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He's had plenty of competent and manipulative moments this season, hasn't he? The way he talks Sister Sage into joining the Seven, the conversation with Neuman right before this vent scene, asking her why she wants to be president, the way he twists Ryan's desire to help people into serving his own agenda of Supe superiority. I thought his "wrathful gods" speech was pretty good, too.
He has his moments but I think part of his image is beyond repair now. Even in the scenes where he is smart and menacing. You still just see him as a little dopey man child.
Anthony plays him well but the writers are just not clever enough to come up with reasons why someone with homelanders power wouldn't always have the edge up on the boys. So they just make him a buffoon
His being a man child is part of what makes him so frightening, no? The idea that he could go off on the slightest whim, the fact that a Homelander temper tantrum ends up with piles of bodies. We just saw it down in the lab a few episodes ago.
You would think yeah. There was a time when I found this true, but at this point the show has shown it's not willing to hurt any of the main characters in any meaningful way. So you get the man child part but not the scary part.
I think it's just gone on too long. Seeing him kill random no names has lost all impact. Very hopeful to see them be able to let him go off the rails in the final season. But this meandering around having him do any real damage has completely deflated a lot of what made his character so intense in the first season
Making Homelander the core of the show was their mistake. There’s just no way to drag that out for as long as they’re trying without it becoming dumb.
They should have done what the comic did and make it more of a monster of the week mystery thing with the Seven more in the background. Why doesn’t Homelander mop the floor with Butcher? Because Butcher has blackmail material and so they just don’t interact with each other very much. No need to contrive reasons for why the status quo never changes, it’s literally already written down in the book they’re supposedly adapting.
The first four episodes really set up a much better show that never came. Hiding in an abandoned building trying to figure out how to kill translucent, while hearing homelander flying around looking for them was really the peak of the show.
It's a result of them stretching the show because they were contracted to do another season. It's the same reason we got another season of will they won't they with frenchie and kimiko and yet another plot line about finding a tool to kill homelander but oh wait we can't use it because X reason.
I personally think he just buttons the flap like the uniforms in Star Trek II. The unbuttoned flap was relaxed boyish Homelander. After he killed Stillwell, his handler and mother figure, he became a real man who is in-charge of himself in his eyes.
I've been wondering about the flap lately. I agree with your analysis but I think it's unfortunate, for some reason the flap looks dope. Maybe we'll go back to it when he becomes fully unhinged again?
Yeah, I find it hard to believe that this bumbling man-child of the recent seasons could have engineered a network of super terrorists all around the world (without Stillwell finding out) and then manipulated public opinion into forcing a vote for Supes to join the military.
Well to be fair I do think that Homelander mentally deteriorating is a very deliberate writing choice and Antony Starr depicts that decline incredibly well. But in many ways he did feel a lot more threatening and imposing in Season 1.
I think his decline into insanity is great. But I think it would have been better if his brain didn’t just vanish after season 2. He can go nuts, but let’s keep his competence and intelligence intact.
Or just go straight to the apocalypse. That’s fine too. But he’s been a bumbling idiot on the verge of depopulating New York for the past two seasons, and it’s kinda hard for him to still feel threatening.
I do agree there. There was pretty much no excuse for this embarrassing display against Hughie lol
Like yeah he’s reckless, immature and in many ways pathetic but he’s not a complete moron. Even in S3, despite his lack of experience he’s still shown to be a fairly competent fighter. If they make him too dumb in moments where he’s supposed to be a danger then he just doesn’t feel like much of a threat anymore.
I really do hope the season four with some apocalyptic dictatorship, and season five gets true final season vibes. That would really revamp the stakes.
Agreed. Another theme is how no one can really advise you when they're afraid to tell you the truth. On one hand, catastrophic consequences for dishonesty is essential to military culture. On the other hand killing anyone who confesses or speaks their mind or asks a hard question leads to being "surrounded by sycophantic, yes-men!" Enter Sage, and now your only advisor might still secretly hate you and be working against you.
To be fair I think the issue was Homelander had clear objectives back then. Most of his actions were tied up in his obsession with Madeline and helping her (for example get supes into the army). He didn’t exactly think long term on whether his method was actually wise in the long term.
Now that he has everything he wanted, this is him having an existential crisis and he still feels empty and unfulfilled. So he’s listless and doing dumb things
I think its just a great example of the Peter principle, in season 1 he was an actor. Now he really has to lead and just does not have the skills to do so.
In the airplane scene the smile and laughter he has when the people start clapping is so unsettling. Theyve never been able to pull something like that off in newer seasons, no matter how many "scary homelander" moments they do
The problem is that Homelander losing all accountability and degenerating has been happening since season 1. Every season ends with Homelander going to a new low or becoming more unhinged.
I think we can just assume that barely anything will actually happen until the end of season 5 when the show itself ends. Until then enjoy the ride which basically just keeps all the characters in the same stasis more or less.
Main characters are gonna die this season to up the stakes. A-train on the seven side, probably frenchie or kimiko on the boys side but I’d honestly rather it be MM since he has nothing to do anymore and sucks at being leader
'Competence'
Lasers the whole control panel of a plane and decides to put the least possible effort into damage control. I don't think he is that smart either. He's just crazy powerful and KNOWS it. He is now on his way to own it entirely, going full blown dictator.
It's kind of the same way he goes in the comics. He appears a lot more calculated and just generally competent (keyword being appears) but then gets less and less so as he turns more and more unhinged.
Well that's the point they're conveying. We believed the facade of strength homelander tries to put up and as we learn more of his character we see his vulnerabilities and we see that he doesn't kill people who stand up to him.
He never wanted to kill huey in the vents.
Yeah, but he’s risen above his level of competence so he does not appear as all powerful as before. Previously there was infrastructure and a team that made the machine work. Stan Edgar was a brilliant ruthless businessman without limits. Homelander maybe a Superman but he doesn’t know the system.
Homelander has fallen prey to the fascists trap, when you fire or kill everyone competent around you, only incompetence or those that follow out of fear remain.
He realizes this but hasn’t really figured out that he’s the cause. It’s unlikely sister Sage will manage to avoid this if she taunts him, however she could be his right hand to the end if she remains loyal.
She’s also twisted by her own greed, she knew following him out of her apartment was a bad idea, but she too fell for his honeypot. “We can implement your ideas on a global scale” she’s his Goebbels.
s1 homeland was an anomaly man. the fact that his sheer presence invoked fear into the characters and us was crazy, we still get that feeling but now that butch has v it doesn’t have the same fear and anxious feeling + we were able to see just how crazy he was so you really had no idea if he’d just kill someone while they were in the middle of talking
Also his unhinged twitch whilst looking into the distance was great because it was used very sparingly. It made him more frightening to see he was together 90% of the time but could flip to that 10% at any point. Now he seems far less threatening as he's a basket case 24/7.
Ya I'm rewatching S1 with my partner atm and he is very manipulative. Putting people in situations where they have to do what he says without him resorting to violence.
I agree that there was no logic in Hughie surviving that encounter, but I have to disagree with OP on the strength of the laser. I think the strength was toned down purpose given the environment. He's able to make a laser weak enough to merely thaw a frozen bottle of milk.
I did some research and surprisingly the ducts being lined with zinc is entirely possible.
