The Season 3 finale of The Boys provided us with a lot of gasp-worthy moments, from Black Noir’s (apparent) death to Starlight officially joining The Boys. But its greatest gift to the internet has to be a 7 second-long clip of Homelander (Antony Starr) from the season’s very last scene.
In the scene, Homelander introduces a crowd of supporters to his supe son Ryan (Cameron Crovetti). A protestor chucks a can at Homelander and hits Ryan square in the face. In retaliation, Homelander lasers the protestor’s head off, revealing his true capacity for violence.
Instead of turning against him after witnessing him commit murder, Homelander’s fans cheer him on. That’s when we get the reaction meme of the season: discordant violins play as we slowly zoom in on Homelander. He slowly smiles and chuckles, processing the situation, then lets out a strangely casual, “Alright!”
In context, the scene is chilling: Homelander is an evil fascist who’s realized that even murder isn’t too far for his supporters. Showrunner Eric Kripke has explicitly stated that Homelander is an analogue for Donald Trump, something that right-wing fans of the political superhero satire had a hard time processing this season. However, Twitter had a field day with the Homelander clip even without the show context, often using it as a reaction to someone realizing they won’t face consequences.
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The combination of Starr’s pitch-perfect facial expressions, his line delivery, and the unsettling music make this the perfect mix of specific and relatable. The original video, the Christopher Nolan reference posted by @callouswayne, has already been viewed over 20 million times.
However, this isn’t the only Homelander meme to come out of The Boys Season 3. Also making the rounds is a video of Homelander walking around in distress, which has over 9 million views.
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Giving us quality memes is truly the least Homelander can do after being the actual worst throughout The Boys, but we’re thankful for them just the same. Hopefully, Season 4 brings us more killer Homelander reactions — and also his downfall.