For a show like ‘The Boys‘, based on chaos, cruelty, and consequences, there is little room to even think of hope. Episode 3 of Season 5 is not an exception. At first glance, it is violent, emotional, and very disturbing.
However, amid all that demolition, there is a little, unanticipated change. Not victory. Not justice. Just a way out.
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This episode not only concentrates on the key players, but it also shifts its focus to the new generation. Ryan, Maverick, and Zoe are no longer side characters. They are echoes of all that the adults have put into motion. And what they’ve inherited isn’t pretty.
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Both of them are influenced by grief, rage, and the desire to make someone suffer. It is the same cycle that has propelled the series since the very start: pain results in revenge, revenge results in pain, and no one is a true winner.
“Very specifically in episode 3, we wanted to explore the cycle of violence. How do you possibly end a conflict in a war when your only move is to destroy a group of people, and then their children are inevitably going to want revenge, and then you have to destroy them? The cycle just continues forever,” Kripke told SR.
The most tragic example is Maverick’s arc. He eventually finds out the truth about the death of his father, but it does not help him come to terms with it; it only closes his destiny. The truth doesn’t free him; it destroys him. Ryan, on the other hand, is caught in the midst of it all.
Caught between Butcher and Homelander, between the truth and manipulation, he chooses his heart, and he is cruelly punished. You can watch the circle closing around him, drawing him into something he might not get out of.
“We knew from when Maverick was introduced in Gen V season 1 that, sooner or later, that guy’s got to run into Hughie. Can he escape that cycle of violence? Zoe, whose mom was murdered, can she escape that cycle of violence? Can Ryan?” Kripke explained.
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And then there’s Zoe. In another variant of this tale, she is doing the same thing, grief becoming vengeance, vengeance becoming loss. She has all the reasons to. Her mother is dead, and the culprits are still out there. But she doesn’t. Rather, she opts to go. To elope with her father, Dr. Sameer Shah, and create something that is not based on anger or revenge.
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It is a silent choice, nearly unnoticed amidst all the other action that occurs. However, it is by far the most impactful moment of the episode. Eric Kripke puts this as the nearest to a happy ending the show can have at this point. “One out of the three was able to, and that to us is a happy ending. I think Zoe has the best shot at a future, frankly. I think she and her father, to us, have the strongest, happiest ending in this episode.”
In the world of ‘The Boys’, it is not about winning a fight but not fighting at all. It is about the cycle that needs to be broken. There are no fireworks or applause with that decision. It is associated with uncertainty. The fact that the past may still be able to catch up with you. Yet, it’s still a choice. And now Zoe is the only one who was bold enough to make it. That simple act of turning your back is greater than any fight.
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