Bergamot

From what the Legend says, Soldier Boy was used instead for a “photo op” afterwards of the landing on D-Day. It is not explained why. Maybe, as @ahrtee suggested, he was not yet “Soldier Boy” on June 6th, but was just there as a regular human soldier. Or maybe, as one of America’s first Supes, he was so new that Vought wasn’t sure he was ready to be tested in battle, or didn’t want to risk losing him. (We don’t know exactly when Soldier Boy was created, as far as I know; only that Frederick Vought defected to the Allies sometime in 1944.) Maybe they decided that as their first Supe he would be used primarily for propaganda purposes, (we see one of his WWII newsreels), which of course is not an unimportant tool in waging a war. Or maybe it had to do with something else, something which has been a continuing story in the series. It appears that since the 1950s, Vought and Stan Edgar have been trying to bring about the incorporation of Supes into the American military – Nicaragua was supposedly a trial run for this – but for some reason it seems that the military does not want them. Remember the meeting between Edgar and Robert Singer at the start of Season 2, where they were discussing this? Singer brings up a couple of enormous sticking points. “When they’re in actual combat, whom exactly do your heroes report to?” he asks. Edgar says, “Same person as always. Me.” Singer then wants to clarify the projected figures on collateral damage, asking, ”Exactly what casualty allowance are we looking at here?” Edgar’s answer: 34%. No wonder the military does not want Supes in combat! Maybe the random examples that the Legend gives of instances where Soldier Boy "saw action" (which I agree don't make much sense) are supposed to show Edgar trying out various ways that the Supes could be deployed, since the military doesn't want them. What can Supes be used for? Assisting the police (Birmingham), assisting the National Guard (Kent State), assisting the Secret Service (Dealey Plaza)..... And every time, it ends in complete disaster. No wonder Edgar wants to get Vought out of the superhero business and concentrate instead on being a pharmaceutical company.

Yes, that is interesting. I mean, he is amazingly functional considering that he was just released from decades of torture, but his grasp of reality seems pretty tenuous, to say the least. He did not seem to be intentionally lying about D-Day. I get that he is supposed to be a metaphor for America -- and just in case we didn't get it, there was that very obvious anvil dropped on us with the Legend's comment about how "to be American" means believing that we are the good guys and heroes. But for an individual to be so delusional about the specific facts of his own life is pretty weird. I mean, Soldier Boy is not talking to cartoon animals, but he is not right in the head either. That's a good question. Maybe he didn't storm Normandy on D-Day, but he does seem to have some soldier-like skills. The way he can assess and deal with possible threats, the way he can handle himself in a fight. Unfortunately Soldier Boy's background before he became a Supe is a big blank spot in the story, so there's no way to know. Maybe he was already a soldier when he was given the Compound V. Also, the Legend specifically says that he saw no action in Germany, but that was not the only place there was fighting in World War II. So I guess it is possible that before Vought started experimenting on him that he was actually in the war.

I think that maybe if Butcher said, "Let's just forget this whole thing and let someone else take care of Homelander", Hughie would be glad to agree with him. But I don't think he wants to let Butcher down or leave him to fight alone. I don't know, I was wondering if maybe the reason that Butcher is lying to Hughie about the danger of taking the Temp-V is because he is going to prevent Hughie from taking it, but doesn't want to tell him why, because he knows that Hughie would try to stop Butcher from taking it as well. That seems awfully convoluted though. I guess I am just trying to come up with some kind of excuse for why Butcher did not tell Hughie that the Temp-V will kill him.

There definitely has to be some use made before the end of the season of Soldier Boy's ability to depower a Supe, other than having it happen accidentally to Kimiko. I mean, that's a huge thing in this world, to be able to negate a Supe's power; it changes everything. And if it is not used, it is just like Chekhov's gun never being fired. And I love the idea of this happening to Homelander, just to see what it would do to his fragile psyche. I mean, him being attacked in the last episode and having to fly off to save himself, is like literally the first time in his entire life he has ever been in physical danger. I am really looking forward to seeing what kind of shape he is in after that. I am still finding it hard to picture Soldier Boy joining forces with Homelander, even if he does learn that Homelander is his son. (Or at least was made from him somehow, since supposedly Ryan is the first time that a Supe has fathered a child.) It has been made clear to Soldier Boy that Homelander is supposed to be his replacement, and we saw what he thinks of that idea. Also, there was an instant antipathy between Soldier Boy and Homelander, which I find it hard to believe they could overcome. I think it is pretty clear to anyone who sees Homelander unmasked that he is barely human, and I think that Soldier Boy is shrewd and unsentimental enough to understand this about him immediately, even if Homelander does have his DNA.

