A Refresher on How “The Boys” Season 2 Ends

After the reveal that Liberty is an old codename of Stormfront, the rest of her past is quickly unveiled. Hughie and Starlight (with surprising help from A-Train, though it was purely for personal gain) learn that Stormfront is the former wife of Vought’s founder Frederick Vought. What’s more, she was alive during the rise of Hitler’s regime and is a hardcore Nazi. Photos of her wedding to Vought and association with Nazi Germany’s most prominent figures like Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels were leaked to the press, bringing Stormfront’s public pedestal crashing down to Earth.

In the season finale, a mess of clashes leads Stormfront to battle Kimiko, Starlight, and Maeve all at the same time, with the three other Supes coming together to beat the Nazi to dust. (It’s a beautiful fighting scene that reminds me of the ending of Quentin Tarantino‘s Death Proof.) Down but not yet defeated, Stormfront gets away in time to interrupt the escape of Becca Butcher and son Ryan, aided by Billy Butcher. Stormfront easily overpowers Billy and is choking Becca to death when Ryan taps into his laser vision and blasts both women with his lethal eyes.

The blast leaves Stormfront a burned mess, mumbling in German, and lacking a majority of her limbs. Homelander tries to rouse her, but she’s stuck in a daze. The next time we hear her name, Vought is using her as the scapegoat for the release of Compound V and the creation of Supe terrorists. Homelander tells the press that she’s being held in an underground facility, which means Ryan’s blast didn’t kill her.

Sadly for Becca Butcher, she’s just the type of character who was always meant to die. We never learned how she felt about being raped by Homelander and forced to run away from her husband and family to bear and then raise Homelander’s child. Her very existence on the show was to serve as motivation for Billy’s crusade and, later, for her son’s power activation. She’s never really been her own person on the show, and it’s par for the course that her dying words aren’t even about herself, but her son.

After Homelander and Stormfront take Ryan away from the compound, Becca is emotionally distraught. Billy returns to help reunite the mother and son, leading the Boys into a plan to lure Vought agents to Homelander’s cabin as a distraction, and allow Becca and Ryan to escape. Billy was originally planning to let Vought agents separate Ryan from his mother, but undergoes a change of heart in the end, asking Mother’s Milk to get the mother and son to safety without him. But they’re confronted by Stormfront mid-escape, who is eventually able to corner Becca and begins to choke her out. Terrified for his mother, Ryan blasts at the two with his laser vision, incapacitating the Supe and fatally wounding his mother. She spends her final breaths forcing Billy to promise her that he’ll protect Ryan and ensure her son knows that it’s not his fault she died.

Black Noir, the silent assailant who spends the season pulling off some of the sickest fight scenes in the entire show, seemingly meets his end thanks to a snack bar. During the penultimate episode of the season, Starlight runs into the masked Supe while making her escape from a locked room in the Seven’s headquarters. Black Noir quickly overpowers Starlight before Queen Maeve throws herself into the fray. Maeve shoves Black Noir’s mask aside and stuffs an Almond Joy into his mouth. Allergic to nuts, Black Noir suffers a severe allergic reaction, and the women are free to go.

We don’t see the Supe after the incident, and he’s mentioned to be in serious condition. Allergic reactions can be particularly dangerous, so there’s no telling how bad off Black Noir will be in season three.

The season finale reveals the truth behind the perplexing mystery of exploding heads, and it’s one no one saw coming. In the final moments of the season two finale, it’s revealed that Victoria Neuman, the congresswoman who’s been leading the anti-Supe movement all season, is a Supe herself, and she has powers that’ll blow your mind – literally! Throughout the season, Neuman killed Susan Raynor, deputy director of the CIA; a congressional hearing full of Vought employees and innocent bystanders; and the leader of the Church of the Collective. We don’t get any explanation or motive behind the murders, but if you connect the dots, there’s a hint to what might be going on behind the scenes.

When Raynor’s head is blown up, we’re led to believe that she was killed before she could expose Stormfront as a white supremacist and the Vought super-terrorist propaganda. But what if the “inside job” she was referring to wasn’t Stormfront’s inclusion into the Seven, but Neuman’s identity? As a vocal opponent to Vought and a congresswoman, Neuman is in the perfect position to wreak havoc as a Vought plant. She demands Supes pay for their sins while simultaneously ensuring that chaos reigns just enough to be counterproductive. She killed Raynor just as she was about to reveal the political coup going down, ruined the congressional hearing that would expose Vought’s dirty laundry, and killed Alastair Adana when he tried to blackmail her. Her casual use of lethal power is something to be afraid of.

