The Boys delivered what its own showrunner called the finest acting the show has ever produced in Wednesday’s fifth episode of its final season — and then killed the character responsible for it.
The episode, titled “One-Shots,” structured as a series of character vignettes, built an extended arc around Firecracker (Valorie Curry), the right-wing media personality and Homelander loyalist who has spent the season helping rebrand the super-powered tyrant as a living God. Episode 5 forced her to go on air and publicly destroy her beloved childhood pastor — a man who raised her — by accusing him of sheltering enemies of Homelander’s regime. Minutes later, Homelander murdered her for it.
Showrunner Eric Kripke said the scripted moment was deliberately minimal. “The script basically said: ‘She takes a beat. Is she really going to go through with it? She goes through with it,'” Kripke told The Hollywood Reporter. “But what Val did with that, brought you inside of her heartbreak. You could see it killing her own soul. And that was some of the best fucking acting this show has ever seen.”
Curry herself said she felt Firecracker was winning her final argument with Homelander — and that this was precisely what doomed her. “It was too exposing of his humanity, which was exactly what he’s been trying to distance himself from this whole season,” Curry explained. “That meant she had to go.”
Kripke drew a direct line from Firecracker’s arc to real-world politics, specifically the relationship between figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump. “Everyone who is in a certain public figure’s orbit gives up every single conviction they’ve ever had, and then he destroys their careers,” Kripke said. “We were like: Let’s write that. Because Firecracker had it coming.”
Critics noted the symbolism of her death — impaled on a bronze eagle statue, the same national emblem featured on both Homelander’s and Soldier Boy’s costumes. The episode also satirized Hollywood liberal activism, with Kripke taking aim at his own political allies. “The Left is so good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory,” he said. “Their heart is in the right place, but they’re just a circular firing squad.”
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The episode also featured a long-awaited Supernatural reunion, with Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins appearing alongside Jensen Ackles, who already stars as Soldier Boy, and cameos from Seth Rogen, Kumail Nanjiani, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Will Forte, and Craig Robinson. Three episodes of the final season remain.
