[Warning: The next incorporates spoilers for Season 2, Episode 7 of The Boys. Learn at your personal threat!]
Shawn Ashmore‘s thrilling visitor arc as Lamplighter got here to a sudden and smoky finish within the penultimate episode of The Boys Season 2. Lamplighter — who at first appeared like simply one other washed up supe reacclimating to life exterior the cape — turned out to be not simply the important thing to unraveling the fractious historical past of the boys, but in addition the person whose testimony in entrance of congress might’ve taken Vought down. However earlier than he might rise to the event, Lamplighter’s darkish previous caught up with him in method that left followers shocked.
As Lamplighter revealed in in Episode 6, “The Bloody Doorways Off”, when he burned Mallory’s (Laila Robins) grandkids to loss of life all these years in the past, he did not know who his marks had been and that Mallory herself was the supposed goal. It was solely after her grandkids began to scream that he realized what he had completed. An act that broke his spirit, Lamplighter left the Seven, however by no means actually left Vought. When the boys lastly meet up with him once more in Sage Grove, Vought’s grownup testing amenities for Compound V, Lamplighter was nonetheless burning individuals — failed check topics — on Vought’s command.
After a confrontation with Frenchie (Tomer Kapon) wherein Frenchie revealed why he deserted his publish that evening and left Mallory’s grandkids to their destiny (his greatest good friend had overdosed) Lamplighter appeared to have a change of coronary heart. He not solely diverted Stormfront (Aya Cash) from discovering the boys in Sage Grove, but in addition gave the boys key info on what Vought was attempting to do: create a steady sufficient model of Compound V to show any grownup right into a supe, which basically meant the facility to create a military. In trade, the boys introduced Lamplighter to Mallory and Senator Neuman (Claudia Doumit) to get the ball rolling on congressional testimony and witness safety.
However when Hughie (Jack Quaid) was left to babysit Lamplighter in Episode 7, “Butcher, Backer, Candlestick Maker”, they noticed a information report — in between all of the porn on DVD Lamplighter insisted on watching — about Starlight. She was declared a traitor and mole by Homelander, and Hughie satisfied Lamplighter to assist him break into Vought Tower to rescue her. Sadly, Lamplighter had his personal agenda. As he stated again on the secure home, the second he received up on the stand to testify he’d be a useless man anyway. So when the pair lastly made it into Vought Tower, Lamplighter led them to the statue of the Seven within the central convention room the place he realized his personal statue had been changed.
“I wished to do it in entrance of my statue,” Lamplighter stated to Hughie. “I simply wished to make my dad proud.”
Then Lamplighter flicked open his lighter and turned his flames on himself. When Hughie screamed, all of us screamed. The abrupt ending of a person who appeared poised to lastly have the ability to do some good once more for the individuals he had sworn to guard left followers reeling. Showrunner Eric Kripke will get it, he was left reeling himself.
“We, the writers, had been certain that Lamplighter wanted to die for what he did. You understand, he burned a bunch of kids alive. It isn’t superior habits,” stated Kripke in an interview with TV Information. “However as soon as we solid Shawn and as soon as I used to be watching his dailies I’ve to confess I remorse [killing Lamplighter].”
“It was too late. At that time we had been already deep within the scripts,” the producer added. “However Shawn made that character so world weary and sympathetic for somebody who had completed such horrible issues, and made that character so fascinating that I, together with the opposite writers, had been like goddamn he is an superior character.”
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Lamplighter’s emotional arc has been properly actually snuffed in Season 2, however there’s at all times a slim likelihood that these child blue eyes would possibly pop up in a flashback or two. Till then we’ll at all times have the blood, sweat and tears left on the battlefield of Sage Grove. (On rewatch, we’d quick ahead via the porn although.)
The Boys airs Fridays on Amazon Prime.