We don’t know why Neuman did what she did, but something tells us that Hughie, who decides to work with her campaign in the finale, is going to put a wrench in those plans.

Homelander goes through such highs and lows over the season, it practically gave us whiplash. He goes from feeling like the king of his castle to losing everything in one afternoon. We never learn exactly how Homelander feels about Stormfront’s white supremacist beliefs and whether he actively agrees with her, but it’s obvious that he feels drawn to her and suffers deeply when Ryan’s laser blast renders her senseless. The knife of despair drives even deeper when Ryan chooses to go to Billy instead of Homelander, effectively leaving the Supe without any “loved” ones.

At the end of his rope, Homelander is ready to destroy everyone that’s left, but is stopped when Queen Maeve threatens to release the video of Homelander forcing her to leave a plane full of passengers to die. The idea of no longer being loved by the public, which is the only thing left for him at this point, pushes Homelander to agree to leave Billy and Ryan alone, and to stop torturing Maeve and Starlight. In the end, he’s right back where he believes he belongs, leading the Seven and being beloved by the public.

Although Billy is reunited with Rebecca in season two, he quickly loses her to his ultimate fear: a Supe. Becca dies after her son’s attempt to save her from Stormfront’s clutches leaves her with a gash in her neck, and she uses her last breaths to force Billy to keep Ryan safe. Billy promises Becca that he’ll tell Ryan it isn’t his fault, finally bidding his wife goodbye after years of trying to find her. With Becca gone and Homelander subdued by Queen Maeve, Billy hands Ryan over to Grace Mallory. She swears she’ll try to make sure he doesn’t end up like his father, which Billy echoes, saying that Becca’s memory might be the only thing to ensure that. In the end, Billy is truly alone, and no longer has his quest for vengeance or the Boys. But we all know he won’t be going on vacation in season three!

After going through some massively traumatic events in both seasons one and two, Hughie realizes he needs some peace. He and Starlight officially start dating, wanting to make a proper go at their relationship, and Hughie reveals that he needs space from the Boys, especially Billy. Their work has given him severe PTSD and, in the finale, Hughie decides to quit working with the Boys now that they’ve accomplished their “mission.” Instead, he decides to work on the campaign of Congresswoman Victoria Neuman, which means that the two will be spending a lot of time together in season three. Considering Hughie’s luck, that’s not going to be a good thing!

Despite suffering heavily since the day she joined the Seven, Starlight ends the season right back where she started: on the team. After Queen Maeve blackmails Homelander to stop hunting Starlight down for working with Hughie and the Boys, the Supe decides that she’ll continue working with the Seven to help fight Vought’s corruption from within. Starlight also decides to give her relationship with Hughie a proper try, leaving one bright spot in an otherwise horrible situation.

Despite the Deep doing everything in his power to get back into the good graces of Vought and the Seven, he finds himself still on the outs in the finale of season two. All of his work with the Church of the Collective – even getting married – winds up being all for naught when Stormfront’s reveal as a Nazi means the Seven needs all the diversity it can get. A-Train winds up getting his spot back on the team, despite having been kicked off earlier for his slowing speed. With the Church’s leader getting his head blown up in the season finale, there’s no telling where the Deep will go now.

When his wife and child are taken into hiding by the CIA, Mother’s Milk spends most of season two as the de facto leader of the Boys until Billy’s return. He uncovers the secret of Liberty’s true identity along with Hughie and Starlight, then ends the season by helping stage the distraction to save Becca and Ryan from Homelander’s cabin. With Becca gone, Ryan safe, and Homelander neutralised, Mother’s Milk is finally able to be reunited with his family, surprising his wife and daughter in their new home in the last moments of the finale.

Though the pair spend much of season two at odds with one another, French and Kimiko come to an understanding before the finale. They help Billy with the plan to save Becca and Ryan from Homelander, and Kimiko finally gets her chance to beat the crap out of Stormfront after she murdered Kimiko’s brother early in season two. In the end, Kimiko and Frenchie leave the Boys’ hideaway together, off on an adventure that hopefully has nothing to do with the blood and gore they’ve been dealing with for two seasons (though it probably won’t last very long with season three coming).