# What I Know (The Boys episode)

"What I Know" is the eight episode and season finale of the second season and sixteenth episode overall of the American superhero television series The Boys, based on the comic book series of the same name by Garth Ennis. It is set in a universe where most "Supes" (superpowered individuals) are portrayed as corrupt individuals instead of the heroes the general public believes they are. The episode was written by Rebecca Sonnenshine and directed by Alex Graves.
The episode follows the Boys preparing for their showdown against Vought following the hearing massacre, though Hughie Campell and Annie January seek to find evidence against the company the company in a peaceful manner where they will finally uncover Stormfront's Nazi past. Meanwhile, Becca who has escaped from Vought approaches her husband Billy Butcher to rescue her son Ryan who has been taken by Homelander and Stormfront, a mission that would prove to be difficult for Butcher as he faces the chance of losing his wife for the second time but this time permanently.
"What I Know" was released on the streaming service Amazon Prime Video on October 9, 2020. The episode received critical acclaim from critics with praise for the actions sequences, performances, visual effects, the conclusion of Becca's storyline, and the revelation of the "Head Popper" identity. The fight between Annie, Kimiko and Queen Maeve against Stormfront, has been highlighted as an example of non-forced representation of feminism and girl power for the television. It received several accolades, including two Primetime Emmy Award nominations.

