RECAP: ‘The Boys’ Season 5 Episode 5 — “One Shots”

The Boys Season 5 has certainly met a high standard of quality so far, but there hasn’t been that big moment that really makes it feel special yet. That is, until The Boys Season 5 Episode 5, “One Shots.” Featuring a series of segments for individual characters, “One Shots” offers brand-new insights into familiar characters and delivers jaw-dropping moments, which this season has sorely lacked. Directed by Phil Sgriccia and written by Judalina Neira, this might be one of the best episodes in the show’s entire run, let alone Season 5.

The first segment of The Boys Season 5 Episode 5 centers around Firecracker (Valorie Curry). In Vought Tower, she helps rebrand Homelander (Anthony Starr) as God, including a Homelander Bible featuring both Testaments and a “Brand New Testament,” an AI-generated glorification of America’s one true savior: himself. With assistance from All Father (Daveed Diggs), Firecracker seems all too eager to let her faith be co-opted, yet that’s just what’s on the surface.

In a scene that sheds considerable light on Firecracker’s internal struggle, she meets covertly with the reverend who baptized her. The reverend tells her that her home church is struggling due to their unwillingness to join the Democratic Church of America. He heavily implies that what Homelander is doing is sacrilegious and wrong, as well as directly inviting harassment to her home church.

Valorie Curry brings a ton of empathy to Firecracker in The Boys Season 5 Episode 5.

Valorie Curry is truly phenomenal here, taking a highly unlikeable character and making us feel her deep sadness at how much of herself she’s sacrificed to be part of Homelander’s inner circle. Moreover, when meeting with her reverend, Curry puts on a much less exaggerated accent, suggesting that for much of her appearances in The Boys, starting in Season 4, she’s been “playing the part” so to speak.

This notion is bolstered when Firecracker not only finds out that Homelander has raided and more or less destroyed her home church and many others in her Florida hometown, but that she’s expected to go on her news program and openly celebrate him for it.

Like the good soldier she is, she does so, fighting back tears as she sells her false pride in what has occurred. This scene calls into question whether Firecracker has ever believed in any of the propaganda she’s spewed, or has always just been going along with what she’s ordered to do. It is a downright fascinating reframing of the character.

The Firecracker storyline will have the internet alight.

All of this comes to a head at the end of her segment, which, unlike the other segments, is placed at the end of the episode despite her segment opening the episode. Just to keep things in character order, I’m going to go ahead and spill the beans on the scene in The Boys Season 5 Episode 5 that will have the internet alight. After hearing from Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) about her doubts about Homelander, he decides to fire her.

Firecracker won’t take no for an answer, affirming that she’s given up everything for him and is the one person who has ever loved Homelander. We can feel her desperation as she tries desperately to make this sales pitch to Homelander to stay with him, and he even smiles at being referred to by her as “God.”

Ironically, that might have sealed her fate. By giving in to his delusion, he realizes he can do whatever he wants and impales her head on a statue of an eagle. I can’t heap enough praise on Firecracker’s storyline this episode. Truly, it’s a masterpiece of character reinvention that retroactively makes her one of the most tragic characters of the whole series.

In the next segment of The Boys Season 5 Episode 5, focused on Black Noir II (Nathan Mitchell), we see that Noir has been sneaking off to do a play with none other than former Vought filmmaker Adam Bourke (PJ Byrne). Bourke doesn’t know that his main actor is Noir.

Still, the two share a creatively fruitful relationship, so much so that Noir trusts Bourke with venting about his constantly back-stabbing co-worker, whom he doesn’t name, yet we all know is The Deep (Chace Crawford). Bourke advises Noir to simply upstage his co-worker.

Noir does so when All Father is preparing to come on his and The Deep’s podcast. When The Deep is suggesting ways he can get involved with The Democratic Church of America, Noir interjects and suggests he could use his own flight powers to fake a “faith healing” by Homelander.

Noir and Bourke provide a fleeting glimpse of happiness in a dour season.

With a new pep in his step, Noir walks into rehearsals where Bourke tells him that their play is going straight to Broadway and that Noir can finally quit his day job. Nathan Mitchell and Byrne (Babylon) play this moment as unusually tender for the series, and it works really well as a fleeting glimpse of happiness in a dour season.

When Adam Bourke goes to the restroom, this nature’s calling turns out to be its last when an eel violently swims up his anus. Noir rushes in only to find he’s too late. Confronting The Deep, who obviously sent the eel, The Deep tells him to stay out of his way and not upstage him again. This conflict is really heating up, and I can’t wait to see where it goes.

The only segment of The Boys Season 5 Episode 5 that feels like it’s using the one-shot format as a gimmick is the section focused on Billy Butcher’s dog, Terror. By no means is it a bad segment, in fact it’s quite fun; the internet’s already gotten a kick out of Terror seeing his beloved Homelander plush that he loves to hump as the live-action Homelander himself, with Anthony Starr doing suggestive poses.

Most of all, though, the segment is an exploration of The Boys’ conflicted feelings about the mission and each other, such as Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) not knowing if her and Frenchie (Tomer Capone) are right for each other or not and Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) feeling a bittersweet resolve now that he’s essentially given up everything in service of the mission. The most notable tidbit here is Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) telling Hughie (Jack Quaid) that he’ll let him have some of the V1 to help provide a cure for Kimiko and Starlight (Erin Moriarty) to prevent the virus from killing them.

Will humans and Supes go to war?

Similarly to the character’s prominence in the season, the next segment of The Boys Season 5 Episode 5, dedicated to Sister Sage (Susan Heyward), is a bit slight, though it contains a crucially important reveal. Sage invites Ashley Barrett (Colby Minife) into her office, where she spills the beans that she in no way wants Homelander to acquire the V1. Therefore, she wants Ashley—or rather, Ashley’s telepathic face on the back of her head—to read Soldier Boy’s mind to figure out if they’re close to getting V1.

Ashley refuses, so Sage invites her to stay for a drink instead. As the two chat about their own histories and tragedies, it becomes very apparent that this season needed way more of these two characters, as their big scene together is incredibly endearing.

Then that big reveal happens. Sage tells Ashley her plan is essentially to let the virus be released and let humans and Supes go to war while she hides out in a bunker, with Ashley having a spot. This entirely fits Sage’s nihilistic intelligence and somewhat explains her more background role this season. Here is a true chaotic neutral character—just put her on screen more!

Bombsight teases the new prequel series, Vought Rising.

The big finale of “One Shots” is a segment focusing on Soldier Boy. After he and his son threaten Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) to reveal where the V1 is, their trail leads them to nowhere else but Los Angeles. Immediately, The Boys’ view of the city is a dour one, highlighting the rampant homelessness.

A soft-ball satire of The Studio this is not. They go to a mansion where none other than Ackles’ Supernatural co-star Jared Padalecki answers the door, playing a former The Seven speedster known as Mister Marathon who is now relegated to making cheap Madame Web-style movies and slinging drugs.

Mister Marathon is a true Hollywood degenerate, complete with gallons upon gallons of baby oil in his private collection, a not-so-thinly veiled reference to a recently incarcerated public figure that was so on the nose I couldn’t help but bust out laughing. As he shows Homelander and Soldier Boy his private collection, he says he can call in Bombsight, the Supe who will be a major character in the prequel series ,Vought Rising, to fly over with some V1S.

The Boys Season 5 Episode 5 is The Boys at its absolute peak.

Meanwhile, downstairs in Mister Marathon’s mansion, a series of celebrities playing themselves (including Seth Rogen, Kumail Nanjiani, and Will Forte) are all complaining about having to be pro-Homelander to keep their careers and lives. Rogen floats the idea of posting black squares, another tacky but hilarious cultural reference, to show an anti-Homelander stance. Joining them is another Supernatural alum, Misha Collins, who plays a Supe who has gaseous breath.

Of course, they all change their tune when Homelander comes down, with Christopher Mintz-Plasse even offering him a hit of his joint. Homelander reveals that he’s heard their chatter, causing Misha Collins’ character to knock him out with his breath. Mister Marathon pleads with Soldier Boy to stop Homelander, as he’s destroying society. Soldier Boy concedes that what Homelander’s doing is bad, but because he’s his “asexual weirdo,” he feels compelled to side with him.

Soldier Boy and Mister Marathon have an extremely entertaining fight where Soldier Boy keeps using the celebrities as human shields and eventually breaks Mister Marathon’s legs, only for Homelander to come in and stomp his head to a pulp. Now the unholy alliance between father and son is solidified. God help us all.

“One-Shots” is The Boys at its absolute peak. Every segment includes some sort of fresh insight into the characters, the laughs have never been bigger, the dark moments have never hit this hard; here is an episode that not only takes us into the back half of the season with a bang, but reminds us of why we fell in love with this series to begin with. In a year that is unthinkably strong in superhero TV, The Boys Season 5 Episode 5 might be its crowning achievement.

The Boys Season 5 Episodes 1-5 are now streaming on Prime Video with new episodes every Wednesday.

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