Since Soldier Boy was put on ice at the end of season three, we’ve been waiting around to see how he’d come back. And after President Calhoun led Homelander to the CIA bunker with his cryogenic capsule at the end of season four, it became pretty clear: Homelander would eventually bring his father back to life.
That’s what happens in “Teenage Kix,” an episode that reintroduces Soldier Boy to the narrative in a big way. On one level, Homelander just wants a dad; he’s lonelier than ever, especially in the wake of A-Train’s “loss.” (It’s a sign of his delusion — and his total lack of experience with actual family and friendships — that some part of him still thinks of A-Train as a little brother.) Ramping up the detention of Starlight sympathizers isn’t filling the hole in his heart.
But Homelander also needs someone who can actually do his job, something the Deep and Black Noir are failing to accomplish. Soldier Boy’s main objective in this episode is to find Butcher, which will earn him a No. 2 spot on the Seven, a pardon from the president, and a way back into the public’s good graces. Homelander conveniently forgets to mention the possible existence of a supe-killing virus, of course.
Testing that virus is the main mission for the Boys in this episode, and they find some possible candidates before Soldier Boy even enters the picture. There’s one supe in particular who would make a good guinea pig: a 900-pound granite man named Rock Hard who hasn’t been seen since fucking the Lincoln Memorial’s ear until “hot come burst out its mouth.” (Good lord.) He’s hiding out in the basement of the Kix Crib, a sort of Hype House for the Teenage Kix (a team of young supe influencers forced into brand deals with Vought). That team also includes Sheline (Emma Elle Paterson), Jetstreak (Dylan Colton), and Countess Crow, Countess of the Crows (Never Have I Ever’s Maitreyi Ramakrishnan).
Both Hughie and Kimiko are still justifiably skeptical of working with Butcher and irritated by Annie and Frenchie’s willingness to do whatever he says. But it’s evident from the beginning that they’ll go along with the plan for the time being. When the team arrives at the Kix Crib, they’re forced to improvise: Rock Hard has expanded to a massive, immovable size, apparently the result of years of masturbating to volcano porn and spurting out magma. (There’s a sentence that has never been written before in human history.)
So they’ll need to seal off the exits and perform the test right here, which poses its own issues. Rock Hard can hold his breath for hours, making it impossible to administer the virus. There’s one other available guinea pig: Countess Crow, Countess of the Crows, easily the most interesting and least loathsome of the Teenage Kix. (The other two are good for some jet-black comedy, at least, although watching that poor woman get hauled off to a camp after her participation in a TikTok ad is mostly just nauseating.)
When Mother’s Milk discovers Countess Crow doing Vought makeup tutorials, he’s obligated to bring her to the basement with the others. But we do see a softer side of MM that has been missing as of late when the two get to chatting, and in the end, he lets her go, an uncommon act of mercy these days. It’s a decent character beat for him — he’s clearly reminded of his daughter — but it does make me long for the old days of the show, when characterization mattered most. This is more of a micro-story than a real subplot. Maybe Countess Crow will come back in future episodes, and we’ll get to hear more of her story, but I especially hope MM doesn’t fade into the background this season.
Soldier Boy arrives in town to ambush Butcher just as he’s arriving back to the Kix Crib with Hughie, Kimiko, and a sample of the virus. The two superstrong men get to fight a little and relitigate the events of “The Instant White-Hot Wild,” and Butcher is sort of right in showing Soldier Boy that Homelander threw him under the bus. Soldier Boy also sends Sheline and Jetstreak after Hughie and Kimiko. But in the end, the gang manages to trick Soldier Boy into going for an empty tube while Frenchie dons a gas mask and pours out the virus. Soldier Boy, Jetstreak, and Rock Hard (who apparently didn’t need to breathe it in after all?) all seem to die very quickly, and everyone else makes it out.
Here’s the thing: In the moment, I really respected that The Boys was killing off another significant character this early into the season, even if some part of me felt suspicious about the likelihood of Soldier Boy really being dead. So the last-second visual of him sitting up in his body bag didn’t totally shock me, but it did disappoint me a little. If the virus can’t take down Soldier Boy permanently, that means it probably can’t take Homelander down, so we’re ending this episode one step back from where we were before. It’s a regression, and it leaves the stakes a little unclear going into the next episode. But at least it leaves the character in an interesting position, tugged once again between Butcher and Homelander, desperate just to live on his own terms instead of only waking up every few years to serve the whims of two pussy-ass dick-gobblers, or whatever Soldier Boy would say.
More than ever, most characters’ humanity is up for grabs. Hughie desperately wants his girlfriend to open up to him about her guilt and self-loathing, but she’s more interested in sex and distraction and sex-as-distraction. It’s a shame, because Annie has no problem digging into her issues with Frenchie, perhaps because he’s famously responsible for a lot of needless death. But she hasn’t done anything potentially irredeemable as he has; she just sparked a revolution, and it’s not her fault that people have died screaming “Starlight.” I’m more worried about where she goes from here: whether she’ll sabotage her own relationship with Hughie, but also whether she’ll turn into someone nobody can recognize.
But if Butcher feeding meds to his dog Terror is any indication, there is still a flicker of humanity inside him. That makes his heel turn all the sadder, really. Season four used the character of Joe Kessler (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) to symbolize a battle within Butcher’s soul, but he isn’t two people — nor is Ashley Barrett, who has a literal second face on the back of her head, Voldemort-style. Both sides of Butcher are the same complicated man, and if the evil one wins out, the good one will never let him forget.
Extra Frames
• That visual of Ashley’s psychic tumor was pretty disturbing. Not sure I’m going to enjoy looking at that throughout the season. Also, if Ashley 2 is actually speaking out loud, did the other people in the room just ignore her?
• I do enjoy Ashley’s journey on this show, though, and her constant regret of remembering the young activist she once was. She’s basically stuck in moral stasis while continuing to rise to the top, but that makes her an interesting, adequately served supporting character (as opposed to some of the ostensible main characters who are treated like supporting characters).
• Nice glimpse of Oh-Father delivering some right-wing propaganda via supersonic yell at his megachurch.
• Of all the ways Homelander disrespects President Calhoun on a regular basis, ordering him to make drinks might be the most amusingly demeaning.
• Butcher got Sameer to cooperate by telling him that Homelander killed his daughter and baby mama, but we know Zoe is still alive — last seen helping out Marie over on Gen V after being rescued from the Red River Institute by Grandpa Stan Edgar.
• Sheline is kind of basic as far as supes go. Have we not seen a cat supe coughing up furballs and shitting in a litter box before? Maybe it just seems like the type of joke The Boys or Gen V would’ve already used.
• Nice to hear Hughie stick up for A-Train and call him a hero.
• Sage is a perfect vehicle for Taco Bell product placement, huh? I know it’s an established part of her character, but naming off menu items was a bit much.
• “More like Soldier Doy, am I right?”
• Frenchie’s brief idea to run away with Kimiko was a non-starter (unless it happens in the finale, if the writers are merciful enough to give them a happy ending). I’m still just not really feeling their romantic scenes, honestly, but maybe I’m in the minority there.
