Episode Review: The Boys 3x4 - "Glorious Five-Year Plan"

Welcome back to the blog readers. As you know, The Boys (2019-26) has quickly become one of my favorite shows on television right now. The character work has been stellar, the performances have been amazing, and the story has been mesmerizing to say the least. Now we are halfway through the third season with this episode, titled "Glorious Five-Year Plan," written by Meredith Glynn, and directed by Julian Holmes, and I am curious to see if the momentum can keep going. Stick around to find out if it does.

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I had absolutely no idea how we were going to top what I saw in this season's second episode and I was secretly hoping we would in some way. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would see half the things in this episode that I did. This may just be the most intense hour of television I have ever seen. It had everything: laughs, shocks, dildos, and overall insanity. The performances are all incredible, especially those of Anthony Starr, Karl Urban, and Giancarlo Esposito. And the story left my jaw on the floor every other minute.

At this point, my paragraph for Anthony Starr's performance as Homelander is going to get reduced to a single sentence: give him an Emmy already. But on a deeper level, this is the episode where I genuinely felt terror for any character that tries to cross Homelander because Starr finally delivers that maniacal villain that we have been waiting for. It is more clear than ever Homelander is the ultimate villain of this show, and Starr gets to get down and dirty in this episode by allowing himself to have fun with it. He comes off as truly terrifying in this episode, and every word that comes out of his mouth has malice behind them. I fear for what will happen to other characters, solely because Starr is playing this role brilliantly.

I mentioned last week in my review of the third episode that Homelander and Butcher were more alike than people realized, and Karl Urban this week absolutely showed me why I was right in that assumption. Urban does a fantastic job this time around at giving you the same fear for the safety of the Boys that Starr gives as Homelander for everyone. There is a lot of pent-up rage Butcher is holding inside, and he is lashing out against the people that support him the most. And Urban really makes you start to despise this character with the way he takes that rage out on other people.

And finally, I need to talk about one of my absolute favorite actors working today in Giancarlo Esposito. He has been in some of my favorite projects over the last half-decade including The Mandalorian (2019-) and The Jungle Book (2016), and was by far my favorite part of Megaflopolis (aka Megalopolis (2024)). So when I learned that he was going to be the Guy from Vought (in this show as Stan Edgar), I was giddy. He has not disappointed me yet and this episode was no exception. Esposito as Edgar knows only one emotion: power, and he does a brilliant job of always making you second guess his character and his decisions. This episode introduced a new layer to the father-daughter dynamic between Edgar and Congresswoman Victoria Neuman, and he (and Neuman actor Claudia Doumit) play it amazingly. And his scene with Homelander was probably the toughest thing I have ever seen him do. Goosebumps baby!

This episode's story is insanely good, and I need to talk about all of it in excruciating detail. I want to start with how this episode opens, with a commercial for an old television show called Solid Gold that starred Soldier Boy singing Blondie. Mother's Milk (MM) is watching this show while clinching a chair as hard as he can, while having flashbacks to him watching the same show with his family and wanting a toy car. As this is happening, Butcher and Hughie are discussing Butcher's incident from the end of last episode when he vomited the V24 onto Hughie, and Hughie concludes that Butcher is on V. Butcher tries to deny it but he cannot while also admitting to killing Gunpowder, and threatens to put Hughie in a coma if he tells any other of the Boys about it.

Butcher takes Frenchie to meet with Little Nina for passage to Russia, and he gives her enough money to cover the lost drugs and an additional $100,000. Nina wonders if the government will miss their money but Butcher tells her they will print more. She promises to give them the information they need so long as they complete a job for her. When in Russia, the Boys make shop in an old warehouse where the country is riddled with anti-Seven propaganda and makes fun of Hughie (who again called off work with Neuman). Butcher appoints Kimiko to complete the job, but both she and Frenchie will not have it. She tries to tell him she is not his gun, but he rebukes her by telling her that is exactly what she is and that they should do what they are told. The two storm out of the room in disgust. Later on, MM talks to Butcher about how he treated them and he admits he is "mostly an asshole" because he recruited MM to look after the Boys once he is gone, deeming him a "natural-born leader."

Frenchie drives Kimiko to the mission, which is to take out a Russian oligarch (played by Jasmin Geljo) at his mansion. This unnamed oligarch has been buying and selling women as sex slaves as he gears up for a sex party themed around the Seven. He has been collecting Supe-themed dildos for use for this party, but Kimiko uses one to kill the oligarch and his allies (with one vibrating after death, spewing blood everywhere). When one of the scared women shoots Kimiko in the head, she goes to confront them but spares them when she realizes she was just like them. After they return, Kimiko confides in Frenchie that she cannot work for Butcher because it is reminiscent of her time in the Shining Light militia. Frenchie convinces her to complete the mission for the sake of Hughie and MM, and tells her they will retire to wherever they want after it is over; she chooses Marseilles and the two hug in approval.

Five months after he was disgraced, Cameron Coleman has returned to television and has an expose with Homelander where he claims he is under attack by the "mainstream media" and a group of people that operate in the shadows and run everything, including Vought. Meanwhile, Stan Edgar meets with his adopted daughter: Congresswoman Victoria Neuman, who is secretly a supe, to try to get back at Homelander for his birthday rant from the second episode. She is afraid of retaliation from Homelander for the sake of her daughter Zoe but Stan promises to protect her like he always has. He also tells her that this was meant to be a reminder of who is in charge.

