The latest episode of The Boys season 3 is all about toxic masculinity

“Toxic masculinity” has become a bit of a buzzword in recent years. Broadly, it’s the idea that cultural pressures encourage men to behave in harmful ways; for instance, there’s the notion that to be a man is to bottle up your emotions, to be aggressive, and to default to fight rather than flight.

There are sociologists who have dedicated their entire careers to studying this phenomena, but I bring it up at the top of the review because The Boys seems to be making a point of exploring it. The penultimate episode of season 3 is full of wounded men grappling with their own notions of themselves, often to disastrous effect.

Let’s start with Soldier Boy, whose picture could be next to “toxic masculinity” in the dictionary…if that term ever got into the dictionary. Soldier Boy growls out ever line he delivers. He smokes cigars, he has lots of anonymous sex, he maims or kills anyone he doesn’t like. He’s the Marlboro Man, he’s an American cowboy, he’s the Greatest Generation.

But as Hughie dares to point out, his tough guy act is all a front. Soldier Boy tells people he stormed the beaches at Normandy…but he didn’t; he came in there afterwards for a photo op. He’s insecure about Black Noir potentially outshining him as an actor so he beats the crap out of him. He’s riddled with PTSD but doesn’t want to admit it. He isn’t really some paragon of rugged manhood, but he wants people to think he is; he cares about image more than anything else.

In this way, he’s exactly like Homelander, who has said more than once that he considers himself “better” than ordinary people; that’s one of the things that’s gotten him such a big fanbase of reactionary maladjusts. Homelander is terrified of his own weakness; remember him excoriating himself last episode for wanting to be loved, for still being part “human.” He puts on concealer rather than reveal to Maeve (who’s alive and in captivity, by the way) that he lost a fight, and he’s petrified when Starlight reveals that she recorded him saying something heinous, which of course he does every other minute when he doesn’t think people are watching.

Homelander is a frightened child trying to project an image of unassailable strength. He pushes his human vulnerabilities so deep down that they come out in weird ways, like when he compulsively milks a cow backstage at a political rally where he gives an unhinged rant. His inability to keep up this front is pushing him to the breaking point, and no one wants to see what happens when he finally snaps.

The unbearable darkness of being Billy Butcher

And then there’s Billy Butcher. Sometimes I’ve had trouble telling if he was supposed to be a condemnation of toxic masculinity or a celebration of it. He shares a lot with Soldier Boy and Homelander: he’s quick to violence, he pushes down his emotions, and he pushes away the people who love him, like Ryan. But he’s also fun, with his one-liners and his liberal use of his favorite curse word; you know the one.

And Karl Urban plays Billy with so much grim joy; honestly, I’ve long thought he could stand to take it down a notch or two, because Billy has always come across a little more cartoonish than the characters around him. But this episode is the show’s most extensive attempt yet to give Billy flesh, bone and blood.

The plot of the episode involves Billy, Hughie and Soldier Boy tracking down Mindstorm, another member of Soldier Boy’s old team. Mindstorm has the power to put anyone into a psychic coma, which he does to Billy.

We’ve seen plenty of shows where characters wander through their worst memories, but that doesn’t mean it can’t work, and it works here. We learned some of Billy’s backstory last season: he had a cruel father and a younger, sensitive brother who eventually killed himself rather than take the abuse. We learned that Billy blames himself, because he left his brother alone with their father when he got out of dodge.

It’s one thing to hear all that, but “Here Comes a Candle to Light You to Bed” drives it home. I bought it. I bought Billy’s anguish as he watched his younger self run out on his brother, as he imitated his own father’s cruelty, as he told his brother not to listen to a word their father said, even though he was talking to a phantom. In these kinds of scenes, sometimes I’m yelling at the hero in my head — “It’s all an illusion! Find a way out!” — but thanks to Urban’s acting, I understood why Billy would get sucked in. He’s carrying around a lot of pain.

And of course, if you can’t get rid of your pain, you pass it on; that’s what toxic masculinity — or toxicity in general, really — is all about. In this episode, Starlight finds out that the 24-hour Compound V that Billy and Hughie have been using will kill them if they use it too much. She passes that info onto Butcher…but he doesn’t tell Hughie. So Butcher might soon have the death of another little brother on his hands, and this time he’d be a lot more directly responsible.

Hughie has been dealing with toxic masculinity in his own way recently; I didn’t think he was insecure about being “saved” by his girlfriend over and over, but I was wrong; maybe Butcher was rubbed off on him.

But it’s not too late for Hughie to break away. It might even be too late for Butcher. It’s probably way too late for Soldier Boy and Homelander, who find out they’re related at the end of the episode; Homelander may have been mixed in a test tube, but it was with genetic material from Soldier Boy, which makes them father and son. And because Homelander is shaved for human contact, he will cling to any connection that comes along, no matter how corrosive.

And the cycle continues.

Verdict

This was a meaty episode. It didn’t have the fireworks of “Herogasm,” but it doubled down on theme in a way I didn’t expect; that’s not usually this show’s MO. I thought it worked.

It also sets up an intriguing endgame. Oh god, what is a team-up between the two strongest, most psychopathic supes in history going to look like?

The Bullet Points

• The title of the episode, “Here Comes a Candle to Light You to Bed,” is from an English nursery rhyme called “Oranges and Lemons.” The next line is, “And here comes a chopper to chop off your head.” Sounds like The Boys.
• Black Noir has a family of cartoon animals living in his head. Sure, why not? Their recreation of Soldier Boy’s abuse was pretty disturbing. I wonder how Black Noir will factor into the finale.
• Ditto Maeve. She’s been on the sidelines for most of this season, so here’s hoping she finds out a way out of the cell Homelander has her in.
• Apparently Vought’s plan was always to replace Soldier boy with Homelander; the company helped arrange his “death.” Now if only they had a plan for Homelander ahead of time.
• Starlight gets Kimiko some Compound V so she can get her powers back. I don’t know how that’s going to turn out, but I was touched by her last dance with Frenchie. I don’t care about Little Nina or the Russian mob plotline; maybe they’ll just act like it never happened.
• A-Train is okay, but we don’t learn much more than that in this episode. Apparently he has Blue Hawk’s heart now?
• The Deep, who’s another one who’s struggled with toxic masculinity, proposes a threesome to his wife: her, him and an octopus. She’s not into it.

Episode Grade: A-

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels