You Found Me (The Boys episode)

"You Found Me" is the eighth episode and season finale of the first season of the American superhero television series The Boys, based on the comic book series of the same name by Garth Ennis. It is set in a universe where superpowered individuals, known as Supes, are portrayed as corrupt individuals instead of the heroes the general public believes they are. The episode was written by Anne Cofell Saunders and Rebecca Sonnenshine, and directed by the series showrunner Eric Kripke.

The episode follows the Boys forcing themselves to go into hiding as they have become wanted fugitives for their actions against Vought, causing their leader Billy Butcher to finally take the decision to face Homelander once and for all, which leads Hughie Campbell to finally question his actions. Meanwhile, Annie January is forced to face the consequences of dating Hughie after she realizes that he used her to get revenge on A-Train, while also struggling to accept the truth after finding out that she was never born with powers leading her to question her life as a superheroine.

"You Found Me" was released on the streaming service Amazon Prime Video on July 26, 2019. The episode received critical acclaim from critics with praise for the action sequences, visual effects, direction, screenplay, story, the performances of Karl Urban and Antony Starr, twist ending, and the set-up for the second season.

Plot
In Syria, a group of American soldiers approach a drug warehouse. Homelander interferes, kills all the assailants, and delivers a package of Compound-V to the troops. Back in New York City, US Secretary Robert Singer questions Stillwell about Compound-V being leaked to terrorists, though Stilwell assures him that they will need Compound-V to fight the Supe terrorists. CIA director Susan Reynor calls Billy Butcher to inform him that the government has signed a deal to let Supes join the army and that the Pentagon has agreed to keep Compound-V classified. She warns him that the Boys are now fugitives for the murder of Translucent. Butcher and Hughie Campbell leave to visit Grace Mallory. Mother's Milk, Frenchie and Kimiko stay in the motel, only to be captured by Vought's commandos.

Elsewhere, Annie January returns home to confront her mother about the truth of her powers. Annie's mother admits to allowing Vought to make Annie a Supe in order to ensure her a successful future. She also reveals that Annie's father regretted the decision and abandoned both of them. Annie accuses her mother of manipulating her, as she was never able to choose what she wanted to do with her life, and storms out of the house.

Butcher and Hughie arrive at Mallory's house. Butcher asks Mallory for help, but she refuses to help him while also expressing remorse for motivating him in his quest for revenge and berates him for coming back. Butcher asks her to identify Homelander's weakness, and Mallory reveals his relationship with Stillwell. Before leaving, Mallory warns Hughie of the consequences of Butcher's quest for revenge. Returning to the motel, the two realize that the rest of the Boys have been captured. Hughie wants to save them but Butcher wants to go after Homelander instead. They argue; Butcher leaves Hughie behind. Hughie seeks Annie's help, confessing his desire for vengeance and assuring her of his love for her. Annie, still feeling betrayed, refuses to help him.

At a fundraising event, Stillwell confronts Homelander over his visit to Vogelbaum; he admits that he and A-Train gave Compound-V to terrorists to ensure that the military would allow Supes to join the army. This excites Stillwell, who has sex with him. Afterwards, Homelander admits to knowing the truth behind Becca's disappearance. Stillwell apologises and admits that she wanted to spare Homelander pain, though claims that Becca suffered a miscarriage, in contrast to Voglebaum’s previous statements. Queen Maeve has a conversation with Annie in which the she says she originally joined the Seven to make a difference, but Vought's influence corrupted her. She asks Annie to not let the company influence her. Elsewhere, the Deep learns that Stillwell has forbidden his return to the Seven, causing him to suffer an emotional breakdown and shave his head as a result.

A-Train is racially profiled in a clothing store, causing him to consume Compound-V to heal his leg, which was broken by Kimiko. Hughie returns to the motel and allows himself to be captured and imprisoned with Frenchie and MM at a black site. With a wire that Hughie brought, the three manage to escape and free the Female, but are overpowered by several guards. Annie arrives to save them and helps MM, Frenchie, and Kimiko to escape. A-Train arrives to get revenge against Hughie for Popclaw's death. Annie fights A-Train, though the latter overpowers her thanks to his speed. A-Train confronts Hughie and suffers a heart attack after admitting to having killed Popclaw himself. Hughie attempts to revive him with CPR while Annie calls for medical assistance. She takes over so Hughie can escape, but not before the two reconcile.

