitch who has no qualms about doing the dirty thing to get what he wants. But it's easy to feel bad for him as Victoria turns the tables on him during the press conference. He's only able to muster a shaken "why?" as he's ushered out of the room.
• Victoria injects her daughter with Compound V to protect her, and it is as heartbreaking as it is horrifying. The V forcibly twists and contorts her spine and poor Zoe can only howl and sob in agony as the process drags on. All the while, Neuman is comforting Zoe and silently crying at having to make her beloved daughter go through the ordeal.
• The Boys' reaction when Hughie reveals he injected some of Butcher's Temp V stash. They clearly see him as the soul of the team, and the revelation that he would go down Butcher's road disappoints them all, including Butcher himself.
• It's difficult not to feel bad for A-Train even after what he did to Supersonic. In a genuine attempt, albeit heavily tainted by Vought's desire for good press, he tries to work on the Blue Hawk issue and uses his new loyalty to Homelander to get a meeting with Blue Hawk and organize an apology. It ends with Blue Hawk crippling his brother so badly he will never walk again and Blue Hawk pining the situation on Antifa, avoiding any repercussions like Vought is so prone to do with their heroes.
• Maeve and Butcher's sex scene. It is very clear that the two are acting the way they do because they are drunk, after spending four months (in Butcher's case, a year) sober, and because of the sheer hopelessness they feel.
  • Do the math with Butcher's statement. Butcher likely stopped drinking because of Ryan.
• Soldier Boy's reunion with Crimson Countess. He admits that he still held out hope that he was going to be rescued by her, only for her to reveal not only did she sell him out to the Russians of her own volition without a bribe, but that she and the rest of Payback had ALWAYS hated him. While Soldier Boy's done terrible things, it's hard not to feel a little sorry for him in this moment after all he's gone through.
  • It's a complete contrast to how Homelander reacted to Maeve's admission she's not only hated him, but also pitied him; whilst Homelander just sees it as another blow to his ego, with Soldier Boy he's genuinely heartbroken, proving his own emotions run much deeper.
  • This moment is turned on its head after episode 6, where it's revealed Soldier Boy didn't just subject Gunpowder to "hazing" beatings but also Noir and likely every other member of Payback. Soldier Boy wasn't shocked and betrayed by his team's lack of true companionship, he was just so arrogant he genuinely thought they'd still come to his rescue even with him regularly abusing and battering them.
• A-Train's attempt to make Blue Hawk issue a public apology goes horribly wrong when Blue Hawk ends up assaulting several of the bystanders, including injuring his brother Nate to the point he'll never walk again. Even if you hate A-Train, Nate certainly didn't deserve to suffer that.
• Hughie and Starlight have two fights over his use of Temp V and his support of Billy's plan to use Soldier Boy against Homelander. The second fight is more devastating, as Hughie is doing all this in part to protect Annie, but Annie is afraid of the path he is going down. At the end, he asks her to join him and the others, but she refuses and leaves him.
  • And then there's the fight they have near the end of 3.06. An emotional Hughie finally admits that he's tired of being 'the one who needs saving,' and is addicted to Temp V because Annie being physically stronger than him does bother him. A heartbroken Annie realizes that the drugs weren't really affecting her lover, but revealing who he was the entire time. And when he tries to stop her from going back to help the victims in Soldier Boy's latest attack, she uses her powers to neutralize him.
• Marvin being dosed with rohypnol by Butcher in 3.05 so he doesn't attack Solder Boy. The fallout happens in 3.06, with Marvin calling out Butcher's hypocrisy for wanting to kill Homelander while not allowing Marvin to go after Soldier Boy, another supe who also broke his family.
  • Before that, Marvin goes up against Soldier Boy...and loses. The sad part? He knew that would happen.
• Homelander's meltdown in front of the mirror, where he admits that he only wants to be loved, and fears both Soldier Boy and failure. Even though he is a psychotic killer, that moment is heartbreaking. Especially considering how lonely he is, as even Black Noir seems to have ditched him.
