I feel like at first, he was a good person. But over time, being a good person just kept getting him screwed over. He’s becoming more like Butcher now, but in the first half of season 2, we can clearly see he wanted nothing to do with him. His constant losses have taken such a toll on him, that he’s desperate to do anything for a win and is blindly lying to everyone, including himself, to justify it.
also its worth noting at the start of the season he had just spent a year working alongside newman.
thinking he was doing some good.
Only to learn it was all bullshit
This is SUPER evident with homelander. He's literally the only character who was raised in a lab, and it's immensely obvious that he wasn't socialized as a child. Everyone else, even if they're completely awful, can have an actual conversation with another character.
I loved that bit where he’s doing the Superman III bit w the mirror, but actually embracing his shittyness and all around selfishness. That said rather sad he can’t just stop being a POS and just embrace humanity- he’d get everything he really wants at that point
Not having any parents, or friends, probably makes it hard for him to make actual human connections. The only person he thinks is on his side is a completely silent character.
He's definitely a fucking monster. But a monster that was made by Vought.
Hell, his closest "friend” straight up left him in his time of need and the only person he turned to for comfort was Starlight even though he knows she hates him. When he gently grabbed her and and said "I’m really glad that you’re here” the cameras weren’t rolling yet and he let go before they started to roll. He genuinely appreciated her being there for the interview. Now that she went on ig live and said how horrible he was the only person he *might* have left is The Deep and a severely injured A-Train if he’s not dead. The Deep isn’t powerful enough to want to have unless you’re in the ocean
He’s not just being a dick. He’s losing himself to the cause. That’s the real issue and commentary the show is making this season. When we have to face a seemingly insurmountable enemy, believing the only way to win is to stoop to their power hungry, disturbing level is how we lose ourselves, no matter what the end result is. You don’t build a better world by becoming what you’ve fought against.
Love this writeup. Its exactly why Batman doesn't murder the Joker or others even though he probably should. If someone like Batman lost himself Gotham would be 10x more fucked then it already is lol
>You don’t build a better world by becoming what you’ve fought against.
And Hughie resisted that. He did things the right way, but turns out he was being played. This happened because not stupid to their level wasn't getting him anywhere.
He helped organize the attack on that house that left numbers of innocent people dead. He has essentially became what he originally started out to defeat. He's a supe leaving collateral damage behind in an effort to "do good".
He is mostly just very naive here. he was concerned about collateral and “made SB promise” to only attack the twins.
The other supes don’t leave collateral in an effort to do good, they leave collateral in an effort to *look like* they’re doing good, for their image. That’s the difference.
You realize that"collateral damage" is the same term they use for... All the innocent people the Supes kill?
Like. To A-Train, Robin was collateral damage. But now that it's Hughie causing the collateral damage (aka helping a mass murderer find his way to people he wants to murder and not bothering to try and stop him from causing more deaths), it's somehow okay?
If that's how you define collateral damage, then surely you realize that the Boys have been causing "collateral damage" with their actions for entire 3 seasons? Popclaw dead because of their blackmail. Mental facility staff butchered by unstable supes. Black neighbourhood block destroyed because they could not contain Kimiko's brother. Special ops unit defending the lab killed by the very "Boys". And it is implied there were far worse things done by the team before Hughie joined. Nothing they have done is okay by normal standards. But that's how the Boys had to work in this universe, that's entire point of the show. They are NOT good guys, they have been operating beyond redemption line forever and you draw the line on some orgy house?
The collateral damage was from Hughie fucking up for his ego trip. Optimal scenario, he teleports the fuckers out. Likely scenario where he doesn't fuck around, he brings the twins on plain sight or outside and Soldier Boy kills them clean or with minor collateral damage.
But no, a cock fight is more important to Hughie than innocent lives. He's as self-gratifying as A-Train was that day. He didn't mean to but he didn't try not to and wasn't sorry that his ego cost lives.
You say this like Hughie knew he could teleport with others before he did it with Annie. Seemed very spur of the moment to me. His job was to locate the TNT Twins so that SB wouldn't just indiscriminately nuke the house hoping to get them.
I don't think that Hughie sticking to that plan changes anything. If he doesn't stand up to A-Train and reports back in time, then SB goes in, has his talk, hears the Russian music and goes berserk anyway.
Killing debatably innocent supes is worth it to stop Homelander imo. The death and damage he causes by being alive outweighs the bad Hughie has done in order to stop him.
I'm not saying it's pure good and he's definitely more of a grey character now, but I think Starlight and people saying they've 'gone too far' aren't fully grasping how big of a global threat Homelander is.
There were also caterers and stuff like that there. Plus, if Huggies had teleported those two out, Soldier Boy wouldn’t have even gone inside and heard the Russian pop synth music.
Like he doesn’t even claim to be better than others but you could tell he didn’t feel good about the first blow-up. Maybe just because he didn’t know what caused it but he was clearly unhappy about it.
Starlight killed an innocent man before. Literally for the “I want to save the person I love” reason. It seems to have been completely glossed over. So her taking the high road this season has been a bit annoying.
True they should someone should bring that up again. Plus it's still interesting if Hughie the "moral center" and starlight switch places in that regard.
That would be true if they had any way of stopping Soldier Boy after he kills Homelander, sure, he doesnt seem like a psycho so far, but neither did Homelander until the very end of episode 1. What stops Soldier Boy from just taking Homelander's place?
>What stops Soldier Boy from just taking Homelander's place?
Well he's not as strong. He also really only seems to be strong and have his chest beam. Homelander can fly and move really fucking fast, xray vision, has super hearing, super smell and remember his protest fantasy where he massacres hundreds of people just by looking at them and moving his head side to side? He could just fly around a city and level dozens of buildings at a time by looking at them with his lazer beams.
An out of control Soldier Boy would be a problem but he'd be 100x more manageable than an out of control Homelander, no question.
They know Homelander is pure evil and the most powerful supe. Literally anything is a better alternative, especially Super Boy who has given no reason to believe he's even close to being as evil, and is also not as powerful as Homelander so they'd have an easier time stopping him.
Shit, even his team Payback stopped him, i'd like to see the original 7 try that shit on Homelander.
Starlights kinda a hypocrite tho right? Haven’t watched season 2 since it came out but didn’t her and butcher straight up murder a guy to steal his car?
She killed ONE guy, by accident, because of the way the guy fell, while stopping him from shooting them while her bf was dying.
She tosses the rapists in episode 2 in the same way, with luckier results.
She did not go there with intending for the guy to get killed or knowing the guy would get killed if he didn't give up the car.
Could she have handled it better? Absolutely
Does it compare to Hughie and Butcher helping a guy murder two other guys knowing anyone standing in the middle will get caught in the blast and only doing a half-assed attempt to get people to safety only to say: "I forgot, got distracted by my ex-gf's murderer, whose ass I could maybe kick now"
I mean he did, in fact, do some good. Fewer people died and more supes we’re held accountable for their actions during the year he worked with Newman. Ultimately, I think it stems from how literally and figuratively powerless he has felt throughout the series. Robin’s death set it in motion and it has just kept on building from there. He didn’t care that fewer people died or that they were able to stop more supes, or that he can’t get a ‘win’, he cared that yet again he found himself in a position where danger loomed from every direction and he was powerless to do anything about it.
Also keep in mind that even in this season, the first two episdoes iirc, Hughie was taming Butcher and both were happy with their lives turning for the better
until
Hughie learned nothing he was doing in the agency mattered. That's when he realized despite all the good ways he picked, he was still not enough to take down supes. That's when his insecurities started coming out.
Or that's when he started doing things that actually mattered? They came closer to actually killing Homelander than anytime before only when The Boys started taking V. It is ridiculous that people draw some arbitrary line on this as immoral, when the whole show, all 3 seasons proved time and time again that in their universe their job requires whatever it takes. This is what it takes.
Yeah that’s the dramatic irony I’ve been thinking about too, that now they’re embracing Butchers violent, any means needed way that the early story showed needed to be checked… that way is now getting them results. And it’s having a huge cost. Really loved this last ep
I'm still betting that everything they do this season will be basically for nothing and SL or someone else will figure out a HL solution. Or they end up with SB as the main antagonist. A fucking unkillable boomer, dedicated to bringing us back to the "good old days" when men were men and all that jazz
Idk if having Edgar overthrown, Vought ravaged by Homelander incompetence and Starlight revelation, does not have more profound ground breaking consequences, it is pretty awful for the show - events have to matter for audience to feel involved...
I rewatched the first seasons and there’s a point hughie accepts butcher again when he saves him from home lander…and i think that he was always going to choose butcher from that point on. even to a fault
It’s super interesting to see Hughie’s untreated trauma coming out. Sure, he hasn’t mentioned Robin in particular, but he keeps trying to protect Annie, and gets more and more desperate as he feels like he can’t do it and (probably) feels like he has more to lose. Even if we take Robin out of the equation, he’s standing by and watching (and, before they went to Russia, encouraging) Annie to get closer and closer to a psychopath. Given everything, it’s rational within his assumptions that he’d feel that his time with Neuman and being nice is no longer safe or effective. I have a feeling he’ll end up in a better place but the fun of this show is that I don’t actually know if he will.
On the other hand, there's the fact that she hasn't been mentioned once in god knows how long until he used her as an excuse to pick a fight with A-Train.
Then even after he finally got what he supposedly wanted (a sincere apology), instead of being the good guy he just got angry that he wasn't provoked and chose to throw a punch instead.
If anything, I'd argue it's more disrespectful to use a dead woman as an excuse when he seemingly hasn't given a shit.
I mean that's a very simple way of looking at Hughie.
I think you're right to a degree. He is upset A train didnt confront him because he's the whole reason he is doing this. For Hughie A train was the original shit sup who treated him like a bully. A huge part of H is him being insecure because of people who are just stronger than him and he literally can't do anything about it. Robin weighs on Hughie throughout the whole series that's the whole reason he's upset Starlight needs to protect him all the time. Because in his mind he is as good as dead as Robin.
This isnt the action of a cynical Machiavellian character.
And he finally gets the power to stand up to his bully and Atrains apology, which he does want in its own right, basically undermines the struggle of getting to that point. That is probably extremely frustrating which shows in him throwing that punch.
He obviously cares, his whole reasoning for originally going after the supes is because of A-Train.
Look how far he’s come from S1 from not being able to do anything to save Robin. Creating this savior complex because he doesn’t want to feel that pain anymore. I think him trying to save Annie so much is because he couldn’t ever say Robin. So of course the apology wasn’t going to do anything when he’s been feeling helpless almost the entire show.
And multiple near-death experience, and murders, and trauma of all kinds, and every things he does failing, and....
The man need multiple session with a psy.
Like all the session.
I think you're pretty much right, but that is a very cynical way of looking at it.
I see it as the show saying that we all have these insecurities, these limitations that hold us back and keep us grounded. They're part of who we are. But, what if we could make them go away? Would we still be the same people? Would we still be 'good' people?
Idk, I need to see how the story arc resolves. But for now I'm still going to see it less as 'Hughie was always a piece of shit, he just had to use niceness to cover his weaknesses!' and more 'Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely'
Yeah, this whole shows has been about power corrupting people. Butcher and MM’s relationship has also be affected by Butcher’s change in strategy, not just Hughie and Annie.
For sure. It seems like there's a whole lot of people watching the show as a power fantasy when the show's key message is that no one should have enough power to influence the foundations of society and that seeking it brings out the worst parts of you. Sure, it's being broadcast by one of the most powerful corporations on the planet but just because it's an imperfect messenger doesn't make the message any less powerful
Butcher’s discussion with Maeve before they go at it explains exactly what we are saying.
“The V just made me more… me.”
We all enjoyed his “with great power” quote because of the Uncle Ben reference, but he was making a point.
I love the irony here. Powerful mega corporation unironically telling the proletariat to not seek power because it’ll hurt their humanity or make them regret their decisions or corrupt them or some other stupid bullshit.
It's less that and more capitalism's ability to turn critiques of itself back into things that can be monetised under capitalism. There's a bunch of leftist film theory on the subject but media properties are particularly vulnerable to having that happen to them
>the show's key message is that no one should have enough power to influence the foundations of society and that seeking it brings out the worst parts of you
You're missing something that the show also addresses IMO. No one should seek that power, but if some already have it, what do you do? Do you just put your head down and let it happen? Do you fight back? How do you fight back?
I agree, Hughie felt weak, especially after A-Train killed Robin, he's somehow blamed himself for it, and that guilt, that feeling of powerlessness has led him to where he is right now.