I wonder why Soldier Boy smacks Hughie (about halfway through the preview). I guess that Hughie balks at something Soldier Boy is going to do? Or maybe it has something to do with Soldier Boy using his shield to turn that man to pulp? It wouldn't make sense for Hughie to object to Soldier Boy killing a member of Payback, since that was the deal they made with him, and they have already assisted him in killing the Countess and the Twins. Maybe it's a General Patton kind of thing. I can see Soldier Boy emulating Patton. I wonder if Butcher is there at the time. He does not want Hughie to get killed, but he probably would react to him being punched like he did to Kimiko breaking his arm.

Oh, that's right! Sorry, I am losing track of things -- so much going on in this story! Well, maybe it could be Homelander then. It is hard for me to imagine her speaking to him with that tone, though. But maybe that could be the point -- that he needs someone to shock him into action.

Yeah, now that I think about it, it doesn't make sense that it would be Homelander. He doesn't even know that she is a Supe, or that she has been working until now with Edgar, right? And why should he listen to her or accept her as an Edgar substitute? I am assuming that the "situation" that has gotten out of control is Soldier Boy. So as you suggest, she might be talking to either Annie or Hughie about the need to get him under control. Anyway, good luck with that, whoever it is!

Thank you @gonzosgirrl! Maeve is alive! (And I am with her -- I also like seeing Homelander scared!) Who is the person that Soldier Boy is pulverizing with his shield? It looks as if Butcher and Hughie discover that they have a tiger by the tail! Who do you think Victoria is speaking to when she tells someone to pull their shit together and "take control of the situation"? Is it Homelander? I am interested in the character of Victoria, but I don't want her to just take the place of Stan Edgar, as the person who takes charge and keeps Homelander in line. Mainly because I want Edgar back -- I don't want him to be just replaced by another character. ☹️

I was wondering about this too. I wish that another character on the show would ask her this, because even if she does not open up about the reason, or maybe doesn’t even know herself what the reason is, it would be revealing to hear her answer. At first I was thinking that maybe it has something to do with M.M., and how Soldier Boy’s actions destroyed his life. Annie cares about M.M. and sympathizes with his pain, and I can see this causing her to judge Soldier Boy. Or maybe it goes deeper than that. Like Kimiko, I think that Annie suffers from the fear that having been involuntarily dosed with Compound-V might make her into a monster. She was devastated to find out that her mother allowed her to be injected with the drug, and that her powers were not the God-given gift that she believed them to be. And from what she has experienced since joining The Seven, and her interactions with Supes, I would not be surprised if deep inside she sees Compound-V as something that only creates monsters, and maybe that’s what scares her about Soldier Boy. Since he was the original version of Homelander, maybe she fears he must be even worse. Aside from Soldier Boy, this has two implications for her relationship with Hughie. First, it helps explain why she is so upset that Hughie has voluntarily chosen to use the drug. She tells M.M. that “Hughie is not himself right now”, and you know that she must be afraid of who he might end up being because of Compound-V. Second, Annie has chosen to handle the fact that she has these powers, even if they are not “God-given”, by being determined to use them to protect and save people. As she says when she first joins The Seven, it is the most important thing in the world to her. It is the only thing she has ever wanted to do. So of course when Hughie tries to prevent her from doing this, under the guise of “protecting” her, it is like he is attacking the very foundation of who she is. She can not and will not allow it. Poor Hughie and Annie! On the one side, you have Hughie finding the idea of Annie being stronger than him and making him feel weak to be completely intolerable. And on the other side, you have Annie finding the idea of being asked not to use her powers to save people to be equally intolerable. They love each other, but right now it is hard to see how they can work this out. I don’t know, maybe some heavy-duty therapy would help, but of course that will never happen!

