The Boys Delaying Homelander’s Disgusting Season 2 Finale Moment Was Perfect
Homelander's final shot in The Boys' season 2 finale was brilliant and the decision to reuse it after it was cut from season 1 was inspired. The sight of Homelander standing over his city, emotionally masturbating was the perfect end of his season 2 arc and the original plan for the scene didn't make as much sense.
Having watched his girlfriend Stormfront obliterated by his own biological son who then rejected him for his mortal enemy despite Billy Butcher intending to kill him, Homelander was at his most vulnerable at the end of the second season. Strong-armed into handing over his vice-like control of The Seven by Maeve's blackmail in the finale and stripped off Stormfront's reviving influence on his brand (with the obvious supremacist caveat), Homelander's future heading into season 3 looks volatile. Either he accepts he has no real power to lead The Seven like a despot or he can rebel with potentially catastrophic results.
The hint of the latter was very much evident in his final moments in the last episode of season 2, as Homelander was seen recreating the iconic Batman shot looking out over Gotham with a disgusting twist. Interestingly, that skyline masturbation moment was originally intended to be part of the first season, but Amazon refused to sanction it, unwittingly setting up an even more perfect context for his very public breakdown.
According to The Boys show co-creator Erik Kripke, Amazon cut the scene as it was originally imagined. It was supposed to come in the wake of Madelyn Stilwell dressing Anthony Starr's Homelander in the second episode, prompting his emotional, defiant outbursts of "I can do what I want" atop the Chrysler Building's eagle. Homelander's weakness, after all, is clearly not being in control. The imagery, in that case, was clearly designed to reflect Homelander's disdain for being admonished for what he believed to be the right thing to do to protect Vought's interests. Masturbating over an entire city was a defiant power play to reassert his superiority, while his emotion was obviously an indication of his awareness of his true lack of control.
Moved to the end of season 2, the moment takes on a whole new weight and sets up Homelander's future even more poignantly. If his dressing down by Stilwell was a slap on the wrist, what happens to Homelander in season 2 is fully-fledged corporal punishment and recontextualizes his disgusting reaction pointedly. No more just an expression of him taking back some of his power, Homelander's display of sordid power over the city in the wake of his embarrassing defeat speaks to a dangerous change in the character. So far, he's mostly kept his more animal side behind closed doors, including his hyper-sexuality and his uber-violence, but for him to be so publicly on display could spell trouble for anyone in Homelander's path.
Despite Amazon suggesting that the scene "wasn't necessary", season 2's finale is ample justification for Homelander's distraught, depraved response. If anything, it would make less sense for Homelander to not react like that. He can't fight back against the other members of The Seven, he can't plot any sort of revenge because of what they hold over him and he has - devastatingly for someone with such an alpha mentality - been completely emasculated by women and inferiors he had previously controlled himself. His finale breakdown is the last sordid expression of his fading power and the manner of his "display" suggests that he is very close to losing his grip on himself and on reality. Intriguingly, that means Homelander's potential mental state in season 3 of The Boys has suddenly got far more interesting. And far more dangerous to everyone else.
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