The Boys – Season 1 Episode 7 “Self-Preservation Society” Recap & Review

Mesmer’s Betrayal

The penultimate episode to The Boys begins during Christmas time 8 years ago. We see Billy and his wife at a party with all the supers before jumping back to present day with Hughie and Starlight making love.

Meanwhile, the Seven crumble at the core as A-Train struggles to get back to his training while The Deep deliberates over writing a memoir but can’t quite find the right words. Homelander senses the group are fading too and calls a team meeting to address their issues. He mentions Hughie and the way he’s been working against them and accuses Starlight of working with him.

Hughie has cold feet soon after and doesn’t want to go ahead with Butcher’s plan. Angry, Butcher lays into Hughie but our protagonist bites back and hits him with a few home truths. Before things get a chance to escalate further, Hughie receives a call from A-Train who happens to be at Hughie’s Dad’s place. Mesmer’s betrayal has caused serious problems for the entire group. Their access has been frozen, Mothere’s Milk scrambles to get his family to safety and the others panic over what to do next.

With his hands tied, Hughie shows up at his Father’s and confronts A-Train. He tells the super about the Compound V and they talk together, trying to come up with terms of an agreement together. That is, until Kimiko smacks him with an iron pipe in the back of the leg with such force that the man’s bone rips through his skin and hangs out., stifling his threat for now.

While Homelander quizzes Madelyn about Billy’s wife, The Deep finds himself in a spot of bother too. A girl he brings home begins painfully playing with his gills, leaving him in visible pain.

Meanwhile Butcher catches up to Mesmer and hits him repeatedly, smashing his brains over the sink. He then heads back to the safe house where the feds show up soon after. Butcher has reluctantly agreed to the deal, with the exception around Homelander being served on a plate. Raynar takes what she has straight to Madelyn and tells her their super operation is about to unravel. However, they learn of a bigger threat on the horizon – a supe terrorist that has the ability to explode at will.

Homelander himself catches up with his past soon after, discussing things with one of the scientists who tells him more about his upbringing. He was created in a laboratory too and as we witness flashes of his past, we see he was alone which would explain his bitterness and cold anger.

The episode then ends with Hughie telling Starlight the truth about her origin before Butcher appears and shoots her in the chest.

The increased urgency and pacing to this episode really typifies how far we’ve come in Amazon Prime’s latest superhero show. The way The Boys tackles its characters is really the best part about the show and seeing more of Homelander’s past is certainly a smart move. The complete 180 turn with The Deep is really impressive too, especially given what his character was like early on. In a way, he actually typifies exactly what Aquaman would be like with those abilities and seeing him come to terms with how alone he really is over the series has been really well written across the series.

Although we haven’t seen a whole lot of Starlight’s powers up until this point, the foundation is now laid for an explosive finale to follow as our characters prepare for the final fight to come.