Hughie braces and's to face the consequences of dating Annie January, who is finally becoming more confident after her speech at the Believe Expo in the previous episode.
During the filming of a promotional video about revisiting the farm where he purportedly grew up, Homelander recognizes a blanket from his real childhood and directs his anger towards the confused production team.
It is revealed that a company named Samaritans' Embrace, led by Ezekiel but bankrolled by Vought, has been using charities to ship Compound-V to multiple hospitals under the guise of a polio vaccine.
Due to the controversy surrounding Starlight's speech at the Believe Expo,[a] Madelyn Stillwell fires Vought's publicist Ashley Barrett.
Knowing that The Deep assaulted Annie, Stillwell decides to send him to Sandusky, Ohio, for a "sabbatical" after forcing him to film a video apologizing for his actions.
During an interview about his upbringing, A-Train is asked about his relationship with the recently deceased Popclaw as it is public knowledge that they were both previously members of the teen-oriented superhero team Teenage Kix.
Suspecting that Hughie might be falling in love with Annie, Billy Butcher takes him to a superhuman survivors' support group to listen to people who experienced collateral-damage incidents with Supes.
The Boys also learn that the Female's real name is Kimiko and that she and her brother were kidnapped by the terrorist group, which forced them to become soldiers after their parents were killed.
Frenchie offers to take Kimiko to the airport so she can return home if she wants to; however, he also tells her that they could use her help to prevent Vought from experimenting with terrorists again.
Butcher takes the Compound-V to Raynor as evidence and makes a list of demands, including a salary and office for the team, as well as the prosecution of Homelander.
[1] In 2016, it was announced that the show would be developed by Cinemax, with Erick Kripke as the series' showrunner and head writer, alongside Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen who would direct the pilot episode.
The episode portrays this through a meta parody by casting Haley Joel Osment who was very popular as a child but has failed to repeat this success as an adult.
While the character's powers, muteness, and relationship with Frenchie remain intact for the television adaptation, her backstory and origins are changed for the show.
In the comics, the character gets her powers as a baby after accidentally consuming Compound-V and becomes a killing machine who also works part-time as a mafia assassin.
[12][10] The episode's main cast includes Karl Urban as Billy Butcher, Jack Quaid as Hughie Campbell, Antony Starr as John Gillman / Homelander, Erin Moriarty as Annie January / Starlight, Dominique McElligott as Maggie Shaw / Queen Maeve, Jessie T. Usher as Reggie Franklin / A-Train, Laz Alonso as Marvin T. Milk / Mother's Milk (M.M.
), Chace Crawford as Kevin Moskowitz / The Deep, Tomer Capone as Serge / Frenchie, Karen Fukuhara as Kimiko Miyashiro / The Female, Nathan Mitchell as Black Noir, and Elisabeth Shue as Madelyn Stillwell.
[13] Also starring are Haley Joel Osment as Mesmer, Jennifer Esposito as Susan Reynor, Billy Zane as Himself, Malcolm Barrett as Seth Reed, Jackie Tohn as Courtenay, Anna Khaja as Lydia Parker, Colby Minifie as Ashley Barret, Christian Keyes as Nathan Franklin, Nicola Correia-Damude as Elena, Da'Vinci as Anthony, Tara Reid as Herself, Jess Salgueiro as Robin, and John Doman as Jonah Vogelbaum.
[20] The episode featured the following songs: "Big Shot" by Billy Joel, "Fame" by Irene Cara, "You've Got It All To Give" by Dan Gautreau and Wolfgang Black, "Ride of the Valkyries" by Richard Wagner, and "Roar" by Katy Perry.
Brian Tallerico from Vulture gave the episode 4 stars out of 5, praising Urban's performance as Billy Butcher and his character's backstory, which serves as the motivation for his actions.
For any fan boy convention regulars the extended Mesmer cameo is not only a reminder of how good Haley Joel Osment can be, but also shows flashes of the vulnerability which caused Spielberg to cast him in AI.
He further notes that "applying the same characteristics to every character in its scope – and without those stories being grounded in some kind of philosophic exploration, or offering something to distinguish between this collection of violent misfits, anything not related to Starlight just feels, well, empty.
Finding out what Homelander has done to Butcher’s wife adds an extra dimension to his character while Starlight and Hughie’s whirlwind romance is almost certain to end in doom.