A few assorted thoughts:

• I really have to stop watching this show while eating dinner. I should know better by now.
• While it was pretty obvious what was going to go down as soon as Homelander stepped into that lab, they did a great job of building the tension until the culmination of that ending scene.
• The scene where Ashley runs into A Train in Homelander’s apartment seemed a bit forced. They’re obviously setting it up so one uses it against the other, but Ashley seemed terrified of Homelander last episode. I don’t think she’d be dumb enough to risk his wrath for such petty revenge. Plus, they seem to have built up that Homelander has an uncanny sense of smell. He can probably figure out whose shit it is just by smelling it.
• The security in their private apartments seems ridiculously lax, especially being that Homelander is apparently keeping the world’s supply of V in his.
• I’m really interested to see where Butcher’s story is going, especially with what exactly happened after he blacked out.
• I suspect if any of this happened in the real world, the non-supes in The Boys would have been taken out looooong ago by Vought. But, I get it - we need to suspend our disbelief on that one for the sake of having a story.
• I guess we know what that needle thing was in the scene where Sage and The Deep were making out. That definitely defied my expectations, but was well played for her storyline.

Overall a really great episode. We’re at the halfway point in the season and things are starting to pick up.