The Boys: Season 2 Episode 5 'We Gotta Go Now' Recap & Review
Episode five of ‘The Boys’ season two might be the best one so far if you’re in need of some classic violent antics and good old depravity. The Amazon Prime series from show runner Eric Kripke continues its R-Rated rampage with the latest episode, ‘We Gotta Go Now.’
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
Ok, so correcting an oversight right off the bat: A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) was unceremoniously kicked off of The Seven last episode by Homelander (Antony Starr) because of A-Train’s heart problems.
The episode’s cold open is a movie within a show and visually separated by the aspect ratio. Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) stands in a city street surrounded by rubble with her onscreen sidekick when she says in a overtly sentimental way, “I’m gay.” They cut and Homelaner is hanging out in video village watching Maeve perform the scene obviously humiliated.
After some footage of Homelander accidentally killing an innocent bystander on a mission leaks and people start protesting, he will finally ask Stormfront (Aya Cash) for help.
Billy The Butcher (Karl Urban) is in a depressed slump, purposefully getting into fights at bars and even tells Hughie (Jack Quaid) over the phone that he’s moving to Argentina. Hughie hears a dog toy squeaking in the background and is both confused and saddened by Butcher’s sudden departure. He tells Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) about this and using context clues, they surprise Butcher at his aunt’s house. Apparently, the dog toy signified to M.M. that Butcher was going to see his bulldog Terror that lives at Butcher’s Aunt Judy’s (Barbara Gordon). This adorable slobbering pup is straight out of the Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson comic, spiked collar and all.
Back on set of the show within the show, Queen Maeve, Stormfront and Starlight (Erin Moriarty) pose in a girl power pose. Starlight still knows Stormfront’s former identity as Liberty. There’s also a cameo on the fake TV show by Greg Grundberg as an FBI agent.
The Deep (Chace Crawford) is now doing press tours trying to rehabilitate his image and even goes on The Katie Couric Show to promote his newfound religion, The Church Of The Collective which is wonderfully satirizing Scientology and the interview definitely has Tom Cruise on The Oprah Show vibes
Frenchie (Tomer Capon) follows Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) to a warehouse where she proceeds to gruesomely rip off a vaguely European mobster. We also see her get shot with no consequence which I think is the first example of her invulnerability. A-Train is on set of the movie that’s clearly a parody of Justice League and/or Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Just because it’s called Dawn Of The Seven. He has a problem with being written out of the show as well as the team and tries to write his lines as more ambiguous, leaving room for his return. The director doesn’t budge and Ashley (Colby Minifie) gives a great threatening speech about him leaving with “his dignity and a sweet severance package.”
Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) tracks Butcher, Hughie and M.M. to Judy’s but they call in a gas leak to buy them some time. They create several homemade bombs out of scraps of metal and aerosol cans.
Elena (Nicola Correia-Damude) and Queen Maeve take obnoxiously exploitative meetings about the public storyline of their relationship but Elena rightfully has problems with the absurdity of it all. Maeve convinces her to stay because if she leaves, Maeve can’t protect her from Homelander.
Back at Aunt Judy’s, Butcher tried to be a martyr, Hughie tries to be tough. Their usual pitter patter. Luckily, M.M. is actually there this time and backs up Hughie saying to Butcher, “you can move him but good luck with me.” There’s always something so cute about watching “tough guys” express their love for each other by fighting or threatening to fight because it’s the right thing to do.
Kimiko meets Cherie (Jordana Lajoie), the girl Frenchie slept with out of rejection and anger last episode. Cherie is giving Kimiko assassination hits to carry out but says “the Albanians” are the ones supplying them. Frenchie says “Fuck you” to them both and leaves.
After some suggested racism from Stormfront, A-Train does his farewell scene for the fake movie and Jessie T. Usher plays it completely serious; truly affecting his character. I have a feeling this isn’t the last we’ll see of him. I could be wrong but it seems like there’s a group of supes gathering that have been wronged by Homelander.
Speaking of Homelander, he flies to the group of protestors that gathered outside of Vought tower and tries to pull his usual politician routine. Spouting unrehearsed yet habitual lies about how sometimes accidents happen and he’s just as mad as they are. One soldier speaks out and he loses the whole crowd. Suddenly, it happens. The moment we’ve all been expecting. He uses his laser vision to cut down the massive crowd of people leaving a pile of bloody bodies. Except this was just a daydream and we cut back to his nervous face. He snaps out of it and flies away. Horrible attempt at spin.
Aunt Judy tells The Boys to go to the Taffy room and inside is boxes and bottles of various medicine. Turns out she’s old but she still slingin’ drugs.
Homelander watches clips of himself at the impromptu press conference and having just watched some French New Wave films, I really appreciated the use of jump cuts from different angles to show Homelander’s panic and scatterbrained thoughts.
There’s another random cameo by Sean Ashmore on the movie as some sort of police officer or detective. I’m not complaining just had to be mentioned.
Stormfront, a character that could be at least a 80 years old, shows Homelander, a man in his mid 40’s how to make memes. Classic.
There’s only other sincere scene of the episode aside from Maeve protecting Elena and it’s when Aunt Judy tells Hughie about Butcher’s deceased younger brother, Lenny. When they first got to her house she said Hughie looked like Lenny but didn’t elaborate. He tries to ask how Lenny died but they get interrupted by the bombs going off they had set for Black Noir. We know now why Butcher takes a slight liking to this scrawny, nervous kid.
Black Noir survives the bombs, smokes them out of the Taffy Room and Butcher tries to face him but obviously his super powers are no match for Butcher. He almost takes out M.M. and almost finishes off Hughie but Butcher makes a desperate last stand. He tries to blackmail Vought by threatening to upload pictures of Homelander’s illegitimate son to the internet and he’ll go down as a rapist. Then, Black Noir’s phone rings, Mr. Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) makes a deal with Butcher to never reveal that information and they live. They take the deal - deus ex machina.
Starlight jumps on the blackmail train and threatens to unmask Stormfront as Liberty to the public after Stormfront threatens to tell Vought that Starlight was the one that leaked the Compound V to MSNBC. Homelander walks in as tensions rise but Starlight leaves.
Butcher and The Boys say goodbye to Aunt Judy and Terror. Butcher gives Terror a Homelander doll to hump; a callback to earlier when Hughie unknowingly grabbed Terror’s “fuck-pig” as Aunt Judy called it.
Homelander and Stormfront smash. Literally, while having sex they smash up their apartment and this the scene that was featured in the trailer of Stormfront saying, “Laser, my tits.” So, there’s that. This scene also ends with ‘Dream On’ By Aerosmith playing so I gotta hand it to Kripke for always making space in the budget for classic rock hits.
This episode, while not as action packed, still had all the elements of a great boys episode. The disgustingly cool face-tearing effect, a hot superhero sex scene and just a hint of heart with Hughie and Butcher. The social commentary is still present as well especially with Maeve and Elena’s relationship being exploited as a marketing image for Vought much like we’ve seen brands co-opt the rainbow flag of the LGBTQ+ community. The final key is the mysterious long game that Stormfront seems to be playing and Homelander’s impending mental breakdown were hinted at for a likely season finale. Those few ingredients make up The Boys’ soup and there was just enough salty foreshadow to keep me hungry for next week’s meal.