> When steel has been galvanized, it has been coated with zinc to prevent corrosion and rusting, helping to maximize its lifespan in a ductwork system. This makes it particularly useful for uncommon HVAC system designs and specific installation requirements.
Source: [https://machitech.com/sheet-metal-used-in-hvac-ductwork/](https://machitech.com/sheet-metal-used-in-hvac-ductwork/)
These are Hollywood airvents. They are simultaneously loud for the person inside, quiet for everyone else, big enough to let a 6'3" man to crawl through, secure enough to hold 500+ pounds, and still efficient to control the temp of an entire building.
I think the writers seeing they could he made of zinc was enough reason for them.
I read a YouTube comment where they claimed to work at some HVAC place and stated that Zinc is used for outside vents for the weather and wouldn’t be used for inside.
Plus the boys is a good show but let’s not pretend like the writing is out of this world. I find it hard to believe they’d include a detail that’s so easily missed and is a reference of a s1 line. While also not even hinting at it being zinc. Personally I just chalk it up to bad writing.
No they do not. They are designed for air, not people. Nobody is going to make air ducts structurally capable of holding the weight of a human person, it’s a waste of money.
It reminds me of one of the Destroy All Humans manuals that explains that you can’t destroy the KFCs because your futuristic weapons can’t damage aluminum siding.
This being seen as some major justification annoys me. Many if not most cars also have a zinc layer to protect from rusting. Why has Homelander never mentioned being unable to look in/through cars?
I wish they just added one line to confirm that so people would stop complaining.
Maybe MM tells hughie over the mic “run hughie, the vents are made of zinc!” Or something along those lines.
I mean mentioning it after he starts escaping from homelander would make no sense obviously, but if they mentioned it before he was already in the vents it would've felt natural
I’m not insinuating that I’m a writer by any means and my dialogue should be in the show word for word. Just some confirmation that homelander couldn’t see hughie because of the zinc.
And I’d rather have one cheesy line than a having to see a daily post about the ice skate scene.
My idea would have been we see what homelander sees with his vision, and then see Hughie pop out of the duct and then be visible, and that’s when he goes to laser and MM blinds him
We don't need that line. Homelander cannot see through zinc. That was established season 1. He seemingly fails to see through the vents to kill Hughie. The show is giving us two and two, its not the writers fault people can't make four out of that.
Agreed.
Modern day media suffers from trying to cater to those whose only purpose is sniffing out a plot hole. Characters stop speaking like people so that they can shoehorn explanations on the problems they expect people to identify.
I liked the scene. It was good to see HL do some unhinged shit again. I think at one point he even was gonna hit Hughie dead on but something (I don't remember what) made him look down and Lazer that girl in half.
Getting hung up on "plot armor" is kind of ridiculous to me, though. Of course he has plot armor. It's technically plot armor that has kept HL from just murdering all of them in that damn office. They have full on yelling matches in that thing, it's not like HL couldn't fly around listening for them. Not to mention all the other opportunities he has had but not taken. Hell, I would argue he could do it openly at any point this season and have no real repercussions. Without plot armor the show would have ended so long ago there wouldn't have been a point to even making it. Just enjoy the fun and blood and move on.
Agree. I think it's a subtle but purposeful play on hero vs villain.
Who's the hero and who's the villain can get a little confusing sometimes. Not really, since the show is satire and telegraph that homelander is the villain clearly for most people. But in real life it's more blurry sometimes.
Not only that, but they also don't pose any real threat to him, at least from his point of view. Nothing can hurt him. What are a bunch of humans going to accomplish? Maybe when they were shooting up Temp V, but with Butcher's condition now, that's not gonna happen again.
It's why he hasn't gone out of his way to target them or their families. I saw people wondering how Hughie was able to just publicly go to the hospital with his dad without Homelander just coming and killing him. That's not a priority for Homelander. If he happens to run into them, sure, he'll try to kill them, but they're at the worst just annoyances to him at this point. He's not gonna go out of his way to kill a gnat, at least not while he's focused on other things.
I'd agree until after S3. Even if Butcher can't shoot up again, Homelander almost died and was actually hurt. For the first time in his life, he was actually threatened.
That should've had more of an effect on him.
And it did. That's why he's enraged about wanting to kill Hughie in this scene, he knows The Boys are an actual threat. They made him serious in that scene to show that... except the scenes turns into a Scooby-Doo escape.
Yeah I don't really hold the Boys to the same standard as I'd hold a Game of Thrones episode. If Boys get all logical and realistic we wouldn't have any explosive gore and crazy fight scenes. As long as it's not TOO stupid I can live with whatever plot armor they come up with.
God I'm so glad I wasn't the only one who noticed it. I'm not entirely sure it wasn't done on purpose tbh because it perfectly mirrors the Salisbury poisoners smuggling the poison in a perfume bottle and then throwing it out (where it was found by someone and a woman died)
I'm actually fine with it because it adds to the absurdity and the whole "supes aren't actually heroes" thing, but some acknowledgement would've been nice, like a news report in the background saying "russia suspected in a recent novichok bioterrorist attack, 15 people dead"
I think it’s just laziness on his part. He hates doing work so he just decided to stand and find Hughie by lasering him. That’s his go-to. Can you seriously imagine Homelander flying through someplace cramped like the vents? I think he would consider it beneath him.
Tangentially related I actually do think Homelander is just dumb. He lasered Anika a second before she said something useful about the leak. He’s really only smart when he’s using somebody’s fear or support of him. If either of those things don’t apply he goes full ape brain.
Homelander can smell Butcher on Ryan right when he walks through their front doors, after Ryan secretly met with him.
Homelander can hear people’s heartbeats, sense their sweat levels rise, and adrenaline in their body.
Homelander can see Butcher’s tumor, through his skull, using X-ray vision.
**But Homelander can’t smell/hear mouth-breather Hughie in a vent directly above him?**
I figured he wasn't paying attention cuz i'm sure he doesn't go around counting heartbeats everytime he is around people. Same with smell probs. It was when he smelled the sweat that he knew instantly it was Hughie. As of X ray vision, someone suggested they are made of zinc(alloy) lol.
I think it's that he needs to both concentrate and actively allow his senses to be so precise.
If he can hear, see, and smell with that level of precision, leaving it "on" for all senses all of the time would be a complete overload even for him. It's not the fact that he can do it, it's the fact that he can do it WHILE ignoring all of the other noise.
People like nitpicking without even trying to answer their own questions.
I think you're 100% right.
he started to concentrate the moment the sweat dropped on his shoulder. there is no way hughie moves 2 meters away without homelander tracking his spot and getting on top of him.
If you could hear everything do you think you would hear everything all at once? It’s like normal hearing but advanced, do you hear everything all at once or do you focus to hear different things?
People tune stuff out all the time, I doubt you are aware of every single thing you see or hear at every moment, especially when you’re not looking for it. Just because he’s got super hearing doesn’t mean he’s paying attention to every single breath around him.
I mean he would have sensory overload 24/7 if those things were always on. He wasn't looking directly above him, music was playing, the vents were zinc, etc. I mean he 100% should have been able to find and kill Hughie once he did notice them there but the dust isn't in bloodhound mode every single second
Homelander never practiced with his powers. He isnt precise, he doesn't always hit his target, only when fighting Soldier Boy did he have to actually try. Thats why he seems so careless with his lasers, because he is!
