It All Goes Wrong for Stan Edgar in ‘Glorious Five-Year Plan’ (RECAP)

[WARNING: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The Boys Season 3 Episode 4, “Glorious Five-Year Plan.”]

You know what they say about the best-laid plans…

In the fourth episode of The Boys’ third season, a betrayal befalls Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) — and just like that, the only person who could keep Homelander (Antony Starr) under control is gone. That’s bad news for… the whole world, probably. Plus, Butcher (Karl Urban), Hughie (Jack Quaid) and the rest of the gang make an ill-advised deal with Little Nina (Katia Winter). Kendall Jenner’s infamous Pepsi ad gets a Vought remake. And Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles)? Yeah, he’s here, too. How? Let’s recap.

First, Stan Edgar. The man’s “five-year plan” to get out of the supe business goes horribly wrong when he tells Neuman (Claudia Doumit) to call a press conference, “disciplining” and fining Homelander for using foul language during his birthday rant. Call the press conference, she does, but when the time comes, she turns the tables on her father and says he’ll be investigated for blackmail and obstruction of justice. “Vought International must be held to the highest and ethical legal standards,” Neuman says, but the reality is that Homelander got to her. Apparently, they made a deal for Homelander to give her Compound V, which Neuman then gives to her young daughter.

Meanwhile, Butcher and Frenchie (Tomer Kapon) meet with Little Nina in hopes she can give them the Homelander-destroying weapon. She says she can help, but, predictably, she’ll need something from them first. She sends The Boys — or, specifically, Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) — on a job to kill a guy Nina wants gone. That’s easy enough for Kimiko to do; when she winds up at the gangster’s mansion in a room with him and a host of barely-clothed women, she uses the guy’s closet of The Seven-themed vibrators — hey, it’s The Boys! — to kill him and the rest of his goons. But one of the terrified women shoots her, clearly believing she’ll be next.

The headshot she deals Kimiko is temporary, but the emotional damage, something Kimiko’s been struggling with all season, won’t heal so quickly. In the aftermath, she and Frenchie vow to leave the group after this, which they plan to be their “last job.” Since we all know how “last job” storylines tend to go, one of them might not make it out of Season 3…

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After Kimiko’s success, Hughie confronts Butcher about using temporary V. Turns out, he doesn’t want to lecture him — he’s sick of being pushed around by Homelander and scared for Annie, and to solve those problems, he wants V-24, too. “Butcher, please,” he begs him. “Because right now, I’m so angry I can barely breathe.” Butcher refuses, telling him V-24 isn’t power, it’s punishment. “And you don’t deserve any of it,” Butcher insists.

Their next stop is a Russian military compound, where Nina says the weapon is being kept. Thanks to a gerbil named Jamie, they wind up pinned down, and Butcher has to use his temporary supe powers to save the team. But when a baddie sneaks up on MM (Laz Alonso), Hughie steps in — and punches the guy straight through the chest. Yep, Hughie found Butcher’s stash, and now he’s on V, too. The team has nothing good to say about that. “You’re better than this, kid,” MM tells him.

They open the large chamber in the middle of the room to find Soldier Boy held in a kind of cryostasis, á la Bucky (Sebastian Stan) in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Soldier Boy frees himself and proceeds to send a giant blast of energy straight at Frenchie. Kimiko shoves herself in front of him and crashes through the wall, clearly injured and not healing. Soldier Boy gets away. As they speed from the scene, Kimiko lies dying in the back of the team’s van, and MM has some harsh words for Butcher about how he’s run the team.

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In the supe world, everything is chaos as usual. A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) has decided to get serious about social justice, but in a company like Vought, that’s not easy. They have him do a Kendall-esque commercial for “Turbo Rush” (a soft drink), which isn’t exactly the kind of opportunity he’d been hoping to have. At a team meeting he suggests going after Blue Hawk, a supe who over-patrols Black neighborhoods, but Homelander and The Deep (Chace Crawford) shoot him down. Starlight (Erin Moriarity), Maeve (Dominique McElligott) and Alex (Miles Gaston Villanueva) make plans to assemble a team to fight against Homelander when the time comes, and Alex recruits A-Train after his frustrating meeting with the mad supe.

As the episode ends, Homelander takes Starlight on a Lois Lane-style flight, saying he has a “view she’ll want to share.” Turns out, that rooftop view is Alex’s gorily murdered body. As Homelander explains, A-Train told him all about Starlight and Alex’s plan to overthrow him… and, as punishment, he killed Alex. Now, he says, if Starlight doesn’t obey him, Hughie will be next.

The Boys Season 3, Fridays, Prime Video