Episode four of the boys Season four is definitely one for the books. Annie completely loses it after Firecracker takes her Starlight antics one step too far. Hughie and Kimiko go on a wild mission while he tries to save his father's life. And poor French finally has to admit to Colin that he killed his parents. But Homelander absolutely dominates this episode with a trip back to his birthplace as he “faces” his past in the only way he knows how: with a discovered violence.
By the end of episode three, the many voices in Homelander's head agree that he must face his past. So this episode begins with Homelander returning to the lab where he was born and raised as a child. The workers there seem surprised and scared to see him for obvious reasons. A couple of old faces stand out that he remembers, specifically Marty and Frank. Marty even refers to him as John before he quickly tells him to use Homelander.
Homelander comes with a candy whale cake and tells everyone to eat some of the cake. He also asks for a woman named Barbara, who is off site at the moment, and tells them she has to come back for the meeting. His sinister smile and narrowed eyes indicate that he's not just there to throw a homecoming party.
Homelander invites Frank to play a game of trash paper basketball (which most of us just call “garbage bag”), saying that the best of three will win. He reminds Frank that he taught him about this game because he saw Frank playing it while in a nearby bakery. Frank was the person who tested the Homelander boy, turning up the temperature to see if it would burn his skin. It's a small glimpse into Homelander's inhumane treatment that no doubt contributes to why it's so awful.
Frank and the others begin to realize that this visit will spiral into violence. Frank says he was just doing his job and, well, Homelander responds by throwing Frank into the oven. Frank apologizes to Homelander but he's not trying to hear it. The Homelander turns on the oven and cooks Frank in front of everyone. wow
Later, Homelander looks at the marks on the wall of his growth and we find out that he got his nickname Homelander at the age of 16. He calls Marty and tells him he's sorry for what he did to Frank. (A lie, obviously.) Homelander says that Marty was one of the nicest, but notes that Marty used to call him Squirt. It tells the story of why Marty gave him that name. Homelander said he would be left in an isolation room for hours while Marty and the cameras watched him. When he hit puberty, Homelander would masturbate at night between Marty's nightly rounds to feel something good. This explains why Homelander always gets someone to satisfy him like this now, if he doesn't do it himself.
Marty caught him doing it one night and laughed at him, calling him Squirt. Homelander decides to get revenge by masturbating Marty in front of the whole room of people. Marty is having a hard time, er, getting hard, and Homelander says he'll do it or lose his laser-eyed penis. Marty can't do it and Homelander gets in the crotch. He later steps on her head and crushes her.
At this point, Barbara appears and unlike most of the others, she talks to Homelander without fear. He takes her to a room he called “the bad room”. She calls him out on his behavior and says that they were just people following orders from Dr. Vogelbaum and Stan Edgar. He refutes this by saying that he was a child and that someone should have stood up for him. For the first time, Homelander is right. Barbara says that the day she was born, he lasered her mother's stomach out, killing her and three others that same day. She points out that she could have walked out of there at any time, but her need for approval and love and not to disappoint them took over.
She says they brought in psychologists and helped design and instill it in him to be obedient. And, up until this point, he's mostly kept it under control. But that's over now, it seems. The last time we see Barbara is in that room looking in horror at the remains of her co-worker's dismembered bodies scattered everywhere. Homelander steps into an elevator with blood on his face to do god knows what next.
Between this and the first season video of the return published by the boys social media team (seen above), there's a chance we could get a Homelander prequel series. we know the boys ends in season five and that there are other planned spin-offs on the way. And there's certainly plenty of diabolical stuff to explore with the creation and eventual rise of the show's greatest villain. Until then, we'll see how Homelander's return to his birthplace will affect his future.
