The Boys: Season 2 Episode 3 'Over The Hills With The Swords and A Thousand Men' Recap & Review
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
Still reeling from Billy The Butcher (Karl Urban) giving him a heavy right hook to the face, Hughie (Jack Quaid) decompresses by jamming out to some Billy Joel (of course) on a yacht with the crew. Butcher tries to halfheartedly apologize but Hughie takes a swing at him. Butcher leaves and calls Grace Mallory (Laila Robbins) to confirm that their Super Terrorist target is the brother of Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara). Title card.
There’s a couple quick scenes here showing Kimiko’s vulnerability for her brother, A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) coming out of a club and grabbing his chest in pain (foreshadow, I wonder?) and Homelander (Antony Starr) still increasing his presence in his son’s life.
Back at Vought headquarters, Starlight (Erin Moriarty), Stormfront (Aya Cash), Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) and A-Train listen to an ‘Avengers’ style movie pitch about the origins of The Seven. The Vought employee Ashley (Colby Minifie) gets a message on her phone and its revealed that the truth about Super people is being broadcast on national news. The newsanchor reports that Compound V was created by Vought Industries.
Cut to Starlight watching this news report and smiling. A-Train runs in and accuses her but she mentions he let her go when she had the Compound V. He complains about losing the cars and the houses and all the money but Starlight tries to play altruistic, saying, “there’s more important things.” In a subtle look of someone finally being broken, A-Train says, “the only people who say that grew up with money.” It’s a wonderful delivery by Jessie T. Usher of a sentimental generalization.
Also, watching the news but surprised by it is Hughie. He tells the crew that him and Starlight are the ones that released the compound v sample. They’re all ecstatic except Butcher of course.
Back at casa de Homelander, he’s having bonding time with son doing classic father son activities like pushing your child off of a roof. Ah, I remember those days with my dad. Anyway, his son Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) is completely unharmed just a little pissed because as Homelander expected, they share the same powers. So, when Homelander grabs Becca (Shantel VanSanten) Ryan shoves Homelander and his eyes glow red. We got a Brightburn over here! I haven’t read the comics so I have no idea how this series goes but it seems like the kid might be Homelander’s only weakness.
Frenchie tries to smooth things over with Kimiko’s brother, Kenji (Abraham Lim) and learn what sign language Kimiko uses but her brother refuses to teach him. I was also confused why she was using American Sign Language and her brother was responding in Japanese but it turns out it was a their own language created after Kimiko was traumatized by her parent’s murder.
Hughie and The Boys are still on the yacht which is aptly named ‘My Big Wet Dream'‘ and apparently stolen so the police show up in a helicopter. At the same moment, Kimiko’s brother escapes and attempts to psychically blast them but Kimiko shoves him cause the blast to take out the police helicopter. They manage to tape him back up and leave the men in the helicopter to die. They head to Grace Mallory to turn in Kimiko’s bro.
At Vought Industries, their stocks are crashing and trades are halting or however all that Wallstreet jargon goes. Mr. Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) holds a meeting with The Seven explaining how they need to go meet with reporters to try and put a spin on this but Queen Maeve and even Homelander say fuck Vought, in so many words. All of The Seven walk out to go “take down that cocksucker.”
The Boys crew are going along on their yacht when suddenly something rocks the whole ship. It happens again and Butcher looks overboard where dozens of shark fins are heading towards them. The sharks take out the yacht’s power so The Boys abandon ship onto the small speedboat attached to the back of the yacht. They’re racing towards the coast, sharks flanking their sides when suddenly, The Deep (Chace Crawford) emerges riding a large sperm whale (wink wink). He cuts them off and proudly stands blocking their exit but he loses this game of chicken. Butcher and The Boys drive their speedboat right through the sperm whale, spraying blood and guts all over the beach.
All the boys crew emerges from the viscera of the speedboat spear except Hughie who, seemingly in shock, refuses to move from the gross insides of the whale; a large organ with tubes beside his face. Gotta admit I laughed out loud when Butcher called him Pinocchio for not leaving but Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) get’s him to finally head out before they get caught.
The Seven show up and after The Deep tries to makeup with Starlight to get back on the team, Stormfront has a great moment of simultaneously supporting Starlight while cutting down Homelander who tried to defuse the situation by ignoring the situation. They enter the sewer tunnels that The Boys Crew fled into.
In the sewers, A-Train has another heart problem while running in some cool shots as the sound design thumps away until it turns into a flatline but A-Train shakes it off when Homelander approaches. Then, Hughie sees Starlight in a different part of the sewer tunnels. He tries to say, “you got my message” but she blasts him with her powers because Homelander was apparently lurking in the shadows. Seeing it’s Hughie, Homelander tells Starlight to kill him. She powers up but after Mother’s Milk gives Butcher a look of, “come on buddy,” he steps out to save Hughie. He gives a Hughie a look like, “see, mother fucker? I’m not a monster,” before confronting Homelander. They banter then Butcher signals Kimiko’s bro to bring a literal bus down and thousands of pounds of concrete onto Homelander’s head, burying him. Kimiko and Kenji escape.
Stormfront finds Kimiko and her bro and blasts them with lightening through some walls in a really interesting shot that jumps inside an apartment to show the perspective of the random family minding their own business before this mess. In chasing Kimiko’s brother, Stormfront intentionally kills the father of this innocent family finally showing that she is just as wicked as the rest of them.
Another really fun shot that jibs up the levels of the building’s exterior as they collapse or explode, symbolizing Stormfront violently chasing her prey to the rooftop is a neat flair to what might, in a lesser show, been just a shot of them running up the stairwell cut to them on the roof. On the roof, Stormfront blasts away Kimiko and then gruesomely snaps Kenji’s wrists most of the way off, chokes him out and breaks his neck as she says, “open your eyes, I like to see the light go out.” It’s starting to look like she’s even worse than Homelander and even knocks him down a peg a moment later when he shows up too late for the kill.
The episode ends with The Seven at a charity event putting a spin on the news of Compound V just like Mr. Edgar wanted. Mr. Edgar is also there lying to the news channels abut his knowledge of the drug and even pins it on the now dead Madelyn Stillwell (Elisabeth Shue). Stormfront then gives her thanks and finally, the camera dollies in on Kimiko’s deadly stare at her new target.
This episode was definitely the most true to Boys core concepts: gore, a light social commentary and Billy Joel. Yes, maybe the fact that there was more action overall and it was well directed influences my lizard brain into liking this episode more than the first two of the season, but even from a storytelling point of view this one works on all levels.
Hughie’s storyline is a smaller dose which is nice but still has a good arc with Butcher, Homelander seems to be losing control and will likely either die or go complete super villain at the end of the season so this is the kind of fucked up comic book sadism that was promised. Let’s hope these “Swords of a Thousand Men” keep their sharp edges. New episode 4 this Friday, Sept. 11.