Yes, that sounds right! Also, I think in regard to it being over-hyped, I think maybe people took all the dire warnings ahead of time too seriously -- I think those who make the show were just teasing us. I don't think that they actually thought that people would be dropping down to the floor in a dead faint from seeing it and that they needed to prepare us. They were just having fun with it!

I agree that it is annoying, and I think that Hughie is in denial if he insists that this is solely about his need to protect Annie. But the thing is, when Soldier Boy is baffled by the TV commercial showing a man wearing a snugli baby carrier and carrying a bag of diapers, and disparages his masculinity, Hughie does not give any indication that he sympathizes with the way Soldier Boy sees the world, or that he is thinking “Right on! Where are all the REAL men?” And he has never appeared to have any problem whatsoever with Kimiko being stronger than him; it never has seemed to bother him that even though she is a woman, she has repeatedly saved him from danger and not the other way around. Also, before he found out the truth about her, Hughie seemed to love working with Victoria as his boss, and she was definitely a strong, take-charge woman. So Hughie’s problem seems to be specifically with the idea that the one woman that he is in a relationship with is stronger than him, and the fact that he finds it intolerable that he might look “weak” if she is the one protecting him, rather than the other way around. This fear seems to be very deeply rooted in Hughie. If I were to guess, and not to be too Freudian about it, I would say that it has something to do with the relationship between his parents. Which from the little we know, appears to have been the story of a weak father, and a mother who took the initiative to leave the family and strike out on her own.

Hughie knew that Soldier Boy was going to come walking into the house in 3 minutes, and there was no telling what would happen after that, or how the people at the party might be affected. Which was why he went in first to begin with. It was not a good time to allow himself to be sidetracked. More than that, Hughie knew that Soldier Boy was not in complete control of his powers, because Soldier Boy had admitted it to him. He knew that Soldier Boy had recently experienced some kind of blackout that resulted in the catastrophic destruction of an entire building and many deaths. Yet he assured Annie that she didn’t need to be concerned, because he had “made Soldier Boy promise not to do anything” that would endanger civilians. But if preventing collateral damage had actually been his top priority, I think Hughie could have made different choices. For instance, I was thinking that since obviously Hughie was aware that he could teleport other people, he should have gone in, grabbed hold of the Twins, and teleported them out to where Soldier Boy was waiting.

This would be the best possible ending for A-Train's story, to have him kill Blue Hawk and then die. As for The Deep, I don't know why exactly, but his selfishness and shallowness grow more loathsome to me in every episode. I can't picture a redemption for him, because he seems like such a shallow, empty person. His name should be The Shallows rather than The Deep.

Yeah, I have a bad feeling about the two of them, even though I have always thought they were so sweet together and I have been rooting for them to make it as a couple. Their relationship has been like a little light shining in the dark world of the show. But even though I think they really do love each other, there have been signs of problems before now. Like in this episode, when Hughie has lined up all of Starlight’s favorite food and drink and bath salts in order to cushion the bad news that he is going to give her. It is very cute, but she has been trying to stay alive while dealing with Homelander, she is grieving the horrible death of her friend and feeling guilty that it was her fault, and she really needs to know if they found a weapon they can use in Russia. And in response to all that, Hughie offers her candy? She is not a child. And on top of that, he is all “Let us handle this!” when she shows up for the confrontation with Soldier Boy. I think that Hughie really believes what he is saying, when he tells Starlight, “I am doing this for you!” The thing is, I don’t know that I believe it, or at least I don't believe that this is completely the truth. For God’s sake, Hughie, is it really that important to you, that you are able to open the jar yourself rather than having Starlight do it for you? I liked it when she told him, “I don’t need you to save me, Hughie. I need you.” Hughie needs to stop using her as an excuse for why he wants Supe powers.