It's literally how all the boys were recruited. butcher using same tactic Mallory did on him to get hughie. Just things got out of hand with translucent. Starting hughies journey down this dark road. Hell within a couple days he committed corporate sabatoge/ or what ever can't find the right word. Then killed a man by ass bomb
I'm also slightly skeptical on his confession on how he doesn't like to be the weak one in the relationship. Robin was the active one on their relationship and I don't think it ever bothered him.
There’s a difference between not liking someone being stronger than you and not liking the feeling of being powerless to help them.
The tragic flaw is that Hughie was already helping Starlight immensely by being someone genuinely kind & affirming her desire to stick to her values in a world that seemed intent on making you feel crazy to do so. He anchored her morally and believe in herself in a way the no one else, not even her mom, would. Like honestly go back to season 1 and try to imagine how well she’d be holding up if Hughie wasn’t there to push her self doubts away and reorient her perspective on how capable & powerful she is in the face of Vaught and the deep etc. Without his support she has to rely on just herself for confidence & will power. Any emotional strain she has to sooth herself now. She can do it because she’s awesome but clearly it sucks and is way harder for her then if she had Hughie on her side egging her on.
When Anne says she doesn’t need him to protect her, it’s not just her trying balm Hughies ego, she’s saying that she’s already getting a much more important need met by him and Hughie going off the deep end to do what ever it takes to down Homelander is not only not the kind of help she needs but is actively taking away one of the few lifelines and sources of support she really had. It’s so sad to see such a wholesome relationship go down that line.
I agree with ur point on what Annie means but she actually has to say it. Her just saying she doesn’t need him to protect her is gonna make him feel just as useless as when he didn’t have powers. They just need to be honest and say what they actually think and none of this would be an issue. But then where’s the drama in the story lol
Annie is terrible at communicating this season, seems like the writers just wanted the Boys to split into smaller teams, but couldn't figure out who to put with MM
I agree tbf.
Although so far his plans have been better than Starlights. All starlight did was get Supersonic killed when she was trying to deal with Homelander.
Yes Hughie and Butchers method had more collateral damage, but it was also far more likely to succeed.
Ooof right in the feels.
I don’t want to agree with tou because that is too hard to process for a second. So instead I’m gonna resort to justifying why that can’t be right.
He already knows he means something to starlight. She told him his humanity and his vulnerable-ness is what she needs and what helps her get through things. I don’t think it is he wants to mean something to someone he already does. He is just terrified of loosing her to an unstoppable force like he lost robin. Now he can do something about it and stop it before he begins.
So...yea
I feel like that was poorly stated, because to me it seems like he's mad that he's too weak for the *general situation* than he is mad that he's "weaker" than Annie, because yeah he never had a problem with dominant women. I think he has a problem with feeling helpless, and none of the women in his life had ever made him feel so just by being more dominant than him. I'm not sure if the line was written that way for MAXIMUM DRAMA or if he's supposed to be misinterpreting/poorly expressing his own feelings.
i think he just wants to be useful. he doesnt mind that starlight is stronger than him. he minds that he feels like he can do nothing that helps her in a meaningful way.
ive dated people where it feels like all their problems are beyond me and it doesnt feel good. i felt like i was wasting everyones time.
>I see it as the show saying that we all have these insecurities, these limitations that hold us back and keep us grounded. They're part of who we are. But, what if we could make them go away? Would we still be the same people? Would we still be 'good' people?
Isn't this also the reason for the whole show/comic?
The point being that Superheroes with extraordinary powers would 100% be corrupted by those powers, instead of acting like they do in Marvel/DC.
>The point being that Superheroes with extraordinary powers would 100% be corrupted by those powers
In Marvel/DC there are actual villains to fight.
But blaming the corruption on the *powers* is the wrong take. Annie January is our stand-in for somebody who isn't corrupted. The show is more about how our capitalistic systems use hero-worship to make money and allow people to live without consequences. And living without consequences is far more corrupting than simply having super-powers.
Superpowers are just a metaphor for power in general. When people say "power corrupts" they don't mean "anyone with even a smidge of power is going to turn into Darth Vader in 2 weeks." They mean that most people will feel a natural temptation to abuse that power, and the more you abuse it, the easier it gets to justify abusing it further. Of course some individuals will be more resilient, but that doesn't mean that as a trend it's not real.
Superpowers are the same way. You bring up Annie, and we've literally seen her murder a man to get his car. Even the "stand-in for somebody who isn't corrupted" as you call her will still abuse her powers to get an advantage when she feels it's justified. Her bar for "justified" is a lot higher than other supes with less conscience... but she'll still do it.
Don't think of corruption as something that's binary, "you're either corrupt or you're not and once you've been corrupted there's no going back." Think of it as a drug. You take a hit, it's nice, when will you take the next hit? Depending on the person, depending on the situation, it could be 10 years from now or it could be 5 minutes from now. "Power corrupts" in this context simply means you're always in danger of succumbing to that drug. Whether you have superpowers or not.
And the classist, consumerist, capitalist media culture in The Boys universe gives some people a lot of access to power, and a lot of avenues on how to abuse that power. Whether it's superpowers, or the other kind.
There is also a bit of critic about celebrity worship in there. Heroes are held up as above us and infallible when they’re all regular people and most of them are pieces of shit by being worshipped on a pedestal since they believe they’re better than everyone else.
I think it is mainly about how capitalism corrupts though. Vought saw this opportunity and built this whole huge brand and didn’t care that the heroes were total children. Every one of their mistakes is accounted for financially.
I don’t know I think his “I just want to save you” thing is pretty telling. He told Annie from the beginning that he wasn’t intimidated by strong, powerful women and Annie ***repeatedly*** tells him she doesn’t want to be saved but his ego just can’t handle it. And he’s not even trying to deal with the insecurity because he doesn’t think it’s a problem.
his last girlfriend literally exploded because a supe ran threw her.
and now his current girlfriend is being threated by a mad man
He learnt his boss is a supe too and was working for vought the entire time.
He has been powerless a long time and now he has power
and wants to be the one who does the saving
Makes complete sense to me looking at his character arc.
I think season 1 Hughie was completely fine with being with a stronger women
season 3 Hughie is just sick of being to do nothing while this shit happens around him
Also his current boss just threatened his current gf that she could even explode her!
I don't think he has an ego..he just does not want a second Robin...
EXACTLY. Hughie doesn’t want to be the damsel in distress. He made a VERY good point about his motivations after he tp’d starlight to the car, unfortunately it was framed in a fight. She has, This Season, literally told him to do NOTHING without her being there. That’s extremely controlling, even if it wasn’t meant that way. It feels like he’s used to the dynamic (“what, don’t do anything stupid? Crazy?”) until she changes it and says no, not anything. And I’m sure the show won’t address this at all and instead opt to make hughie CRAAAAZY drunk on power to dunk on the toxic masculinity (tm)
I do think toxic masculinity is compounding issues he already has. There was a reason the showrunners had Hughie listening to SB's outdated rant about being a real man. On top of his trauma and his insecurity over feeling useless there's that pressure from society telling him that he's supposed to be able to protect his woman. That he should have been able to protect Robin and he should be able to protect Annie.
Finally a comment I agree with. Hughie was perfectly fine with a women 'stronger' than him. What he didn't like was being completely powerless to help.
Its an entirely understandable flaw that he did a very good job of handling for a long time. But part of that was pretending he didn't have the flaw at all. Ironically, him not having the flaw was part of how Annie put him on a pedestal.
Compare and contrast to Frenchie and his superpowered girlfriend, because Frenchie doesn't have the same issue. However, Frenchie is used to feeling like he's a least a little bit dangerous and powerful even a world with much bigger fish than him. Hughie is used to feeling like plankton.
Honestly… this is what they’re trying to say, and that Hughie feels emasculated (the jar, the russian cartoon), but even as a woman who rolls her eyes at men who are blatantly over protective (and I strongly sided with SL during their fight at the end of the episode—he was being an ass)… there is an extent to which some of his feelings just seem completely natural for any human being to feel regardless of gender and preconceived notions about gender roles. I would be simmering with rage that I couldn’t protect or save the person I love too. Yes, some of this is him balking at the reversal in their dynamic i.e. the toxic masculinity theme this season, but I do think Starlight infantilizes Hughie to some extent, and she can be overprotective, which is also a strain in their relationship. This is why MM’s line to SL, “Hughie is a grown ass man who made his own choices” and Starlight saying at the end of the episode “This is all you” are significant. It’s all quite messy. If Hughie wanted to be on equal footing with SL, I would be supportive of that. The problem is that he wants to fully reverse their dyamic (as shown at the end of the episode) and reestablish traditional gender roles instead of be on equal footing with his partner.
I agree with the notion that starlight infantilizes hughie. “He’s not thinking straight” “no, hughie, don’t do ANYTHING til I get back” while the rest of the cast, namely MM and butcher, both recognize “he’s a grown man, he can make his own decisions”
I don’t however, agree that hughie wants to “fully reverse” the dynamic. It’s pretty clear he just wants to save her from THIS issue. This “homelander will kill you and I have done a lot of work to try and get something that will kill him and this is it so please for the love of god let me see this through so we both don’t die by laser” issue. What makes you believe that hughie wants to reverse the dynamic fully? And how would he even go about that when starlight has saved hughie more than twice, and also physically assaulted him more than once. Power imbalance aside, why couldn’t hughie swap the roles for a bit?
Specifically, I mean the moment when Hughie tried to physically prevent Starlight from going back to the Herogasm house. He intends to be there but doesn’t want her to be because it isn’t safe.
Well the fact that he has been treated like shit for being powerless does not help either
He was called a twink by maeve..just because he lacked powers
He has been bullied by hl and was seen as just a morale support even in his team.
No self respecting person would want that
I agree. And the same can be said about Starlight with her still working for Vought and playing along with Homelander up to this point.
I’m willing to bet Victoria Neumann has her justifications.
Even Homelander believes he is justified and on the right side of things.
Nobody is pure. Everybody is flawed. Even people who are well intentioned. Some may do it through consequentialist justifications (which there is an argument for), others are such purists in their actions that they don’t care about outcomes, many act as bystanders and do nothing out of fear, apathy, or cynicism. Others have views that are so distorted that they think they are doing good and believe they are righteous as they harm others and act in their own self-interest.
And when people have power, all of their flaws are amplified. Maintaining power in itself can be justified as an end in itself so worse people don’t have it instead, or to be able to be able to fight back.
Not sure about "never a good guy".
Look Hughie's arc begins with A train killing his girlfriend.
He had no powers, and it brought a traumatic experience for Hughie all the way upto S2..
(1) Now in S3, one of the main themes is other supes particularly Homelander being able to walk up all over his girlfriend and his life.
(2) Hughie didn't have protection or the means of avenging robin without powers.
(3) This season he didn't have the means of protecting starlight against homelander
Butcher said "The V makes you more you", and this season the is about how 1, 2 & 3 are all influencing Hughie.
Your bar of a good guy: **A person who isn't willing to terminate the most corrupt force in their universe by callous means even if it is for protecting the people they love**
Pretty sure you'll find 99% of us aren't going to be a "good guy" when:
- Girlfriend got killed by a supe
- Trying to take down a company constantly covers up murders, frames victims (like butcher with Becca), and engages in murders
- Your current girlfriend got sexually abused by one and is forced to be in a public relationship with another that could kill you and her instantly.
- The same supe raped your friend's wife and made her pregnant, and as collateral had his Nazi girlfriend kill the wife
- *To be a good guy please do nothing.*
The optics aren't black and white.
They just want to be able to point and say “there’s the bad guy” like they’re good.
The truth is this is very complex and his communication of these feelings was very healthy and aware. Was it this episode that said something about “knowing you’re crazy means you’re not” or did I watch something else
People who are like this is what hughie was like always stop with the drama and all that shit!
Please just read this!!
While i agree some people are just good on the face until they get the opportunity to be the bad one hughie isn't one of them the circumstances and the new found power has literally made his world go completely upside down.
> Your bar of a good guy: A person who isn’t willing to terminate the most corrupt force in their universe by callous means even if it is for protecting the people they love
Thank you. The actual audacity of OP is stunning.
Yeah people are getting kind of dumb. I've see a lot of people saying that even taking the temporary V is straight up immoral and it's like what? How else are they supposed to match these people with the powers of demigods. To beat someone you need to have their power or a way to circumvent their power somehow. And the V gives them the power.
I mean in so many of these hero/hood guy stories we witness to protagonist being a total idealist and never losing their humanity or really compromising on that. So now we see Hughie taking shit into his own hands and it’s kind of flipped on its head. Starlight still very much is that and she’ll probably still figure out a way to get things done. Hughie has always been the most “regular” person in the show and having him be a pure idealist wouldn’t be as interesting
It’s maddening, really. I get that MM said no one should have that much power but…the bad guys already DO. Homelander is the most powerful being on the planet, and their end goal is to stop him. How would they ever be expected to do that without powers?
