the boys literally gets worse and worse every single season. This episode was just really bad. 2/10

Episode 3 continues the season letdown. Every season this show feels the need to introduce a new thingamajig. First Compound V, then Temp V, then "secret weapon" (Soldier Boy), then the Virus, and now V1. The Virus was hyped to be the big final setup to take down Homelander but apparently now it amounts to nothing? What? They keep stacking new stuff like they don't trust their own setup! But that's not even the worst part. The writing here is just bad. Everyone suddenly talks-no-jutsu their way. One short speech and the other side flips. This episode is literally cluttered with it. Stan Edgar, Maverick, Ryan. It's like no one believes in anything. I guess the writers don't even believe in their own writing. Not to mention the other nonsensical logic to keep the plot going. Like, The Boys manage to dig up and reveal the meaning behind hidden Vought files in a matter of hours, but Vought under Stan Edgar (a billion-dollar corporation, btw) never got them first? The Virus [spoiler]gets wiped out, and Sameer, the only person who understands it, just walks away?[/spoiler] Kimiko is especially frustrating here. She's written without any sense of urgency, almost naive to the point of stupidity. She used to be one of the more grounded, likable characters. Now she's just irritating. There are still small things that work. The Teenage Kix quip is fine. Ryan and Homelander confrontation is nicely done. Soldier Boy's development is fine (though he can't stop dropping old references). And while Homelander's hallucination scene is borderline ridiculous, Antony Starr really sells the scene with his acting game, his facial expression is fully committed. As the credits roll though, it's the same formula again. The group breaks apart, becomes ragtag, and has to move from place to place. When Frenchie tells Kimiko he wants to always be on the move, it almost feels meta, like the show describing itself. Just constantly shifting, never really building toward anything solid. Until eventually we get to the final episode and is told to move on to another show. It feels like a show made for viewers lacking attention span.

felt like a waste of an episode

This show has such an uncanny way of lining up with reality, and I don't mean just the obvious references. The finale of last season, originally titled "Assassination" had to be re-named before airing due to events in Butler, PA the same week the finale was scheduled to air. Now in this episode, we have Homelander fantasizing about portraying himself as Jesus, on the very same week orange dumblander portrayed himself as Jesus in real life. Granted, it wasn't too hard to predict the biggest narcissist on the planet would eventually consider himself to Jesus, the timing is still impeccable. If this series ends the way most series with bad guys ends, one can only hope maybe we'll be so lucky as to get another uncanny sync up with reality when the finale airs.

Might not be on the level of the first two episodes as there was not a lot of crazy of things happening, seeing Homelander face of against Ryan was pretty cool but other than that was felt like a episode that’s just a builder for future episodes and not much else. Homelander once again keeps getting stranger what was the deal with madelyn hallucination hilarious though.