Stillwell returns home, where Butcher is waiting for her. He straps her with C4 explosives. Homelander arrives and confronts Butcher, questioning him over his revenge and lack of proof about Becca's death, also claiming their sexual encounter was a one-off consensual one. Homelander also confronts Stillwell about lying to him, as Homelander tortured Vogelbaum to get the truth about what really happened to Becca. Stillwell apologizes. Homelander thanks her for finally telling the truth, then kills her. Butcher detonates the explosives but is saved by Homelander and taken to a mysterious neighborhood, where it is revealed that Becca is actually alive and has been raising her and Homelander's son for the last eight years. While Butcher looks on in shock, Homelander introduces himself to the boy as his father.

Development
An adaptation of the comic book series The Boys was initially developed as a feature-length film in 2008. However, after several failed attempts to produce the film causing it to be in development hell for several years, the plans for a film were scrapped in favor of a television series. On 2016, it was announced that the show would be developed by Cinemax, with Erick Kripke being hired to serve as the series showrunner and head writer, alongside Evan Goldberg, and Seth Rogen who would direct the pilot episode. In November 2017, Amazon acquired the rights to develop the show, announcing that they would be producing over eight episodes for the first season, while confirming that the previously announced creative team would still be attached to the series. The episode titled "You Found Me" was written by Anne Cofell Saunders & Rebecca Sonnenshine, and directed by Kripke. The episode is titled with the name of the issue #72 of the comic book series of the same name, which is also the final issue of the series overall.

Writing
The episode makes a big change with one of the major storylines for the adaptation of the comic book series to the television adaptation. While in the comic book series Butcher's wife Becca is actually dead, the television adaptation changes this in the final scene of the episode where it is revealed that Becca is alive and raising her son which was product of Homelander. Kripke admitted that he made this change wanting to avoid what he deemed to be the typical trope of killing off female characters to motivate the heroes, while also wanting to surprise the readers of the comics by keeping her alive instead. Another surviving character was Becca's son to which Kripke also decided to change his fate from the comics for the television adaptation, as he recognized the potential of the character, as he considered the character to be perfect for not being kept alive considering that kid is half the person Butcher loves most but also half the person that he hates the most.

Kripke and the writers wanted to avoid the trope of allowing the typical, grizzled, mysterious, tough, and old white dude from getting the role of the mentor of the main characters. They decided to do this by gender-swapping the character of Greg Mallory for the television adaptation, though they maintained the most important aspects of his partial backstory and characterization. In the comic book Greg Mallory is a male veteran of the second world war as he was injected with the Compound-V that extended his life, while in the television adaptation the character is female getting the name of Grace Mallory, who is a former CIA director who was never injected with Compound-V to and thereby has no powers. A change from another gender-swapped character was applied in this case with Stillwell. While in the comics Stillwell remains of the main antagonists till the end, while in the television adaptation the character is killed in the episode. This was decided by the writers as the character was one of the few people that can keep Homelander in control, intending to make Homelander more unstable and without control as a way to set-up the next season.

Casting
The episode main cast includes Karl Urban as Billy Butcher, Jack Quaid as Hughie Campbell, Antony Starr as John Gillman / Homelander, Erin Moriarty as Annie January / Starlight, Dominique McElligott as Maggie Shaw / Queen Maeve, Jessie T. Usher as Reggie Franklin / A-Train, Laz Alonso as Marvin T. Milk / Mother's Milk (M.M.), Chace Crawford as Kevin Moskowitz / The Deep, Tomer Capone as Serge / Frenchie, Karen Fukuhara as Kimiko Miyashiro / The Female, Nathan Mitchell as Earving / Black Noir, and Elisabeth Shue as Madelyn Stillwell. Also starring are Giancarlo Esposito as Stan Edgar, Jennifer Esposito as Susan Reynor, Shantel VanSanten as Becca Butcher, Ann Cusack as Donna January, Christian Keyes as Nathan Franklin, Laila Robins as Grace Mallory, and Jim Beaver as Robert Singer.