Thing is he doesn't care about the boys. They aren't a threat, just a nuisance. It's like when you have a fly buzzing around your house all day. At some point you snap and go "THIS FUCKING THING" but when you try to swat it and it flies away you often give up, too much effort to chase it.
Hughie being in the vent was probably more baffling than angering. Like how is this idiot twig of a boy STILL following me.
Also he likes the attention. They boys don't love him but they think about him more than anyone else and he likes that. He likes how strongly butcher feels towards him, that's why he'd never kill him
Supes are harder to pop and require some kind of charge time, I can buy that trying to pop the sheep flying around at super speeds and trying to eat her alive would have a high chance of failure
Not quite?
Annie was weak last episode because there weren't many power sources on a remote farm. Other than that she's more powerful than ever - flight.
Kimiko jumped out of a window (with a hand ripped off) few episodes ago and just walked it off. Seems pretty powerful to me.
Mmm..that remote farm had a secret laboratory inside with plenty of power sources..
Her problem seems to more her current mental state*, as Neuman subtly points to during their conversation
I love that this has spawned a thread of “Homelander in season 1 was so much better” “Homelander in season 1 was truly unhinged” “Homelander in season 1 was actually scary”
…like he didn’t just stuff some innocent scientists full of fudgy the whale cake and then completely butcher them until they’re unrecognisable pieces of meat, and then trapped a woman in a room with the wreckage, because of a 40 year old grudge
I don’t think he sees Hughie as much of a threat. However, if Hughie is in the building, then so are the rest of the Boys. If he flew up into an air vent he couldn’t see through, he could have easily ended up in a trap.
I will say it did seem like Homelander should probably have been able to take Hughie out in that scene, BUT was the vent lined with zinc? I’m not sure, it would at least explain why Homelander had to bust through it instead of looking through it and lasering Hughie, after that though it does seem like Homelander should have caught up. Maybe Hughie does have powers after all, the power of plot armor
A lot of vents are made out of pot metal that usually includes zinc, but the question is how concentrated does the zinc need to be for home lander not to see through.
Okay homelander seamlessly kills Hughie and then goes and wipes the Boys in 6 seconds because you’re right, technically he can. Now the show is over. What fun.
Honestly, although he did not ultimately care if he made a scene, I still think part of him was trying to restrain himself so he could be the most discreet possible. Also the thought of killing Hughie as if it was nothing, barely worth his effort. But at the end of the day? Nah, it's just excuses for a cheap action scene
I’m guessing he didn’t want to make it obvious what he was doing. Yes the figure skaters ended up getting messed up by the end but I think he was trying to avoid that and the situation just got out of control.
Regardless of how you feel about why hughie got away. WHY IS HE STILL WALKING AROUND HAVING HOSPITAL ADVENTURES?!?! he’s not even hiding? In season 1 homelander was an omnipotent force of nature they could barely hide translucent from.. now hughie basically threatens to out homelander to the world and he’s still just walking around? And his team? They have a headquarters that might as well be called the anti homelander headquarters
After season 2 they've gradually turned Homelander into a far less competent threat and situation-nerfed him to allow him and the Boys to interact without the Boys turning into "the Boy".
I think the difference here is effort. He could have easily flown up to kill Hughie, sure, but I don’t think his malice towards H-dog was “I smell my nemesis and must defeat him at any cost”, it was “ugh not this annoying cockroach again!” If you were really annoyed at a mosquito you might try harder to slap it, but you wouldn’t pull out a gun.
Zinc is his kryptonite. After thousands of failed attempts butcher and new parasite buddy are going to eat tons of zinc and make a zinc suit to finally put Homelander down. Standing over a defeated Homelander Butcher will Zinc Bae him.
1. I won't stand for Totally Spies gadget slander mkay.
2. To your point, idk how Hughie survived that encounter, given the way HL popped up in the vent like a psychotic, rogue whack-a-mole. .
You're putting way too much thought into something that can't realistically be logical. The entire premise of the show is non super powered people (mostly) vs super powered people.
Without plot armor the entirety of The Boys would have been dead a long time ago. Stop thinking like this is the real world. It's fictional entertainment
1. He can adjust the intensity of the laser - him warming milk. He knows better than to draw attention to his scheming.
2. Why move when laser does the work? We’ll see his speed when he fights A-Train.
3. Public persona. Do you think shiny sparkly Homelander will fly through a dusty vent in a place where he came to watch auditions?
4. Zinc. Hughie was still in vents. Homelander could only guess/ smell and try to shoot.
5. ? MM and A-Train.
Yes, but anything like that would require concentration. It's the sort of thing you'd subconsciously block out otherwise you'd always be surrounded by a cacophony.
The thing that got me was less the scene itself and more the lack of fallout from it. Homelander decides, "I'm going to kill this guy, damn the supposed consequences," but just... doesn't follow up. My blood went cold when Hughie returned to the hospital because I thought FOR SURE Homelander or a Vought representative was going to be waiting for him in his dad's room, but nope. It's just a cut thread. It feels like the scene exists only so that we could have the mass slaughter of ice dancers, which is the main issue I'm having with S4.
I may be looking back with rose colored glasses, but this season seems a lot more dependent on the vaguely absurdist gags than previous ones did. Like, we've gotten one almost every episode: Tilda Swinton octopus, the supe centipede, Vought on Ice, Frenchie's trip, V-ed up sheep. And they're mostly fun, so I'm not really complaining, but I personally enjoyed them more when they were little treats instead of a whole meal.
I like it because the “Plot Armor” plays into homelander story this season. He is so wildly insecure that not being able to kill Hughie, of all people only further plays into his mental free fall.
So far this season has too many painfully obvious plot armor moments. This is one I noticed. The sheep being foiled by a wooden door after ripping a gigantic mutant bull to pieces like it was made of paper.
Really pulls me out of enjoying the show. But not sure how they can have direct conflict between humans and godlike monsters without doing this, or the ludicrous “temp v” shit.
I got your point but… Does everything need to be chewed into small pieces for the audience to understand? Can't people put the pieces of an equation together? This is the kind of show that allows for deductions and confabulation. Homelander getting older, more obsessive and crazier is an obvious factor with each season... Even The Boys are not in the right frame of mind, broken and facing their own ghosts.
Wouldn't the air vent block his smell?
I'm just throwing stuff at the wall tbh. But my suspension of disbelief is pretty high so it is what it is. The scene was fine by me.
I thought it was weird he didn't chase after him. But I don't think he was as bloodlusted as people make him out to be in that scene. When Hughie went out of sight, he figured it wasn't worth destroying everything in his path.
Plus, Victoria telling him to chill probably played a role as well. He said he didn't care, but after hearing something like that, it probably affected his performance.
Ok. Here’s a better explanation, he still cares about public opinion. He was trying to take out hughie with as little disruption as possible. It’s also important to note he 100% doesn’t trust nueman at all. And always has his guard around her, hughie is very insignificant when you have a supe right next to you that could potentially take you out.
