A-Train’s powers come at a price. He will never be able to sincerely stand up to the ideals he preaches, as he owes those powers (and his life) to a horrible bigot and a fundamentally evil corporation. He got everything he’s wanted since the start of the season, but he got it in ways that expose just how shallow his intentions really were.

Now, what does that mean for our boys? Hughie and Butcher are also doing something good in fighting Homelander, but they are becoming the very thing they want to destroy by using superpowers that can do a lot of damage. Since the very beginning, “The Boys” has argued that superpowers are bad no matter who has them — that simply having powers greater than a normal person brings out the worst in people, so it’s better to not have them at all. Butcher has lost sight of that, and he and Hughie are now buying into the mainstream superhero ideology that superpowers are good if they are being used for good. 

Thankfully, “The Boys” season 3 is proving them wrong. As Urban said, actions have consequences, and we’re seeing in real-time how using Temp V to fight Homelander is costing the two dearly — first with Butcher leaking some strange liquid out of his ears and, after this last episode, with Starlight revealing that test subjects always died after a few days. Butcher and Hughie are at the same point A-Train was at the start of the show: addicted to the powerful benefits of Compound V, but blinded to both the collateral damage and the impact on their own health. The bill will come due.