The Boys: Homelander Finally Has a Weakness That He Can’t Tackle
Amazon Prime Video’s The Boys has a habit of exploring how vulnerable Homelander (Antony Starr) is when his physical abilities are taken off the table, and it continues to do so with its much-anticipated fourth season. Early in the season’s premiere, viewers are introduced to another subtle element that could undo everything Homelander has worked for: he is aging. It’s a rude awakening that he is not as perfect as he’d always believed when he starts peeing more often, with his hands coming away each time holding his own gray hair.
Aging does not sound good for any supe, especially one like Homelander, in a world where it is practically unheard of for supes to grow old. Vought keeps that fact hidden from the public to maintain the illusion that superheroes are immune to such human weaknesses. Supes make Vought a ridiculous amount of money, but they are only marketable when they look their best. So, the company continues to raise new supe generations, phasing out any deemed unfit for the cameras. Homelander knows this, and realizing that his longevity might not match that of older supes like Stormfront, Soldier Boy, and the rest of Payback disturbs him.
Why Does Homelander Age?
For a supe widely regarded as the pinnacle of Vought’s experiments with Compound V, it is surprising that Homelander is aging at all, especially since Vought already scaled this hurdle as far back as the ‘50s. While The Boys does not give any explicit insight into why Homelander is aging faster than Soldier Boy and the rest of Payback, fandom circles speculate that it could be because he is as human as he is a supe, having had Compound V introduced to his genetic makeup at a cellular level.
For others, the effects might have begun after he scuffled with Soldier Boy. Given Soldier Boy’s radiation blasts can weaken even the strongest supes by burning Compound V out of their bloodstream, as seen with Queen Maeve, Homelander’s accelerated aging may be a side effect of his proximity to the blast at Seven Tower.
Homelander’s Uncharacteristic Reaction
Very few things have ruffled Homelander’s feathers as much as his apparent aging does. He struggles to find answers to this unwelcome discovery, and in doing so, is forced to make some mental changes. For the first time, he seeks counsel from someone he considers subordinate to him and is willing to listen to criticism, albeit uncomfortably, without taking the issuer apart mid-sentence.
Viewers see the first test of his mental growth in the person of the smart-mouthed Sister Sage, who pointedly highlights every flaw in his design, particularly the one that bothers him. She flips his superiority complex on him when he asks her to prove to him why she’s called the smartest person on the planet, despite him seeking her out of his own free will. With a casual once-over, she condescendingly tells him that he’s graying, using the fact that his stylist now dyes his hair 1.67 times more often than before as a reference.
“And between that and your large prostate—look at your hands; you’ve been washing them more often, so likely you’ve been peeing more often, which makes sense—you got a lot of power, but you do age.”
What Does This Mean for Vought and the Seven?
The Seven has been all but that number for most of the show, but with Homelander and his perceived invincibility at its helm, there has been almost no fuss to fill the empty spaces at the table. However, now that the most powerful supe in the world realizes that his longevity is in question, he significantly accelerates his plans for world domination. Now at the pinnacle of leadership at Vought, he enlists Sage and Firecracker alongside The Deep, Black Noir II, and A-Train to help him establish a ‘kingdom’ for his son, Ryan, whom he publicly speculates is going to have the last spot on Vought’s foremost superteam.
Homelander is, however, only willing to have it as such if he remains in the picture himself, which makes it more about cementing his own status as supreme ruler while he still can. Coming to terms with the idea that someone else will take his place, even if that person would be his own son, is difficult for him. It is one thing to have to leave the limelight due to age, and it is entirely another to watch other people insinuate that someone else might need to fill your shoes soon.
Hence, it isn’t surprising that his reaction to being acutely reminded of this is barely suppressed discomfort when he overhears that Ryan is practically more valuable to the movie production team at Vought than he is, especially after they had to incur a budget deficit of $9 million due to their using visual effects to make the older supes (including Homelander) appear younger in The Dawn of the Seven.
Ultimately, the old, destructive Homelander re-emerges in the season finale. He takes out his jar of pubic hair, now containing a noticeable amount of grays, and briefly examines it. With a furious expression, he crushes the hairs in his fist, revealing a flash of the Homelander fans are familiar with—the one whose response to anything beyond his control, especially his own vulnerabilities, is pure destruction.
Amazon Prime Video’s The Boys finally returned to the big screen for a much-awaited fourth season, introducing new players in this game of cat and mouse between regular humans and supes, who often abuse their abilities and get away with it. Valorie Curry’s Firecracker and Susan Heyward’s Sister Sage join the Seven and are pivotal to advancing Homelander’s tyranny. Meanwhile, Billy Butcher’s psyche frays from Compound V use and births a resulting parasite that helps him become an even more ruthless supe-killer.
Abdulqudus Mojeed
Entertainment Writer
Plot details jump out at me whenever I watch stuff, I can't fight it. What I now enjoy doing is exploring them in depth through research and writing. It helps me understand the story better while letting me relive and share the moments that hit hardest.
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