  • It gets worse when the version of him in the mirror yells at him for feeling anything and still desiring a family and human connections.
  • And shortly after, before an interview goes live with him and Starlight, he gently takes her hand and thanks her for being there. He knows that she's faking the relationship, both loathes and fears him, but he's so desperate and lonely that he'll convince himself that Annie cares about him.
• The reveal of Black Noir’s history with Soldier Boy. Before he was Noir, he was just an ambitious young man named Earving that wanted people to see his real face and personality. Unfortunately, Soldier Boy didn’t like the idea of Noir moving up into the spotlight. So, he deliberately sabotaged the latter’s chances of getting into the movie industry. When Earving confronts him about this, he merely disses him off as "not funny” and “not good enough", and when Earving continues to complain, Soldier Boy decides to beat him to a bloody pulp in front of the rest of Payback to make an example out of him.
  • Even worse, it turns out Soldier Boy is the reason why Earving became scarred and mute in the first place. He burned his face horribly and bashed his skull in to the point that his brains were on the ground. As such, his fans never got the chance to see Earving for who he really was; The public only cares about the persona of Black Noir. No wonder almost everyone hates and fears Soldier Boy.
  • Not to mention how it’s implied that Black Noir’s only friends throughout his life were imaginary cartoon restaurant mascots.
• Billy's nightmare of his younger brother Lenny's suicide. It's clear Butcher already feels huge guilt that his commitment to the Army meant he wasn't able to try and stop what happened, but Lenny's spectre outright accuses him of willingly leaving him at the mercy of their abusive father and outright calls Billy a monster who gets everyone he loves, like Lenny and Becca, killed, as well as implying Butcher will inevitably get Hughie killed as well before pulling the trigger as Billy screams in horror.
  Lenny: You served me up to him on a plate.
  Billy: No I, I didn't. I, I wouldn't.
  Lenny: It's been six months and you come home to check on me not once.
  Billy: Len, I'm sorry but they, they just wouldn't let me out of the barracks. [Lenny pulls out and loads a pistol] Oh Jesus, no. Please, fuck no.
  Lenny: He's beating the living shit out of me, Billy. Day in and day out. I can't take no more.
  Billy: Please, Len. Don't.
  Lenny: You fucking knew what he'd do. It's your fault.
  Billy: No, don't say that! That's not true! I, I'm not that bastard!
  Lenny: Come off it, Billy. You always have been, 'cause anyone who's ever loved you, you end up getting them killed, don't you? Me. Becca. Now Hughie, the last person on God's green earth trying to stop you from being a monster and what do you do? Drag him down to your level. When he dies, and he will, then no one can stop you. Can they? [puts the gun to his head]
  Billy: No! LENNY NO!!!! [gunshot]
  • The moment right before showing a younger Billy trying to sneak out and disappear but gets caught by Lenny, who begs him to stay because he can't handle their nightmare father alone and the adult Billy watching continues to further mirror his hated rival as he pleads with himself (albeit his younger self rather than a literal mirror) to listen to Lenny and not leave.
    Lenny: Please don't leave me alone with him, I can't hack it.
    Young!Billy: ...You'll be fine.
    Adult!Billy: No...he won't. Fucking listen to him!
• Soldier Boy turning out to be Homelander's father. Not only was Soldier Boy robbed of raising his son, and Homelander robbed of having an actual parent, but Soldier Boy was essentially replaced by his own child. They are both horrible people, but they both also lost their chances of having a real family.
  • It also means that, on some level, Homelander was lied to about his origins. He was meant to feel like a lab experiment for no reason other than cruelty. Which says all anyone needs to know about how Vought both views and treats supes.
  • And there's the implication that Vought was trying to do the same to Homelander, by replacing him with his son Ryan.
• Feeling like he's finally found his family, Homelander fully reveals himself emotionally to Soldier Boy, shedding tears as he opens up about his vulnerabilities. How does Homelander's father react? By calling him a disappointment and trying to strangle him to death. Homelander is a psychopath, but it still feels downright cruel that his newly-discovered father would try to kill him for revealing his humanity.

