The first episode of ‘The Boys’ Season 3 has all the things that the series is famous for among the fans. It is more violent, and bloodier, with lots of superhero politics that ought to bring in some massive adrenaline-filled action in upcoming episodes. Talking about the first episode, it sets the premise and the major conflict of Season 3, which is to bring down Homelander, who is not only losing his mind but also his authority on his beloved superhero team, “The Seven.”
Homelander craves attention, but everything that he holds dear is slowly fleeting away from him, be it the woman he loves or the position he boasts of. The fear of losing everything brings insecurity and jealousy to his already flawed character, which is enough to turn a troubled narcissistic mind into a psychopathic monster. Maybe he just needs a push now. For Billy Butcher, he is trying to be sober and sane for the initial episode, but everyone knows that Billy can’t be a saint for long. He is trying to control his rage, but anger is slowly building inside his hot head. He will snap eventually, just like Homelander, and there will be an ultimate clash between the two, but Billy can’t compete with his superhuman nemesis, not without any powers or a superweapon. And that’s what “The Boys” Season 3: Episode 1 is all about. It introduces a new temporary compound, V, also known as V24, that will give Billy some temporary “superpowers” which will help him to hunt for an ultimate weapon to blow Homelander’s head off. So without any further ado, let’s trace down the important events of Episode 1 and speculate where they may lead to.
Hughie Is Billy’s New Boss
At the end of “The Boys” Season 2, a new institution named the Federal Bureau of Superhuman Affairs (FBSA) was incorporated under the supervision of a new congresswoman, Victoria Neuman, to keep a check on the illegal activities of the superhumans and put them behind bars if found guilty of any crime. But Victoria knew that it would be possible to catch these superhumans lawfully, and thus she secretly funded a covert team, called “The Boys,” under the command of Colonel Grace Mallory. Grace had offered Billy to lead the team, but Billy didn’t give confirmation by the end of Season 2, though Season 3: Episode 1 quickly established that Billy took the job and is now working for the FBSA.
Hughie, on the other hand, didn’t want to get himself drenched in superhuman’s guts any longer and thus decided to take a desk job at Neuman’s new office and become a communication link between Neuman and Billy. However, the new team consisted of only three people, i.e., Billy, Frenchie, and Kimiko, as Marvin, or Mother’s Milk, left the gang to give time to his family while Hughie took the desk job and moved in with his new girlfriend, Starlight.
“The Boys” Season 3: Episode 1 took place some 12 months after the affairs of Season 2, and opened with the premiere of Adam Bourke’s “Dawn of The Seven,” the superhero film which was being filmed in Season 2. During the special screening, Billy asked for some funding for an operation to bust a shady superhuman named Termite, who has the powers to shrink himself. Billy, Frenchie, and Kimiko arrested Termite for killing a person at the party where he entered his body and accidentally expanded inside it, killing the person on the spot. However, Frenchie was quite surprised when Billy arrested Termite and didn’t kill him, a point which was also highlighted by Grace Mallory when Billy visited her secret hideout where she had been hiding Homelander’s son, Ryan, and protecting him from his own father. At this point, Billy subtly suggested that he has been trying to be a better person for Ryan, or a better father, to be exact. Billy and his brother, Lenny, grew up in a toxic environment with an abusive father who used to push them too hard with the belief that it would make them stronger as adults. Lenny killed himself because of this trauma, and Billy was never able to forgive his father for his acts. Billy witnessed similar toxic traits in Homelander and thus wanted to protect Ryan from him at all cost.
Nevertheless, after Billy arrested Termite, Neuman decided to let him go, and he was sent to a rehab center instead of prison for murdering a person. And evidently, Billy couldn’t accept this but had no other option but to follow the congresswoman’s order as everyone, including Hughie, believed that she was doing the right thing.
Stan Edgar Made Starlight The Co-Captain Of The Seven
Throughout “The Boys” Season 3: Episode 1, everyone had been asking Homelander the same question: “How did he not know that his girlfriend, Stormfront, was a Nazi?” And to everyone, Homelander gave the same answer: that he fell in love with the wrong woman. Because of his affair with a Nazi, Homelander’s public rating was declining rapidly, or as Stan Edgar pointed out, it dropped by double figures. But though Homelander’s fame was fading away, it was Starlight who was gaining some undivided media attention, and her public rating rose to some 96 percent, because of which Stan Edgar, the CEO of Vought International, decided to make Starlight the new Co-captain of “The Seven.”
We know Edgar doesn’t like Homelander because he is the only one he couldn’t tame. Maybe he wanted to enrage Homelander and push him off the edge so that he would act recklessly and taint his public image further, which would allow Edgar and the other board of directors to remove him from the team. Homelander has no friends left on the team, and the only person who understands his anger or pain is Stormfront, who is lying helpless on a bed, unable to move or use her powers as she was previously attacked by Ryan at the end of Season 2. Homelander tried to talk to Stormfront for a while but quickly got bored. He realized that she was no longer the woman whom he loved, as without her powers, she had lost her touch, and so we could speculate that Homelander is now all alone in this world.