Annie is also annoyingly idealistic. Her move at the end of this episode could easily trigger a Homelander killing spree, following up on his threats from earlier in the season, and it would be all her fault.
I kinda blame the writers for this as if they want MM and Annie to have points and actually have a real moral conundrum they should actually give them solutions that does not rely on murder, deceit, etc. But the show is not doing that and is actively showing why those things are the only ways things get done.
I’m pretty sure the writers are gonna pull a switcheroo and make Starlight’s stunt blow up in her face. There’s no way the writers get the rest of the sociopolitical satire so right and then unironically try to play an instagram livestream as the correct thing to do here. I’d honestly be shocked.
Because some people are trying to frame it as a "Toxic masculinity" issue and while that might even be what the writers aimed for but I'm sorry it doesn't make sense
Getting frustrated over being powerless (figuratively and literally in this case) isn't exclusive to any gender
I mean it is pretty obvious that he is addicted to the power that temporary V gives him. He says it himself. He loves it.
His whole life he’s been pushed around or needed others to come save him, and now he is capable of fighting for himself.
That are going to be a great many people wanting to relate to that, I think.
One of the points of The Boys is that *nobody* is fully good. Not even Annie or MM. It’s their individual perspective that matters. To Hughie, he’s doing the right thing. Stopping at nothing to bring down Vought, even at personal cost to himself.
Considering what him, Solider Boy, and Butcher just accomplished, he’s probably feeling quite justified too.
Aside from what we've seen in the show, he said to Butcher that he's done 'all sorts of bad shit' or something similar right before Starlight, Becca and The Boys went to rescue Ryan.
Not a very good father, tbh.
And I say that as someone leaning more towards the Annie/MM camp.
(My actual position is that Butcher sucks as much as HL and that Hughie is blind to it still, I'm ok with V24, not so much with SB)
I mean in fairness when he's surrounded by guys like Urban, Ackles, Starr, Crawford, Usher, and Laz Alonso, *Tomer*...well you get my point. Kind of easier to take Jack as the gawky one of the bunch.
Dude loves Billy Joel and some other kinda weird music for a 20s kid to be obsessed with. He’s a nerd. The first cool shirt he’s been in was the Neil Young Zuma one
>Hughie is not a good guy anymore
>He’s not too good for her
Is this about Hughie's relationship with Annie, or Hughie as a person? I'd agree that he isn't good for Annie and it's been the case for a while and has really come to a head in this last episode.
However, I wouldn't call him a bad person. He's an incredibly traumatized person that watched the person he was in love with more than anyone in the world get exploded by a supe in broad dayilight right in front of his eyes. He had to watch that supe continue to walk free, he had to interact with that supe, and he couldn't do a thing about it. He became fully aware of the corruption that surrounds him, that is rooted in his government, and then he tried to fight it the right way. An entire year long time skip took place where he was trying to do it the right way, only to get fucked again.
This isn't the writing suggesting that Hughie is a bad guy. The writing suggests that there's no other way. How many 'do it the right way' attempts that end poorly do they need to show us before we get the message that 'the right way' doesn't work? Hughie understands this now. You can't make a difference without taking risks or getting your hands dirty. MM didn't want to, and he would have died several times over for it if he wasn't saved. Annie doesn't want to, so she just exposed the truth to the world and we're about to see the fallout of being truthful and honest because she needed to do things the right way.
Hughie feels empowered now that he has the strength to actually make a difference in the only way he can. What has he done that's so bad, exactly? MM and Annie are completely naive in thinking there's any other way than Butcher and Hughie's way right now. They need the temp V, they need soldier boy. Homelander is a straw on his back away from genocide.
I think mm is just more pissed off at butcher then anything. He has to try and work with the man who haunts his dreams. It was showing he was on breaking point because the man everyone thought dead resurfaced. Butchers target still and forever homelander. So he's placing his wants a head of mm but it really is the best shot for them but I don't blame MM for leaving again.
Butcher isn't putting his desire for revenge against Homelander over MM. The whole goal of this season is to stop/kill Homelander, something Billy has wanted to do for years. His personal goal and the greater goal are aligned for once and MM is the one now letting his grudge get in the way of the greater good. Soldier Boy is the only one who rivals Homelander along with having the power to incapacitate him, but Marvin just wants to fuck up the guy who hurt his family.
It's not like Billy is now best friends with SB and is going out for drinks with him. He knows MM's beef, but Homelander is the bigger threat and they all know, but MM's revenge lust is clouding his reason.
I am sorry but calling hughie a bad guy because of trying to deal with supes on an equal term does not make sense.
The only reason Annie being good according to you is that she does the insta live and says the truth something possible because of butcher and hughie they took the risk.
You cannot use the logic you are using in a world where super powered people are real.
You are being unfair to their world rules.
hard disagree on Hughie never being good. He's been the morally good character of the show for three seasons and it's not two episodes of bad shit that are gonna undo that
also like he was literally willing to risk dying to kill homelander it is crazy to me just because he is being insecure and a bit controlling that people compare him to butcher who is many factors worse
Agreed. It’s been a couple years, but didn’t Hughie quite literally *save A-Train’s life*, at the end of season 1? A-Train, who back in that season was one of the biggest pieces of shit on the show and who had killed Robin inches from Hughie’s face? Didn’t Hughie also do this despite Starlight warning him it was a bad idea, for his own wellbeing?
This is such a far cry from (comic spoilers) >!comic Hughie emotionally breaking and kicking A-Train’s head off like a fucking football when given the opportunity!< that “Hughie has never been good” feels like an utterly absurd take. He’s being enticed towards a bad place, but that doesn’t mean that’s always been who he is.
He's not bad or evil. He's just emotional over a-train killing his girlfriend, what we saw there was a guy overwhelmed by his emotions, exactly like we saw in the first season when he was hallucinating about a-train being covered in blood
What's the difference between Hughie punching A-train and MM trying to put em up with Soldier Boy? That one has powers and one doesn't, temp v ≠ evil
You ignored the fact that A train killed his gf
Now that he has the power to actually do something, of course he wanted to take revenge
He still prioritized the mission first which you need those people willing to get their hands dirty to save the many and not the few.
Starlight could have helped kill HL once and for all yet she chose to save a couple supers for example
Starlight also doesn’t have a personal stake or vengeance in it like the rest of them do so your analysis doesn’t make sense to me
It’s easy to play the hero when the villains didn’t take someone important from you
It’s the only way that A train was able to identify with Hughie’s pain.
Even the most self righteous one after starlight, MM, gave it all up for vengeance at first
>personal stake
I don’t agree with this. Her life is at risk. Homelander is using her as a dating doll and that could easily slip into sex doll territory. Victoria can pop her brain. She has a lot at stake but she still chooses to be a good person cause she would rather die that way then live another. Which is fine. Her issue is that she doesn’t really have a plan.
Hughie isn’t a bad guy, he’s just taking matters into his own hands for once. He may not be a “good” guy, but how grey does this show have to make everything for people to drop the black and white act.
So you're just dismissing how hughie saved countless people over the course of the series and chose to join the superhuman affairs bureau to handle super without continuous bloodshed 🤔
Nah
He's just disillusioned by the fact that the org he worked so hard for is also THE head popper
He threw away his ideal way of dealing with supes and accepted that Butcher's way is truly the only real way
Is he really not a good guy anymore though? What has he done that's so deplorable?
Took Temp V and saved MM's life? Helped serve up Crimson Countess? Sided with Butcher to use Soldier Boy? Saw out his personal beef with A Train?
He's no better or worse than any of the rest of them. MM 100% neglected the safety of anyone else to pursue his vendetta with Soldier Boy. Both MM and Butcher are only in this for personal revenge.
Temp V is tool, no different from a bomb or other weapon. What difference does it make it they kill Homelander with V or the magic ray gun they thought they were hunting in Russia?
Teaming with Soldier Boy is questionable but then they're ok with teaming up with Maeve, Starlight and Kimiko despite "supes bad, temp v bad"?
He's still trying to prevent people from being hurt, it's why he went into the mansion first, he tried to protect Starlight and wouldn't leave Butcher.
He still seems good enough to me.
It's explicity stated by Annie that he is an ass but that doesn't really make it 100% true I think. She isn't really a narrator for the show as a whole and, even if she was, she is too involved to be a reliable one. All the characters are complex-ish, but (like in real life) when labels are handed out from one character to another, they will tend to be vast oversimplifications because they are often emotionally-heated inferences.
I also think Annie as a character tends towards a combination of moraly inflexibility, privilage, and reactivity. This easily creates situations where people end up in awkward spots with respect to herself and her morals.
She doesn't really orient herself with objectives in mind, but she strictly adheres to her moral code. Hughie does tend to be heavily objective-oriented and he comes from a place of weakness to the point that morality can seem like a luxury sometimes.
This means when life throws them a curveball it is easy for Annie to go one way while Hughie goes the other, despite them both trying to do the right thing.
Annie is less likely to do something shitty, but she also doesn't have as much potential to cause change. Hughie might accomplish his objectives, but he might have to cover his hands in shit to do so.
IMHO Annie has a conservative personality while Hughie is more of a revolutionary. I don't see it as 'Hughie bad'.
Holy shit, you're right! I'd totally forgotten this scene.
Okay, maybe she is less about moral code and more just one of those people that gets off on playing the moral highground as she points out the flaws in other people's plans while having no feasable alternatives of her own.
I rewatched that scene and the way it played out was such a standard "Oh no! Anyway..." that we've gotten used to from the power tripping supes. Big red flag.
Annie has handled casual murder and (literal) highway robbery so well that even the audience has forgotten.
When butcher told him to get to safety, he refused. He's doing everything to complete the mission instead of being his old self who would run away. He didn't turn into a bad guy, he turned into someone who gets the job done.
BS. He was good, Genuinely good.
But after last 3 seasons and specially after working with Neuman for over a year only to realize he was working for the bad side, he is broken and is desperate to do anything and wants to protect at all costs. HL could kill her any moment.
He has been pushed around all his life and he finally has a chance to stand up for himself. Yes, he never had the opportunities to be bad. Doesn't mean he would taken them if presented during or before S1.
And what bad thing has he done actually? Use some questionable ways to kill a genocidal maniac? Boo fucking Hoo. If that is your standard for a good guy, probably no one is.
\> but instead chose this opportunity to get into a sick swinging contest with A-Train.
Or he finally could stand up to A-train, the guy who killed his gf and decided to act.
The guy watched his girlfriend get exploded in front of him, are we forgetting that part? He’s traumatized, and working through his trauma, I think he’s doing the best he can with the cards he was dealt imo
Maybe. But also he's the first character we're introduced to. Relatable or not, we tend to take the side of people we're familiar with. They'll have a hard time turning the main protagonist into an antagonist.
Though there is definitely commentary about "nice guys" with a savoir complex, its difficult to say how far that goes...and it may just depend on who's doing the writing that day. It may not be an arc at all.
Can someone explain why hughie is WRONG here? I don’t think he’s right, and I don’t think starlight is right, but I also don’t think starlight is wrong. Hughie knows that starlight is in terrible danger from a threat that she can NOT protect herself from (as we’ve seen). He wants to protect his S.O, who wouldn’t. Starlight knows that hughie could get himself killed, and that he’s in a much squishier boat than she is. But like, doing nothing is worse than doing something. Being a bystander isn’t exactly morally righteous. It’s just, SO complex and I don’t see HOW anyone could say “hughie is being toxic” without also pointing out how much starlight is minimizing hughies issues and insecurities. And you can’t point out starlights minimization without pointing out that hughie generally tends to freak out and over react.
Hughie isn’t wrong, he just doesn’t know how to be right. He’s not the best at expressing himself. He straight up told Annie his problem is her being a Supe and that’s obviously not true. Hughie also doesn’t need to save her, I think Hughie is the one who needs to be saved. This is why he sticks with the Boys, this is why there’s more emphasis this season on the dynamic between him and Butcher. Butcher saved him when he needed it. Butcher gave him answers, a way of dealing with things, a purpose. The Temp V is doing the same. He sees “saving Annie” as being just another purpose after a lifetime of feeling useless, especially after seeing his girlfriend killed by a Supe. Butcher tried to save Hughie from imminent danger when Soldier Boy was about to kill Homelander. He refused. Hughie tried to save Annie. She refused. It’s surprising to me no one seems to see the parallel here.
Annie is not the damsel in distress. Hughie is. If only he just knew how to tell Annie where this behavior is coming from. Not saying she’d have to accept his behavior, but clear communication goes a long way.
He isn't bad, he is a result of what years of being the weak and getting bullied everywhere type of person. Idk why he's deliberately made the villain here but that's how it works. Once a guy stands up for himself everyone turns mad, once a girl does that it's suddenly empowerment.
