We'll Keep the Red Flag Flying Here

This episode is among the best episodes I've seen in recent years, Hughie gets more layered this episodes which was great to see. Homelander's bond with his son is showing another side to him, he now has to choose between being a good father or being Homelander and the internal conflict he's currently experiencing will be fascinating to watch develop in the rest of the season. This show just really gets better and better. Butcher's mission to keep Ryan on the good side as his last deed before dying is greatly written. What will happen next? What role will queen Maeve play in the rest of the season? What about soldier boy? I guess we will have to wait and see!

This is easily the best of the three. Pretty much. This episode finally made me care about these characters again, and actually managed to create tension with that ice rink scene, unlike the scenes from the previous two episodes where they tried to be intense but failed.

The episode does a lot of great character work for many characters and character relationships and dynamics, giving more depth to them.

I really like what they did with Starlight here really driving the point home that these main characters we love aren't really that goody-two-shoes and they all have done horrible things in the past. And also surprisingly giving Firecracker more depth at the same time, and making her more than just a goofy new bad guy character who's just there for the audience to laugh at and just be the one-dimensional far-right mocking character.

Butcher and Ryan's relationship is developing in an interesting way too and pretty much every dialogue scene with the characters (even Hughie and his mom) is great to watch.

This is by far peak Boys for this season. It has a lot of funny gory scenes with people getting accidentally cut in half and mutilated, Homelander being scary again with another intense scene, great dialogue scenes between characters, and another iconic Homelander mirror scene which makes me more excited for where his plotline is going to more than the dawdling they were doing with him in the last two episodes.

It seems that the theme of this season is every character revisiting and confronting their pasts and the things they did in the past. From Homelander to Annie and Frenchie and Kimiko, it seems that we're gonna get more of their past this season and I ain't complaining.

Anyway, the first two episodes were fine, but this episode was a lot of fun and got me excited about the show again setting up interesting premises. Here's hoping the rest of the season is gonna get even better than this.

Season 4 has taken a downturn & this episode finally turned me off. I shan't be watching anymore. It feels like nagging.

There's just too much of an obvious political propagandised slant to the writing; without the fun.

Normal folk, working class folk, watch escapist TV not to feel the creepy contemporary stroke of political agenda. They watch to escape these things. Obviously all writing, all art, reflects reality but these days there is far too much art trying to affect... devoid of balance.

In season 4 It's just all too full-on. It's no longer fun. It's tiresome & not clever or inspiring in anyway. I feel like I'm being nagged.

(Shortened summary in the bottom of the review)

This episode does just enough to actually make me care again about the characters and actually wanting to see where the season is going now that we finally have real episode on our hands.

Its also nice to see Billy actually trying to make things right between him and Ryan, while also trying to save Ryan from losing his humanity.

I also gotta say, holy... how is it nice to have Jeffery Dean Morgan in the show, one of my favorite big time small screen actors!!!

(7/10) I really hope that they keep this going.

Shortened summary: 3rd EP does a good job at slowly redeeming this season for its atrocious first 2 EP´s in giving us this compelling episode that sees Billy trying to make things right between him & Ryan.

The first two episodes were a little random, branching off towards sub plots instead of staying on point. Entertainment over substance, yes the CGI is getting better but we needed more plot and development. Not that i disliked those episodes but they weren't the best, it was like they wanted us to care for characters without much context. Theatrics and cameos became the distraction this time.

This third episode was a little more back on track with the main story. Scenes were more centralised and tension seemed more real. I cared again for characters and conversations had meaning. Though it wasn't the best, the show still needs work but this episode gave me high hopes again. It was a good episode.