My first thought was that Butcher needs to shower more often! To tell the truth, he doesn't seem like the kind of person who wastes a lot of time on his personal hygiene. But I think Homelander really could smell him on Maeve. Ryan could smell that there was something different about Butcher after he took the Temp-V, couldn't he? And Hughie said that he had to go to the extremes of actually breaking his arm, because if he tried to fake an ailment, Victoria would be able to tell from smelling him. It is gross, though. It is something that makes you wonder why anyone who knew of this, would ever want to even be near a Supe (besides all the other reasons!)

Homelander’s first Vought board meeting emphasizes how incredibly fragile he is. No matter how much everyone fawns over him and praises him, it is never enough – just one person asking a question that he doesn’t understand and making him feel stupid is enough to drive him to the edge of a homicidal rage. His ego is a black hole of need that can never ever be filled. It reminded me of Antony saying that Homelander is actually the weakest character on the show. Ashley comes across as almost human in that moment when she mentions her mother at the board meeting, and how she lost her at age 17. (I agree, the actress is doing a great job!) But then she snaps right back to being Homelander’s number one sycophant. Ashley, you need to honestly ask yourself: what would your mother think of you now, and the choices you have made? Is there any chance that Ashley is redeemable? When Starlight is trying to find out about Maeve from her, just for a moment I thought that she had actually gotten through to her ("You don't need powers, you just need to be human!"), but I guess Ashley is just in too deep.

When I watched this episode again, I found that Hughie went down a little in my estimation, whereas Butcher went up. Butcher shows no pleasure or pride in his possession of Supe powers. He was reluctant for anyone to know about it; I think he is well aware that it opens him up to accusations of hypocrisy to use the same powers as those he says must be destroyed for their powers. There is that great moment where he tells Hughie that Temp-V is not power, but pain -- more a curse than a gift. Butcher will always do whatever it takes to get the job done, but Karl Urban is so good at showing the hidden pain that it causes him. And Butcher especially went up in my estimation when he refused to give the Temp-V to Hughie, telling him that he didn't deserve what it would do to him. Hughie is still serving as Butcher's "canary", showing that there are things at which he will draw the line. On the other hand, I know that Hughie is tired of being feeling powerless and being pushed around. We have seen this since the very first episode, when he failed in his attempt to ask his boss for a raise, and then later, when his father told him that he just didn't have what it took to get back at Vought for the death of his girlfriend. But I was just a little repelled at his self-absorption in that last scene. Does he want powers to help fight against the evilness of Vought and to save Starlight, the woman he loves, or is it more about making him feel good about himself?

Does this mean that Stan Edgar won't be back this season?! Nooo!! He is one of my favorite characters on the show! I love watching him put the Supes in their place, especially Homelander. 😟 Well, at least with Soldier Boy, we have the possibility of someone that Homelander will have to come up against who can genuinely frighten him. The show needs that. It won't be the same though without Edgar. (#TeamEdgar) Maybe Edgar has a plan that is so secret and Machiavellian that even Kripke doesn't know about it! 😳

Yes! The one time we have seen him explode, it looked as if it was something that happened to him, rather than something he triggered intentionally. It also didn't seem like he has much control over it, since he could have taken out all of the Boys with it, but instead he only randomly takes down one of them, and then walks right past the rest of them, as he pads on out of there on those dirty bare feet of his. Of course he had just "woken up" and was kind of staggering as he went, so maybe it will be different later. If Soldier Boy is aware, or becomes aware, of Stan Edgar's involvement, then he definitely would be! Maybe Soldier Boy goes after the remaining members of Payback, and one of them points the finger at Edgar. So maybe Soldier Boy teams up with the Boys to try to take down Edgar and Vought. Or, another possibility is that maybe Homelander tries to form an alliance with Soldier Boy, telling him that Edgar is his adversary as well, and that he will help Soldier Boy get to him. If Homelander is scared enough of Soldier Boy, I can see him trying to form a partnership with him, or at least pretending on the surface that he wants to. A lot of it depends on what Soldier Boy wants now that he is free. Does he just want revenge? Does he want to regain his former glory? Does he want to lead a team of Supes again? Soldier Boy is the real wild card in the pack! I am also wondering what will happen with Black Noir. It seemed as if Black Noir was Edgar's weapon of choice when he wanted to get something done, while he saw Homelander as being useful for Vought publicity purposes. It's interesting that we don't know what Black Noir's reaction was to Edgar's leaving Vought and Homelander taking charge. (Of course we don't actually know what Black Noir thinks about anything now, do we?) If I recall correctly, the only time we even see him is at Homelander's taco bowl lunch meeting, where he just sits by himself drawing cartoon characters.

