Something weird has been going on in season 5 of The Boys, and I’m not talking purely about the fact that half the season feels like an ad for Vought Rising, the upcoming spinoff prequel series. Though this is related to that.
The Boys has now set up one past relationship as a plot point that becomes the series’s crucial apex. First, Sage sets up a situation where he shows Soldier Boy a rather gross relationship between Homelander and Clara Vought/Stormfront, which happened in season 2 before she died. He’s furious, and the idea is that it will permanently fracture the relationship between father and son. But later, during the crucial moment, Soldier Boy gives Homelander the V1 because they both loved her and “it’s what she would have wanted.”
Makes sense, right? Uh, no. Because so far as we know, this season is the first time we have heard about any sort of relationship between Clara Vought outside of a Soldier Boy quote or two like “Man, she was a firecracker.” Rather, there was an entire season about Soldier Boy and who was supposed to be his actual love, Crimson Countess, where they had a whole “it couple” era when they were in the Payback superhero team in the 1980s. He was eventually betrayed by her and his team, but if there was a meaningful love story laid out by The Boys for Soldier Boy, it was this one, and Clara had not been mentioned in this capacity at all until now, which very much seems like a retcon just to set up Vought Rising, where Stormfront is a main star, and given the time period, Crimson Countess is likely not even born yet.
I suppose you could bend backward to say that it was a different era and Stormfront was his first love or something like this, but this has not been set up and all, and that is kind of a big deal considering the existence of that relationship ends up being the turning point of the series now that Homelander has the immortalizing V1.
Again, this all plays into just how much The Boys is setting up Vought Rising, now altering key plot points to make sure the coming storylines of that show make sense. But right now, it doesn’t make sense, given the complete lack of connection between Soldier Boy and Stormfront to this point, despite them having significant roles in seasons of the series. I find it rather annoying, that’s all.
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