In Review: The Boys (S5 – EP5) One Shots

Synopsis: In One-Shots, Vought doubles down on its efforts to build a new American religion around Homelander, while the search for V1 leads to the discovery of a group of Hollywood stars who are secretly Starlighters.

The Story

(Spoiler Warning)

Picking up from where last week’s episode left off, Vought moves forward with its plan to build a new religion around Homelander as the messiah. Homelander, however, quickly shuts that down, insisting he shouldn’t be seen as a messiah, but as a god. Unsurprisingly, this creates tension with Firecracker, whose Christian upbringing clashes hard with the idea—something made even worse when she’s forced to order the death of her former mentor, who is revealed to be a traitor.

Meanwhile, Billy and the gang enjoy some rare downtime, which gives us a genuinely funny side story involving Terror, Billy’s bulldog, who develops a rather unfortunate fixation on a Homelander dog toy.

Back at Vought, the episode explores several character arcs, showing events from the perspectives of Black Noir, Sister Sage, and Soldier Boy. Still reeling from Deep’s betrayal, Black Noir spends his downtime working with a local theatre group, where he begins offering creative suggestions for their play. The director takes a liking to him and becomes something of a mentor. When Noir confides his frustrations at work, the director encourages him to upstage Deep as a form of payback. Noir takes that advice during a meeting with “Oh Father” and Deep regarding Vought’s new mission. Deep, predictably, takes this personally, later tracking Noir down and brutally murdering the director before warning Noir not to cross him again.

Elsewhere, Sister Sage’s storyline reveals more of her long-term plan. While outwardly assisting Homelander, she is quietly working toward a much darker goal—wiping everyone out so she can finally have some peace. Along the way, she manipulates Ashley Barrett into aligning with her cause.

Soldier Boy’s arc ties directly into Homelander and the ongoing search for V1. After failing to get useful information out of Stan Edgar, Soldier Boy takes over the interrogation and manages to extract a lead. This points them toward a Hollywood producer and former member of The Seven, Mister Marathon, who was once replaced by A-Train. Their investigation uncovers a group of high-profile Hollywood figures secretly supporting Starlight and spreading anti-Homelander sentiment online, including Seth Rogen.

Mister Marathon reveals that Bombsight may have access to V1, though he hasn’t heard from him in years. However, things quickly spiral when one of the Hollywood elites manages to knock Homelander unconscious with gas, prompting Soldier Boy to violently take control of the situation, tearing through the group in an effort to force more information about Bombsight and the location of V1.

The Acting

We get strong performances across the board in this episode, with Jensen Ackles once again impressing as Soldier Boy, a character who continues to feel unpredictable in terms of where his loyalties truly lie. The episode also gets an added layer of fun from the casting of Jared Padalecki as Mister Marathon, reuniting Ackles with his former Supernatural co-star.

Overall

This was a solid episode that adds a little extra seasoning to the character arcs on the Vought side of things. I expect we’ll see more development for Billy and his crew in the coming weeks as they begin their search for Bombsight.