The Boys S02E06 Review – The Bloody Doors Off

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on September 28th, 2020

The Boys S02E06 “The Bloody Doors Off” Synopsis

Starlight learned (in the previous episode) that Stormfront was getting a lot of emails about an asylum so she gives this information to The Boys who decide to go investigating. Turns out that there’s a lot more supes littering the halls of this asylum. Among its workers is a former member of the Seven known as Lamplighter, whose job has been to dispose of any supes that cause too many problems.

While this mission is going on, an accident happens outside the asylum that causes Hughie to get seriously injured so Butcher and Starlight have to work together to get Hughie to a hospital.

Finally, Stormfront comes clean to Homelander about her past and reveals exactly why she’s there as part of the Seven and what her ultimate plans are. Spoilers, it’s eugenics.

The Good Boys

Most of the episode takes place at the Sage Grove Center and it really does give us a broader scope of just what Vought is doing with Compound V. Seeing a facility where they inject adults, test what powers they get before setting their subjects on fire is horrifying. It does set up for one epic finale, especially if a handful of these characters make it out alive.

If you recall it was Lamplighter’s retirement that lead to Starlight getting onto the team but getting to finally see Lamplighter in action is incredible and also heavily emotional since he’s basically a human crematorium who has been forced to burn a lot of people over the years. He’s apparently going to be in the next few episodes so we’ll see if the years of eradicating innocents at the hands of Vought will come back to haunt him but for now, genuinely fascinating character.

Giving Butcher and Starlight an excuse to work together really does change a lot about Butcher who finally has to learn that there are actually good supes out there (Something that might come in handy if he ever wants his wife and kid back). Considering the episode begins with him resisting the urge to blow Starlight’s brains out and ends with them making each other laugh like old friends, there’s some character growth here that’s much appreciated.

I’ve complained that we have no reason why Stormfront was part of The Seven, it made no sense why they would let such an obvious Nazi join their ranks… well, turns out she’s basically immortal and was the wife of the founder of Vought, who was also a literal Nazi. She spent years as Liberty to hide her fascism under a layer of respectability (How very Lee Atwater of her, I bet Liberty was big on states’ rights) and now feels comfortable literally adopting the name of a white supremacist website.

Oh and now she’s just directly telling Homelander “It’s the other races keeping us down” and he’s on her side now. This might be the most political show on TV this year and now that the two most powerful superheroes are basically on their way to start a race war (or just do some eugenics, we don’t know yet) it’s going to be interesting to see how this ends. Do they make the point about how hard it is to beat fascism or will they stumble at the end?

The Bad Boys

There’s no real follow up on Butcher’s wife and kid. None in the last episode or this episode and I kind of worry about that. We have a kid with powers who hasn’t learned to use them and his mother just ran off for a long time to be with Butcher, no follow up there? We have two episodes left and the kid hasn’t learned his powers yet, we kinda need to see what’s going on with them soon because I’m worried about what’s happening with them.

Also, nowhere near enough Deep this week. Just a criminal lack of Deep.

Stray Observations

Frenchie loving Golden Girls and comparing himself to Betty White is the most relatable thing… I mean, I’m more a Bea Arthur myself but I totally get it
“The rats are like Pokémon with hep C” … gotta catch em all?
Hiring Shawn Ashmore (aka X-Men’s Iceman) to play the supe known mostly for using fire is the kind of casting that I genuinely want more of.
“If I wanted to boost some wheels it wouldn’t be a fuckin’ Hyundai, you daft cunt” I’ve avoided putting a Billy Butcher quote here for a while but god he can make that C word sing.
MM got strangled with a giant sentient dick… the things this show gets away with.

In general, now all the secrets are out in the open it’s time to get down to business. Homelander and Stormfront teaming up to start an inevitable bit of genocide is probably going to take up the bulk of the next few episodes. This definitely wasn’t as jaw dropping as the last episode was, but it’s really set everything up for that final pair of episodes that’re going to make things… well, very interesting, to say the least.