RECAP: ‘The Boys’ Season 5 Episode 7 — “The Frenchman, The Female, And The Man Called Mother’s Milk”

Now we’re in the home stretch. The Boys Season 5 Episode 7, entitled “The Frenchman, The Female, and the Man Called Mother’s Milk”, directed by Sylvain White and written by Anslem Richardson, is not only the penultimate episode of the season, but of the whole series. Indeed, it’s a fun romp as usual that keeps the momentum going, yet there’s a serious concern that there might not be enough time to wrap everything up. 

The Boys Season 5 Episode 7 starts in earnest with another opportunity to let Antony Starr let his freak flag fly as Homelander. Homelander arrives at the Oval Office following his ascension to Godhood, making a series of increasingly ridiculous demands to the President of the United States, including banning abortion, disbanding Congress, and making breastfeeding for newborns mandatory. When the President shows some hesitance, Homelander has Ashley (Colby Minife) read his mind, only to relay that he is absolutely terrified of Homelander. In response, Homelander kills the President, leaving Ashley in the role.

Week to week, the real juice of The Boys has been Antony Starr devouring the screen whole, and this sequence did not disappoint. Meanwhile, the back of Ashley’s head, or Bashley, is disappointed in her and falls completely silent. Over at The Boys’ HQ, none other than Gen V protagonists Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair) and Jordan Li (London Thor), who relay that there’s heightened activity over at Vought Studios, before Starlight (Erin Moriarty) callously dismisses them. Especially now knowing that Season 2 of Gen V was the end of the show following its recent cancellation, it’s disappointing to see how the characters were used this season, since they’re unlikely to return for the finale.

The Deep may finally be reaching his end.

What isn’t disappointing is how The Boys are planning to beat Homelander. As a Plan B, they’re dousing Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) with concentrated uranium, which they have deduced helped make Soldier Boy so powerful, in tandem with the V1. Naturally, Frenchie (Tomer Capone) is worried, going to Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) to attempt to get her to agree to help manage the experiments of Kimiko without killing her. While Sage initially wallows in pity, lobotomizing herself recreationally as she tends to do, Frenchie gives an admittedly corny but touching speech about the irrationality of love that convinces Sage to help.

Elsewhere in The Boys Season 5 Episode 7, The Deep (Chace Crawford) goes to Homelander to apologize for his murder of Black Noir II. Yet, to his surprise, Homelander couldn’t care less. After getting everything he wanted, Homelander has now abolished The Seven, dismissing The Deep. The Deep is depressed, drinking beer over by a dock, where one of his ocean buddies, the shark Xander (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson), comes to visit him. Xander is not here for camaraderie; however, he tells The Deep that he is dead if he ever steps foot in the ocean, blaming him for the destruction of the pipeline.

Later on, whenever The Deep is asked to save a drowning man, he’s so scared of retribution for the pipeline destruction that he refuses to help. The Deep has often been one of the most entertaining characters on the show from season one, and that’s because he’s a complete opportunist who has, like a cockroach, survived through everything. Now, it seems that he’s reaching the end of his chances to survive, and I, for one, can’t wait to see how he meets his end.

The Boys Season 5 Episode 7 lampoons the right-wing entertainment machine.

At Vought Tower, Homelander goes to excitedly tell Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) about his plans to “reboot” the Vought Universe around himself. Soldier Boy informs Homelander that he’s moving on because everything Homelander’s been doing has gotten too weird for him. Homelander then knocks Soldier Boy out.

The back and forth between these characters has been entertaining to watch, a sort of frenemy father-son anti-bonding situation, if you will, but it seems Soldier Boy is having a change of heart. The show may not so subtly be alluding to Soldier Boy using his powers to eradicate Homelander’s.

The Boys Season 5 Episode 7 then moves over to Vought Studios, where Oh Father (Daveed Diggs) is focus testing a new film that will solidify the narrative of Homelander as God, as well as rebooting the universe. He has mind-readers watching the audience as well as recurring characters from episode 2 of this season, Dogknott and Sheline, watching their reactions. Of course, this leads to a very funny parody of the type of content that Angel Studios puts out.

The Boys Season 5 Episode 7’s finale is a doozie.

Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) and Annie stay hidden in the projection booth, where Mother’s Milk finally unveils the meaning behind his name. As it turns out, when he was a kid, he found a baby bird that he helped nurse back to health. While other kids teased him for it, he grew to love the name, as it made him feel good to know he helped an innocent creature. This is a great moment that reveals who Mother’s Milk is at his core. For everything there is to love about this season, we’ve needed a lot more moments like this between The Boys themselves.

Mother’s Milk and Annie spring into action whenever Dogknott and Sheline try to murder the focus group attendees for not properly worshipping Homelander. Cue an entertaining action scene, following which Starlight gives the attendees safe passage. What’s not very entertaining is a subplot where Butcher (Karl Urban) and Hughie (Jack Quaid) are interrogated by a psychic who takes the mental form of Butcher’s old comrade Kessler from Season 4. It’s a meaningless sequence that’s just there to kill time.

The grand finale of The Boys Season 5 Episode 7 is nevertheless a doozy. When Homelander arrives at The Boys’ hideout, Sage and Kimiko hide while Frenchie lures him into the uranium chamber. The exposure is enough to wound Homelander, forcing him to fly away. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to save Frenchie, who dies in Kimiko’s arms. It’s a much-needed emotional moment for the main cast, closing out the episode on a somber note. 

However, as the episode ends, all I can think of is how are we possibly going to wrap this up? The Boys Season 5 Episode 7 is a great episode with plenty of storylines moving in engaging ways, but at this point, The Boys just does not have the time left to bring everything to a satisfying close. As great as Season 5 has been, it’s hard to tell how they will close this out. For now, this was another solid entry of The Boys. 

The Boys Season 5 Episodes 1-7 are now streaming on Prime Video, with new episodes every Wednesday.

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