Directors: Sarah Boyd
Writers: Anslem Richardson

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 Minfie, Aya Cash Shawn Ashmore, Andrew Jackson, Jason Gray-Stanford, Jordana Lajoie, Nicola Correia-Damude, Laila Robins, Goran Visnjic, Ess Hödlmoser 

‘The Bloody Doors Off’ Air Date: 25/09/2020
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 sixth episode of The Boys: Season Two, “The Bloody Doors Off.” Check back for more coverage of The Boys S2 each week as new episodes release. 

The Boys was bloody and brutal this week but it was the backstory of Frenchie (Tomer Capon) that added the much-needed character focus I felt was missing from last week’s episode. 

Our full team reunite under a common goal when Annie (Erin Moriarty) delivers news of a secret Vought facility. Butcher (Karl Urban), Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) and Hughie (Jack Quaid) alongside Annie all head off to discover what they can. 

Mother’s Milk, Frenchie and Kimko head inside the facility for stealth mission where they discover many newly powered-up Compound V patients. Stormfront (Aya Cash) even stops by briefly to perform a check-up, but more on her in a little bit. 

The most notable person inside the facility is Shawn Ashmore’s character, who we briefly saw last week. It turns out he’s playing Lamplighter, an ex-member of The Seven who has been mentioned several times throughout the series, but we’ve never seen him in the flesh before this week. In case you’ve forgotten, Annie/Starlight was brought in to replace Lamplighter’s position in The Seven during the first episode of the series. 

We learn the original crew of The Boys attempted to blackmail Lamplighter five years ago and he retaliated by burning Grace Mallory’s (Laila Robins) grandchildren in their sleep. Gruesome stuff. Except, that’s not exactly how it went down. Turns out Frenchie was tailing Lamplighter that night but had to take off to save his best friend from an overdose. All-the-while Lamplighter thought he was burning Grace, not the kids. Lamplighter has always wondered why Frenchie didn’t stop him that night since he’d noticed he was being tailed and Frenchie has been blaming himself for the death of Grace’s grandkids ever since.

Making things even sadder we learn that Frenchie’s friends are the reasons he got talked into working for Mallory in the first place and that the person he left to save that night died a couple of months later from another overdose anyway. All of this explains why he treats Kimiko as he does and how, in his own way, he’s trying to correct his past through her.

To his credit, Lamplighter does end up helping The Boys this episode and turning himself in to face a very-angry Grace, but we’ll have to see what becomes of him next episode. 

While that’s all happening: Annie learns the lengths Butcher is willing to go in his mission by pulling a gun on an innocent civilian. But at least the two seem to connect for the first time by the end of the episode. Their common ground as it turns out is Hughie, someone they both love dearly even if there are times they like to pretend otherwise.

The continuing relationship of Homelander (Antony Starr) and Stormfront is just as frightening this episode. Especially when he confronts her on the secrets she keeps. We finally learn the truth of who Stormfront is: the wife of Frederick Vought and the first successful patient of Compound V. She’s over a hundred years old at this point and was once — as was Frederick — a member of The Third Reich aka The Nazi party. There is a brief moment where Homelander even looks like this may be too much for him, but then he’s back to passionately kissing Stormfront. Big yikes from me. 

The most notable introduction in this episode though is probably Cindy played by Ess Hödlmoser. Cindy is so powerful that Lamplighter is instantly scared by her breakout and you can’t blame him as we see she has the power to explode anyone at will. This is the most powerful ability we have seen on The Boys and we have no idea which side she’s on. It doesn’t seem like The Seven’s or Vought’s, but that doesn’t mean she’s on The Boys side either. We do know she did at least perform some work for Stormfront as she’s the one who exploded Raynor’s head at the start of Season 2.

Ess Hödlmoser has been doing work behind the scenes on The Boys as a stunt coordinator since the first season. They are also known for their work on The Handmaid’s Tale and the Pennywise contortion motion-capture for IT. I’m very excited to see what else they can bring to the series with the character of Cindy. 

The big revelation about this facility of Compound V subjects is that they’re all part of a plan from Vought to make many more powered humans at ease with a simple injection. Why they’d want to make more is unknown and as Mother’s Milk points out in the episode — it doesn’t make sense. It won’t help sell merch and movies if there are hundreds or thousands of superheroes out there. Whatever it is, Stormfront is definitely at the centre of that plan, and Homelander is soon to be involved. Which means it doesn’t look good for our Boys in the final two episodes for the series.

Shoutouts to Andrew Jackson playing Love Sausage this episode. I won’t forget a man getting chocked out by a huge penis anytime soon.