The Boys season 2 finale is even more controversial than you realise
The Boys season 2 finale spoilers follow.
After the penultimate episode of The Boys' second season ended with that courtroom splatter-fest, we didn't think this show could get more explosive. Of course, that'll teach us for underestimating the "sick" mind of showrunner Eric Kripke (Karl Urban's words, not ours).
Still, we doubt anyone could have predicted quite how explosive that final episode would turn out to be.
After eight increasingly messed-up instalments, everything came to a head when Stormfront threatened to kill Butcher's ex-wife right in front of her son. The Nazi "hero" then tried to choke the life out of his mother, so Ryan naturally used his heat vision to save her and burn Stormfront to a crisp.
We guess Homelander was holding back a bit when he lasered her chest earlier on then in that fiery sex scene.
Unfortunately, while trying to save his mother, Ryan accidentally caused her death. At that awkward moment, Homelander then swoops in, fresh from another massacre. Just as he confronts Butcher and tries to take his son away, Queen Maeve arrives, threatening to out Homelander as the monster he truly is.
Thanks to video proof of that horrendous airplane scene from season one, Maeve's plan works. Homelander backs down, choosing his reputation over his son. It's a happy ending of sorts, even for Homelander, but not in the way you might expect.
After Butcher takes Ryan away to safety, we then cut to Vought's number one hero standing on top of a building at night. At first, the camera stays close to Homelander's face as he repeats the line, "I can do whatever I want," over and over again. His hair is disheveled, and he keeps making a strange jerking motion with his body.
Is he... yes, the camera then cuts behind Homelander to reveal that he's actually jerking off over the city he's sworn to protect. Antony Starr's bare tush is out in the open, lit up by the moon.
In case you're keen to try and get another glimpse of more "love sausage" on the show, skip ahead to the one hour two minute mark and squint best you can. (You're welcome.)
The show cuts away to its climax before Homelander's climax, and that's the last we see of him this season. Pretty messed up right? While we'd argue that The Boys has featured more disturbing scenes in the past, it turns out that Amazon was particularly grossed out by this sticky ending.
During a Reddit AMA last year, Eric Kripke revealed that there was just one scene in the first season that Amazon forced him to cut:
"Homelander, after being dressed down by Stilwell in episode two, was standing on one of the Chrysler building Eagles. He pulled his pants down and started jerking off, mumbling 'I can do whatever I want' over and over again until he climaxed all over New York City."
Sound familiar? Aside from the context, everything about this moment is identical to the scene which finally appeared at the end of season two. Kripke reveals that they actually shot the scene for season one, and Antony "was the BEST in that scene." At the time "Amazon seemed to think it wasn't necessary" to include it though – clearly, they must have changed their minds at some point between filming seasons one and two.
Still, the question remains: Did Antony moon the city twice, shooting two versions of this climatic scene, or did Kripke simply use the unreleased footage from season one? That's not clear at the moment we're writing this, but either way, we're glad Amazon finally relented. And no, not just for the reasons you think.
During that aforementioned AMA, Kripke noted that the controversial scene reveals something about Homelander's "psyche", and that's perhaps even more true now that this moment has been shifted to the end of season two instead of season one.
Homelander likes to portray himself as a patriotic hero, proud of his country, but the truth is that he's only proud of himself, and all of his self-worth is wrapped up in how others perceive him. Although Stilwell's death in season one shook him to some degree, it's the way Queen Maeve confronted him at the end of season two that really started to unravel his mind.
So in response to this, why does Homelander feel the need to spread his unique brand of truth, justice, and the American spray? He's obsessed with women, either degrading them as inferior or treating them like sexualised versions of the sanctified mother figures he never had growing up. Any kind of defeat would crush Homelander's self-worth, but losing to a woman emasculated him completely, robbing him of his self-perceived worth as a man.
To try and deal with this, Homelander needed to remind himself that he really is the strongest one there is. In his eyes, the city, and by extension, the world, belongs to him, so he can do "whatever he wants" to it. Homelander tries to reassert this control by spreading his seed over the city in an act of dominance, and that's particularly relevant at this point in season two given that he's just lost his son, Ryan.
While the repercussions of this won't play out in full until season three, we're still left with some major questions. Did anyone see Homelander tend to his flagpole in public? Did any unfortunate passer-by mistake his load for bird poop? And is this some weird set-up for the teenage spin-off?
Whatever happens, we have faith that showrunner Eric Kripke will use that "sick mind" of his to come up with something even more disturbing and insightful when The Boys return in... Well, who knows when?
The Boys season two is now available to watch in full on Amazon Prime Video.
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