Even if you excuse all the other bs, the boys have another scheme blow up in their face that causes another disaster. Until the goofy farm episode which has two. I'm just glad mm was able to find a shirt that wasn't rap related
cant believe im saying this but im defending homelander on this one
1. Yes he could laser the whole area in one go, and we know he can control the heat of his laser. But why would he full power if he can just shoot him down with minimal ease, like would you use an AK 47 to kill a rat in the farm? no just use those bolt action ones for better precision, Also im pretty sure HL is trying to keep the damages low, He also only made a mess when MM him
2. Yeah theres plot armor here, but Through out the show HL has been shown to Rely on his laser the most, so why would he fly there if he could just finish the job right on that spot, he's laser first then physical after
3. HL is a icon, so he will always try to keep himself clean, and through out the show we've rarely seen him dirty meaning he always keeps him self clean, plus he could fly through the vents yes, but theres many turns in that vent he might turn to the wrong way, for a human example imagine an ant path you, could see the ways the paths but its covered so only the path is visible and not the inside, then you will use your finger to destroy those paths to kill a certain ant, without seeing the ant directly theres a chance you slide your finger to the wrong path causing the ant to escape,
4. Plot armor yeh but, HL is probably trying to minimize the damages, Plus weve seen him continuously laser the vent only stoping near to Hughie probably because HL thought Hugie is not there so he stopped Lasering that part, thats why he got annoyed looking around for hugie
5. Refer to point 2, plus Hugie is supposed to be dead if MM didn't saved him, so in a way Hugie is just lucky
HL lost not because of bad writing, HL lost because he relied to his laser instead of thinking straight and using his speed to his advantage
I think it's important to note Honelander can't go around killing people with witnesses. He can't afford to hunt down some random in broad daylight and beat him to death without people asking questions.
Yes, he did do all that in the end of season 3, but...he just got out of court for that. He and Sage have a plan and they need to keep a low profile. Not just him and Neuman both have to keep up their public appearance
I like how the entire explanations in this thread are :
"Homelander isn't smart enough / doesn't think straight enough to do that"
"Homelander can't do this/that because he has to keep this/that in mind"
Which is it ? You can't have it both ways.
People are reaching so far to explain this nonsensical scene that the explanations could make up a whole new season.
Homelander's lazy. If he wasn't he'd have stalked one of The Boys to their base and killed everyone.
Reminder that The Boys have nothing on him except the plane video.
The entire series of the boys was never truly flawless. Stuff like what you were upset about have been a part of the show since day one. You have to suspend your disbelief, and just go with it. It's the boys not the sopranos
He flew up and stuck his head into the vents, something he wouldn't need to do if they weren't lined with zinc. I also think the stadium lighting was throwing him off which is why he ended up lasering the skaters.
Homelander has the same writing problem or strength depending on your perspective as Superman; he is always as strong as the plot needs him to be in any given moment.
They are (all!) getting worse at their jobs. Homelander visibly aging is also a key part of this season. But love the Totally Spies compact laser shout out.
Not to mention vought has trackers in all their heroes right? So A-Train saving Hugie and being close to Homelander should have been noticed by someone or at least had a notification of some sort.
There aren't many badly written scenes like this in the show, but that had to be one of the worst and most inconsistent scenes to date. Made zero sense.
The only "reasonable" reason is that he didn't want to interrupt the Vought on ice show....he's already on trial for murder and Flying around trying to laser hughie would draw attention
"but Neumann can't focus on the sheep they are moving at high speed"
Yeah, speed high enough for regular humans to escape them. I'm so done talking about this scene with people. They'd rather say 9/11 was an inside job than to admit it was a badly written scene.
None of the show makes any sense anymore. Nueman can head burst anyone... including the crazy suped up chicken... but not three flying sheep?
The writers are not doing their jobs. The actors are showing up though...
Homelander doesn't care. He was briefly annoyed with Hughie in that moment but the second it took more effort than it takes to swat a fly he lost interest.
Not to mention, even if he escaped him there, you can't friggin tell me that Homelander can't just find Hughie at some other time or have people looking for him.
Ffs, his father was hospitalized and he was paying him regular visits, it's like after the theater he just completely memory wiped!
That's when you know it's just a scene and not a story, sadly...
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I miss the Homelander of Season 1 who was unhinged, degenerate, but also frighteningly competent and manipulative.
He's had plenty of competent and manipulative moments this season, hasn't he? The way he talks Sister Sage into joining the Seven, the conversation with Neuman right before this vent scene, asking her why she wants to be president, the way he twists Ryan's desire to help people into serving his own agenda of Supe superiority. I thought his "wrathful gods" speech was pretty good, too.
He has his moments but I think part of his image is beyond repair now. Even in the scenes where he is smart and menacing. You still just see him as a little dopey man child. Anthony plays him well but the writers are just not clever enough to come up with reasons why someone with homelanders power wouldn't always have the edge up on the boys. So they just make him a buffoon
His being a man child is part of what makes him so frightening, no? The idea that he could go off on the slightest whim, the fact that a Homelander temper tantrum ends up with piles of bodies. We just saw it down in the lab a few episodes ago.
You would think yeah. There was a time when I found this true, but at this point the show has shown it's not willing to hurt any of the main characters in any meaningful way. So you get the man child part but not the scary part. I think it's just gone on too long. Seeing him kill random no names has lost all impact. Very hopeful to see them be able to let him go off the rails in the final season. But this meandering around having him do any real damage has completely deflated a lot of what made his character so intense in the first season
Making Homelander the core of the show was their mistake. There’s just no way to drag that out for as long as they’re trying without it becoming dumb. They should have done what the comic did and make it more of a monster of the week mystery thing with the Seven more in the background. Why doesn’t Homelander mop the floor with Butcher? Because Butcher has blackmail material and so they just don’t interact with each other very much. No need to contrive reasons for why the status quo never changes, it’s literally already written down in the book they’re supposedly adapting.
The first four episodes really set up a much better show that never came. Hiding in an abandoned building trying to figure out how to kill translucent, while hearing homelander flying around looking for them was really the peak of the show.
It's a result of them stretching the show because they were contracted to do another season. It's the same reason we got another season of will they won't they with frenchie and kimiko and yet another plot line about finding a tool to kill homelander but oh wait we can't use it because X reason.
So this is why I'm no longer scared of him....
And with better hair.
Yeah. More hair too.
More pubic hair as well.
More milk as well.
I think it was the milk lol. Stillwell’s got some powerful milkers. The stock Homie has now is expired.
Also he had a flap which according to the fashion police looked better.
I personally think he just buttons the flap like the uniforms in Star Trek II. The unbuttoned flap was relaxed boyish Homelander. After he killed Stillwell, his handler and mother figure, he became a real man who is in-charge of himself in his eyes.
I've been wondering about the flap lately. I agree with your analysis but I think it's unfortunate, for some reason the flap looks dope. Maybe we'll go back to it when he becomes fully unhinged again?
The "better hair" doesn't work with Homelander. He looks too casual and too laid back. The new one looks formal and like a real politician.
a lot of people keep saying this but to be honest I really don't like his season one hair. it just feels... weird
I mean it’s not that big of a difference. His hair is just combed back now
Antony Starr’s acting is always phenomenal but in terms of character I do prefer Season 1 Homelander the most
Yeah, I find it hard to believe that this bumbling man-child of the recent seasons could have engineered a network of super terrorists all around the world (without Stillwell finding out) and then manipulated public opinion into forcing a vote for Supes to join the military.