  Soldier Boy: Maybe if I'd raised you...I could've made you better. And not some weak, sniveling pussy starved for attention. But there's no fixing that now.

  Homelander: W-Weak? I'm you.

  Soldier Boy: I know. You're a fucking disappointment. (grabs Homelander's throat)

  • This also adds Soldier Boy to the list of men that Homelander looked up to/feared that reject him. Vogelbaum, the man who 'raised' him, called him '[his] worst failure.' Stan Edgar dismissed Homelander as nothing more than 'bad product.' Now his biological father calls him 'a fucking disappointment.'
  • Notably, Homelander had just gotten done killing Noir for keeping this secret for him. He killed the closest thing he had to a friend for the sake of someone disgusted by him.
• Billy choosing to hide the truth about Temp V from Hughie, even after he realized he's leading him down the same path Lenny went. Made worse by how Billy's face sinks as the scene ends. He knows his desire for revenge is turning him into the same monster as Homelander and his father, and he hates that he can't stop it.
• Nate disowns A-Train after he figures out he killed Blue Hawk in retribution and covers it up by pinning it on Soldier Boy, effectively martyring him and ensuring the community he brutalized never gets justice.
• Maeve throwing the nerve agent out the window. She is so desperate to kill Homelander that she is willing to allow Soldier Boy to kill others as well.
• Soldier Boy telling Butcher about his fraught relationship with his own father. He grew up privileged enough to attend boarding school and got expelled. After his father wrote him off as 'a disappointment not worth carrying the family name', he used his father's connections to get into Vought's clinical trials for compound V and became Soldier Boy. And despite all the accolades and fans, his father still wasn't impressed. Because 'a real man wouldn't have cheated.' It offers a rare moment of humanity into the sociopathic supe.
• Black Noir’s death after he reveals to Homelander that he knew about Soldier Boy’s connection to him. The last thing he sees are his cartoon friends comforting him tearfully and assuring him that he'll go to heaven.
  • This is also a twisted tearjerker for Homelander as well. Homelander did genuinely saw Black Noir as a friend, and breaks down when he realizes Noir has kept secrets from him. You can see the heartbreak on Homelander's face as he kills Noir and he can't even bring himself to look at him in his final moments. He brings Noir's helmet with him into a meeting with A-Train, the Deep, and Ashley, and bitterly tells them that Noir was worth more than all of them put together.
  • To make it even worse, his death is all for nothing because Soldier Boy wants nothing to do with Homelander and calls him a disappointment. Homelander killed the only person he considered a friend and he was right about Soldier Boy being a bad person.
• The ending shows that everything that Butcher did this season was ultimately for nothing. Soldier Boy - the one supe who could depower and kill his enemy - is neutralized and put back into cryostasis, Homelander is alive and more popular than ever in certain demographics, Victoria Neumann is on the ticket to being Vice President of the United States, the rest of the Boys no longer respect or trust him, and Ryan is now in Homelander's full custody. Oh, and his abuse of Temp V has wrecked his body so badly that he probably has less than a year to live, 18 months at best.
• Seeing Ryan smiling after the crowd cheers for Homelander murdering someone. Everything Becca went through, all the blood, sweat and tears she shed to make sure her son would never be corrupted by Homelander, it was all for nothing. Overall paints a very bleak picture for Season 4.
• M.M opening up to Annie about why he hates Soldier Boy so much. As a young boy, Marvin was woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of Soldier Boy confronting a group of youths attempting to steal a Mercedes Benz. Excited over seeing America's hero in action, Marvin woke up his grandfather, and the two observed the scene together. However, during the altercation, Soldier Boy picked up the car and flung it into the brownstone building which Marvin and his grandfather were observing from. The car missed Marvin by mere inches, whereas it crashed directly into his grandfather, killing him. In season 2, Marvin also mentioned how his father died of stress when he was trying to hold Vought and Soldier Boy accountable for their actions. After the death of his grandfather, Marvin blamed himself for what happened and insists that if he didn't wake up his grandfather, then Soldier Boy wouldn't have killed him, Every night since then, Marvin performs his obsessive-compulsive routine out of fear that Soldier Boy will come back and kill the rest of his family if he doesn't.

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