Catch up with Amazon’s bloody hit The Boys, character by character

At first, it seems like Homelander, a.k.a. “John” (Antony Starr), might be one of the good guys, unaware of the depravity of some of his fellow team members. That’s soon put to rest, however, as by the end of the first episode he’s downed the plane of the mayor of Baltimore. And it’s quickly revealed that Homelander’s disturbing issues run deep: Raised in a lab by unfeeling Vought scientists studying his powers in an attempt to create the perfect soldier, he instead became an amoral, unfeeling monster, utterly narcissistic and consumed by his own need for power and control. It’s not long before he’s letting a plane full of people crash and die, then blaming his failure to act on the government’s refusal to militarize The Seven. His one weakness, however, is a pathological attachment to Madelyn Stillwell (Elisabeth Shue), Vought’s cold and smart vice president, who tries to control the Super through an unsettling combination of sex and motherly nurturing. However, after learning that his rape of Butcher’s wife, Becca, actually resulted in her becoming pregnant and giving birth to a super-powered son, he lashes out: When Butcher takes Stillwell hostage and threatens to blow her up if Homelander doesn’t give himself up, John kills her himself, using his laser vision to blast a hole through her head. As the season ends, he flies his new hostage Butcher to the remote home where Becca has been raising the boy—and John would like to meet his son now, please.

The newest member of The Seven, Starlight, a.k.a. Annie January (Erin Moriarty), is also the least cynical member of the team—though she grows disillusioned with the superhero business once she realizes how much of a “business” it really is. Annie came up through the young superhero pageant circuit, which is also where she developed her religious beliefs, albeit with some nudging from her mom, Donna (Ann Cusack). Her naiveté, along with her ability to manipulate electricity—she can light up a room and blast enemies—is what made her stand out from all the other supes-in-training eager to join The Seven. But Starlight regularly challenges the narrative laid out by Vought’s PR team; she fights solo at times, and refuses to stay silent about her sexual assault at the hands of The Deep. Starlight eventually sort of bonds with Queen Maeve, though they have vastly different perspectives on life. And she gains some strength from her relationship with Hughie, who encourages her to be herself. Of course, once she learns that he’s been using her to infiltrate the supes to get revenge for Robin’s death, she briefly spirals, leading her to try to keep up with Maeve’s drinking. But she still comes to The Boys’ (minus Billy) aid in the season finale, even squaring off with A-Train to protect Hughie.

A speedster who prides himself on being the fastest hero on the planet, A-Train’s (Jessie T. Usher) need to always be the best has led him down a dark path of abusing Compound V, the chemical Vought developed to create superheroes. He’s also very obsessed with himself and his personal brand, to the point where he seems to care about little more than putting his name and likeness on beers and breakfast cereals. A-Train’s growing dependency on Compound V is what led him to collide with Hughie’s girlfriend, Robin, in the first episode of the series, running at super-speed and killing her instantly—and sending Hughie down the path to Billy Butcher and The Boys. Reggie’s also in a secret relationship with the former B-list hero Popclaw, and it’s his refusal to publicly acknowledge their relationship that leads her to betray A-Train to The Boys, by revealing his reliance on Compound V. After learning of her betrayal, Homelander tells A-Train to take care of the problem—which he does by murdering her with via a heroin overdose. After an attack by Kimiko that leaves him temporarily crippled, A-Train returns to his abuse of Compound V, recovering impossibly quickly. Unfortunately, that decision puts such a strain on his body that he has a heart attack while fighting Starlight and Hughie, and ends the season lying in the hospital.

Though technically one of the only members of The Seven who isn’t an outright monster, Queen Maeve, a.k.a. Maggie (Dominique McElligott), still isn’t much of a hero. After years of silently tolerating and looking away from the misbehavior of Vought and the other members of The Seven—an approach that she dismissively suggests to Starlight after the latter gets assaulted by The Deep right after joining. As it turns out, though, Maeve isn’t quite as careless as she may appear, later explaining to Starlight that she was once also idealistic and hopeful about her career as a hero. Unfortunately, working for Vought hammered those notions out of her, particularly when she and Homelander decide not to rescue the passengers of a hijacked plane. Maeve begrudgingly lets the plane crash, which Homelander uses to support the argument that the heroes should be allowed into the military. Racked with guilt over the deaths and furious about how they’re being used, Maeve—who had been sober—starts drinking again and tries to go back to her ex-girlfriend, Elena, but is rebuffed. Maeve effectively becomes a shell of a person, giving in to her apathy while telling Starlight not to do the same.

The least useful member of The Boys, Kevin, a.k.a. The Deep (Chace Crawford), resents the fact that he’s basically just on the team to be a handsome face for PR purposes—save for the rare occasion when the team needs to do something water-related or talk to fish, given his very specific set of abilities. Still, he’s no less of an asshole than the other members of The Seven, sexually-assaulting Starlight in the team’s meeting room on her first day, and then telling her to shake it off when they’re paired up for a PR-friendly mission. When Starlight not-so-subtly calls him out in public, though, Vought puts him on a forced “sabbatical” to try and avoid a hit to its stock prices. Now stationed in a small town in Ohio, The Deep is left bored, rudderless, and mostly forgotten. After trying and failing to rescue some poor sea creatures—like a lonely dolphin and a lobster in a tank at a grocery store—Deep gives in to self-hatred and tries to address his uselessness by… dramatically shaving all of the hair on his body. At least he’ll be more aerodynamic in the water.

The most enigmatic member of The Seven is also the most unknown. A hero with the powers of strength and agility, not to mention increased invulnerability, Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) is also completely silent, making him a cypher even to his own teammates. He’s the closest thing The Seven have to their own ninja assassin, and while the others are often given to petty and vainglorious squabbling, Black Noir, in his dark full-body costume, remains a steadfast soldier for Vought. (Even Homelander has no beef with him, and Homelander doesn’t seem to like hardly anyone. When he dresses down The Seven for their failures and weaknesses, he quickly reassures his mute colleague, “Not you, Noir. You’ve been great.”) He begins hunting The Boys after learning of their existence following Translucent’s death, and seems to kill Kimiko in his pursuit, before she heals. We don’t spend much time with the character in season one, but we do learn that he also has an oddly sensitive side: During a fancy evening dinner to seal the deal for The Seven joining the military, Black Noir is shown seated at the piano, playing his heart out. No word yet on his favorite music artists.