In episode 6 of The Boys Season 2, ‘The Bloody Doors Off’, we got a few answers to some of our lingering questions, and our first proper introduction to Cindy, the supe with a unique power – one that frightens other supes.
Ess Hödlmoser, who plays Cindy on the show, has been instrumental to The Boys in more ways than one, as they were also the assistant stunt coordinator on Season 2. Hödlmoser was behind Pennywise’s strange and disturbing contortions in Andy Muschietti’s It, and has worked on The Strain, Killjoys, The Handmaid’s Tale and The Expanse – clearly a multi-skilled performer in demand!
We finally get to meet Cindy at Vought’s Sage Grove facility, where she is being kept locked down under the care of former The Seven member, Lamplighter (Shawn Ashmore). We can safely say that Vought has been trying to control and manipulate Cindy for quite a while at its New Mutants-esque hospital, and that Cindy was the one who exploded Jennifer Esposito’s head on Stormfront’s behalf at the start of Season 2 (R.I.P. Raynor).
Cindy is apparently one of Vought’s more valuable subjects, being one of the stronger supes the company has created by refining the Compound V injection process with the intention of stabilising and streamlining newly-fashioned adult supes. Previously, adults injecting Compound V ended up with more ‘miss’ than ‘hit’ results, we’re told.
During episode 6, we also learn a little more about Cindy’s powers, as it seems that her deal is perhaps less about exploding things and more about casually crushing them – she manages to squash a hallway full of the facility’s reinforced metal doors quickly – and she is not easily harmed, quickly walking away from a hardcore Stormfront attack.
When Frenchie, Mother’s Milk and Kimiko’s undercover mission at Sage Grove goes awry and they have to hide from Cindy and the rest of the experimental supes, the ‘retired’ Lamplighter tells them that even though he was the one who killed Mallory’s grandchildren, he was after Mallory herself on that fateful night some years ago. Mallory and Butcher had originally tried to blackmail Lamplighter with some incriminating images, and he sought to remove Mallory from the equation, accidentally killing her grandchildren in the process.
Since making that deadly mistake, Lamplighter has carried the guilt with him, and has become a shell of his former self, a man who enjoyed the trappings of his fame as a member of The Seven. He retroactively blames Frenchie for not intervening after Frenchie bailed on tailing him to revive one of his best friends after an accidental overdose. Now, while Frenchie beats himself up and attempts to find redemption with The Boys, Lamplighter looks after supe endeavors like Cindy …until he’s tasked with ‘getting rid of the evidence’ that they ever existed.
He doesn’t fancy his chances of taking down of Cindy, though, and the last we see of her in episode 6, she’s hitchhiking away from Sage Grove barefoot as the Golden Girls theme plays, which definitely feels like a strong reference to our final glimpse of serial killer Garland Greene (Steve Buscemi) in Simon West’s 1997 action classic, Con Air, by way of Millie Bobbie Brown’s Eleven in Stranger Things.
With the Sage Grove hospital a mess, and many of its patients and doctors lost or dead, Vought will have to move its adult Compound V-stabilising operation elsewhere. Meanwhile, Lamplighter has willingly joined The Boys and Mallory in their fight against Vought and The Seven.
But where will Cindy end up? Watch this space…