Homelander is shaking in his boots.
You already knew that The Boys had one of television’s most terrifying characters in the truly despicable “Supe,” Homelander (Antony Starr), who on top of all of his internal spite and anger is also manipulative, abusive (both physically and psychologically), and just straight-up evil. But Season 2 has added a character who is starting to rival Homelander in his awfulness—and we’re only just beginning to find out the truth.
On directives from Butcher (Karl Urban) via Grace Mallory (Laila Robbins), Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), Hughie (Jack Quaid), and Starlight (Erin Moriarty) head down to North Carolina in an attempt to talk to a “B-List” Supe from the ’70s named Liberty. Not much is known about her, but Mallory found out that the late Susan Raynor was looking into her history before her head….you know, exploded.
When MM, Hughie, and Starlight make it to the address they got, though, they don’t find Liberty, but rather a Black woman named Valerie who shudders when she hears the name “Liberty.” She’s scared that the trio of heroes are from Vaught, and it’s only when MM tells the story of his own father’s fight against Vaught as a lawyer, and eventual death, that she allows them in to talk.
As she explains, when she was just a little girl, her brother, Myron, was driving her in the rain in the back seat. Liberty, then, stops right in front of the car, pulling Myron out. With young Valerie in the backseat, Liberty beats Myron to death. He pleads to her: “Why are you doing this to me lady, aren’t you supposed to be the hero?”
“I am a hero,” she says in response, in a familiar-sounding voice. “For killing a Black piece of shit like you.”
This depiction of on-screen racism continues a metaphor that the show has practiced since its first season; Supes are an in-universe stand-in for police. Here, the flashback to the roadside violence in Valerie’s childhood evokes a form of violent discrimination of our recent memories.
Liberty is Stormfront.
After hearing Valerie’s story about Liberty murdering her brother in cold blood, Hughie, Starlight, and MM tell Valerie what they think to be the truth: Liberty hasn’t been seen since the ’70s. But Valerie knows that not to be true; in fact, she just saw her in the public eye the other day. She grabs a newspaper, and points to the person pictured on front page, above the fold: it’s Stormfront (Aya Cash).
This checks out, given what we’ve seen from Stormfront in the first four episodes. While she was introduced as a sort of anti-establishment figure (one Annie/Starlight seems to be trying to forge a friendship with) who speaks against Vaught and against bullshit in general, the end of episode 3 hinted at things a bit more troubling.
When chasing down Kenji (or, as he was referred to by some, the Super Terrorist) through the apartment building, Stormfront crashed into a Black family’s home. When seeing them, she sort of rolled her eyes in an exasperated manner before killing the father. On her way up the stairs, she runs into another Black man, needlessly killing him by throwing him out the window. And, in the most obvious display of her racism, she calls Kenji a “yellow bastard” as she kills him and Kimiko watches from afar.
It’s clear that Stormfront (name likely code from Nazi publication The Daily Stormer, which takes its own name from the literal Nazi propaganda tabloid Der Stürmer) has an ulterior motive with joining The Seven. We don’t know, yet, what that motive is—but in light of her conversation earlier in the episode with Homelander (“You have fans. I have soldiers.”), it’s incredibly chilling.
She knows what she’s doing, and not only does she realize the power of the superfans she’s cultivating, but she sees just how under the skin she’s getting with Homelander. And while we don’t know exactly what’s to come, it’s safe to say that a very angry Homelander is going to mean very bad things.
