The Boys “The Bloody Doors Off” was written by Anslem Richardson, who also wrote for Timeless, and was directed by Sarah Boyd, whose other credits include The Flash, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Jessica Jones - so she's no stranger to stunts and effects. This episode gives us background on Frenchie (Tomer Capon) and may add a surprise new team member in Lamplighter (Shawn Ashmore). We also get another character from the comics introduced – Love Sausage (Andrew Jackson) – although his super power appears to be quite different from what it was in the comic!
The episode begins 8 years ago when Frenchie was heavily into drugs with Cherie (Jordana Lajoie) and Jay (Michael Ayres) and was apparently a prostitute and bank robber. Really, his backstory in the comics is way better and cooler. He was in the French foreign legion!
Grace (Laila Robins) recruits Frenchie after he’s caught robbing the bank – she’s impressed that he used weaponized Xanax to take out the superhero by taking away his rage. She’s impressed by his imagination and uses Cherie and Jay to get him to agree to come and work for her.
Kimiko is not happy to see Frenchie but hugs Annie! Butcher isn’t thrilled that Annie is there but does appreciate the information she brings about the Sage Grove Center – a Psychiatric hospital. Butcher even asks Annie to come with them – but he wants her there as “chum.”
Meanwhile, we get more of Stormfront and Homelander’s truly screwed up relationship – as she gets him off while he squishes some poor low-level crook’s head. Naturally, Homelander is petty and jealous and doesn’t take it well when Stormfront lies to him.
I love how the show is peppered throughout with the Vought corporate machine – so we get a commercial of Maeve (Dominique McElligott) pushing rainbow power bars as the Deep (Chace Crawford) essentially sneaks into her trailer on set. He was looking for evidence of the plane Homelander crashed last year. Once again, Crawford is hilarious as he tells Maeve about the “rowdy” halibut who found some of the wreckage, including a go pro. Maeve again holds it out as his way back into the Seven.
A-Train (Jessie T Usher) is not impressed by Ashley’s (Colby Minifie) attempts to be cool or his new anthem – and both are pathetic. He runs into the Deep, who immediately sets about recruiting him for the Church of the Collective. I love that he starts by offering A-Train a Fresca!
Frenchie, Kimiko and Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) go into Sage Grove after Annie blasts a hole in fence for them. Butcher and Hughie (Jack Quaid) are waiting for her when she gets back. She finally challenges Butcher on what his problem with her is – after all, she hates Vought as much as he does. I love that the show approaches the racist issue from several fronts. Annie calls Butcher on being racist – hating Supes just because of what’s in their blood. She tells him he’s a bigot and a bully – just like Homelander. They’re interrupted by the arrival of Stormfront.
MM, Frenchie, and Kimiko breach the security/surveillance room and discover rooms full of Supes, which they assume are terrorists being made by Vought. They see Stormfront enter one of the rooms, and it’s MM who sees Kimiko’s distress and goes to her and calms her down. It’s also MM who recognizes the orderly with Stormfront looks familiar. Tim (Will Carr) is the patient they’re there to see, and when he asks to see his sister, Lamplighter sets him on fire – and Frenchie loses it.
The three go to leave with Frenchie being wheeled out on a gurney, but he and Lamplighter see each other and the jig is up. Lamplighter tries to burn Frenchie and ends up releasing Cindy (Ess Hodlmoser), who in turn lets everyone else out – because she is scary powerful! She thinks that the others are Lamplighter’s friends because they’re dressed like he is. When a guard shoots her, she explodes him! They all retreat to the control room. MM tells Lamplighter that he can burn them but Komiko is a Supe and he’ll just piss her off. When Komiko saves him from the Acid Vomit Patient (Nick Alachiotis), Lamplighter agrees to work together to get out.
Butcher and Hughie watch in horror at what’s going on inside. EMP Dude (Yona Epstein-Roth) shows up and Butcher tries to calm him down. It’s hard to say whether he’s scared or has no control but when he EMPs them, Butcher shoots and kills him. Hughie was sitting in the van which gets tossed and he ends up with a huge piece of glass stuck in him. Butcher and Annie finally agree on something – concern for Hughie. She can’t cauterize the wound because there is no power for her draw on. They abandon the others to try to save Hughie.
Back on set, Homelander has been waiting for Stormfront and gets angry enough to burn down his own trailer! Stormfront realizes that he’s upset with her; she offers to explain, and he doesn’t want to hear it.
In the Center, Lamplighter leads them into the pharmacy and Frenchie thinks it’s beautiful. Lamplighter tells Frenchie that he remembers him – he was tailing him “that” night – the night Lamplighter burnt a bunch of children – he asks Frenchie why he didn’t stop him from killing those children. Kimiko is taken aback by how upset Frenchie gets.