## Plot

The episode opens with a public service announcement with Homelander and a police officer instructing of what to do in case of a Supe terrorist invades a school and how to defend against one. After the hearing massacre, US Senator Robert Singer tells Victoria Neuman and Grace Mallory that the president has authorized the use of Compound-V to soldiers and security forces to fight Supe terrorists. Neuman attempts to convince Singer that Vought is behind but Singer reveals they can't do anything due to lack of evidence.
Annie January's mother Donna is forced to go into hiding for safety from Vought and shares a farewell to her daughter before leaving. With the exception of Hughie Campbell, the Boys decide to kill the Seven by themselves. Hughie and Annie ask the boys to give them a day to find some hard evidence or someone willing to testify against Vought, as the latter cannot testify for being a fugitive. They find Queen Maeve and attempt to convince her to testify against Vought but hopeless about winning and tired of fighting, the latter angrily refuses and forces the two to leave. While driving back, Hughie confesses the that the reason of why he is fan of Billy Joel is because of her mother who she abandoned him when he was six years old. He also admits that the reason of why he came to rescue her despite how Annie having treated him poorly ultimately is because of his love for her and that he does not want to become like his mother.
Stan Edgar reunites with Alastair Adana to discuss the possibility of returning the Deep and A-Train. Edgar accepts to have the Deep back but refuses to get A-Train due to Stormfront’s racism ideologies, with both unaware that the latter is hearing their discussion. A-Train sneaks into Adana's where he finds evidence of Stormfront's past as a Nazi and sneaks to Hughie's car to deliver the evidence to him and Annie. Before leaving, A-Train admits he is helping them because he wants to get back at the Seven but cannot do that unless Stormfront is out and asks them to not tell anyone that he gave them the evidence.
Distraught over her son leaving with Homelander, Becca Butcher escapes her compound and tracks the Boys hideout at the pawn shop, where she tearfully embraces and tells her husband Billy Butcher about what happened with Ryan. While she is consoled by Mother's Milk, Frenchie and Kimiko, Butcher cals Edgar and leaves to have a meeting with him. Butcher makes a deal with Edgar by rescuing Ryan and give him back to Vought, aware that he is the only contingency plan to kill Homelander in the case he goes rogue and warning Edgar that it will not be possible if the kid is with Homelander and Stormfront. However, Butcher wants to get Becca back even if it means permanently separating her of Ryan and find a new mother for the latter with Edgar telling her that it was necessary to keep both safe of Homelander in case Becca looks for him, since a mother would always do anything to protect her child. Edgar agrees with the deal and Butcher returns to the hideout, where Hughie and Annie return with the evidence and the Boys have it leaked to expose Stormfront past.
Meanwhile, Homelander is struggling to bond with his Ryan due to his duties as superhero and the latter being visibly unconfotable with the former and Stormfront. In an attempt to cheer him up, Homelander and Stormfront take Ryan to a theme park restaurant of Vought Planet where several fans surround both superheroes to take several photos. Having living in an isolated compound with his mother and not accostumated to big crowds of people, Ryan suffers a panic attack causing Homelander and Stormfront to leave and take him to the former's cabin. Homelander conforts Ryan over his past experiences as a child and tries to teach him to use his powers once again, but is interrupted as Stormfront realizes the evidence of her Nazi background has become public. Returning to the Seven tower she angrily watch the news as she realizes that her past as a Nazi has been exposed and her reputation destroyed with the public opinion turning against her.
The Boys find Ryan at Homelander's cabin and use a sonic device created by Frenchie to distract Homelander, with Butcher and Becca entering the cabin as the latter tearfully reunites with her son. Realizing the bond the two have formed, Butcher finds himself unable to separate Becca of Ryan and changes his plan by having both of them sent with Mallory instead. Butcher confesses to Becca about the deal and convinces her of leaving with Ryan even if they never see each other again, fearing that the way he was raised might affect the child if he is around. While MM is about to take Becca and Ryan with Mallory, Stormfront returns and crashes the car with her powers as she confronts the Boys and Annie while Becca and Ryan are forced to run away with Butcher. Kimiko initially freezes by seeing Stormfont but manages to overcome this as she and Annie start to fight her but are overpowered by the latter who also destroys the Boys car with all of their weapons. However, Maeve soon arrives to aid Kimiko and Annie to fight Stormfont and soon the three women overpower her before she escapes to confront Butcher, Becca and Ryan. Becca stabs Stormfront in the eye but the latter starts to choke her. Butcher attempts to save her but to not avail. This leads Ryan to use his laser eyes for the first time, which severely injures and disfigures Stormfront but accidentally mortally wounds Becca, too. A dying Becca makes a tearful plea to Butcher to promise that he will protect Ryan and prevent him from becoming like Homelander, before succumbing to her wounds.
Homelander, having realized that the sonic device was a distraction, returns to the cabin where he kills an entire Vought armed team sent by Edgar to pick up Ryan. He latter arrives at the scene where he finds Becca dead and an injured Stormfront muttering in German. He attempts to take Ryan with him only for the latter to refuse and side with Butcher, with the latter deciding to protect him instead of killing him. Before Homelander can kill Butcher, Maeve arrives and blackmails Homelander into allowing Butcher and Ryan to leave and to leave her, Annie and Elena alone or otherwise she will make public the video of the Transoceanic Flight 37, reminding him that this will destroy his reputation as the world would see the monster he really is and nobody would never love him again. Homelander reluctantly complies and spares Butcher who leaves with Ryan.
At a Vought press conference organized by Edgar, it is announced that Stormfront will be taken to custody as she is blamed also for the hearing massacre, while also announcing that the release of the Compound-V will be put at indefinite hold. Annie is reinstated to the Seven as Homelander gives a public apology for falsely accusing her. Due to the controversy surrounding Stormfront, Adana tells A-Train that he can return with the Seven but reveals that the Deep cannot since allowing the two to return would represent weakness. Angered that everything he did was for nothing, the Deep leaves the Church of the Collective and insults Adana one last time before walking out.
In the aftermath, the Boys are cleared of all their charges allowing each member to return to their normal lives: Frenchie and Kimiko leave the hideout as they prepare to start their lives together, MM is reunited with his daughter, Hughie rekindles his relationship with Annie as he also decides to leave the Boys to fight Vought in his own non-violent way, and Butcher waits with Ryan before the latter is sent away. Mallory reveals to Butcher about a new bureau called the Office of Supe Affairs led by Victoria Neuman and offers him a work. During a call with Neuman, Adana threatens to expose the information of other Supes if the former expedites the Church's tax-exempt status. Adana’s head suddenly explodes after finishing the call with Neuman watching of the outside, revealing that she is a Supe and the "Head Popper" assassin having murdered Raynor and causing the hearing massacre. Returning to the Office of Supe Affairs, Neuman meets Hughie, whom he offers to work with her wanting to fight Vought in the right way but unaware that the former is the assassin.