Well to be fair I do think that Homelander mentally deteriorating is a very deliberate writing choice and Antony Starr depicts that decline incredibly well. But in many ways he did feel a lot more threatening and imposing in Season 1.
I think his decline into insanity is great. But I think it would have been better if his brain didn’t just vanish after season 2. He can go nuts, but let’s keep his competence and intelligence intact. Or just go straight to the apocalypse. That’s fine too. But he’s been a bumbling idiot on the verge of depopulating New York for the past two seasons, and it’s kinda hard for him to still feel threatening.
Maybe his idiot brain was getting fucked by stupid.
I do agree there. There was pretty much no excuse for this embarrassing display against Hughie lol Like yeah he’s reckless, immature and in many ways pathetic but he’s not a complete moron. Even in S3, despite his lack of experience he’s still shown to be a fairly competent fighter. If they make him too dumb in moments where he’s supposed to be a danger then he just doesn’t feel like much of a threat anymore.
I really do hope the season four with some apocalyptic dictatorship, and season five gets true final season vibes. That would really revamp the stakes.
Agreed. Another theme is how no one can really advise you when they're afraid to tell you the truth. On one hand, catastrophic consequences for dishonesty is essential to military culture. On the other hand killing anyone who confesses or speaks their mind or asks a hard question leads to being "surrounded by sycophantic, yes-men!" Enter Sage, and now your only advisor might still secretly hate you and be working against you.
Yeah Homelander essentially has Deep and A-Train in a hostage situation and is wondering why they do whatever he says lol
He's getting a lot of hallucinations recently... did we just skip over that part?
To be fair I think the issue was Homelander had clear objectives back then. Most of his actions were tied up in his obsession with Madeline and helping her (for example get supes into the army). He didn’t exactly think long term on whether his method was actually wise in the long term. Now that he has everything he wanted, this is him having an existential crisis and he still feels empty and unfulfilled. So he’s listless and doing dumb things
I think it's definitely this mixed with getting lazy, over confident and old
I think its just a great example of the Peter principle, in season 1 he was an actor. Now he really has to lead and just does not have the skills to do so.
In the airplane scene the smile and laughter he has when the people start clapping is so unsettling. Theyve never been able to pull something like that off in newer seasons, no matter how many "scary homelander" moments they do
The problem is that Homelander losing all accountability and degenerating has been happening since season 1. Every season ends with Homelander going to a new low or becoming more unhinged. I think we can just assume that barely anything will actually happen until the end of season 5 when the show itself ends. Until then enjoy the ride which basically just keeps all the characters in the same stasis more or less.
Main characters are gonna die this season to up the stakes. A-train on the seven side, probably frenchie or kimiko on the boys side but I’d honestly rather it be MM since he has nothing to do anymore and sucks at being leader
'Competence' Lasers the whole control panel of a plane and decides to put the least possible effort into damage control. I don't think he is that smart either. He's just crazy powerful and KNOWS it. He is now on his way to own it entirely, going full blown dictator.
It's kind of the same way he goes in the comics. He appears a lot more calculated and just generally competent (keyword being appears) but then gets less and less so as he turns more and more unhinged.
Well that's the point they're conveying. We believed the facade of strength homelander tries to put up and as we learn more of his character we see his vulnerabilities and we see that he doesn't kill people who stand up to him. He never wanted to kill huey in the vents.
Yeah, but he’s risen above his level of competence so he does not appear as all powerful as before. Previously there was infrastructure and a team that made the machine work. Stan Edgar was a brilliant ruthless businessman without limits. Homelander maybe a Superman but he doesn’t know the system. Homelander has fallen prey to the fascists trap, when you fire or kill everyone competent around you, only incompetence or those that follow out of fear remain. He realizes this but hasn’t really figured out that he’s the cause. It’s unlikely sister Sage will manage to avoid this if she taunts him, however she could be his right hand to the end if she remains loyal. She’s also twisted by her own greed, she knew following him out of her apartment was a bad idea, but she too fell for his honeypot. “We can implement your ideas on a global scale” she’s his Goebbels.
Loved his open flap
It's almost like the writing is "he's so unhinged he's not even good at being bad" but idk I'm a moron.
and looked like he actually was leagues above every other sup, which made him more terrifying. Now he gets beat up by Maeve using a steel straw.
s1 homeland was an anomaly man. the fact that his sheer presence invoked fear into the characters and us was crazy, we still get that feeling but now that butch has v it doesn’t have the same fear and anxious feeling + we were able to see just how crazy he was so you really had no idea if he’d just kill someone while they were in the middle of talking
Also his unhinged twitch whilst looking into the distance was great because it was used very sparingly. It made him more frightening to see he was together 90% of the time but could flip to that 10% at any point. Now he seems far less threatening as he's a basket case 24/7.
Ya I'm rewatching S1 with my partner atm and he is very manipulative. Putting people in situations where they have to do what he says without him resorting to violence.
He can't laser through plot armor. It's his biggest weakness.
I agree that there was no logic in Hughie surviving that encounter, but I have to disagree with OP on the strength of the laser. I think the strength was toned down purpose given the environment. He's able to make a laser weak enough to merely thaw a frozen bottle of milk.
I did some research and surprisingly the ducts being lined with zinc is entirely possible. > When steel has been galvanized, it has been coated with zinc to prevent corrosion and rusting, helping to maximize its lifespan in a ductwork system. This makes it particularly useful for uncommon HVAC system designs and specific installation requirements. Source: [https://machitech.com/sheet-metal-used-in-hvac-ductwork/](https://machitech.com/sheet-metal-used-in-hvac-ductwork/)
You left out the part where galvanized steel vents are usually covered for insulation, and these vents are exposed, so they are likely aluminum.
These are Hollywood airvents. They are simultaneously loud for the person inside, quiet for everyone else, big enough to let a 6'3" man to crawl through, secure enough to hold 500+ pounds, and still efficient to control the temp of an entire building. I think the writers seeing they could he made of zinc was enough reason for them.
Don't forget that they are also as clean and pristine as the day they were installed.
And no screws or sharp corners.
I read a YouTube comment where they claimed to work at some HVAC place and stated that Zinc is used for outside vents for the weather and wouldn’t be used for inside. Plus the boys is a good show but let’s not pretend like the writing is out of this world. I find it hard to believe they’d include a detail that’s so easily missed and is a reference of a s1 line. While also not even hinting at it being zinc. Personally I just chalk it up to bad writing.
Do aluminum air vents have enough support and durability to hold an adult? I have no idea.
No they do not. They are designed for air, not people. Nobody is going to make air ducts structurally capable of holding the weight of a human person, it’s a waste of money.
Homelanders greatest weakness galvanized square steel
And eco-friendly wood veneers
It reminds me of one of the Destroy All Humans manuals that explains that you can’t destroy the KFCs because your futuristic weapons can’t damage aluminum siding.
Well he IS little John after all
This being seen as some major justification annoys me. Many if not most cars also have a zinc layer to protect from rusting. Why has Homelander never mentioned being unable to look in/through cars?
I wish they just added one line to confirm that so people would stop complaining. Maybe MM tells hughie over the mic “run hughie, the vents are made of zinc!” Or something along those lines.