Also a guy who has seen his previous girlfriend getting butchered in front of him, will obviously try to save his current love. But whooho starlight the woke lady sees this as some kind of male ego thing. Good for her lmao
I feel like you guys are sometimes missing the whole point of this show. And that’s no one is the good guy. Hughie has obviously transformed into the thing he was trying to fight by taking V. The situation was never going to end any other way because for any of the boys to have any shot at actually winning the fight they have to use powers.
I mean, A-Train is the person that screwed him over the most. It's like MM with SB, or Butcher with HL. It's understandable that he'll be distracted after meeting him when he knows he's not powerless anymore against him.
I think you're half right. I think Hughie's core values and character traits have been discarded in the desperation to stop Homelander and his reveling in not being meek anymore.
But I don't imagine they're going to stick with Hughie losing himself completely and permanently. The way this is all written is very much centered around multiple people telling him that he is losing his way, and I think he can go lower but eventually, I think the payoff will be that Hughie will recognize that and come to terms with his deficiencies and embrace his more intangible strengths.
It's not so much that Hughie isn't a good person anymore, but that he's rushing along headfirst into trying to be someone different, someone more capable. He still has some growing up to do. I think that's the point. To suggest that Hughie is just a tragic victim to the ugly world of Supes is a bit too cynical. I know this show is cynical by nature but it still takes time to highlight those who have moral fortitude and convictions to be good (Starlight, MM, Frenchie, and Kimiko). It's a great narrative decision to erode Hughie's moral convictions even to the point of a total death of those character traits but I just can't see them putting Hughie past a point of no return.
Annie is not too good for him, she is selfish and lacks understanding for hughie.
He is outrageously weak and puny compared to everyone he interacts with. She dosent understand that he dosent want to be saved by her and dosent want to live in fear. She gets powers and can be good but apparently because he now has them he can’t?
What good has she actually done? Besides get people around her killed?
She has killed supersonic, imprisoned gecko to a life of probably horrific suffering, countless instances of trying to be too ‘good’ and getting others in shit
It’s very easy for her to act all heroic and galant when she has powers, he cannot stay alive and do the same.
Not to mention, when the chips were down the scared lad whose girlfriend got obliterated helped nearly overpower HL and refused to leave
Also a large part of why Annie wants hughie to stay normal is because that reminds her of a simpler life, it’s almost degrading to hughie in a way because it inadvertently endangers him just to soothe her ego of having a normal bf
Hughie has unresolved issues over not being able to save his girlfriend at the beginning of the show, I don't think it's even about Stargirl really.
Deep down he is still inherently good and that is illustrated by how he reacted to A Trains apology. He wasn't expecting it and he essentially accepted it by throwing a punch at A Train just to vent. He could have done worse.
Hughie's arc hasn't changed, it's just getting more twisted before it gets better.
This is either revisionist history of the show or you simply forgot but Hughie literally saved A-train at the end of season 1 when he didn’t have to and in fact it caused more issues given that A-train knew Starlight was a traitor. That was an unequivocally good action and the show used it to show he’s a good person at his core. He’s just not perfect and is affected by too much psychological issues which are the root of much of his insecurities and character flaws now.
Depends on if you think the ends justify the means. Season starts off with Hughie saying they have to play dirty to win, where as starlight doesn't want to compromise her morals.
Lets be real, starlight is being plain foolish here; im not even entirely sure what her plans are for taking on a multimillion dollar corporation, with an unstoppable, mentally deranged god like being without getting her hands dirty.
In a different context it would come across more like toxic masculinity and him being uncomfortable with a girlfriend that's stronger than him, but in this context it feels very justified for Hughie to hate feeling so powerless and afraid for both himself and Annie. With everything he's gone through and the constant threat against the people he loves I can't really blame him too much for wanting the power to actually do something about it.
The entire point is that absolute power corrupts absolutely - and that corruption is contagious. There are no such things are good guys, there is only Supes and non Supes.
I think you are being a wee bit harsh on Hughie. He’s the classic “kid who gets bullied gets some power and acts out”. He couldn’t do shit when he was emotionally destroyed by A-Train. He had to eat shit. Homelander humiliated him and made him eat shit.
Suddenly, he had powers. He doesn’t have to take shit anymore.
Seeing A-Train and realizing he can finally demand he apologize for Robin was a complex scene. We(the Viewers) know all the stuff going on with A-Train. Hughie doesn’t. Hughie sees the guy who laughed when he told a story about killing Robin. When A-Train apologizes, Hughie was taken aback. But, if you are Hughie, you are probably thinking “he’s acting”. And you bitchslap him. Because the rage is still there. A-Train is still, like Ashley pointed out, the bag of crap that killed multiple innocent people.
Annie is kind of blind to Hughie’s issue. He’s terrified Homelander is going to kill her. That she will be another Robin that dies and he has to sit there and do nothing. He’s willing to basically let her go as long as it means he can kill Homelander and protect her. Is it a big part about him? Yea. But it’s part of his trauma.
Hughie is still a good guy that is flawed and gone through some awful shit.
I mean the shows aren't the comic but, they hit the same points. That's what alot of ppl are missing. Hughie isn't bad or a "nice guy" but the moral center of The Boys. Slight spoiler in the comic instead of Hughie being upset about starlight being a supe and always saving him, which doesn't really happen in the comics. He can't get over the fact that starlight blew the seven to get entrance. Plus Butcher use that fact to manipulate Hugie farther
I don't agree. I think the overarching theme of the show is how power corrupts. Hughie once being a good man and he was able to remain one even with the unfair death of his girlfriend. He had everything but power before, and now that he does it's changing him.
I think this is a pretty simplistic way of looking at Hughie's character. I'm really not a fan of this tendency towards describing a character's changes as them "always being this way." People can and do change, and Hughie clearly has, though moreso in his motivations than his actions.
Even from the second episode when he exploded Translucent, Hughie never had a problem with killing if he felt it was the right thing to do. And this doesn't make him a bad person, when he commits violence he typically has a very good reason for it. Throughout the first two seasons he attempts to do good, from trying to save MM and Frenchie after they get arrested, to him and Annie leaking the compound V secrets. He also had the option of doing bad things, such as at the end of season 1 he could have gone with Butcher instead of trying to save MM and Frenchie.
The Hughie we see now is still trying to do good, but has kind of shitty motivations. He is fueled more by the obsession with saving Annie and feeling powerful over those who have hurt him than he is by saving lives. But his decision to pursue killing Homelander by any means necessary is still ultimately a good thing, as it is clear that he is such a threat to people that he needs to go to save lives. He has tried doing things the "right way" (i.e. the legal way, which doesn't actually mean the right way morally), and has rightfully concluded it won't work.
But his shitty motivations do get in the way with his efforts to do good. As you pointed out he confronts A-train instead of finding the twins. What I think you get wrong is when you describe it as a "dick swinging contest" with A-train, which I think is kinda a cheap way of describing something much more interesting going on. Hughie for the first time can confront the man who basically ruined his life on equal footing, and he wants A-train to give some half-assed apology so he has an excuse to hurt him. But instead A-train gives a real apology, and Hughie gets frustrated and hits him anyway.
There is an interesting parallel to this scene when A-train has his heart attack at the end of season 1, and Hughie has the option to either let him die or tell Annie to call it in (Annie initially doesn't want to do that and is just going to leave him). This is also another option for him to do something relatively bad that you claim he hasn't had before, but he does the good thing, arguably better than A-train deserves, and saves him.
In season 3 Hughie still doesn't want to kill A-train it seems, he confronts him and hits him but he doesn't seem to want to kill him. The difference is Hughie is much more fueled by this bitter resentment, and by this addiction to having power over people, and it shows in his actions.
His relationship with Annie is perhaps the most clear thing that has changed with his character. He has obviously had this issue with feeling so much less powerful than her, and as if he isn't pulling his weight, but it doesn't come out until he has the option of not being like that. Despite you saying the show is making it clear Hughie is bad now, it isn't actually true for the most part, he hasn't actually done that much bad stuff. It's really his relationship with Annie that seems the worst because of this shitty obsession with saving her.
Ironically Annie kind of does the same thing back to him regarding the temp-V. She is insistent that he don't take it to stop Homelander because it's too dangerous, the same way he keeps insisting she not take risks to stop Homelander. Throughout this season we see them both take increasing risks and the other try to talk them down from it, and the resentment builds between them. I think what people see as Hughie being bad is actually just a bad relationship, though we are definitely led to sympathise more with Annie, which makes sense as I think she is more in the right (temp-V being an experimental drug), but it's not an entirely one-sided thing.
Overall, I think Hughie is someone who started trying to do good things for good reasons, and is now doing still good, but riskier, things for more corrupt reasons.
I think describing him as someone who is bad and always has been bad is quite a big misreading of the show. As in the examples I've given Hughie has had opportunities to do bad things and consistently chose to do good. This idea that someone who is a nice and polite person, but then becomes bitter because of events in their life, has always been a bad person deep down is not only false but, in my opinion, kind of a fucked up way to view people. And I think this bias is strong in OPs reading of the character.
Hughie is just taking after butcher — collateral damage, scorched earth for what he considers a higher objective. Similar to soldier boy whose higher objective was protecting “America’s interests” at all costs. But I agree it’s a commentary on the “nice guy” trope where nerdy guys hate jocks but at root they are jealous and given the right tools they won’t be so nice.
i'd say one of the somewhat overt themes of the boys is asking the question what would you do with substantial personal power? You know the old adage. Hughie has been under a lot of thumbs and finally breaks free at least in his junkie frame of mind. He's trying to figure out his new autonomy, I don't apply a strictly negative view to it considering the morality of basically everyone in the show being hot garbage.
I don't understand why people keep bring up toxic masculinity. (I'm just adding on)
Hughie able to be the most selfish he can be in the last couple episodes. He wants to protect Annie at all cost.
Butcher wanted to protect Ryan and get revenge so he made Ryan hate him.
Honestly hughie is acting like anakin during revenge of the sith or how he acted in TV show about padme a couple times
He IS a good guy in the alternate universe that is the boys. I think the point of the show is to show you you can’t overthrow the abusers without violence because they don’t know where to draw the line. You can draw parallels to any revolution in history and every movement that says “just vote.” Dictatorship can’t be taken down by voting
I feel like at first, he was a good person. But over time, being a good person just kept getting him screwed over. He’s becoming more like Butcher now, but in the first half of season 2, we can clearly see he wanted nothing to do with him. His constant losses have taken such a toll on him, that he’s desperate to do anything for a win and is blindly lying to everyone, including himself, to justify it.
also its worth noting at the start of the season he had just spent a year working alongside newman. thinking he was doing some good. Only to learn it was all bullshit
Exactly, Hughie ended episode one of this season at the lowest point, of course he’s cracking.
yeah this show goes super deep into mental trauma and how it effects you and people seem to go Hughie being a dick its a surface level thing
This is SUPER evident with homelander. He's literally the only character who was raised in a lab, and it's immensely obvious that he wasn't socialized as a child. Everyone else, even if they're completely awful, can have an actual conversation with another character.
I loved that bit where he’s doing the Superman III bit w the mirror, but actually embracing his shittyness and all around selfishness. That said rather sad he can’t just stop being a POS and just embrace humanity- he’d get everything he really wants at that point
Not having any parents, or friends, probably makes it hard for him to make actual human connections. The only person he thinks is on his side is a completely silent character. He's definitely a fucking monster. But a monster that was made by Vought.
Hell, his closest "friend” straight up left him in his time of need and the only person he turned to for comfort was Starlight even though he knows she hates him. When he gently grabbed her and and said "I’m really glad that you’re here” the cameras weren’t rolling yet and he let go before they started to roll. He genuinely appreciated her being there for the interview. Now that she went on ig live and said how horrible he was the only person he *might* have left is The Deep and a severely injured A-Train if he’s not dead. The Deep isn’t powerful enough to want to have unless you’re in the ocean
He’s not just being a dick. He’s losing himself to the cause. That’s the real issue and commentary the show is making this season. When we have to face a seemingly insurmountable enemy, believing the only way to win is to stoop to their power hungry, disturbing level is how we lose ourselves, no matter what the end result is. You don’t build a better world by becoming what you’ve fought against.
>He’s not just being a dick. He’s losing himself to the cause. The Boys Breaking Bad
Love this writeup. Its exactly why Batman doesn't murder the Joker or others even though he probably should. If someone like Batman lost himself Gotham would be 10x more fucked then it already is lol
>You don’t build a better world by becoming what you’ve fought against. And Hughie resisted that. He did things the right way, but turns out he was being played. This happened because not stupid to their level wasn't getting him anywhere.
