The Boys: Barbary Coast

 “I. Am. Homelander.”

I realise I could say this about any episode… but where to start?

Let’s start with Grace Mallory’s tale of Soldier Boy and the whole gang in ‘80s Nicaragua, engaged in that all-American pursuit of fighting left-wing movements in Central America in the name of the Monroe Doctrine, and doing so via deals with Khamenei’s Iran and selling cocaine specifically to minority communities. God bless Uncle Sam, Oliver North and Ronald Reagan. 

Anyway, we see the whole team in their, er, heyday, including a Black Noir who speaks(!), and an early example of why supes in any military is such a moronic idea. But the big Soviet supe-killing gun is quite the McGuffin, causing Billy to lose his brown stuff and alienate his son to protect him.

He does this because of his deep desire to kill Homelander, who is increasingly sadistic and out of control, like a cross between Superman and Donald Trump only capable of stringing a sentence together. He brings back the Deep into the team despite the reality TV comprtionion nonsense, just to troll Annie in the worst way possible before announcing that the two of them are an item. He makes the Deep eat an octopus, despite the fact he can hear it begging for its life. Worst of all, he calmly faces down Annie’s threat to release the plane footage by threatening to turn against America. It’s increasingly clear that he’s the big bad.

There’s so much else. The nicely done demonstration of Islamophobia on the reality show. Hughie’s reluctant conversion to fighting dirty. A-Train learning about a supe called Blue Hawk who is responsible for at least one BLM type atrocity. And the, er, revelations about Frenchie’s sexual past. 

Ah, The Boys. You’re dirty. You’re amazing. But I’m not taking you to meet my mother.