Note: This article contains spoilers from “The Boys” Season 5, Episode 3: “Every One of You Sons of B—ches.”
“The Boys” creator and showrunner Eric Kripke said Madelyn Stillwell’s (Elisabeth Shue) surprise cameo is a sign that Homelander (Antony Starr) is slowly but steadily slipping into a mental breakdown.
“A psychotic break is on its way. I don’t think things are coming together for him. I think they’re falling apart,” Kripke told TheWrap. “It’s a combination of issues. I think A-Train’s (Jessie T. Usher) betrayals weighs really heavy on him. As Sage (Susan Heyward) says in Episode 1, ‘No matter how powerful you, it’s not going to make you happy.’ And here he is at the highest level of power that’s possible for a human being to achieve, and he’s more miserable than ever. And he’s completely incapable of looking inside himself, where the real problem is. He will continue to look outside himself and look for the next level of power [he] can accrue. Because finally, at long last, that will make [him] happier. Spoiler alert: it won’t.”
While Homelander may seem big and bad, there’s a helpless, lonely child who yearns for his mommy and daddy hiding behind that cape. And no matter how hard he tries to defy the odds and reject his naysayers’ doubts, he just can’t avoid being the butt of every joke. And between A-Train’s piercing final words to him, his father Soldier Boy’s condescending slights and every other memory of being called a disappointment, it almost feels like he’s ready to throw in the towel.
But, a glimmer of hope arrives in the form of Vought executive Madelyn Stillwell, who Homelander had a twisted mother-son and sexual relationship with before he murdered her in Season 1. As Homelander is on the brink of a panic attack, Madelyn appears as an angel to tell her “sweet boy” that he’s about to ascend and become immortal, a “divine, a true God, with the love of the world.” As far as her mentioning immortality, she’s referring to Compound V1, which has that the power to turn a person biologically immortal.
Nervous about millions hating him, Madelyn tells him to “baptize the unfaithful” and rid the world of all his non-believers, claiming that he does more good than Jesus Christ Himself.
“He’s unhappy with all of this, with all of his power, so he has this, in our minds, a complete psychotic break and Stillwell gives him his final mission, which is make yourself immortal and be God, and punish anyone who doesn’t love you in their hearts, and you’ll be happy,” Kripke explains.
Stillwell’s words go to Homelander’s head and he becomes more confident than ever, even picking back up his addiction to breastmilk, but this time, he’s drinking it wherever he wants and in front of whoever he feels.
“Obviously, that’s his own twisted psyche talking to him, in our minds,” Kripke explains of his Stillwell vision. “But he now has a goal and a purpose, and what he believes to be a divine destiny chosen one destiny, which he thinks gives him the freedom, whereas breastmilk was a shameful, private thing that he was embarrassed about. Now he just it in public, and he’s just totally open to a point where he’ll bathe in it and invite people into his bathroom to see it, and he just doesn’t give a shit anymore, because he thinks he’s been chosen to be the next literal God, and believes that in his heart that an angel told him his destiny, and so he’s ready to his freak flag fly.”