Starlight, on the other hand, was quite happy with the new position she had attained. Edgar had manipulated her by giving her a taste of total authority through his whole “bending the will” speech. But Hughie was quite skeptical about this new position as he knew that Homelander would probably strike back. Another reason for Hughie’s insecurity was the return of Starlight’s ex-boyfriend, Drummer Boy, who has now bulked up and changed his name to Supersonic. He awaits his entry into “The Seven,” which is now co-captained by his old flame, and Hughie is quite envious of their chemistry.
Temp V or V24 And The Hunt For A Superweapon ‘B.C.L. RED’
As soon as Starlight became the team’s co-captain, Homelander lost his cool and thrashed A-train in the lobby, a tussle that was witnessed by Queen Maeve. She could very well predict that Homelander had lost his mind completely and could snap at any given moment, which is why she quickly contacted the only person who would help her to bring down Homelander.
When Maeve paid a visit to Billy The Butcher, it was instantly established that she was the one who had been supplying him with information about the nasty superhumans, including the Termite whom Billy tried to arrest at the beginning of ‘The Boys’ Season 3: Episode 1. Nevertheless, to combat Homelander, Maeve gave Billy a confidential file on Soldier Boy, Vought’s most prized superhero during World War 2, who formed a superhero team called “Payback” to fight the Nazis.
According to Billy, Soldier Boy got buried in a nuclear meltdown in 1984 in Ohio, but Maeve had heard some rumors about a special weapon called “B.C.L. RED,” some sort of gun or superweapon that probably killed Soldier Boy. Maeve asked Billy to find out more about “B.C.L. RED” so that they could use it against their greatest nemesis, Homelander. To hunt for this ultimate weapon, Maeve instructed Billy to follow Soldier Boy’s love interest, Crimson Countess, and his side-kick, Gunpowder, who were also a part of his core team, “Payback.” But Maeve knew that Billy wouldn’t be able to compete with these yesteryear superheroes and thus gave him three vials of a special serum, V24, recently developed by Vought International, to give temporary powers to its user.
Earlier in “The Boys” Season 3: Episode 1, Stan Edgar unveiled the new Temp V to the US secretary of defense, Robert Singer, and told him about its temporary benefits. Edgar has, from time to time, mentioned that Vought is not a superhero company but a pharmaceutical corporation that eagerly wants to make its way into the defense sector. He wants to sell the Temp V to the military so as to temporarily transform soldiers into superheroes to fight wars, and, thus, in the meantime, get rid of the superheroes entirely. Edgar is done babysitting superheroes and now just wants to run his empire. For the time being, Robert refused to introduce the prospect of V24 into parliament, but we don’t know when he would change his mind.
On the other hand, Billy, too, had his doubts about using the unstable compound V24 and turning into a superhuman, but a short visit by Homelander gave him second thoughts about it. Homelander is relentlessly looking for Ryan and would go to any lengths to find him, and Billy knows that there is only one solution to this problem, which is to get rid of Homelander forever. So would he turn into a temporary ‘supe’ and hunt for the ultimate weapon? Definitely, yes, as we have already witnessed in the Season 3 trailer.
‘The Boys’ Season 3: Episode 1 – Ending Explained – Who Is Nadia?
At the beginning of the episode, a suspicious man named Tony arrived at Victoria Neuman’s new office, which is FBSA HQ, where he met Hughie and called Neuman by the name Nadia, and introduced himself as her best friend. However, Neuman’s official asked Tony to leave the office, but he waited outside. When Neuman left the office at night, he followed her to the alley where Neuman or Nadia finally greeted him. Through their conversation, it can be speculated that Neuman knew Tony before she changed her identity and became a congresswoman. It was already established at the end of Season 2 that Neuman was a superhuman too and had the special telekinesis abilities through which she could blow people’s heads. At the end of “The Boys” Season 3: Episode 1, it was revealed that Tony had similar telekinesis powers through which he could move objects, like a test subject named Cindy, who escaped from Sage Grove Center in Season 2. Tony mentioned “Red River,” which could be another test facility, probably managed by Vought International, where they had been testing Compound V on adult human beings, and Cindy, Nadia, and Tony were a part of this experiment.
Tony wanted to reveal to the world what people with power did to him. He believed that Nadia or Neuman, who have become people’s voices against the superheroes, would help him, but Neuman switched sides and, for some sinister reasons, killed Tony instead of helping him. Through her attacks, it was also established that Neuman could explode other parts of the human body, not just the head. And poor Hughie had to witness it all. He had been running away from the gore and bloodbath for two entire seasons, and now at the end of affairs, all this running away meant nothing at all. His new boss is a powerful superhuman and, above all, a bloody murderer. Hughie, stuck in the center of conflict, has nowhere to go except to Billy The Butcher, whom Hughie despises the most, yet he is the only person who could help him now.
See More: ‘The Boys’ Season 3: Episode 2 – Recap And Ending, Explained – Is Stormfront Dead?
