Homelander's Worst Secret Is Finally Out In The Boys Season 5 Premiere

Spoilers for "The Boys" season 4 episodes 1-2 follow.

"The Boys" has been criticized, not unfairly, for sometimes dragging its heels on moving the story forward (or contriving reasons to keep Antony Starr around as Homelander). So it's refreshing that the premiere of the fifth and final season just opened by dropping a bombshell that's been hanging over the show since season 1.

The episode, "Fifteen Inches of Sheer Dynamite," opens with Homelander at the Vought International shareholders meeting. As he stands on stage before adoring fans, Starlight (Erin Moriarty) sneaks in backstage and plays the video of him and a guilty Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) leaving everyone on the hijacked Flight 37 to die. You know, the one where the passengers on the crashing plane beg Homelander to save them, and he screams: "You stay the f*ck back, or I'll laser you, goddammit! I'll laser every f*cking one of you!"

Homelander almost does exactly that to the shareholders crowd, but Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) holds him back. The Homelander plane scene is the defining moment of "The Boys" for many fans (and series creator Eric Kripke) as the perfect encapsulation of just how unheroic the supes are. 

The incident occurred back in "The Boys" season 1, episode 4, "Female of the Species." Homelander claimed the plane was crashed by its terrorist hijackers to rally support for putting superheroes in U.S. national defense. (In the original comics, the Seven literally failed to stop the 9/11 attacks, but the show stayed in allegory.)

But one of the passengers recorded everything. Maeve had the video recovered from the crash, and both she and Starlight have used it as leverage on Homelander. Since Homelander is obsessed with everyone worshipping him, the thought of the world knowing his true self terrified him.

Annie threatened to release the video back in the season 3 episode "Barbary Coast," but Homelander cowed her. If the video leaked and everyone hated him, there'd be nothing stopping him from rampaging and single-handily destroying the U.S. Annie leaking the video now shows how desperate the situation is. "The Boys" season 4 ended with Homelander taking over America, so now Annie is the one with nothing to lose.

But unfortunately, it appears Annie waited too long and the video outlasted its potential usefulness. After Sage talks down Homelander, the episode cuts to her calling the recording a deepfake in a public announcement. Even more insultingly, the Homelander loyalist supe team Teenage Kix makes a TikTok video with a remix of the "I'll laser every f*cking one of you" audio.

Later, Homelander goes on Firecracker's (Valorie Curry) show, "Truth Bomb," with "evidence" the video was generated by AI. ("Which means artificial intelligence," says Homelander with the funniest line reading of the episode.)

This is, of course, "The Boys" commenting on how in today's hyper-polarized, light speed media environment, scandals don't stick like they used to. Remember back in October 2016, when most everyone was convinced Donald Trump's presidential campaign was sunk after a leaked tape where he bragged about grabbing women "by the p*ssy"? Flight 37, Access Hollywood, same deal.

Annie laments that leaking the video did nothing, but Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) counters that it got under Homelander's skin. He's in a funk and more image conscious than ever, telling Sage in complete seriousness that posting memes about him should be illegal. Homelander hasn't followed through on his scorched Earth threat yet, but he's more than capable of doing so.

"The Boys" is streaming on Prime Video.