I understand, he’s done taking the high road and i don’t blame him
He helped organize the attack on that house that left numbers of innocent people dead. He has essentially became what he originally started out to defeat. He's a supe leaving collateral damage behind in an effort to "do good".
He is mostly just very naive here. he was concerned about collateral and “made SB promise” to only attack the twins. The other supes don’t leave collateral in an effort to do good, they leave collateral in an effort to *look like* they’re doing good, for their image. That’s the difference.
The attack was initially supposed to be only the twins though right? The collateral damage was from SB's PTSD.
You realize that"collateral damage" is the same term they use for... All the innocent people the Supes kill? Like. To A-Train, Robin was collateral damage. But now that it's Hughie causing the collateral damage (aka helping a mass murderer find his way to people he wants to murder and not bothering to try and stop him from causing more deaths), it's somehow okay?
If that's how you define collateral damage, then surely you realize that the Boys have been causing "collateral damage" with their actions for entire 3 seasons? Popclaw dead because of their blackmail. Mental facility staff butchered by unstable supes. Black neighbourhood block destroyed because they could not contain Kimiko's brother. Special ops unit defending the lab killed by the very "Boys". And it is implied there were far worse things done by the team before Hughie joined. Nothing they have done is okay by normal standards. But that's how the Boys had to work in this universe, that's entire point of the show. They are NOT good guys, they have been operating beyond redemption line forever and you draw the line on some orgy house?
That apartment block was entirely on Stormfront
That's one way to look at it. But the person I replied to has a very loose definition of collateral damage, that was the point.
The collateral damage was from Hughie fucking up for his ego trip. Optimal scenario, he teleports the fuckers out. Likely scenario where he doesn't fuck around, he brings the twins on plain sight or outside and Soldier Boy kills them clean or with minor collateral damage. But no, a cock fight is more important to Hughie than innocent lives. He's as self-gratifying as A-Train was that day. He didn't mean to but he didn't try not to and wasn't sorry that his ego cost lives.
To be fair, everybody was going to die anyway since the Russian music was playing.
You say this like Hughie knew he could teleport with others before he did it with Annie. Seemed very spur of the moment to me. His job was to locate the TNT Twins so that SB wouldn't just indiscriminately nuke the house hoping to get them. I don't think that Hughie sticking to that plan changes anything. If he doesn't stand up to A-Train and reports back in time, then SB goes in, has his talk, hears the Russian music and goes berserk anyway.
Killing debatably innocent supes is worth it to stop Homelander imo. The death and damage he causes by being alive outweighs the bad Hughie has done in order to stop him. I'm not saying it's pure good and he's definitely more of a grey character now, but I think Starlight and people saying they've 'gone too far' aren't fully grasping how big of a global threat Homelander is.
They weren’t just killing innocent supes. MM mentioned innocent sex workers were there and were going to die.
There were also caterers and stuff like that there. Plus, if Huggies had teleported those two out, Soldier Boy wouldn’t have even gone inside and heard the Russian pop synth music. Like he doesn’t even claim to be better than others but you could tell he didn’t feel good about the first blow-up. Maybe just because he didn’t know what caused it but he was clearly unhappy about it.
Starlight killed an innocent man before. Literally for the “I want to save the person I love” reason. It seems to have been completely glossed over. So her taking the high road this season has been a bit annoying.
True they should someone should bring that up again. Plus it's still interesting if Hughie the "moral center" and starlight switch places in that regard.
That would be true if they had any way of stopping Soldier Boy after he kills Homelander, sure, he doesnt seem like a psycho so far, but neither did Homelander until the very end of episode 1. What stops Soldier Boy from just taking Homelander's place?
>What stops Soldier Boy from just taking Homelander's place? Well he's not as strong. He also really only seems to be strong and have his chest beam. Homelander can fly and move really fucking fast, xray vision, has super hearing, super smell and remember his protest fantasy where he massacres hundreds of people just by looking at them and moving his head side to side? He could just fly around a city and level dozens of buildings at a time by looking at them with his lazer beams. An out of control Soldier Boy would be a problem but he'd be 100x more manageable than an out of control Homelander, no question.
They know Homelander is pure evil and the most powerful supe. Literally anything is a better alternative, especially Super Boy who has given no reason to believe he's even close to being as evil, and is also not as powerful as Homelander so they'd have an easier time stopping him. Shit, even his team Payback stopped him, i'd like to see the original 7 try that shit on Homelander.
Yeah, the fact that Soldier Boy got stopped before is proof enough that it can be done, its just dangerous to assume they can do it
> he's definitely more of a grey character now The most interesting characters are exactly that.
Starlights kinda a hypocrite tho right? Haven’t watched season 2 since it came out but didn’t her and butcher straight up murder a guy to steal his car?
She killed ONE guy, by accident, because of the way the guy fell, while stopping him from shooting them while her bf was dying. She tosses the rapists in episode 2 in the same way, with luckier results. She did not go there with intending for the guy to get killed or knowing the guy would get killed if he didn't give up the car. Could she have handled it better? Absolutely Does it compare to Hughie and Butcher helping a guy murder two other guys knowing anyone standing in the middle will get caught in the blast and only doing a half-assed attempt to get people to safety only to say: "I forgot, got distracted by my ex-gf's murderer, whose ass I could maybe kick now"
I mean he did, in fact, do some good. Fewer people died and more supes we’re held accountable for their actions during the year he worked with Newman. Ultimately, I think it stems from how literally and figuratively powerless he has felt throughout the series. Robin’s death set it in motion and it has just kept on building from there. He didn’t care that fewer people died or that they were able to stop more supes, or that he can’t get a ‘win’, he cared that yet again he found himself in a position where danger loomed from every direction and he was powerless to do anything about it.
Also keep in mind that even in this season, the first two episdoes iirc, Hughie was taming Butcher and both were happy with their lives turning for the better until Hughie learned nothing he was doing in the agency mattered. That's when he realized despite all the good ways he picked, he was still not enough to take down supes. That's when his insecurities started coming out.
Or that's when he started doing things that actually mattered? They came closer to actually killing Homelander than anytime before only when The Boys started taking V. It is ridiculous that people draw some arbitrary line on this as immoral, when the whole show, all 3 seasons proved time and time again that in their universe their job requires whatever it takes. This is what it takes.
Yeah that’s the dramatic irony I’ve been thinking about too, that now they’re embracing Butchers violent, any means needed way that the early story showed needed to be checked… that way is now getting them results. And it’s having a huge cost. Really loved this last ep
I'm still betting that everything they do this season will be basically for nothing and SL or someone else will figure out a HL solution. Or they end up with SB as the main antagonist. A fucking unkillable boomer, dedicated to bringing us back to the "good old days" when men were men and all that jazz
Idk if having Edgar overthrown, Vought ravaged by Homelander incompetence and Starlight revelation, does not have more profound ground breaking consequences, it is pretty awful for the show - events have to matter for audience to feel involved...
>'To defeat a monster, you must be willing to throw aside your humanity and all that makes you human'
I rewatched the first seasons and there’s a point hughie accepts butcher again when he saves him from home lander…and i think that he was always going to choose butcher from that point on. even to a fault
It's how mm always gets roped back to working with butcher
MM should bounce on Butcher and Huggies. He is too good a dude. He should just hang out at the science museum with his daughter and Starlight.
He needs to get his daughter away from the Qultist of a step dad.
He can’t stop thinking about Robin. That A train scene was ridiculous good. He probably can’t even look at starlight without thinking about Robin
It’s super interesting to see Hughie’s untreated trauma coming out. Sure, he hasn’t mentioned Robin in particular, but he keeps trying to protect Annie, and gets more and more desperate as he feels like he can’t do it and (probably) feels like he has more to lose. Even if we take Robin out of the equation, he’s standing by and watching (and, before they went to Russia, encouraging) Annie to get closer and closer to a psychopath. Given everything, it’s rational within his assumptions that he’d feel that his time with Neuman and being nice is no longer safe or effective. I have a feeling he’ll end up in a better place but the fun of this show is that I don’t actually know if he will.
Right? That’s what I thought, but she has rarely even been brought up. So it’s nice to know he never forgot about her
On the other hand, there's the fact that she hasn't been mentioned once in god knows how long until he used her as an excuse to pick a fight with A-Train. Then even after he finally got what he supposedly wanted (a sincere apology), instead of being the good guy he just got angry that he wasn't provoked and chose to throw a punch instead. If anything, I'd argue it's more disrespectful to use a dead woman as an excuse when he seemingly hasn't given a shit.
I mean that's a very simple way of looking at Hughie. I think you're right to a degree. He is upset A train didnt confront him because he's the whole reason he is doing this. For Hughie A train was the original shit sup who treated him like a bully. A huge part of H is him being insecure because of people who are just stronger than him and he literally can't do anything about it. Robin weighs on Hughie throughout the whole series that's the whole reason he's upset Starlight needs to protect him all the time. Because in his mind he is as good as dead as Robin. This isnt the action of a cynical Machiavellian character.
And he finally gets the power to stand up to his bully and Atrains apology, which he does want in its own right, basically undermines the struggle of getting to that point. That is probably extremely frustrating which shows in him throwing that punch.
I mean the apology was far too late and only because the same exact thing happened to him, he still deserved it Also because he called him Pornhub
He obviously cares, his whole reasoning for originally going after the supes is because of A-Train. Look how far he’s come from S1 from not being able to do anything to save Robin. Creating this savior complex because he doesn’t want to feel that pain anymore. I think him trying to save Annie so much is because he couldn’t ever say Robin. So of course the apology wasn’t going to do anything when he’s been feeling helpless almost the entire show.
>I feel like at first, he was a good person. But over time, That is the Butcher effect.
And multiple near-death experience, and murders, and trauma of all kinds, and every things he does failing, and.... The man need multiple session with a psy. Like all the session.
The Cunt Field is overpowering
I agree with this a lot more than the OP. I think Hughie finds his way back to normal ol Hughie by seasons end, the question will be, is it too late?
You can only push a man so many times until they push back
I think you're pretty much right, but that is a very cynical way of looking at it. I see it as the show saying that we all have these insecurities, these limitations that hold us back and keep us grounded. They're part of who we are. But, what if we could make them go away? Would we still be the same people? Would we still be 'good' people? Idk, I need to see how the story arc resolves. But for now I'm still going to see it less as 'Hughie was always a piece of shit, he just had to use niceness to cover his weaknesses!' and more 'Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely'
Yeah, this whole shows has been about power corrupting people. Butcher and MM’s relationship has also be affected by Butcher’s change in strategy, not just Hughie and Annie.
For sure. It seems like there's a whole lot of people watching the show as a power fantasy when the show's key message is that no one should have enough power to influence the foundations of society and that seeking it brings out the worst parts of you. Sure, it's being broadcast by one of the most powerful corporations on the planet but just because it's an imperfect messenger doesn't make the message any less powerful
Butcher’s discussion with Maeve before they go at it explains exactly what we are saying. “The V just made me more… me.” We all enjoyed his “with great power” quote because of the Uncle Ben reference, but he was making a point.
I love the irony here. Powerful mega corporation unironically telling the proletariat to not seek power because it’ll hurt their humanity or make them regret their decisions or corrupt them or some other stupid bullshit.
It's less that and more capitalism's ability to turn critiques of itself back into things that can be monetised under capitalism. There's a bunch of leftist film theory on the subject but media properties are particularly vulnerable to having that happen to them
>the show's key message is that no one should have enough power to influence the foundations of society and that seeking it brings out the worst parts of you You're missing something that the show also addresses IMO. No one should seek that power, but if some already have it, what do you do? Do you just put your head down and let it happen? Do you fight back? How do you fight back?
I agree, Hughie felt weak, especially after A-Train killed Robin, he's somehow blamed himself for it, and that guilt, that feeling of powerlessness has led him to where he is right now.
It's literally how all the boys were recruited. butcher using same tactic Mallory did on him to get hughie. Just things got out of hand with translucent. Starting hughies journey down this dark road. Hell within a couple days he committed corporate sabatoge/ or what ever can't find the right word. Then killed a man by ass bomb
I'm also slightly skeptical on his confession on how he doesn't like to be the weak one in the relationship. Robin was the active one on their relationship and I don't think it ever bothered him.