I thought that too -- that the emotion Edgar showed, when she betrayed him in favor of Homelander, and afterwards when he stopped to say to her "Why?", seemed genuine. Maybe unusual for the Edgar we thought we knew, but I was already wondering about his fatherly relationship with Victoria. She seems to be the only one who brings out his human side. Anyway, I don't think what Victoria did was something Edgar had planned; I felt as if it caught him off guard. Which of course is not to say that he didn't have, as you say, a contingency plan ready. I liked that we saw a different side of Edgar in his interactions with Victoria and her daughter. Not that he acted totally out of character with her, of course -- he was still Edgar . I liked the moment where he says, "Can't I stop by to see you on a whim?", and Victoria immediately answers, "You never do anything on a whim". Another favorite Edgar moment of mine was when he assured Homelander that he was not blaming Victoria for what she did (and again he seemed genuine in this), because he had taught her to always "play all sides". He then adds approvingly, "She's more like me than I ever imagined". This made me laugh, the way he was like, "I'm so proud of my little girl; she was ready and willing to stab me in the back, just like I taught her! " LOL! So definitely not a normal father/daughter relationship there! Also interesting was Victoria's answer when he asked her why: "All these years you weren't protecting me. I was protecting you." I guess the implication here is that Victoria realized that Edgar had served as her guardian/father in order to make use of her, although it isn't clear when exactly she came to this realization. I don't know, maybe she had known it all along. I am also looking forward to seeing what happens with Edgar!

Yes, I can’t wait for Homelander to find out that Soldier Boy is still around! And then see them confront each other! I don’t know, Homelander is not nearly as much fun to watch when he is feeling good about himself. I don’t want a Homelander who is all cheerful and confident and satisfied as he sets out to torture and destroy people. I prefer a Homelander who is tormented and needy and empty inside as he sets out to torture and destroy people! It makes him more interesting and less of a stereotypical villain. As I have mentioned, a Homelander who is feeling backed into a corner is my favorite flavor of Homelander. Maybe that’s why my favorite Homelander scene in this episode is the final one with him and Edgar. Homelander acts confident that he has the upper hand now over Edgar, and claims that he is not afraid of him, but is it really true? And if it is, and Homelander is sure that he no longer needs Edgar, why hasn’t he just sliced him in two with his laser eyes and gotten rid of him? There is that familiar tension in their scene together; Edgar’s contempt gets to Homelander, sets him on edge, even though he pretends that it doesn’t, and Edgar gets the last word as he leaves. It's a great scene!

That's right, I forgot about that! Like you say, Edgar has a plan!

I had a feeling he was doomed, but I didn't expect it to happen so soon! But yeah, Alex was obviously not cut out for undercover operations. Starlight should have emphasized to him that he needed to check with her before making a move. But I don't think she is really cut out for this either. Maybe she should study up on the story of how the Resistance operated against the Nazis in WWII. For one thing, they need to find a better way of communicating with each other than whispering in the hallway at work!

I didn't hear any specific mention of it in the episode. My guess is that it is a reference to the Five-Year Plan for economic development that Joseph Stalin put into effect in the early years of the Soviet Union. If I remember my history, it resulted in a famine there that killed millions of people. The use of the phrase probably being an allusion to whatever plan the Russians had for Soldier Boy. The metaphorical meaning might be something about having a plan to achieve power and control which, even if it succeeds, in the end causes great destruction.

I didn't notice on my first viewing but you are right about the bits of steel! As that surge of power grew and intensified in his chest, it was exerting some kind of pull on his surrounding environment. As for the mist or steam that came out when Butcher opened the capsule, it must have been something that paralyzed Soldier Boy. I am assuming that, anyway, because it couldn't have been just the door that was trapping him, and it wasn't the straps that were holding him back -- I think they were just there to hold him upright.