That would be so shit and annoying.
I mean mentioning it after he starts escaping from homelander would make no sense obviously, but if they mentioned it before he was already in the vents it would've felt natural
I’m not insinuating that I’m a writer by any means and my dialogue should be in the show word for word. Just some confirmation that homelander couldn’t see hughie because of the zinc. And I’d rather have one cheesy line than a having to see a daily post about the ice skate scene.
My idea would have been we see what homelander sees with his vision, and then see Hughie pop out of the duct and then be visible, and that’s when he goes to laser and MM blinds him
HL: *misses shot* Vic: “Need to borrow my readers?” HL: “The vents are treated with fucking Zinc. Hold on.” All it takes
Or even just have him say "fucking zinc"
Yeah it’d be cool
We don't need that line. Homelander cannot see through zinc. That was established season 1. He seemingly fails to see through the vents to kill Hughie. The show is giving us two and two, its not the writers fault people can't make four out of that.
Wanting a show to cater to the lowest common denominator is how you ruin a show.
"Pull my hair script daddy I can't understand without you"
Agreed. Modern day media suffers from trying to cater to those whose only purpose is sniffing out a plot hole. Characters stop speaking like people so that they can shoehorn explanations on the problems they expect people to identify.
Another evidence to the fact that Redditors should not be TV writers.
It's also a testament to the absolute lack of intectual curiosity displayed by average posters.
Damn I’m so glad you are not a writer on the show lmao
Just stop complaining. It's simple
I don’t have any issues with the scene. But I see a post here almost daily about it
Or maybe just show us that Homelander can't see through them. Showing is way better than outright telling.
What if they showed it by… having him miss?
Here's the funny thing. They did.
damn now it makes sense
I liked the scene. It was good to see HL do some unhinged shit again. I think at one point he even was gonna hit Hughie dead on but something (I don't remember what) made him look down and Lazer that girl in half. Getting hung up on "plot armor" is kind of ridiculous to me, though. Of course he has plot armor. It's technically plot armor that has kept HL from just murdering all of them in that damn office. They have full on yelling matches in that thing, it's not like HL couldn't fly around listening for them. Not to mention all the other opportunities he has had but not taken. Hell, I would argue he could do it openly at any point this season and have no real repercussions. Without plot armor the show would have ended so long ago there wouldn't have been a point to even making it. Just enjoy the fun and blood and move on.
MM blinded him with lights if I'm not mistaken.
Correct
Is Homelander secretly The Weeknd????
Word on the street says he is a motherf*cking starboy
Not to make excuses for the show but I think HL really does enjoy the cat and mouse dynamic he has with Butcher and the boys
Agree. I think it's a subtle but purposeful play on hero vs villain. Who's the hero and who's the villain can get a little confusing sometimes. Not really, since the show is satire and telegraph that homelander is the villain clearly for most people. But in real life it's more blurry sometimes.
Not only that, but they also don't pose any real threat to him, at least from his point of view. Nothing can hurt him. What are a bunch of humans going to accomplish? Maybe when they were shooting up Temp V, but with Butcher's condition now, that's not gonna happen again. It's why he hasn't gone out of his way to target them or their families. I saw people wondering how Hughie was able to just publicly go to the hospital with his dad without Homelander just coming and killing him. That's not a priority for Homelander. If he happens to run into them, sure, he'll try to kill them, but they're at the worst just annoyances to him at this point. He's not gonna go out of his way to kill a gnat, at least not while he's focused on other things.
I'd agree until after S3. Even if Butcher can't shoot up again, Homelander almost died and was actually hurt. For the first time in his life, he was actually threatened. That should've had more of an effect on him.
And it did. That's why he's enraged about wanting to kill Hughie in this scene, he knows The Boys are an actual threat. They made him serious in that scene to show that... except the scenes turns into a Scooby-Doo escape.
He totally does
Yeah I don't really hold the Boys to the same standard as I'd hold a Game of Thrones episode. If Boys get all logical and realistic we wouldn't have any explosive gore and crazy fight scenes. As long as it's not TOO stupid I can live with whatever plot armor they come up with.
The only dumb plot was Season 3 ending, and Queen Maeve throwing Novichok onto the street without anyone acknowledging. Rest of it is fine.
God I'm so glad I wasn't the only one who noticed it. I'm not entirely sure it wasn't done on purpose tbh because it perfectly mirrors the Salisbury poisoners smuggling the poison in a perfume bottle and then throwing it out (where it was found by someone and a woman died) I'm actually fine with it because it adds to the absurdity and the whole "supes aren't actually heroes" thing, but some acknowledgement would've been nice, like a news report in the background saying "russia suspected in a recent novichok bioterrorist attack, 15 people dead"
Haters gonna hate
I think it’s just laziness on his part. He hates doing work so he just decided to stand and find Hughie by lasering him. That’s his go-to. Can you seriously imagine Homelander flying through someplace cramped like the vents? I think he would consider it beneath him. Tangentially related I actually do think Homelander is just dumb. He lasered Anika a second before she said something useful about the leak. He’s really only smart when he’s using somebody’s fear or support of him. If either of those things don’t apply he goes full ape brain.
Homelander can smell Butcher on Ryan right when he walks through their front doors, after Ryan secretly met with him. Homelander can hear people’s heartbeats, sense their sweat levels rise, and adrenaline in their body. Homelander can see Butcher’s tumor, through his skull, using X-ray vision. **But Homelander can’t smell/hear mouth-breather Hughie in a vent directly above him?**
I figured he wasn't paying attention cuz i'm sure he doesn't go around counting heartbeats everytime he is around people. Same with smell probs. It was when he smelled the sweat that he knew instantly it was Hughie. As of X ray vision, someone suggested they are made of zinc(alloy) lol.
he probably needs to actually want to do this. maybe he needs to concentrate. he smelled Ryan because he had been missing for the entire day.
I think it's that he needs to both concentrate and actively allow his senses to be so precise. If he can hear, see, and smell with that level of precision, leaving it "on" for all senses all of the time would be a complete overload even for him. It's not the fact that he can do it, it's the fact that he can do it WHILE ignoring all of the other noise. People like nitpicking without even trying to answer their own questions. I think you're 100% right.
he started to concentrate the moment the sweat dropped on his shoulder. there is no way hughie moves 2 meters away without homelander tracking his spot and getting on top of him.
There's music on.
If you could hear everything do you think you would hear everything all at once? It’s like normal hearing but advanced, do you hear everything all at once or do you focus to hear different things?
People tune stuff out all the time, I doubt you are aware of every single thing you see or hear at every moment, especially when you’re not looking for it. Just because he’s got super hearing doesn’t mean he’s paying attention to every single breath around him.
Actually now I’m curious if Homelander can see the monster that’s inside Butcher.
I think he can. In one of the recent episodes homelander points out something black wrapped around butchers brain.
I mean he would have sensory overload 24/7 if those things were always on. He wasn't looking directly above him, music was playing, the vents were zinc, etc. I mean he 100% should have been able to find and kill Hughie once he did notice them there but the dust isn't in bloodhound mode every single second
It also makes no sense that ppl whisper around him now, unless his hearing getting worse is a sign that age is affecting him
I mean Maeve did stab his ear with a metal straw
Homelander never practiced with his powers. He isnt precise, he doesn't always hit his target, only when fighting Soldier Boy did he have to actually try. Thats why he seems so careless with his lasers, because he is!