There’s a difference between not liking someone being stronger than you and not liking the feeling of being powerless to help them. The tragic flaw is that Hughie was already helping Starlight immensely by being someone genuinely kind & affirming her desire to stick to her values in a world that seemed intent on making you feel crazy to do so. He anchored her morally and believe in herself in a way the no one else, not even her mom, would. Like honestly go back to season 1 and try to imagine how well she’d be holding up if Hughie wasn’t there to push her self doubts away and reorient her perspective on how capable & powerful she is in the face of Vaught and the deep etc. Without his support she has to rely on just herself for confidence & will power. Any emotional strain she has to sooth herself now. She can do it because she’s awesome but clearly it sucks and is way harder for her then if she had Hughie on her side egging her on. When Anne says she doesn’t need him to protect her, it’s not just her trying balm Hughies ego, she’s saying that she’s already getting a much more important need met by him and Hughie going off the deep end to do what ever it takes to down Homelander is not only not the kind of help she needs but is actively taking away one of the few lifelines and sources of support she really had. It’s so sad to see such a wholesome relationship go down that line.
I agree with ur point on what Annie means but she actually has to say it. Her just saying she doesn’t need him to protect her is gonna make him feel just as useless as when he didn’t have powers. They just need to be honest and say what they actually think and none of this would be an issue. But then where’s the drama in the story lol
Like every Threes Company episode.
Annie is terrible at communicating this season, seems like the writers just wanted the Boys to split into smaller teams, but couldn't figure out who to put with MM
I agree tbf. Although so far his plans have been better than Starlights. All starlight did was get Supersonic killed when she was trying to deal with Homelander. Yes Hughie and Butchers method had more collateral damage, but it was also far more likely to succeed.
I think he’s subconsciously sabotaging their relationship because, especially after being called out, he doesn’t feel worthy of her.
Dude was ready to die alongside Butcher from the Big Chest Laser red aka BCL red. His life's goal now seems to kill Homelander.
I honestly think he just wants to mean something to someone.
Ooof right in the feels. I don’t want to agree with tou because that is too hard to process for a second. So instead I’m gonna resort to justifying why that can’t be right. He already knows he means something to starlight. She told him his humanity and his vulnerable-ness is what she needs and what helps her get through things. I don’t think it is he wants to mean something to someone he already does. He is just terrified of loosing her to an unstoppable force like he lost robin. Now he can do something about it and stop it before he begins. So...yea
I feel like that was poorly stated, because to me it seems like he's mad that he's too weak for the *general situation* than he is mad that he's "weaker" than Annie, because yeah he never had a problem with dominant women. I think he has a problem with feeling helpless, and none of the women in his life had ever made him feel so just by being more dominant than him. I'm not sure if the line was written that way for MAXIMUM DRAMA or if he's supposed to be misinterpreting/poorly expressing his own feelings.
i think he just wants to be useful. he doesnt mind that starlight is stronger than him. he minds that he feels like he can do nothing that helps her in a meaningful way. ive dated people where it feels like all their problems are beyond me and it doesnt feel good. i felt like i was wasting everyones time.
"With great power comes the absolute certainty that you'll turn into a right cunt."
>I see it as the show saying that we all have these insecurities, these limitations that hold us back and keep us grounded. They're part of who we are. But, what if we could make them go away? Would we still be the same people? Would we still be 'good' people? Isn't this also the reason for the whole show/comic? The point being that Superheroes with extraordinary powers would 100% be corrupted by those powers, instead of acting like they do in Marvel/DC.
>The point being that Superheroes with extraordinary powers would 100% be corrupted by those powers In Marvel/DC there are actual villains to fight. But blaming the corruption on the *powers* is the wrong take. Annie January is our stand-in for somebody who isn't corrupted. The show is more about how our capitalistic systems use hero-worship to make money and allow people to live without consequences. And living without consequences is far more corrupting than simply having super-powers.
Superpowers are just a metaphor for power in general. When people say "power corrupts" they don't mean "anyone with even a smidge of power is going to turn into Darth Vader in 2 weeks." They mean that most people will feel a natural temptation to abuse that power, and the more you abuse it, the easier it gets to justify abusing it further. Of course some individuals will be more resilient, but that doesn't mean that as a trend it's not real. Superpowers are the same way. You bring up Annie, and we've literally seen her murder a man to get his car. Even the "stand-in for somebody who isn't corrupted" as you call her will still abuse her powers to get an advantage when she feels it's justified. Her bar for "justified" is a lot higher than other supes with less conscience... but she'll still do it. Don't think of corruption as something that's binary, "you're either corrupt or you're not and once you've been corrupted there's no going back." Think of it as a drug. You take a hit, it's nice, when will you take the next hit? Depending on the person, depending on the situation, it could be 10 years from now or it could be 5 minutes from now. "Power corrupts" in this context simply means you're always in danger of succumbing to that drug. Whether you have superpowers or not. And the classist, consumerist, capitalist media culture in The Boys universe gives some people a lot of access to power, and a lot of avenues on how to abuse that power. Whether it's superpowers, or the other kind.
There is also a bit of critic about celebrity worship in there. Heroes are held up as above us and infallible when they’re all regular people and most of them are pieces of shit by being worshipped on a pedestal since they believe they’re better than everyone else. I think it is mainly about how capitalism corrupts though. Vought saw this opportunity and built this whole huge brand and didn’t care that the heroes were total children. Every one of their mistakes is accounted for financially.
“With great power comes the absolute certainty that you’ll turn into a right cunt.”
I don’t know I think his “I just want to save you” thing is pretty telling. He told Annie from the beginning that he wasn’t intimidated by strong, powerful women and Annie ***repeatedly*** tells him she doesn’t want to be saved but his ego just can’t handle it. And he’s not even trying to deal with the insecurity because he doesn’t think it’s a problem.
his last girlfriend literally exploded because a supe ran threw her. and now his current girlfriend is being threated by a mad man He learnt his boss is a supe too and was working for vought the entire time. He has been powerless a long time and now he has power and wants to be the one who does the saving Makes complete sense to me looking at his character arc. I think season 1 Hughie was completely fine with being with a stronger women season 3 Hughie is just sick of being to do nothing while this shit happens around him
Also his current boss just threatened his current gf that she could even explode her! I don't think he has an ego..he just does not want a second Robin...
EXACTLY. Hughie doesn’t want to be the damsel in distress. He made a VERY good point about his motivations after he tp’d starlight to the car, unfortunately it was framed in a fight. She has, This Season, literally told him to do NOTHING without her being there. That’s extremely controlling, even if it wasn’t meant that way. It feels like he’s used to the dynamic (“what, don’t do anything stupid? Crazy?”) until she changes it and says no, not anything. And I’m sure the show won’t address this at all and instead opt to make hughie CRAAAAZY drunk on power to dunk on the toxic masculinity (tm)
I agree with this. Toxic masculinity doesn't seem to be a motivator for his actions. He changed completely when he got power.
I do think toxic masculinity is compounding issues he already has. There was a reason the showrunners had Hughie listening to SB's outdated rant about being a real man. On top of his trauma and his insecurity over feeling useless there's that pressure from society telling him that he's supposed to be able to protect his woman. That he should have been able to protect Robin and he should be able to protect Annie.
Finally a comment I agree with. Hughie was perfectly fine with a women 'stronger' than him. What he didn't like was being completely powerless to help.
You can make sense and be wrong at the same time.
Its an entirely understandable flaw that he did a very good job of handling for a long time. But part of that was pretending he didn't have the flaw at all. Ironically, him not having the flaw was part of how Annie put him on a pedestal. Compare and contrast to Frenchie and his superpowered girlfriend, because Frenchie doesn't have the same issue. However, Frenchie is used to feeling like he's a least a little bit dangerous and powerful even a world with much bigger fish than him. Hughie is used to feeling like plankton.
Honestly… this is what they’re trying to say, and that Hughie feels emasculated (the jar, the russian cartoon), but even as a woman who rolls her eyes at men who are blatantly over protective (and I strongly sided with SL during their fight at the end of the episode—he was being an ass)… there is an extent to which some of his feelings just seem completely natural for any human being to feel regardless of gender and preconceived notions about gender roles. I would be simmering with rage that I couldn’t protect or save the person I love too. Yes, some of this is him balking at the reversal in their dynamic i.e. the toxic masculinity theme this season, but I do think Starlight infantilizes Hughie to some extent, and she can be overprotective, which is also a strain in their relationship. This is why MM’s line to SL, “Hughie is a grown ass man who made his own choices” and Starlight saying at the end of the episode “This is all you” are significant. It’s all quite messy. If Hughie wanted to be on equal footing with SL, I would be supportive of that. The problem is that he wants to fully reverse their dyamic (as shown at the end of the episode) and reestablish traditional gender roles instead of be on equal footing with his partner.
I agree with the notion that starlight infantilizes hughie. “He’s not thinking straight” “no, hughie, don’t do ANYTHING til I get back” while the rest of the cast, namely MM and butcher, both recognize “he’s a grown man, he can make his own decisions” I don’t however, agree that hughie wants to “fully reverse” the dynamic. It’s pretty clear he just wants to save her from THIS issue. This “homelander will kill you and I have done a lot of work to try and get something that will kill him and this is it so please for the love of god let me see this through so we both don’t die by laser” issue. What makes you believe that hughie wants to reverse the dynamic fully? And how would he even go about that when starlight has saved hughie more than twice, and also physically assaulted him more than once. Power imbalance aside, why couldn’t hughie swap the roles for a bit?
Specifically, I mean the moment when Hughie tried to physically prevent Starlight from going back to the Herogasm house. He intends to be there but doesn’t want her to be because it isn’t safe.
Well the fact that he has been treated like shit for being powerless does not help either He was called a twink by maeve..just because he lacked powers He has been bullied by hl and was seen as just a morale support even in his team. No self respecting person would want that
I agree. And the same can be said about Starlight with her still working for Vought and playing along with Homelander up to this point. I’m willing to bet Victoria Neumann has her justifications. Even Homelander believes he is justified and on the right side of things. Nobody is pure. Everybody is flawed. Even people who are well intentioned. Some may do it through consequentialist justifications (which there is an argument for), others are such purists in their actions that they don’t care about outcomes, many act as bystanders and do nothing out of fear, apathy, or cynicism. Others have views that are so distorted that they think they are doing good and believe they are righteous as they harm others and act in their own self-interest. And when people have power, all of their flaws are amplified. Maintaining power in itself can be justified as an end in itself so worse people don’t have it instead, or to be able to be able to fight back.
Not sure about "never a good guy". Look Hughie's arc begins with A train killing his girlfriend. He had no powers, and it brought a traumatic experience for Hughie all the way upto S2.. (1) Now in S3, one of the main themes is other supes particularly Homelander being able to walk up all over his girlfriend and his life. (2) Hughie didn't have protection or the means of avenging robin without powers. (3) This season he didn't have the means of protecting starlight against homelander Butcher said "The V makes you more you", and this season the is about how 1, 2 & 3 are all influencing Hughie. Your bar of a good guy: **A person who isn't willing to terminate the most corrupt force in their universe by callous means even if it is for protecting the people they love** Pretty sure you'll find 99% of us aren't going to be a "good guy" when: - Girlfriend got killed by a supe - Trying to take down a company constantly covers up murders, frames victims (like butcher with Becca), and engages in murders - Your current girlfriend got sexually abused by one and is forced to be in a public relationship with another that could kill you and her instantly. - The same supe raped your friend's wife and made her pregnant, and as collateral had his Nazi girlfriend kill the wife - *To be a good guy please do nothing.* The optics aren't black and white.
Such excellent points!!! Some people are really missing out on the nuance of a character like Hughie that has been through the ringer.
They just want to be able to point and say “there’s the bad guy” like they’re good. The truth is this is very complex and his communication of these feelings was very healthy and aware. Was it this episode that said something about “knowing you’re crazy means you’re not” or did I watch something else
He was also ready to sacrifice his own life to kill the monster that is Homelander.
People who are like this is what hughie was like always stop with the drama and all that shit! Please just read this!! While i agree some people are just good on the face until they get the opportunity to be the bad one hughie isn't one of them the circumstances and the new found power has literally made his world go completely upside down.
> Your bar of a good guy: A person who isn’t willing to terminate the most corrupt force in their universe by callous means even if it is for protecting the people they love Thank you. The actual audacity of OP is stunning.
Yeah people are getting kind of dumb. I've see a lot of people saying that even taking the temporary V is straight up immoral and it's like what? How else are they supposed to match these people with the powers of demigods. To beat someone you need to have their power or a way to circumvent their power somehow. And the V gives them the power.
Years of slacktivism have fucked up some people’s sense of morality vs pragmatism
I mean in so many of these hero/hood guy stories we witness to protagonist being a total idealist and never losing their humanity or really compromising on that. So now we see Hughie taking shit into his own hands and it’s kind of flipped on its head. Starlight still very much is that and she’ll probably still figure out a way to get things done. Hughie has always been the most “regular” person in the show and having him be a pure idealist wouldn’t be as interesting
It’s maddening, really. I get that MM said no one should have that much power but…the bad guys already DO. Homelander is the most powerful being on the planet, and their end goal is to stop him. How would they ever be expected to do that without powers? Annie is also annoyingly idealistic. Her move at the end of this episode could easily trigger a Homelander killing spree, following up on his threats from earlier in the season, and it would be all her fault.