Before he departs to Russia, Hughie confides in Annie at Vought Tower by telling her of the plan and that it has to work. She reveals the "relationship" between her and Homelander and agree that this is what it will take to buy themselves time and keep him under control. Homelander overhears them talking and further threatens her into accepting his control by threatening to kill Hughie and mockingly signing his cast. Annie forces him to back off Hughie and then brings this information to Queen Maeve, who has been training to take down Homelander herself. Maeve then reveals that she is the one who leaked this information to Butcher and the Boys, prompting Annie to suggest a team of people to go against Homelander. Maeve scoffs at this idea because she believes Homelander is untouchable. She then goes to her ex-boyfriend Alex, also known as the newest member of the Seven, Supersonic, to inform him of the plan to take Homelander down. He promises to be with her for anything and joins the cause without hesitation.

A-Train is trying a rebrand based on social justice and films a commercial advocating for peace. Ashley lampoons this by saying "Black Lives Matter" is her favorite catchphrase and her "Instagram is filled with black squares." During a meeting later on with the whole Seven, he tries to advocate for suspending Blue Hawk, who has just been accused of killing an innocent Black man and over-patrolling Black neighborhoods. Cassandra, the Deep's wife, texts him to force him to argue against A-Train by saying Homelander has the same base as Blue Hawk, which infuriates him while Homelander agrees. After the meeting is over, A-Train and the Deep argue and it leads to a physical confrontation that Supersonic breaks up. Recognizing A-Train is frustrated at the Deep and Homelander, Supersonic decides to recruit him to their mutiny.

Before the Boys go on their mission to find the weapon that could possibly kill Homelander, Hughie stumbles in on Butcher taking more V24 and begs him to allow him to have some, revealing what happened at Vought Tower and having to be saved by Annie again. Butcher claims it is a last resort and will not let him have it because he believes it is a poison that "is not power but a punishment." The group infiltrates the facility fairly quietly, but Frenchie stumbles upon a hamster named Jamie. He messes with the cage, which prompts Jamie to start going crazy, leading the alarm system to go off. Armed soldiers begin to infiltrate the room but the Boys are quickly overwhelmed when they run out of ammo. Butcher reveals to the group his powers that he uses to laser some men up, and Hughie reveals he also took V24 when he teleports to someone sneaking up behind MM and punches him in the heart, killing him. The Boys are furious with Butcher and disappointed with Hughie as they stumble on a big chamber in the middle of the room that when opened, reveals a still-living Soldier Boy. When he exits the chamber, he emits a ray from his chest that Kimiko takes in place of MM, leading her to lose her healing ability and being close to death. While they are escaping, MM tells Butcher he cannot keep them together while he and Frenchie are tending to Kimiko and Hughie is amazed over his new powers.

At Neuman's press conference (one that Annie, Maeve, A-Train, and Supersonic are all watching from Vought Tower), Neuman betrays her father and implicates him in crimes, much to Stan's shock. He is taken away as Homelander walks in all giddy, revealing he got to Neuman first. After the conference, Homelander talks to Neuman and thanks her for choosing the "right side," revealing this was all for Zoe. He claims that Edgar was only using her as a weapon and gives her what she was looking for, later revealed to be a vial of Compound V that she gives her while they cry and it changes her. Homelander then confronts Edgar, thinking he finally got one over on him, but Edgar commends his daughter for playing both sides and rubs off more threatening remarks from Homelander before telling him he is not a god, but simply bad product. Later that night at a #Homelight press event, Homelander insists on taking Annie for a ride, and he takes her to a rooftop. He reveals the dilapidated corpse of Supersonic and tells her A-Train told him about the planned coup. He also threatens her into submission, claiming he will kill Hughie if she even "breathes the wrong way" by making her repeat that what he did to Supersonic will happen to Hughie: "that'll be Hughie," with tears streaming down her face.

Now we get to the story analysis, and the first thing I want to talk about happens near the end of the episode. When Butcher, still drugged up on the V24, forcibly removes the door that is on Soldier Boy's chamber, Mother's Milk (MM) absolutely freezes and cannot do anything. We have gotten hints to the idea that Soldier Boy may be responsible for the death of MM's family, but we have no concrete proof yet. Do we find out that it was an accident, intentional, or something completely different? I really loved how Laz Alonso played that scene where MM was either frozen with fear or struck with post-traumatic stress due to the situation. Will we get an explanation of what happened and will we get scenes that feature Soldier Boy and MM discussing this incident? I hope so and that Jensen Ackles isn't playing a one-dimensional character (this show does not do that so I am not too worried about that quite yet).

I told you guys that Butcher and Homelander were more alike than we all thought, and that is beginning to rear its ugly head again in this episode. Believe me yet? The only difference between the two characters is that Butcher does care about the people around him, but he does not seem to care what happens to them. Just take the exchange between him and Kimiko. She tells him that she is not his gun, and he responds by telling her that that is exactly what she is. I have a feeling that he is completely going to flip out on someone by the time this season is over, and it is going to eventually lead to the end of the Boys as we know them. Maybe some new leadership or something like that? This is the new reality we are living in (in terms of the show). It's just crazy that Homelander is absolutely insane.

I also love the fact that we are getting a completely unhinged version of Homelander that we can solely and uniformly root against; so much so that there is a growing dissent within the Seven to get him out and dealt with. We obviously have Annie and Maeve that are trying to get him out, but bringing this idea to Supersonic was not the best idea because he told a placeless A-Train who was so quick to get his place back and rat him out. It just goes to show no matter how many pieces of positivity that we get with A-Train in terms of development, he shows us all why he is such a terrible person who cannot be trusted.

After two episodes, The Boys gives us another all-time episode with everything: character, humor, shocks, and so much more. Thank you all for reading, and I will see you for the next post.