Director: Fred Toye
Writer: Michael Saltzman
Cast: Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Dominique McElligott, Jessie T. Usher, Laz Alonso, Chace Crawford, Tomer Capon, Karen Fukuhara, Nathan Mitchell, Colby Minifie, Aya Cash, Giancarlo Esposito, Shantel VanSanten, Langston Kerman, Jessica Hecht

“Nothing Like It in the World” Air Date: 11/09/2020
The Boys Season Two is currently available to stream via Amazon Prime with new episodes releasing every Friday.

This is a FULL SPOILER review of the fourth episode of The Boys: Season Two, “Nothing Like It in the World.” Check back for more coverage of The Boys S2 each week as new episodes release.

We’re halfway through the second season and I’m still surprised at how this season manages to feel both really fast and really slow. There’s a constant bubble boiling around Homelander (Antony Starr) snapping on everyone, but this episode is also over sixty minutes of mostly road-trip material.

The core of “Nothing Like It in the World” revolves around Hughie (Jack Quaid), Annie (Erin Moriarty) and Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) going on a road trip to get information on Liberty, a superhero who has apparently vanished and could hold information about the latest member of The Seven. When they reach their source, she explains she was paid off by Vought to keep quiet after Liberty gruesomely murdered her brother in the ’70s. It’s not all that surprising to learn that Liberty is, in fact, Stormfront (Aya Cash). In case you missed the not-so-subtle slaughter and racist remarks last episode — Stormfront is a huge racist.

Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) gets awfully close to seeking revenge for her brother in the worst location possible. She wouldn’t win a fight against Stormfront by herself out in the open. But it’s important to remember that everyone’s arrows this episode are quickly becoming focused on Stormfront — including members of The Seven and The Boys.

Really, I’m not sure what this information does for the team. Another member of The Seven is hugely evil: surprise! An interesting twist would be if Stormfront’s story is brought to an end by Homelander stepping in to stop a racist superhero gone wild. That would get him his much-desired grasp back on The Seven and the public at large.

During our road trip, we do get some quieter character moments — or not-so-quiet in the case of Hughie and Annie breaking out in song to Billy Joel’s classic hit, “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” We finally see the two rekindle their romantic interest, only for both to pretend they can shove their feelings aside and go back to their secret lives. It’s obvious Annie is at her wit’s end, struggling to hide her dual life while walking the halls of Vought’s tower. Meanwhile, Homelander has taken to recasting The Seven — so see-ya, A-Train (Jessie T. Usher).

A great fake-out this week was the “return” of Madelyn Stillwell (Elisabeth Shue) in a scene that at first feels like a dream. I did not guess Homelander would be okay with having Doppelganger pretend to be Stillwell full-time. He isn’t, as it turns out — Homelander kills him at the end of the episode in a moment of realization that he doesn’t need people to love him; he needs them to fear him. Major props to Antony Starr for selling the deeply weird self-flirt scene.

Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) makes his way inside the secret compound where Becca (Shantel VanSanten) is being kept, only it doesn’t go the way he dreamed. Becca sees through Butcher’s lies. Of course he wasn’t going to be okay caring for Homelander’s son, even if he’s Becca’s child. That leaves the big question: what does Butcher do next? This whole show has been built around Butcher wanting to kill Homelander for revenge, which shifted to saving Becca the second he found out she was alive. It may make sense for him to return to destroying Homelander, The Seven and Vought to free Becca — but we’ll find out next week. It does seem like he may have to fight Black Noir on his way out of the compound first, though.

Again, I feel like this season is doing a lot of set-ups, and I hope it starts moving in on some stories sooner rather than later. At the moment I couldn’t tell you what direction the season is heading in — especially when you tie in the vignettes of The Deep (Chace Crawford) interviewing people about “what love means to them.”