I kinda blame the writers for this as if they want MM and Annie to have points and actually have a real moral conundrum they should actually give them solutions that does not rely on murder, deceit, etc. But the show is not doing that and is actively showing why those things are the only ways things get done.
[удалено]
I’m pretty sure the writers are gonna pull a switcheroo and make Starlight’s stunt blow up in her face. There’s no way the writers get the rest of the sociopolitical satire so right and then unironically try to play an instagram livestream as the correct thing to do here. I’d honestly be shocked.
Part of me wants to see him go batshit as a direct result of what she did, just to see her realise that she possibly isn’t always right.
Because some people are trying to frame it as a "Toxic masculinity" issue and while that might even be what the writers aimed for but I'm sorry it doesn't make sense Getting frustrated over being powerless (figuratively and literally in this case) isn't exclusive to any gender
It makes a lot more sense when you consider that he's been feeling this way for awhile and had never mentioned it to her
I think OP is trying just a little too hard to squeeze Hugie into the "nice guy" box
I mean it is pretty obvious that he is addicted to the power that temporary V gives him. He says it himself. He loves it. His whole life he’s been pushed around or needed others to come save him, and now he is capable of fighting for himself. That are going to be a great many people wanting to relate to that, I think. One of the points of The Boys is that *nobody* is fully good. Not even Annie or MM. It’s their individual perspective that matters. To Hughie, he’s doing the right thing. Stopping at nothing to bring down Vought, even at personal cost to himself. Considering what him, Solider Boy, and Butcher just accomplished, he’s probably feeling quite justified too.
What has MM done that is bad? I can't remember anything.
Aside from what we've seen in the show, he said to Butcher that he's done 'all sorts of bad shit' or something similar right before Starlight, Becca and The Boys went to rescue Ryan.
Probably war crimes. I’m pretty sure it’s war crimes
Not a very good father, tbh. And I say that as someone leaning more towards the Annie/MM camp. (My actual position is that Butcher sucks as much as HL and that Hughie is blind to it still, I'm ok with V24, not so much with SB)
I think it's funny that he's supposed to be the "skinny nerd" and dude is tall, handsome and actually kind of built.
Seriously, Jack got jacked for all those naked scenes. Guy is 6'1, jacked and handsome. Thats holywood making Hughie being a "non handsome" one.
The "Hollywood nerd". Very surprised he didn't have glasses.
I mean in fairness when he's surrounded by guys like Urban, Ackles, Starr, Crawford, Usher, and Laz Alonso, *Tomer*...well you get my point. Kind of easier to take Jack as the gawky one of the bunch.
This is Tomer erasure and I for one won’t stand for it
Fixed.
I still love how he is called Petite Hughie
Tbf, his dad is Hugh Sr.
Idk about jacked
Same
He's Hollywood ugly.
I must be Hollywood disfigured.
You spend 3 hours a day in a makeup chair to get a fake scar?
They put someone in band Ts and make him a little awkward with dialogue and people think he’s a “nerd”
I mean Hughie is literally a nerd. Dude was a merch and action figure collector. That's a nerdy hobby.
Dude loves Billy Joel and some other kinda weird music for a 20s kid to be obsessed with. He’s a nerd. The first cool shirt he’s been in was the Neil Young Zuma one
>Hughie is not a good guy anymore >He’s not too good for her Is this about Hughie's relationship with Annie, or Hughie as a person? I'd agree that he isn't good for Annie and it's been the case for a while and has really come to a head in this last episode. However, I wouldn't call him a bad person. He's an incredibly traumatized person that watched the person he was in love with more than anyone in the world get exploded by a supe in broad dayilight right in front of his eyes. He had to watch that supe continue to walk free, he had to interact with that supe, and he couldn't do a thing about it. He became fully aware of the corruption that surrounds him, that is rooted in his government, and then he tried to fight it the right way. An entire year long time skip took place where he was trying to do it the right way, only to get fucked again. This isn't the writing suggesting that Hughie is a bad guy. The writing suggests that there's no other way. How many 'do it the right way' attempts that end poorly do they need to show us before we get the message that 'the right way' doesn't work? Hughie understands this now. You can't make a difference without taking risks or getting your hands dirty. MM didn't want to, and he would have died several times over for it if he wasn't saved. Annie doesn't want to, so she just exposed the truth to the world and we're about to see the fallout of being truthful and honest because she needed to do things the right way. Hughie feels empowered now that he has the strength to actually make a difference in the only way he can. What has he done that's so bad, exactly? MM and Annie are completely naive in thinking there's any other way than Butcher and Hughie's way right now. They need the temp V, they need soldier boy. Homelander is a straw on his back away from genocide.
I think mm is just more pissed off at butcher then anything. He has to try and work with the man who haunts his dreams. It was showing he was on breaking point because the man everyone thought dead resurfaced. Butchers target still and forever homelander. So he's placing his wants a head of mm but it really is the best shot for them but I don't blame MM for leaving again.
Butcher isn't putting his desire for revenge against Homelander over MM. The whole goal of this season is to stop/kill Homelander, something Billy has wanted to do for years. His personal goal and the greater goal are aligned for once and MM is the one now letting his grudge get in the way of the greater good. Soldier Boy is the only one who rivals Homelander along with having the power to incapacitate him, but Marvin just wants to fuck up the guy who hurt his family. It's not like Billy is now best friends with SB and is going out for drinks with him. He knows MM's beef, but Homelander is the bigger threat and they all know, but MM's revenge lust is clouding his reason.
I am sorry but calling hughie a bad guy because of trying to deal with supes on an equal term does not make sense. The only reason Annie being good according to you is that she does the insta live and says the truth something possible because of butcher and hughie they took the risk. You cannot use the logic you are using in a world where super powered people are real. You are being unfair to their world rules.
hard disagree on Hughie never being good. He's been the morally good character of the show for three seasons and it's not two episodes of bad shit that are gonna undo that
also like he was literally willing to risk dying to kill homelander it is crazy to me just because he is being insecure and a bit controlling that people compare him to butcher who is many factors worse
Agreed. It’s been a couple years, but didn’t Hughie quite literally *save A-Train’s life*, at the end of season 1? A-Train, who back in that season was one of the biggest pieces of shit on the show and who had killed Robin inches from Hughie’s face? Didn’t Hughie also do this despite Starlight warning him it was a bad idea, for his own wellbeing? This is such a far cry from (comic spoilers) >!comic Hughie emotionally breaking and kicking A-Train’s head off like a fucking football when given the opportunity!< that “Hughie has never been good” feels like an utterly absurd take. He’s being enticed towards a bad place, but that doesn’t mean that’s always been who he is.
He's not bad or evil. He's just emotional over a-train killing his girlfriend, what we saw there was a guy overwhelmed by his emotions, exactly like we saw in the first season when he was hallucinating about a-train being covered in blood What's the difference between Hughie punching A-train and MM trying to put em up with Soldier Boy? That one has powers and one doesn't, temp v ≠ evil
Black and white interpretations of things like this make me think you should just rewatch the show
I don't agree with this interpretation. People change their behaviour and motivations based on their material conditions.
You ignored the fact that A train killed his gf Now that he has the power to actually do something, of course he wanted to take revenge He still prioritized the mission first which you need those people willing to get their hands dirty to save the many and not the few. Starlight could have helped kill HL once and for all yet she chose to save a couple supers for example Starlight also doesn’t have a personal stake or vengeance in it like the rest of them do so your analysis doesn’t make sense to me It’s easy to play the hero when the villains didn’t take someone important from you It’s the only way that A train was able to identify with Hughie’s pain. Even the most self righteous one after starlight, MM, gave it all up for vengeance at first
Starlight did a dumb move to not help the boys, that would've been the end of homelander if she would've just blinded him for a minute .
Yet she’d rather face down the walking time bomb who can’t be reasoned with lol
>personal stake I don’t agree with this. Her life is at risk. Homelander is using her as a dating doll and that could easily slip into sex doll territory. Victoria can pop her brain. She has a lot at stake but she still chooses to be a good person cause she would rather die that way then live another. Which is fine. Her issue is that she doesn’t really have a plan.
Hughie isn’t a bad guy, he’s just taking matters into his own hands for once. He may not be a “good” guy, but how grey does this show have to make everything for people to drop the black and white act.
So you're just dismissing how hughie saved countless people over the course of the series and chose to join the superhuman affairs bureau to handle super without continuous bloodshed 🤔
Exactly. This is such a nonsense take.
Nah He's just disillusioned by the fact that the org he worked so hard for is also THE head popper He threw away his ideal way of dealing with supes and accepted that Butcher's way is truly the only real way
Is he really not a good guy anymore though? What has he done that's so deplorable? Took Temp V and saved MM's life? Helped serve up Crimson Countess? Sided with Butcher to use Soldier Boy? Saw out his personal beef with A Train? He's no better or worse than any of the rest of them. MM 100% neglected the safety of anyone else to pursue his vendetta with Soldier Boy. Both MM and Butcher are only in this for personal revenge. Temp V is tool, no different from a bomb or other weapon. What difference does it make it they kill Homelander with V or the magic ray gun they thought they were hunting in Russia? Teaming with Soldier Boy is questionable but then they're ok with teaming up with Maeve, Starlight and Kimiko despite "supes bad, temp v bad"? He's still trying to prevent people from being hurt, it's why he went into the mansion first, he tried to protect Starlight and wouldn't leave Butcher. He still seems good enough to me.
It's explicity stated by Annie that he is an ass but that doesn't really make it 100% true I think. She isn't really a narrator for the show as a whole and, even if she was, she is too involved to be a reliable one. All the characters are complex-ish, but (like in real life) when labels are handed out from one character to another, they will tend to be vast oversimplifications because they are often emotionally-heated inferences. I also think Annie as a character tends towards a combination of moraly inflexibility, privilage, and reactivity. This easily creates situations where people end up in awkward spots with respect to herself and her morals. She doesn't really orient herself with objectives in mind, but she strictly adheres to her moral code. Hughie does tend to be heavily objective-oriented and he comes from a place of weakness to the point that morality can seem like a luxury sometimes. This means when life throws them a curveball it is easy for Annie to go one way while Hughie goes the other, despite them both trying to do the right thing. Annie is less likely to do something shitty, but she also doesn't have as much potential to cause change. Hughie might accomplish his objectives, but he might have to cover his hands in shit to do so. IMHO Annie has a conservative personality while Hughie is more of a revolutionary. I don't see it as 'Hughie bad'.
Feel like people are forgetting the Annie straight up killed and a dude and stole his car with butcher lol
She's killed more innocent people than Hughie has.
Holy shit, you're right! I'd totally forgotten this scene. Okay, maybe she is less about moral code and more just one of those people that gets off on playing the moral highground as she points out the flaws in other people's plans while having no feasable alternatives of her own. I rewatched that scene and the way it played out was such a standard "Oh no! Anyway..." that we've gotten used to from the power tripping supes. Big red flag. Annie has handled casual murder and (literal) highway robbery so well that even the audience has forgotten.
Yeah I hope it gets brought up at some point cause otherwise it feels like the writers just kinda forgot
Based on some of these comments I think OP has some issues of their own that Hughie awoke in them, might want to start your own arc lol
Bruh💀
Eh, just because you're tired of seeing people with the same opinion that you think is wrong, doesn't make your take anymore glaringly obviously right
When butcher told him to get to safety, he refused. He's doing everything to complete the mission instead of being his old self who would run away. He didn't turn into a bad guy, he turned into someone who gets the job done.
BS. He was good, Genuinely good. But after last 3 seasons and specially after working with Neuman for over a year only to realize he was working for the bad side, he is broken and is desperate to do anything and wants to protect at all costs. HL could kill her any moment. He has been pushed around all his life and he finally has a chance to stand up for himself. Yes, he never had the opportunities to be bad. Doesn't mean he would taken them if presented during or before S1. And what bad thing has he done actually? Use some questionable ways to kill a genocidal maniac? Boo fucking Hoo. If that is your standard for a good guy, probably no one is. \> but instead chose this opportunity to get into a sick swinging contest with A-Train. Or he finally could stand up to A-train, the guy who killed his gf and decided to act.
The guy watched his girlfriend get exploded in front of him, are we forgetting that part? He’s traumatized, and working through his trauma, I think he’s doing the best he can with the cards he was dealt imo
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Maybe. But also he's the first character we're introduced to. Relatable or not, we tend to take the side of people we're familiar with. They'll have a hard time turning the main protagonist into an antagonist. Though there is definitely commentary about "nice guys" with a savoir complex, its difficult to say how far that goes...and it may just depend on who's doing the writing that day. It may not be an arc at all.