We flash back to five years ago. Lamplighter shows up to a meeting with Grace, Frenchie, MM, and Butcher. They all make fun of his outfit – saying he looks like a Majorette! They have some kind of blackmail on him and Grace tells him that he’s going to tell them everything that goes on in the tower – and Butcher adds especially about Homelander. Butcher is convinced they own him, but Grace is nervous and sets Frenchie to watch him.
Unfortunately, Jay overdoses and Cherie calls Frenchie. He abandons Lamplighter, who then proceeds to burn Grace’s grandchildren to death. We also learn that Frenchie’s name is Serge! And like Kimiko, he doesn’t have one in the comics.
In the present, Annie and Butcher commandeer a car from a random driver (Jason Gray-Stanford). When he won’t give the car up, he pulls a gun when he sees Butcher has one. Annie tries to get everyone to calm down, but ends up pushing him, gathering power from the car, and killing him. Butcher doesn’t care, but Annie is clearly disturbed from having killed an innocent guy – it’s even worse when after cauterizing Hughie’s wound, they get in the car and there’s a child’s seat in it – clearly, he had a family.
Annie urges Butcher to hurry, and Butcher thanks her for what she did to help Hughie. He sees that she’s struggling with what happened. But Annie is more upset because she didn’t feel bad enough about it. She insists that she’s nothing like him – she doesn’t want his approval… It’s a great scene with their exchanges taking place primarily via the rearview mirror.
Lamplighter tells them that Vought is trying to stabilize the V to be able to give it to adults. He doesn’t know why. Frenchie tells Lamplighter that he wasn’t there that night because his best friend OD’d. He didn’t die but he never saw him again and he overdosed and died a few months later. MM wants to know why he didn’t tell them – they would have let him off the hook. Frenchie asks why they think he wants to be let off the hook – clearly he thinks he deserves to be punished. They’re interrupted by MM being attacked by Love Sausage’s love sausage!
The try to get out but Cindy seems to make short work of his bomb. However, she’s no match for Stormfront who arrives and zaps her. She then calls for Lamplighter, and he goes to her. Frenchie is able to keep Kimiko from going after Stormfront largely because Kimiko has softened toward him after seeing how tormented Frenchie is.
Butcher and Annie get Hughie to the hospital and then seem to bond over him like fond parents. Annie remarks he never gives up on you, and Butcher says he follows you around like a pup – and we know how much Butcher loves his pup! Annie remarks that Hughie is too good for both of them.
Elena (Nicola Correia-Damude) finds the Go-Pro footage from the plane crash and is horrified – as you’d expect. Maeve insists it’s their out. She’s going to show it to Homelander and he’s either going to leave them alone or she’ll give the footage to CNN. Maeve insists that she didn’t have a choice, but Elena clearly thinks differently.
MM tells the others about Hughie and that he’ll be ok. Frenchie apologizes to Kimiko. He tells her that he was trying to save her to absolve his own sins – but he realizes that she didn’t ask to be saved. Again, I was really impressed by Fukuhara who does so much with just her facial expressions. She clearly realizes that maybe Frenchie is the one who needs to be saved.
Grace shows up and pulls a gun on Lamplighter. He urges her to do it, saying she’d be doing him a favor. Meanwhile, Frenchie intervenes and begs for his life. He points out that it won’t help her and it will end his torment. She can’t hurt him as much as he’s hurting himself. It looks like Lamplighter is going to end up as that mole after all.
Back at Vought tower, Stormfront’s room is being fixed after she and Homelander trashed it. He’s furious that she lied to him, so she comes completely clean. She shows him a picture of her with Chloe her daughter – who died of Alzeihmer’s a few years ago. She tells him that she was born in Berlin… in 1919. She was married to Frederick Vought. He gave her the first successful V injection. He made both of them. She tells him that they are in a war for the culture! The other races are grinding them down – but they can fight back with an army of supermen. And that is Vought’s true destiny. Homelander is everything they’d dreamed of – and she loves him with all of her heart! As the two kiss, we see that Cindy made it out… Is it just me who’s wondering about how Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) got to be the head of Vought? How does a Black man figure into the racist underpinnings of the corporation???????
There was a lot going on in this episode, but it mostly felt like setting the stage for what’s to come. It’s hard to believe that there are only 2 episodes left in this season! Thank heavens we know it’s been renewed already! What did you think of the episode? Do you think Lamplighter can be a decent spy? Can he make it out of the season? Are Annie and Butcher becoming friends? Could Cindy become a valuable ally? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