## Production
### Development

In July 2019, it was announced that the second season of The Boys was already in development during the San Diego Comic-Con a week before the series premiered. The series showrunner and head writer Eric Kripke was already writing on the scripts for the season, having started to work on them during the 2018 United States elections in order to capture the topics and themes that it would be explored for the season accurately, which would be the white nationalism, white supremacy, systemic racism, and xenophobia. In June 2020, it was announced that the episodes for the second season would be released in a weekly basis instead of dropping all of them in one day in order to make people discuss about the topics for a longer time. The episode titled "What I Know" was written by Rebecca Sonnenshine and directed by Alex Graves. The episode is titled with the name of the issue #39 of the comic book series of the same name.

### Writing

Despite her character being initially spared in the previous season finale, Butcher's wife Becca is killed for good in the episode. Kripke explained that he took the decision because otherwise Butcher would have become a stable, functional good man that would have deviated the character off the path from his comic counterpart and that the series would have ended much earlier. He also clarified that even if the character makes the promise to take care of Becca's child, Ryan, who accidentally killed her mother, Butcher would undoubtedly continued following his path of revenge and the third season will explore Butcher dealing with the consequences of Becca’s death, as well as his conflict with Homelander related to Ryan. Becca's death is also different from the comics, which is more brutal in contrast to her television counterpart, as she is killed by her baby once she gives birth with Butcher being forced to kill him when the baby tries to kill him too.
The last words that Stromfront utters after her defeat and being injured by Ryan, are spoken in German, which translated to: "Do you remember the day Frederick? Chloe's arms out of the car window. We found the perfect spot by the river, in the shade of an apple tree. It was the first time Chloe ate fresh apples." Later, she muttered to herself, "It was so wonderful. I wanted it to never end." Kripke explained the context of this by stating that after being injured, they decide to write a happy memory back in time as an insane thought while she was in pain and have it translated to German.
Due to Stormfront being one of the most despised characters inside the show, it was opted to have a big fight where the female characters stand up against her and start beating her. However, this was not only to defeat her but also as a way to unleash the anger as a consequence of what the characters had gone through since the previous season, particularly Kimiko, who saw her brother killed at the hands of Stormfront and had been looking to get her revenge against her. The idea of the fight came with Graves who had already got it storyboarded and took inspiration of the film Rocky in order to make the fight scene as a way to show that the characters whom are working together and finally snapping against Stormfront as they are determined to bring her down for all the actions she has committed through the season.
Victoria Neuman is revealed as Vought's assassin known as the "Head-Popper" responsible for killing people by having their heads explode with the intention of giving the Boys a supposed ally only to reveal her true identity. Kripke also revealed that he already has an idea of how her story would be continuing in the third season, where the character would be more involved with the politics as the story progresses, which he deemed to be frightening since American politics are "screwed up enough already".

### Casting

The episode main cast includes Karl Urban as Billy Butcher, Jack Quaid as Hughie Campbell, Antony Starr as John Gillman / Homelander, Erin Moriarty as Annie January / Starlight, Dominique McElligott as Maggie Shaw / Queen Maeve, Jessie T. Usher as Reggie Franklin / A-Train, Laz Alonso as Marvin T. Milk / Mother's Milk (M.M.), Chace Crawford as Kevin Moskowitz / The Deep, Tomer Capone as Serge / Frenchie, Karen Fukuhara as Kimiko Miyashiro / The Female, Nathan Mitchell as Earving / Black Noir, Colby Minifie as Ashley Barrett, and Aya Cash as Klara Risinger / Stormfront. Also starring are Giancarlo Esposito as Stan Edgar, Shantel VanSanten as Becca Butcher, Ann Cusack as Donna January, Claudia Doumit as Victoria Neuman, Cameron Crovetti as Ryan Butcher, Laila Robins as Grace Mallory, Goran Visnjic as Alastair Adana, and Jim Beaver as Robert Singer.$^{:1:05:52–1:06:23}$