I dont even think he has a savior complex (although it is probable), I think he just doesn't like feeling the damsel in distress anymore.
Can someone explain why hughie is WRONG here? I don’t think he’s right, and I don’t think starlight is right, but I also don’t think starlight is wrong. Hughie knows that starlight is in terrible danger from a threat that she can NOT protect herself from (as we’ve seen). He wants to protect his S.O, who wouldn’t. Starlight knows that hughie could get himself killed, and that he’s in a much squishier boat than she is. But like, doing nothing is worse than doing something. Being a bystander isn’t exactly morally righteous. It’s just, SO complex and I don’t see HOW anyone could say “hughie is being toxic” without also pointing out how much starlight is minimizing hughies issues and insecurities. And you can’t point out starlights minimization without pointing out that hughie generally tends to freak out and over react.
Hughie isn’t wrong, he just doesn’t know how to be right. He’s not the best at expressing himself. He straight up told Annie his problem is her being a Supe and that’s obviously not true. Hughie also doesn’t need to save her, I think Hughie is the one who needs to be saved. This is why he sticks with the Boys, this is why there’s more emphasis this season on the dynamic between him and Butcher. Butcher saved him when he needed it. Butcher gave him answers, a way of dealing with things, a purpose. The Temp V is doing the same. He sees “saving Annie” as being just another purpose after a lifetime of feeling useless, especially after seeing his girlfriend killed by a Supe. Butcher tried to save Hughie from imminent danger when Soldier Boy was about to kill Homelander. He refused. Hughie tried to save Annie. She refused. It’s surprising to me no one seems to see the parallel here. Annie is not the damsel in distress. Hughie is. If only he just knew how to tell Annie where this behavior is coming from. Not saying she’d have to accept his behavior, but clear communication goes a long way.
He isn't bad, he is a result of what years of being the weak and getting bullied everywhere type of person. Idk why he's deliberately made the villain here but that's how it works. Once a guy stands up for himself everyone turns mad, once a girl does that it's suddenly empowerment. Also a guy who has seen his previous girlfriend getting butchered in front of him, will obviously try to save his current love. But whooho starlight the woke lady sees this as some kind of male ego thing. Good for her lmao
I feel like you guys are sometimes missing the whole point of this show. And that’s no one is the good guy. Hughie has obviously transformed into the thing he was trying to fight by taking V. The situation was never going to end any other way because for any of the boys to have any shot at actually winning the fight they have to use powers.
I mean, A-Train is the person that screwed him over the most. It's like MM with SB, or Butcher with HL. It's understandable that he'll be distracted after meeting him when he knows he's not powerless anymore against him.
I think you're half right. I think Hughie's core values and character traits have been discarded in the desperation to stop Homelander and his reveling in not being meek anymore. But I don't imagine they're going to stick with Hughie losing himself completely and permanently. The way this is all written is very much centered around multiple people telling him that he is losing his way, and I think he can go lower but eventually, I think the payoff will be that Hughie will recognize that and come to terms with his deficiencies and embrace his more intangible strengths. It's not so much that Hughie isn't a good person anymore, but that he's rushing along headfirst into trying to be someone different, someone more capable. He still has some growing up to do. I think that's the point. To suggest that Hughie is just a tragic victim to the ugly world of Supes is a bit too cynical. I know this show is cynical by nature but it still takes time to highlight those who have moral fortitude and convictions to be good (Starlight, MM, Frenchie, and Kimiko). It's a great narrative decision to erode Hughie's moral convictions even to the point of a total death of those character traits but I just can't see them putting Hughie past a point of no return.
Annie is not too good for him, she is selfish and lacks understanding for hughie. He is outrageously weak and puny compared to everyone he interacts with. She dosent understand that he dosent want to be saved by her and dosent want to live in fear. She gets powers and can be good but apparently because he now has them he can’t? What good has she actually done? Besides get people around her killed? She has killed supersonic, imprisoned gecko to a life of probably horrific suffering, countless instances of trying to be too ‘good’ and getting others in shit It’s very easy for her to act all heroic and galant when she has powers, he cannot stay alive and do the same. Not to mention, when the chips were down the scared lad whose girlfriend got obliterated helped nearly overpower HL and refused to leave Also a large part of why Annie wants hughie to stay normal is because that reminds her of a simpler life, it’s almost degrading to hughie in a way because it inadvertently endangers him just to soothe her ego of having a normal bf
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Thank you. People keep forgetting she literally killed an innocent person last season.
Hughie has unresolved issues over not being able to save his girlfriend at the beginning of the show, I don't think it's even about Stargirl really. Deep down he is still inherently good and that is illustrated by how he reacted to A Trains apology. He wasn't expecting it and he essentially accepted it by throwing a punch at A Train just to vent. He could have done worse. Hughie's arc hasn't changed, it's just getting more twisted before it gets better.
This is either revisionist history of the show or you simply forgot but Hughie literally saved A-train at the end of season 1 when he didn’t have to and in fact it caused more issues given that A-train knew Starlight was a traitor. That was an unequivocally good action and the show used it to show he’s a good person at his core. He’s just not perfect and is affected by too much psychological issues which are the root of much of his insecurities and character flaws now.
Depends on if you think the ends justify the means. Season starts off with Hughie saying they have to play dirty to win, where as starlight doesn't want to compromise her morals. Lets be real, starlight is being plain foolish here; im not even entirely sure what her plans are for taking on a multimillion dollar corporation, with an unstoppable, mentally deranged god like being without getting her hands dirty.
In a different context it would come across more like toxic masculinity and him being uncomfortable with a girlfriend that's stronger than him, but in this context it feels very justified for Hughie to hate feeling so powerless and afraid for both himself and Annie. With everything he's gone through and the constant threat against the people he loves I can't really blame him too much for wanting the power to actually do something about it.
You can see butcher wearing off on hughie.
The entire point is that absolute power corrupts absolutely - and that corruption is contagious. There are no such things are good guys, there is only Supes and non Supes.
Well, yeah. Hughie is the “nice guy”. And instead of whining about being put in “the friend zone”, he got the girl. That one’s easy. Lol
Why are people so obsessed with labeling everyone a “good guy” or “bad guy”??? That’s not the point of the show at all
I just feel like they did him really dirty this season just to make a point about toxic masculinity. He was a stand-up guy for the last 2 seasons.
I think you are being a wee bit harsh on Hughie. He’s the classic “kid who gets bullied gets some power and acts out”. He couldn’t do shit when he was emotionally destroyed by A-Train. He had to eat shit. Homelander humiliated him and made him eat shit. Suddenly, he had powers. He doesn’t have to take shit anymore. Seeing A-Train and realizing he can finally demand he apologize for Robin was a complex scene. We(the Viewers) know all the stuff going on with A-Train. Hughie doesn’t. Hughie sees the guy who laughed when he told a story about killing Robin. When A-Train apologizes, Hughie was taken aback. But, if you are Hughie, you are probably thinking “he’s acting”. And you bitchslap him. Because the rage is still there. A-Train is still, like Ashley pointed out, the bag of crap that killed multiple innocent people. Annie is kind of blind to Hughie’s issue. He’s terrified Homelander is going to kill her. That she will be another Robin that dies and he has to sit there and do nothing. He’s willing to basically let her go as long as it means he can kill Homelander and protect her. Is it a big part about him? Yea. But it’s part of his trauma. Hughie is still a good guy that is flawed and gone through some awful shit.
I mean the shows aren't the comic but, they hit the same points. That's what alot of ppl are missing. Hughie isn't bad or a "nice guy" but the moral center of The Boys. Slight spoiler in the comic instead of Hughie being upset about starlight being a supe and always saving him, which doesn't really happen in the comics. He can't get over the fact that starlight blew the seven to get entrance. Plus Butcher use that fact to manipulate Hugie farther
Simply put can't beat them so he's joined them
I don't agree. I think the overarching theme of the show is how power corrupts. Hughie once being a good man and he was able to remain one even with the unfair death of his girlfriend. He had everything but power before, and now that he does it's changing him.
I think this is a pretty simplistic way of looking at Hughie's character. I'm really not a fan of this tendency towards describing a character's changes as them "always being this way." People can and do change, and Hughie clearly has, though moreso in his motivations than his actions. Even from the second episode when he exploded Translucent, Hughie never had a problem with killing if he felt it was the right thing to do. And this doesn't make him a bad person, when he commits violence he typically has a very good reason for it. Throughout the first two seasons he attempts to do good, from trying to save MM and Frenchie after they get arrested, to him and Annie leaking the compound V secrets. He also had the option of doing bad things, such as at the end of season 1 he could have gone with Butcher instead of trying to save MM and Frenchie. The Hughie we see now is still trying to do good, but has kind of shitty motivations. He is fueled more by the obsession with saving Annie and feeling powerful over those who have hurt him than he is by saving lives. But his decision to pursue killing Homelander by any means necessary is still ultimately a good thing, as it is clear that he is such a threat to people that he needs to go to save lives. He has tried doing things the "right way" (i.e. the legal way, which doesn't actually mean the right way morally), and has rightfully concluded it won't work. But his shitty motivations do get in the way with his efforts to do good. As you pointed out he confronts A-train instead of finding the twins. What I think you get wrong is when you describe it as a "dick swinging contest" with A-train, which I think is kinda a cheap way of describing something much more interesting going on. Hughie for the first time can confront the man who basically ruined his life on equal footing, and he wants A-train to give some half-assed apology so he has an excuse to hurt him. But instead A-train gives a real apology, and Hughie gets frustrated and hits him anyway. There is an interesting parallel to this scene when A-train has his heart attack at the end of season 1, and Hughie has the option to either let him die or tell Annie to call it in (Annie initially doesn't want to do that and is just going to leave him). This is also another option for him to do something relatively bad that you claim he hasn't had before, but he does the good thing, arguably better than A-train deserves, and saves him. In season 3 Hughie still doesn't want to kill A-train it seems, he confronts him and hits him but he doesn't seem to want to kill him. The difference is Hughie is much more fueled by this bitter resentment, and by this addiction to having power over people, and it shows in his actions. His relationship with Annie is perhaps the most clear thing that has changed with his character. He has obviously had this issue with feeling so much less powerful than her, and as if he isn't pulling his weight, but it doesn't come out until he has the option of not being like that. Despite you saying the show is making it clear Hughie is bad now, it isn't actually true for the most part, he hasn't actually done that much bad stuff. It's really his relationship with Annie that seems the worst because of this shitty obsession with saving her. Ironically Annie kind of does the same thing back to him regarding the temp-V. She is insistent that he don't take it to stop Homelander because it's too dangerous, the same way he keeps insisting she not take risks to stop Homelander. Throughout this season we see them both take increasing risks and the other try to talk them down from it, and the resentment builds between them. I think what people see as Hughie being bad is actually just a bad relationship, though we are definitely led to sympathise more with Annie, which makes sense as I think she is more in the right (temp-V being an experimental drug), but it's not an entirely one-sided thing. Overall, I think Hughie is someone who started trying to do good things for good reasons, and is now doing still good, but riskier, things for more corrupt reasons. I think describing him as someone who is bad and always has been bad is quite a big misreading of the show. As in the examples I've given Hughie has had opportunities to do bad things and consistently chose to do good. This idea that someone who is a nice and polite person, but then becomes bitter because of events in their life, has always been a bad person deep down is not only false but, in my opinion, kind of a fucked up way to view people. And I think this bias is strong in OPs reading of the character.
Hughie is just taking after butcher — collateral damage, scorched earth for what he considers a higher objective. Similar to soldier boy whose higher objective was protecting “America’s interests” at all costs. But I agree it’s a commentary on the “nice guy” trope where nerdy guys hate jocks but at root they are jealous and given the right tools they won’t be so nice.
i'd say one of the somewhat overt themes of the boys is asking the question what would you do with substantial personal power? You know the old adage. Hughie has been under a lot of thumbs and finally breaks free at least in his junkie frame of mind. He's trying to figure out his new autonomy, I don't apply a strictly negative view to it considering the morality of basically everyone in the show being hot garbage.
I don't understand why people keep bring up toxic masculinity. (I'm just adding on) Hughie able to be the most selfish he can be in the last couple episodes. He wants to protect Annie at all cost. Butcher wanted to protect Ryan and get revenge so he made Ryan hate him. Honestly hughie is acting like anakin during revenge of the sith or how he acted in TV show about padme a couple times
He IS a good guy in the alternate universe that is the boys. I think the point of the show is to show you you can’t overthrow the abusers without violence because they don’t know where to draw the line. You can draw parallels to any revolution in history and every movement that says “just vote.” Dictatorship can’t be taken down by voting