Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Boys Season 2, Episode 5. Proceed at your own risk!
Well, that’s one way to thank someone.
On this Friday’s The Boys, Homelander put away his pride and asked Stormfront forhelp with his declining popularity problem. She, in turn, enlisted her meme makers, who successfully boosted the supe’s score. So how did Homelander pay Stormfront back? By happily having very violent — think tables and walls being crushed — and float-y sex with her, to the sounds of Aerosmith’s “Dream On”!
Below, Antony Starr talks about the surprise hookup, Homelander’s feelings for Stormfront and whether his supe shares in her racist views. The actor also reveals why Queen Maeve poses the biggest threat to Homelander.
TVLINE | At the end of Episode 5, Homelander’s clash with Stormfront turns into a very different kind of clash.
That’s probably one of the more interesting romantic things I’ve ever done. Let me put it this way: Whenever I’ve done a love scene in the past, I’ve never had to talk to the stunts team and get body armor put on and elbow and knee pads. I can say that was a whopping great first.
TVLINE | And wire work, too, for the floating scene.
It’s insane. F–k, I don’t even know what to say about that scene. It’s just so bonkers. But the parameters of this show and the scope of what we can actually get away with and what we can do in this show is just… I don’t know where the parameters are, to be honest. I think if we do it in the right way, we can get away with anything, and that’s one of those things. Superheroes having sex in mid-air is pretty bananas.
TVLINE | How does Homelander’s relationship with Stormfront shift after Episode 5?
[It] goes back to that neediness of this character. She did a few things in Episode 5 that really rang home for him. It pushes all the right buttons. He’s a narcissistic sociopath, so she really says all the right things. And as they discuss, she’s a little more robust than her human counterparts. She doesn’t break. So that’s great for him, because he needs someone that can be a bit more of an equal than Stillwell. She’s more of a match. At that point, it all kind of looks rosy for those two.
TVLINE | But these two being on the same side cannot be a good thing, can it?
It depends what side you’re on. If you’re one of them, yeah, it’s a great thing. If you’re not one of them, then yes, it’s pretty much a worst-case scenario for everyone else, 100 percent.
TVLINE | Stormfront has been revealed to be a racist, but Homelander doesn’t seem to discriminate in his disdain for everybody. So does he share in her views?
No, Homelander is an equal-opportunity hater, man! He’s got enough hate to go all around the world to everyone. And that’s one the things that’s really interesting, and you see that coming up in a few moments, particularly when they’re interacting with [his] kid, when she says a couple of things that sound just a little bit like left-field and unnecessary. He’s completely self-serving. Not that she disgusts him, but he doesn’t really understand the necessity for that because he’s not invested in hate in that way. But definitely, he’s willing to overlook that because of the benefit that he gets out of the relationship. What’s good for him supersedes what’s bad for everyone else.
TVLINE | They both need something from each other. So how much of it is them manipulating each other for their own benefit, and how much of it is that they actually do connect on a real level?
I think it’s both. I think there is a real genuine respect and, dare I say it, love there at some level. But they’re both very complex and both pretty narcissistic characters. They’re too powerful for their own good, literally. They’ve been pretty warped by their super capabilities. I do think there’s a real affection there. I think it’s intertwined with needs and some pretty bizarre narcissistic psychology.
TVLINE | Homelander is so often controlled by the women in his life, like Stillwell, Stormfront and even Becca to a degree, since she’s Ryan’s mother.
Yeah, Becca’s a problem because, ultimately, it would be great to kill her, but she’s so closely connected to the kid, and the kid is sort of enamored with her, obviously, because it’s his mom. So that presents a problem for him, and also, keeping her alive is a hell of a good way to torture Butcher. So killing her is not really an option, although the threat of killing her is always a nice fun trick to employ. But realistically, yeah, she has got control over him for those reasons.
He’s a mommy’s boy, the worst mommy’s boy ever, and he’s needy and wants a connection. But the flip side is, as much as he allows himself to be controlled to a point by women, he is also probably, as Queen Maeve has experienced, the worst ex-boyfriend ever. I think it’s Episode 2 of Season 2, she mentions that an ex of hers, there was a fire, and they found the torso in one place and the head in another. It was Homelander that did it. So that jealous ex is taken to quite an extreme place. I’ve never really thought about this, but maybe it’s the vulnerability of allowing himself to be dominated and controlled, but then [he] can’t live with himself once he’s not with them anymore, so they gotta go.
TVLINE | I was talking to Eric Kripke, and he said Homelander is probably even more threatened by the fact that Maeve’s new relationship is with a woman, which threatens his masculinity.
Yeah, I think that would definitely be the case. Look, she puts up a good fight. But realistically, he is the apex predator of the show, and it would be not easy, but he could finish her, physically. But really, the problem for him is all the dirt she’s got on him. She’s got so many secrets, and the psychological hold that she’s kind of got over him, because he’s sort of glued to her. As we see in Episode 3, there’s a scene where he’s pining for something, and he doesn’t really know what to do, and he gets rejected left, right and center, and where does he go? He goes to her. She’s really the closest thing to an equal that he’s got in a lot of ways. And like I said, the worst ex-boyfriend ever, and when you really don’t want to see him, he shows up, and he’s never going to leave her alone. The biggest threat that Maeve poses to him is not physical. It’s [that] she knows where the bodies [are] buried, literally and figuratively.
TVLINE | I have to admit, every time I’ve seen you in one of the virtual panels they’ve been doing this summer, I almost don’t recognize you, because the blond hair is so striking in the show, and without it, you look like a completely different person. How long does it take to get into that whole look?
The hair is an ongoing process that needs touching up quite a bit, because my hair is relatively short on the back and sides. So that needs some bi- to tri-weekly attention. They have to dye my hair. It’s my hair, and by the end of the season, it’s so damaged that I basically just shave it off at the end of every season, which is great from my perspective, because then I do look relatively different. I haven’t had anyone wanting to beat me up for being the most horrible character in the show, so that’s a plus. But the suit and the cape and the boots and everything, once it’s all on, it really helps to shift your perception and gets you in the right mode to go out and have fun doing the most evil things you can think of.
TVLINE | I loved what you said about the little eagles on your shoulders and wanting to kill somebody with them. Now that’s like all I can notice in the scenes. I just keep staring at the eagles.
We’ve nicknamed the eagles Dolph and Klaus. Nice little German eagles. All I can see one day is Homelander getting in someone’s face and pushing their face or forehead onto the point of Dolph or Klaus. I think it’d be great. I think it’d be a really creative, artistic way to take someone out.
TVLINE | It’s very fitting that you gave them German names, considering the theme of the season.
Well, we had to. There’s a semi-World War II, Germanic theme going through Homelander’s look. There are little hints and little nods to some of that propaganda, imagery and symbolism that the Nazis used, not to say he is a Nazi. But definitely, they wanted that strong kind of iconic — not necessarily positive iconic, but iconic nonetheless — look for the outfit. And so it could only be German.
The Boys fans, what did you think of Episode 5? Grade it below, then hit the comments!
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