'The Boys' Season 2 Episode 2: Is it Shining Light vs Vought's Seven or are the two on the same side?
There is a lot packed into 'The Boys' Season 2 Episode 2 like the return of Billy Butcher, Kimiko's secret, and more. However, the one thing that we cannot wait to see unravel is the connection between Vought and the Shining Light Liberation Army. Especially when we watch the Supe terrorist that The Boys track down in episode 2 explain how his entire village was wiped out by the supes, it is clear that this man has come all the way to the US to exact revenge. He wants to get back at the supes who claimed that they were saving the world but instead destroyed his family and others in the village.
He belongs to the Shining Light Liberation Army, the group that has members who also have superpowers, and every time one of them shows any signs of being dangerous to the US, Vought sends in the Seven to help erase the danger and sweep the country and its defense personnel off their feet. Vought has wanted to influence decisions in the defense field and they hope to do so with the help of their supes. However, the world is not aware of how Vought has played both sides.
It was only at the end of season 1 that we had learned how the Supes were genetically engineered to be able to manifest superpowers. Dr. Frederick Vought, in reality, was the one to come up with the idea of Compound V and he used it to experiment on babies. Since 1971, Vought -- originally a pharmaceutical company -- has been manufacturing Compound V and sending it to over 50 hospitals across the US and labeled it as a kind of vaccine. When babies were injected with the compound, they got superpowers and that was how Starlight, Queen Maeve, Deep, A-Train -- all of them came to be.
It is also clear that the reason Homelander leaked the compound's secret formula was to market an event that would allow the Seven to become a part of the American Defense team. If there were Supe terrorists, then the country would definitely need Supe heroes to fight and this had been Homelander's plan all along. He has God Complex, that has developed over the years, as a result of not having anything or anyone in his life. The family that the media knows of is all tailored by Vought, so the first time Homelander has a real family -- his son with Becca; he jumps the gun right away. He wants his son to feel like God from the beginning and not experience any of the misfortune that he had experienced in life.
It is everything that he lacked which pushes Homelander to greedily reach out for everything possible in the present and that includes ruling the world as a superhero leader. So he could very well be behind the Shining Light Liberation Army, taunting and pushing Supe terrorists to attack the US just so that he is able to show off how he is the best option for the country. However, all the individual vigilantes who believe that they are fighting against the Supes and their unfair means have only fallen right into Vought's hand.
'The Boys' Season 2 new episodes will release on Fridays and can be streamed on Amazon Prime Video.