Filming
The filming of the first season of the series took place at the city of Toronto, while using several locations across the city in order to seek to capture the New York City where the series took place. For the scenes of the hotel where the Boys are forced to go into hiding after becoming fugitives was filmed at the New Plaza Motel located at the district of Scarborough. The crew also filmed at the Cathedral Church of St. James for the scene where Hughie and Annie met with the former asking the latter for help. Filming also took at the Fallsview Residence for the scene where Butcher visits his mentor Mallory at her house.

Visual effects
Visual effects for the episode were created by DNEG TV, Framestore, Folks VFX, Mavericks VFX, Method Studios, Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies VFX, Mr. X, Pixomondo, Rocket Science VFX, Rodeo FX, and Soho VFX. It was announced that visual effects supervisor Stephan Fleet would be in charge of overseeing the development for the visual effects. The making of the final fight between A-Train and Starlight was one of the most complex scenes to be done, as the crew worked for over 8 weeks researching the Femto-photography in order to capture Starlight's powers accurately in terms of science, while also capturing the scene over how the light travels in slow motion. For the scene where Homelander kills Stillwell with his laser eyes, the latter's actress Elizabeth Shue had to use make-up around her eyes while her skull was re-created through CGI in order to make her death look brutal but realistic.

Music
The episode features the following songs which are "Rock The Casbah" by The Clash, "Everybody Hurts" by R.E.M., and "Sleepwalk" by The Shadows.

Release
"You Found Me" premiered on Amazon Prime Video in the United States on July 26, 2019. It was released alongside all the episodes from the season which were released the same date the episode was released. The episode, along with the rest of The Boys ' first season, was released on Blu-ray on May 31, 2022.

Reception
"You Found Me" received critical acclaim from critics. Brian Tallerico from Vulture gave the episode 4 stars out of 5, where he complemented the episode for its direction and cliffhanger ending, expressing the potential for the second season of the series that could be a different one that could fully solves several questions that the first season left and hoped that the series could be successful enough to become a hit. Randy Dankievitch from Tilt Magazine praised the episode for the character development and called it and the setup for the second season. However, he also deemed that the episode suffered from being superficial and didn't answered many of the questions that the previous episodes left, expecting them to be solved at the second season for which he stated that the episode "offer a glimpse of something more, a series with some engaging deconstructions of testosterone-fueled superhero culture, beyond a superficial, edge lordish application of these ideas that feels more enamored than critical (something its source material suffers from throughout its lengthy run)." Darryl Jasper from the ScienceFiction.com praised the episode for its ending which he deemed to be satisfactory with the face-off between Homelander and Butcher to which he commented that the episode "finally gives viewers that face-off that just so happens to be the highlight of Season One. Attaching explosives to Madelyn, Butcher awaits Homelander’s arrival knowing that, even if he can’t kill the Supe, he can hurt him by killing her. It's a tactic befitting a villain and, in so many ways, that’s what Billy is. Just because he’s trying to kill another evil bastard doesn’t mean he’s not one himself."

Martin Carr from the Flyckering Myth praised the episode themes, portrayal of political corruption, visuals, and the ending, to which he appreciated the show for the way it portrays the ideas it has about the society we live on and over how the creation of Supe terrorists lead to a debate between the main characters. He also praised that the episode is allowed to make several risks to portray certain themes and for not censoring at anything in order to disseminate some of the information. Greg Wheeler from The Review Geek gave the episode with 4.5 stars out of 5. He praised the episode's action sequences and performances, to which he deemed as an explosive and a satisfactory way to end the season to which he commented "There’s so many possibilities going forward but The Boys has been well written and engaging throughout its 8 episodes. I certainly can’t wait until the second season and if there’s one superhero show this year that deserves acclaim, it's this one. The series ends as it began- with an explosive, well written episode."