The Boys: Season 2 Episode 4 'Nothing Like It In The World' Recap & Review
‘The Boys’ are back at it with episode 4 of season 2. The Amazon Prime series from show runner Eric Kripke continues its weekly release to the chagrin of entitled internet-babies.
Photo: Jan Thijs/Amazon Studios
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
The episode begins with a random woman talking to an interviewer about the key to a happy marriage is communication and then tells a story about how she didn’t know her husband wanted kids until her wedding rehearsal dinner. More on love later. Frenchie (Tomer Capon) snorts a line of, presumably, coke and looks in the mirror. Title card. The Boys crew are watching a news report (the show’s most common way to exposition) about Kenji (Abraham Lim) being blamed for the murder of 59 people that Stormfront (Aya Cash) actually committed when pursuing Kenji and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara). Frenchie then tries to kiss Kimiko. Unsucessfully.
Homelander (Antony Starr) flies to a cabin in the middle of the night and when he walks in, Madelyn Stillwell (Elisabeth Shue) approaches him in lingerie. Um, didn’t she get har face melted last season? She then proceeds to stick her fingers into a glass of milk then Homelander’s mouth. Recalling their creepy relationship from last season, it’s unclear if this is a dream or if somehow she’s “still well.” Eh, see what I did there? Also, there’s a Taxi Driver easter egg so I kind of called the Scorsese worship in an earlier review…
Billy The Butcher (Karl Urban) meets with Grace Mallory (Laila Robins) to get info about a “2nd-tier Supe, active in the 70s.” This feels very Watchmen and I’m very here for it. She also reveals she found where his wife, Becca (Shantel VanSanten) at a Vought facility.
Ok, so remember a second ago when I said it was unclear if Stillwell was still alive but Homelander was somehow seeing and interacting with her? That was real. Or, at least physically. While venting his frustration in her lap, suddenly she starts moaning in pain. Then it sounds like bones crunching. Homelander sits up and now Stillwell has transformed into a heavyset man in his 50s wearing her lingerie. Homelander screams, “change the fuck back now, Doppleganger!” Played by Dan Darin-Zanco, this new Supe can shape shift but he complains that it hurts if he does it for too long. Homelander forces him to lovingly act as her to fulfill his sick fantasies.
Butcher tells Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) that he’s going to storm the compound that is holding his wife. M.M. tries to stop him but he leaves anyway. In an elevator, Homelander chokes Starlight (Erin Moriarty) because he thinks she’s a traitor. She says enough half truths to convince him she’s not. Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) gets a funny little scene where he silently asks a Vought techie to find Butcher.
Hughie (Jack Quaid) meets up with Starlight in Central park for their usual secret dates but it’s brief and she begins to cry when he leaves. Hughie suggests she comes with him and M.M. to look for Liberty the supe’ from the 70s. Cue road trip singalong to who else: Billy Joel.
A second random woman appears talking to an interviewer and like the woman from the opening scene, tells a story about a couple: The Lovers of Valdaro. The historical duo’s skeletons were found in Italy and the two appear to be entwined. The woman says, “that’s love” then it cuts back to the main story.
Quick scene sum up: Butcher repels down the large concrete walls of the mysterious Vought compound. Elsewhere, Frenchie drunkenly sleeps with an old flame who also gives him advice about Kimiko. Don’t you love when things happen like that? Starlight and M.M. share cute memories of their fathers over doughnuts.
Finally, at the Vought compound, Butcher reunites with his wife. They embrace and he promises to get her out but he forgets about her son, Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) therefore, they can’t just climb up the rope Butcher used to scale the compound walls. They form a plan to sneak them out in the garbage truck in the morning. It’s only episode 4, something is going to go wrong. She leaves for a moment.
Hughie, M.M. and Starlight get hotel rooms and at a vending machine, Hughie talks shit on Starlight’s choice of candy and as a proud Charleston Chewer myself, I will not stand for such slander! Anyway, then they have sex in Starlight’s room.
In a third interview with a random person, this woman describes her ex boyfriend who loved Ed Sheeran so much, she got an Ed Sheeran tattoo on her arm for him. Two weeks later he broke up with her. These interstitial interviews are not only hilarious but also comment on the modern society’s versions of romantic relationships. Very clever storytelling device to thematically enhance Hughie and Annie’s own struggles with love as well as Billy and Becca’s.
Speaking of, Billy is still hiding out in the Vought compound where Becca had left him. She returns, they make love and Billy promises to make everything right.
Homelander and Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) are on a talk show hosted by Maria Menounos when, after some pressure about diversity regarding The Seven, Homelander publicly outs Maeve as a lesbian in attempt to score cheap popularity points. A move that many corporations have also recently started pulling displaying rainbow versions of their logos to get a couple extra bucks. She is rightfully upset but Homelander facetiously says he’s truly happy for her and her girlfriend.
Stormfront is rallying up a group of people and decrying Vought for being all talk. It seems like she wants to take down her employers? Um, why hasn’t she been fired? Kimiko is in the crowd and she approaches Stormfront, about to take revenge for killing her brother when Frenchie grabs her hand suddenly. He says she wouldn’t survive if she tried right then.
After following the address Grace Mallory gave them, Hughie, M.M. and Starlight find a black woman who tells them about her experience with the white Supe Liberty when she was a kid. This Liberty Supe accused her brother of stealing a car and then kills him for being black. Hughie tells her nobody has seen Liberty since 1979 but the woman, finds a newspaper and points to a picture of Stormfront. Twist!
Billy is waiting for Becca and the kid so they can get in the garbage truck but Becca shows up alone. She tells him she could see in Billy’s eyes that he would find a way to get rid of her son, Ryan. He denies this at first but eventually calls the kid a “Supe freak” and confirms her doubts. She tell him she’s not leaving and that he has to because guards are on their way. She drives off in tears and he climbs the walls.
Hughie and Starlight are saying their goodbyes from the trip but Starlight says they can’t do that again and they can’t be together. She gives him a kiss and leaves. Both of the boys got dumped.
In one final interview with a random woman, she says the most important part of a relationship is doing anything for your man while eye-fucking the interviewer who it turns out is The Deep (Chace Crawford) and his therapist. They’re interviewing women to be his wife to rehabilitate his public image and attempt to get back into The Seven. It’s a storyline I forgot to mention in earlier recaps but The Deep’s therapist and Eagle The Archer (Langston Kerman) have been converting The Deep to a cult style therapy.
On the opposite spectrum of therapy is Homelander and Doppleganger in the final scene of the episode. Doppleganger does the usual Stillwell routine with the milk and the lingerie but Homelander ain’t having it. Doppleganger gets kinky and morphs into Homelander. He tries to give fellatio to Homelander as Homelander but the real Homelander snaps Doppleganger’s Homelander neck and says, “I don’t need anyone.” Credits.
This episode focused mainly on the big relationships of the show. Butcher and Becca, Hughie and Annie, Homelander and humanity (and Stillwell). As he grows more alone, he’s becoming more reckless. Somewhat of a bleak episode in terms of tone, the show still knows when to pull punches and is definitely a great middle point of the story for our beloved antiheroes but a solid entry nonetheless. See you all next Friday for more diabolical diversion.