He doesn’t have to be precise here though. He could just obliterate the entire air duct and whoever is in it.
Thing is he doesn't care about the boys. They aren't a threat, just a nuisance. It's like when you have a fly buzzing around your house all day. At some point you snap and go "THIS FUCKING THING" but when you try to swat it and it flies away you often give up, too much effort to chase it. Hughie being in the vent was probably more baffling than angering. Like how is this idiot twig of a boy STILL following me. Also he likes the attention. They boys don't love him but they think about him more than anyone else and he likes that. He likes how strongly butcher feels towards him, that's why he'd never kill him
I can believe that, but why didn’t Neumann simply explode the heads of all the farmland critters after she popped a chicken?
Supes are harder to pop and require some kind of charge time, I can buy that trying to pop the sheep flying around at super speeds and trying to eat her alive would have a high chance of failure
Sheep are stronger than chickens
Starlight, kimiko and everyone else who got into it with Soldier Boy were having issues with their powers as well? I don't know...
Kimiko hasn’t struggled at all with her powers recently?
Not quite? Annie was weak last episode because there weren't many power sources on a remote farm. Other than that she's more powerful than ever - flight. Kimiko jumped out of a window (with a hand ripped off) few episodes ago and just walked it off. Seems pretty powerful to me.
Mmm..that remote farm had a secret laboratory inside with plenty of power sources.. Her problem seems to more her current mental state*, as Neuman subtly points to during their conversation
I think you missed the exchange with starlight and neumen. Something is up with her powers. Unrelated to available power sources
Yeah, I suspect that their powers are weakening and they are being very subtle about it.
Wdym about Kimiko? She was split in half and rebuilt herself within a remarkable amount of time, making Deadpool's healing factor look like nothing.
Lmao what show are you watching
I love that this has spawned a thread of “Homelander in season 1 was so much better” “Homelander in season 1 was truly unhinged” “Homelander in season 1 was actually scary” …like he didn’t just stuff some innocent scientists full of fudgy the whale cake and then completely butcher them until they’re unrecognisable pieces of meat, and then trapped a woman in a room with the wreckage, because of a 40 year old grudge
I don’t think he sees Hughie as much of a threat. However, if Hughie is in the building, then so are the rest of the Boys. If he flew up into an air vent he couldn’t see through, he could have easily ended up in a trap.
I will say it did seem like Homelander should probably have been able to take Hughie out in that scene, BUT was the vent lined with zinc? I’m not sure, it would at least explain why Homelander had to bust through it instead of looking through it and lasering Hughie, after that though it does seem like Homelander should have caught up. Maybe Hughie does have powers after all, the power of plot armor
A lot of vents are made out of pot metal that usually includes zinc, but the question is how concentrated does the zinc need to be for home lander not to see through.
It's not an alloy (well maybe) but what matters is the galvanization. The parts are fully coated in zinc.
This one wasn’t though, it was made from Plot Metal, hardest alloy known to man
Hughie is the MC. Imo the scene is fine, a little bit weird but entirely possible.
Yeah, Homelander is a lazy fk, and he would have had Hughie twice in that scene if not for MM and A-Train respectively.
Okay homelander seamlessly kills Hughie and then goes and wipes the Boys in 6 seconds because you’re right, technically he can. Now the show is over. What fun.
He probably doesn't want anyone on the ice rink to know that he's there, so that's why he didn't actively chase him
Didn’t he laser some of them in half?
That was after MM blinded him with the light to be fair
*One of them. Accidentally
Honestly, although he did not ultimately care if he made a scene, I still think part of him was trying to restrain himself so he could be the most discreet possible. Also the thought of killing Hughie as if it was nothing, barely worth his effort. But at the end of the day? Nah, it's just excuses for a cheap action scene
I’m guessing he didn’t want to make it obvious what he was doing. Yes the figure skaters ended up getting messed up by the end but I think he was trying to avoid that and the situation just got out of control.
Regardless of how you feel about why hughie got away. WHY IS HE STILL WALKING AROUND HAVING HOSPITAL ADVENTURES?!?! he’s not even hiding? In season 1 homelander was an omnipotent force of nature they could barely hide translucent from.. now hughie basically threatens to out homelander to the world and he’s still just walking around? And his team? They have a headquarters that might as well be called the anti homelander headquarters
Is it just me, or Homelander and TheBoys feels like 2 different series in this season ?
After season 2 they've gradually turned Homelander into a far less competent threat and situation-nerfed him to allow him and the Boys to interact without the Boys turning into "the Boy".
I think the difference here is effort. He could have easily flown up to kill Hughie, sure, but I don’t think his malice towards H-dog was “I smell my nemesis and must defeat him at any cost”, it was “ugh not this annoying cockroach again!” If you were really annoyed at a mosquito you might try harder to slap it, but you wouldn’t pull out a gun.
If the writers accounted for everything there would be no drama
You know what he can also do? Fly around the city and find The Boys and kill them instantly. No one would know. But then there wouldn't be a plot
Zinc is his kryptonite. After thousands of failed attempts butcher and new parasite buddy are going to eat tons of zinc and make a zinc suit to finally put Homelander down. Standing over a defeated Homelander Butcher will Zinc Bae him.
Could zinc also have an effect on his other powers ?
1. I won't stand for Totally Spies gadget slander mkay. 2. To your point, idk how Hughie survived that encounter, given the way HL popped up in the vent like a psychotic, rogue whack-a-mole. .
You're putting way too much thought into something that can't realistically be logical. The entire premise of the show is non super powered people (mostly) vs super powered people. Without plot armor the entirety of The Boys would have been dead a long time ago. Stop thinking like this is the real world. It's fictional entertainment
1. He can adjust the intensity of the laser - him warming milk. He knows better than to draw attention to his scheming. 2. Why move when laser does the work? We’ll see his speed when he fights A-Train. 3. Public persona. Do you think shiny sparkly Homelander will fly through a dusty vent in a place where he came to watch auditions? 4. Zinc. Hughie was still in vents. Homelander could only guess/ smell and try to shoot. 5. ? MM and A-Train.
Can't he also hear heartbeats? Or am I misremembering that detail?
Yes, but anything like that would require concentration. It's the sort of thing you'd subconsciously block out otherwise you'd always be surrounded by a cacophony.
and Vicky can sense blood
Let's see your scriptwriting degree.
The thing that got me was less the scene itself and more the lack of fallout from it. Homelander decides, "I'm going to kill this guy, damn the supposed consequences," but just... doesn't follow up. My blood went cold when Hughie returned to the hospital because I thought FOR SURE Homelander or a Vought representative was going to be waiting for him in his dad's room, but nope. It's just a cut thread. It feels like the scene exists only so that we could have the mass slaughter of ice dancers, which is the main issue I'm having with S4. I may be looking back with rose colored glasses, but this season seems a lot more dependent on the vaguely absurdist gags than previous ones did. Like, we've gotten one almost every episode: Tilda Swinton octopus, the supe centipede, Vought on Ice, Frenchie's trip, V-ed up sheep. And they're mostly fun, so I'm not really complaining, but I personally enjoyed them more when they were little treats instead of a whole meal.