### Filming

The filming for the second season took place at the city of Toronto, while using several locations across the city in order to seek to capture the New York City where the series took place. For the scene where Butcher meets Edgar to arrange a deal about the former's wife and her child, it was filmed at The Chase rooftop restaurant which is located in a historic building at 10 Temperance Street at the city of Toronto. The scene where Edgar makes a phone call was filmed outside the restaurant's building. The scene where A-Train confront Hughie and Annie to give them evidence regarding Stormfront past and true nature was filmed near the George Brown College St. James campus.

### Visual effects

Visual effects for the episode were created by ILM, Rising Sun Pictures, Rocket Science VFX, Rodeo FX, Ollin VFX, Soho VFX, Rhythm & Hues, Method Studios, and Studio 8. It was confirmed that the visual effects supervisor Stephan Fleet would be returning to oversee the development of the visual effects.$^{:1:06:58–1:07:01}$

### Music

The episode features the following songs which are "Only the Good Die Young" by Billy Joel, "André" by Guizmo [fr], "Boys Wanna Be Her" by Peaches, and "God Only Knows" by The Beach Boys.

## Release

"What I Know" premiered on Prime Video in the United States on October 9, 2020. The episode, along with the rest of The Boys' second season, was released on Blu-ray on May 31, 2022.

## Reception

"What I Know" received critical acclaim from critics. Brian Tallerico of Vulture gave the episode 3 out of 5 stars, praised the episode for its themes of racism and white supremacist as well as some of the portrayal of those issues in real life, but criticized that also some of them for being not realistic and well-written stating that even with the season finale tying up more threads for the fans, it doesn't erase the mistakes done during the second season. He was also critical of A-Train storyline underdeveloped by not focusing it about his fall from grace and instead rushing the writer's decision of concluding Stormfront's storyline. For his review at Tech Radar where Richard Edwards gave the episode 4 out of 5 stars, he praised the episode for delivering a satisfying conclusion to the season finale which successfully cements the TV series as one of the best shows ever done, while also praising the episode plot-twist of Victoria Neuman being the assassin and the set-up for the third season. With a score of a 9 out of 10 at IGN, David Griffin praised the episode for its action sequences, visual style, and the episode's plot twist ending which serves as the set-up of the third season. He also praised Aya Cash performance as Stormfront and also highlighted her fight sequence with the other three female main characters of the show as a much better alternative of girl-power in contrast to the high-budgeted moment in the 2019 film Avengers: Endgame.
Roxana Hadadi from The A.V. Club was more critical of the episode, praising the performances but also was very criticizing the several storylines respect the fate of the characters and also the plot-twist of Victoria Neuman being the assassin. She also criticized the way Stormfront's storyline was concluded for which she stated that "it reared back when it should have leaned forward, and that's how the Stormfront finale felt." Liz Shannon Miller for her review at Collider, praised the episode for showcasing the episode for making the audience question over how people can successfully can be fighting for the right thing outside the system, even in the wake of several twists and brutal moments. For his review at Entertainment Weekly, Nick Schager where he highlighted the character development on the dysfunctional characters as well as the opening scene which serves as a satirical portrayal of a school video safety, which he considered to be "equal parts amusing and chilling."

### Accolades

| Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipient(s) | Result |
| Edgar Awards | April 29, 2021 | Best Television Episode Teleplay | Rebecca Sonnenshine | Nominated |
| Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards | September 11-12, 2021 | Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (One-Hour) | Alexandra Fehrman, Rich Weingart and Thomas Hayek | Nominated |
| Primetime Emmy Awards | September 19, 2021 | Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series | Rebecca Sonnenshine | Nominated |
| British Fantasy Award | September 26, 2021 | Best Film/Television Production | The Boys: "What I Know" written by Rebecca Sonnenshine and Eric Kripke | Won |