Homelander has always been powerful, but in The Boys’ Season 3 finale, he overcomes his only real weakness, making him unstoppable.
Of all the superpowered individuals on The Boys, Homelander truly seems unstoppable. From an incredible set of powers in his repertoire to his adoring public, not only is Homelander a force of physical power but of social power as well. The one thing that seemed to keep him in check was the adoration of his fans until one moment changed that. In the final moments of The Boys’ Season 3 finale, Homelander performed one final display of power, removing Butcher’s trump card and making himself truly unstoppable.
Homelander, a scarier threat than Invincible’s Omni-Man, has always had a tentative relationship with the public. Though they seem to worship him as a kind of messiah of the superhero age, he has had to contend with cover-ups and conspiracies to conceal his true, abhorrent behaviors. To this end, a large part of the series has been devoted to the attempt to reveal this truth, believing that it would turn the public against the incredible powerhouse. If Butcher’s team could reveal the footage of the plane crash, for example, they believed it would be enough to turn the people against Homelander. The season finale revealed that this idea was ill-founded.
The Boys Lost Their Homelander Trump Card
In the final moments of the episode, Homelander brings his estranged son to an anti-Starlight rally, during which a disgruntled attendee tosses a beer can at the boy. Homelander decides that the best method to deal with the assailant is to decapitate him with a blast from his ocular beams. While the crowd looks on in stunned silence, a few begin to cheer, and before long, the entire crowd is celebrating Homelander’s murder of an innocent.
This single moment sends the entirety of the series up until that point into a tailspin. Homelander has revealed his true nature to a certain extent, with the scene lining up with his fantasies of civilian killings, and yet the people do not turn on him. If anything, the crowd seems to cheer with renewed fervor. At this point, whether The Boys needs Homelander and his weird abilities, the audience must realize what Butcher and the rest of the gang do. The trump card has been dashed. All of that effort, all those hopes, came to nothing.
The Public Accepted Homelander’s Violence
The murder at the anti-Starlight rally was the climax to a series of events that spurred on Homelander. At first, when he began to defy Vought’s wishes, the only reason he was not reprimanded was due to the public’s acceptance of his outbursts. He began to voice what could be described as extreme ideas, and the public not only allowed it but spurred him on. In many ways, he spoke to a small but vocal group, and through this reciprocal relationship of violence and allowance, Homelander’s egomaniacal behavior worsened. Even if Homelander could have been good, by the time of the anti-Starlight rally, the superhuman’s ego and sense of morality had reached a critical imbalance.
With his newfound sense of absolute freedom, Homelander seems to be truly unstoppable. Throughout The Boys, Homelander has pushed the moral and ethical boundaries of what it means to be a super “hero,” but never before with this kind of public acceptance. Following The Boys’ Season 3 finale, the shackles of public perception have been lifted, and Homelander has been made truly unstoppable.
Source: cbr.com