I like it because the “Plot Armor” plays into homelander story this season. He is so wildly insecure that not being able to kill Hughie, of all people only further plays into his mental free fall.
So far this season has too many painfully obvious plot armor moments. This is one I noticed. The sheep being foiled by a wooden door after ripping a gigantic mutant bull to pieces like it was made of paper. Really pulls me out of enjoying the show. But not sure how they can have direct conflict between humans and godlike monsters without doing this, or the ludicrous “temp v” shit.
He was trying to kill Hughie discreetly. He could have bought the entire arena down.
I got your point but… Does everything need to be chewed into small pieces for the audience to understand? Can't people put the pieces of an equation together? This is the kind of show that allows for deductions and confabulation. Homelander getting older, more obsessive and crazier is an obvious factor with each season... Even The Boys are not in the right frame of mind, broken and facing their own ghosts.
Wouldn't the air vent block his smell? I'm just throwing stuff at the wall tbh. But my suspension of disbelief is pretty high so it is what it is. The scene was fine by me. I thought it was weird he didn't chase after him. But I don't think he was as bloodlusted as people make him out to be in that scene. When Hughie went out of sight, he figured it wasn't worth destroying everything in his path. Plus, Victoria telling him to chill probably played a role as well. He said he didn't care, but after hearing something like that, it probably affected his performance.
I mean, Homelander seems to enjoy fighting the boys. I think he likes having a nemesis. That’s the only thing that makes sense.
Ok. Here’s a better explanation, he still cares about public opinion. He was trying to take out hughie with as little disruption as possible. It’s also important to note he 100% doesn’t trust nueman at all. And always has his guard around her, hughie is very insignificant when you have a supe right next to you that could potentially take you out.
Even if you excuse all the other bs, the boys have another scheme blow up in their face that causes another disaster. Until the goofy farm episode which has two. I'm just glad mm was able to find a shirt that wasn't rap related
How could he possibly fly into the vent?
I think the point is just Homelander is incompetent asf
I think he was just being lazy
cant believe im saying this but im defending homelander on this one 1. Yes he could laser the whole area in one go, and we know he can control the heat of his laser. But why would he full power if he can just shoot him down with minimal ease, like would you use an AK 47 to kill a rat in the farm? no just use those bolt action ones for better precision, Also im pretty sure HL is trying to keep the damages low, He also only made a mess when MM him 2. Yeah theres plot armor here, but Through out the show HL has been shown to Rely on his laser the most, so why would he fly there if he could just finish the job right on that spot, he's laser first then physical after 3. HL is a icon, so he will always try to keep himself clean, and through out the show we've rarely seen him dirty meaning he always keeps him self clean, plus he could fly through the vents yes, but theres many turns in that vent he might turn to the wrong way, for a human example imagine an ant path you, could see the ways the paths but its covered so only the path is visible and not the inside, then you will use your finger to destroy those paths to kill a certain ant, without seeing the ant directly theres a chance you slide your finger to the wrong path causing the ant to escape, 4. Plot armor yeh but, HL is probably trying to minimize the damages, Plus weve seen him continuously laser the vent only stoping near to Hughie probably because HL thought Hugie is not there so he stopped Lasering that part, thats why he got annoyed looking around for hugie 5. Refer to point 2, plus Hugie is supposed to be dead if MM didn't saved him, so in a way Hugie is just lucky HL lost not because of bad writing, HL lost because he relied to his laser instead of thinking straight and using his speed to his advantage
Vent scenes have never made sense in the history of film/tv. Why start now?
Lol, I'll give you that one.
I think it's important to note Honelander can't go around killing people with witnesses. He can't afford to hunt down some random in broad daylight and beat him to death without people asking questions. Yes, he did do all that in the end of season 3, but...he just got out of court for that. He and Sage have a plan and they need to keep a low profile. Not just him and Neuman both have to keep up their public appearance
I like how the entire explanations in this thread are : "Homelander isn't smart enough / doesn't think straight enough to do that" "Homelander can't do this/that because he has to keep this/that in mind" Which is it ? You can't have it both ways. People are reaching so far to explain this nonsensical scene that the explanations could make up a whole new season.
Homelander's lazy. If he wasn't he'd have stalked one of The Boys to their base and killed everyone. Reminder that The Boys have nothing on him except the plane video.
The entire series of the boys was never truly flawless. Stuff like what you were upset about have been a part of the show since day one. You have to suspend your disbelief, and just go with it. It's the boys not the sopranos
He flew up and stuck his head into the vents, something he wouldn't need to do if they weren't lined with zinc. I also think the stadium lighting was throwing him off which is why he ended up lasering the skaters.
Homelander has the same writing problem or strength depending on your perspective as Superman; he is always as strong as the plot needs him to be in any given moment.
They are (all!) getting worse at their jobs. Homelander visibly aging is also a key part of this season. But love the Totally Spies compact laser shout out.
You are correct, the comment section is a cope.
Please stop✋ 😂 the totally spies reference has me in tearsssssssss!!!! God I haven’t thought about that show in so long
Woah, never thought i'd see a Totally Spies reference here of all places!
I was going to go with Jimmy Neutron, but his equipment can be pretty damn powerful, so I thought it wouldn't match the comparison.
Not to mention vought has trackers in all their heroes right? So A-Train saving Hugie and being close to Homelander should have been noticed by someone or at least had a notification of some sort.
My guess is he’s getting weaker. Hence having a draw full of V with lots missing
There aren't many badly written scenes like this in the show, but that had to be one of the worst and most inconsistent scenes to date. Made zero sense.
Agreed. I'm generally satisfied with the writing of the show, which is why I'm posting about this one, because it sticks out for me.
The only "reasonable" reason is that he didn't want to interrupt the Vought on ice show....he's already on trial for murder and Flying around trying to laser hughie would draw attention
I thought it was more of him ageing and potentially getting weaker. Hence all the missing vials of V.
Maybe that's the point. What if Homelanders powers are lacking because of this midlife crisis he is going through.
it became a series where to kill 4 goats they wasted a very important virus when they had Neuman with them
"but Neumann can't focus on the sheep they are moving at high speed" Yeah, speed high enough for regular humans to escape them. I'm so done talking about this scene with people. They'd rather say 9/11 was an inside job than to admit it was a badly written scene.
None of the show makes any sense anymore. Nueman can head burst anyone... including the crazy suped up chicken... but not three flying sheep? The writers are not doing their jobs. The actors are showing up though...
Homelander's biggest weakness is that he knows he cant kill main character until at least the end of this season.
Homelander doesn't care. He was briefly annoyed with Hughie in that moment but the second it took more effort than it takes to swat a fly he lost interest.
Why even a have a secret meeting next to a zinc airduct big enough to fit a person
Ever thought that Homie might be dumb?
Not to mention, even if he escaped him there, you can't friggin tell me that Homelander can't just find Hughie at some other time or have people looking for him. Ffs, his father was hospitalized and he was paying him regular visits, it's like after the theater he just completely memory wiped! That's when you know it's just a scene and not a story, sadly...
Some of yall can’t have fun. I’d hate to actually have to interact with people like OP.