The previous episode had established that in order to be strong for his son, Homelander was going to go back to the place where he was born/raised, and this episode begins and it is exactly that.
Now in that sense this episode isn't surprising at all, but in a lot of other ways it is extremely surprising.
Now there was a YouTube short video released that detailed an incident in Homelander's childhood when he killed a teacher that was assigned to him by hugging her too tight.
It was to show how lonely he is as he is raised by these bunch of scientists as a lab rat.
Now apart from establishing some really terrible things that were done to Homelander such as being put inside an oven to check if they can burn his skin, being kept under surveillance 24x7 and being forced to fulfill his needs around everyone's work cycle and being made fun of for totally normal things.
It is finally established why he didn't just up and leave the research facility.
Now the need for being loved and appreciated was and has been very apparent in every single thing Homelander has done on screen.
It was also apparent as to why and how he developed it by the time he had left the facility.
But what wasn't apparent was why he didn't leave the facility mid-way?
Well it is established in this episode.
Vought hired psychiatrists to specifically engineer this need inside him from a very young age.
Corporate greed guys, that is what created the worst villain known to man.
And can I just take a moment to praise the ending when every ding of the elevator is used to emphasize Homelander's "rise" from humanity to total psychopath.
Everything from Homie's(yes I'm calling him that now.) bloodied face and body to the Rampage he had caused in the "bad" room to the half un-eaten home sweet home cake hammers home the point that the last chains holding Homie in place are now gone, and now things will go truly crazy.
And while Homelander's Villain arc has him make others confront their past wrong doings, the "Heroes" are confronting their own past wrongdoings and regrets.
Because, speaking of Crazy, butcher is edging towards that direction, his tumor is constantly giving him hallucinations, which he seems to be aware aren't real as he never talks to "Becca" in front of other people, even though it is implied that she is right there, you know he is actively hallucinating her in the moment when he is talking to others.
That is some next level control got to say.
Almost superhuman, which is appropriate because butcher reveals that he already took some compound V, hoping it will cure him.
And that makes sense given some of the things we have seen in the episode, and I am not talking about the scene where he rips apart Ezekiel the mister fantastic knock off, although we will get to that don't you worry.
I'm talking about all the times we see something crawling around under butcher's skin, like a disgusting parasite.
Now at first I thought that this is simply the effect of V-24, as a drug that makes you super for only 24 hours the resulting tumor must have a life of it's own right as a "super" tumor.
But this seems like something much more.
sometime ago, the boys released a bunch of animated shorts, not all of which were cannon, specifically the one where they have jade from Jupiter is definitely not cannon.
But one that definitely seems cannon, especially now, is the one where a sweeper at Vought has a wife with cancer and decided to give her some V to cure her, what that ended up doing, is making her tumor gain sentience, and then she has to fight the tumor to stop it from spreading further.
Another episode that seems related but not at first glance is the poop episode, what that shows is, the way that V is delivered has an effect, she drank the V, and her digestive system that had shit in it... please don't make me explain this... point is, since your tumor is essentially in your blood stream, and acts as a separate entity often like the shit... it also gains super powers.
...
I should have just left it alone.
Anyways, now that we are past that... shit... we see Butcher destroy Ezekiel when he is being choked by the mister fantastic parody in an attempt to save Frenchie when he attempts to infiltrate firecrackers trailer after attempting to expose her pedophile past doesn't go as planned.
Now, what do I think is happening? did butcher get powers?
Well yes, I think, eventually.
But more importantly, the absolute carnage in this scene, makes me think, this is the parasite that is now developing inside him.
And as well, a YouTube channel made me realize that this is indeed very reminiscent of Moon Knight, and I am very bummed that I did not see that parallel as an avid Moon Knight defender.
But yes, this is very reminiscent of those instances where Marc Spector or Steven Grant black out and suddenly come back to reality and everything around them is in carnage, the scarab is bloodied and the knife is in someone's stomach.
Now why is that parallel important? Well in that same video the theory is presented that Becca isn't the only hallucination that Butcher is having.
the other Hallucination is Joe Kesser.
And like Becca represents his conscience, Joe represents his inner evil.
Kind of like a devil and an Angel on his shoulder.
And that this killing of Ezekiel is Joe taking over.
Is that true? Who knows? One needs to see, but it is indeed very likely that this destruction was butcher's parasite bursting out of him to protect the host until it can gain enough power to live on it's own.
I mean the precedent is set for this.
Related to this story arc is obviously Frenchie, who finally gains the courage to tell his "lover" about what he actually did to his family in the past.
And on a similar note of confronting the past, Starlight is being bombarded by all the regrets of her past.
Such as accidentally blinding a hostage when trying to save her.
Or a very private matter, of her Abortion.
And it becomes very apparent that Firecracker was set up in front of Starlight's home very deliberately by Sister Sage so that Starlight could come and beat her up and they could get her on camera, breaking her public image, and her ties with Singer.
Well, Firecracker finally got her comeuppance for calling Sister Sage one of the "good ones" and not "uppity".
Nothing is straight forward with this character.
But one thing that is straight forward is that she did not kill Ambrosia the octopus, and she was not using Deep, even though she blew him off when he approached her.
And that is because the time during which she slept with him. she was self-Lobotomized.
Which is something she routinely does to herself to I guess be less smart for a moment and just enjoy herself.
Interesting.
Or she could have planned these times as well when she is smart who knows, who knows what this person is planning, and that is dangerous beyond comprehension.
And the deep is the deep obviously, the moment he gets to know he can get some he agrees to anything.
But.. the one side plot that is slightly disconnected from all of these plots is Hughie and Kimiko's subplot, where Hughie calls up A-Train to get some V for his father as a way to "get even" for hi killing Robin and A-Train just gets super handsy with all of Homelander's stuff... dude, you know he's got super smell right?
You know, they do be neutering Homelander's powers quite a bit for the sake of plot.
First the Hughie thing and now I bet he won't find out A-Train or Ashley were there either.
Or maybe the show will surprise me? who knows.
Anyways Hughie learns to defend himself and fight dirty, and finally decides against giving his father the V, but he get it anyway, I guess his mom gave it, I mean she is working for Vought, they were very deliberate to mention that.
Hughie's Dad has powers now, which means that's another reason for him to go against Butcher's kill all Supe's plan, which is bound to happen by the end of the Show just like in the comics, I mean they definitely aren't following the Noir twist, but I guess either Ryan or Butcher after he gains powers will fight Homelander, kill him, and then go to set the Supe killing Virus on all Supes doing mass Genocide.
I mean I guess, Hughie would be against the plan just because Genocide but that isn't as interesting as a personal Stake like this obviously, I mean there is Starlight, but this is on a whole another level, Hughie almost lost his father right after he refused to pick up his call.
But all of that is not important, you know what is Important?
INDIA HAS BEEN BAMBOOZLED!!!!
You know the scene where Splinter is "pleasuring himself" well it was supposed to be him eating his own ass, but no... India gotta come in and stop me from seeing that shit, and make it just the one splinter....
WE WANT HUMAN CENTIPEDE SPLINTER SIR NOW!!!