Homelander makes another drastic decision in The Boys Season 5, Episode 5, “One-Shots,” as the show nears its endgame. The episode is something of a departure for the series, with a series of vignettes, or one-shots, that focus on one specific character in turn, with Firecracker, Black Noir, Terror, Sister Sage, and Soldier Boy all getting their time in the spotlight. The episode was highly anticipated because it was the long-awaited Supernatural reunion with Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins, but it had so much more in store. Warning: Major SPOILERS ahead.
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Even just in the scene with Padalecki’s Mister Maratheon and Collins’ Malchemical, there were a few more surprises: The Boys Season 5, Episode 5 also featured cameos from Seth Rogen (who is also an executive producer on the show), Kumail Nanjiani, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Will Forte, and Craig Robinson. And yet even as that descended into chaos with Marathon killing all of the celebrities, nothing was as shocking as the very end of the episode, where Homelander killed Firecracker by impaling her head on the wing of an eagle bust (a fitting choice as she dies on a symbol of America).
Why Homelander Killed Firecracker In The Boys Season 5, Episode 5
What’s particularly interesting about Firecracker’s death is that it almost didn’t happen. Homelander initially just fires her, because he sees through the pretense and knows that she doesn’t truly believe in him as God. Had she simply decided to start walking out of the room at that point, then it seems as though she would have been allowed to live. Instead, it’s her own efforts to get through to him and plead her case that end up cementing her fate.
Unfortunately, she thought she had no other choice. She might not believe Homelander is God, but she has given up everything for him. She renounces her past commitment to her previous church, even making baseless allegations against her former pastor. She’s decided to go all-in on supporting Homelander, despite the personal cost, and the cruel irony is that all it results in is her death. A lot of praise must go to Valorie Curry for her performance in this episode and for fleshing Firecracker out more than before, but it’s also a sad reality that, when a supporting TV character starts getting much more depth, there’s a good chance their end is nigh.
What Firecracker isn’t lying about is her love for Homelander, because that does seem absolutely true and, in her mind and heart, real. And it’s that realness that pushes Homelander to kill her, because he sees the truth to it, and that’s too big a risk for him now. He’s always craved love, but forgiving her and accepting that would make him vulnerable and mean he could be hurt in some way.
It would, in a way, make him human, mortal, not the God that he proclaims to be, and so, in the sudden moment of his realizing that, he makes the snap decision to kill her. As we’re warned of earlier in the episode, if he starts acting like a God… he’ll start killing like one. Crucially, there are two words that Firecracker utters that seem to be what make Homelander act, when she tells him, “We all need love, don’t we? Even God.”
You can see his face change; where previously he was starting to allow himself to show emotion and buy into her love, after hearing that, he steels himself and kills her. It’s a double-edged moment, one that both confirms she does not see him as God (she notably doesn’t say “you,”) while he also rejects the idea that God needs love, or anything else for that matter. Firecracker is but one victim of a merciless God, but she probably won’t be the last.
New episodes of The Boys release on Wednesdays on Prime Video.
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