An early look at Amazon's The Boys season 2 seems to confirm that Homelander was destined for evil since the very beginning. The debut season of The Boys firmly established Antony Starr's Homelander as the series' chief antagonist. A sadistic and merciless murderer masquerading as the Savior of Earth, Homelander condemned a plane full of people to death, executed his boss and armed terrorists with superpowers for his own gain. Among those heinous crimes, however, The Boys plays with the possibility that Homelander's evil is actually a product of his upbringing. As the mastermind behind Compound V, Dr. Vogelbaum, states, "you should've been raised with a family who loves you, not in some cold lab with doctors." As despicable as Homelader is, The Boys does plant seeds to support Vogelbaum's theory, such as John's clear parental issues and his attachment to a childhood blanket. These small details invite the audience to feel a modicum of sympathy for the otherwise detestable character.
The Boys season 2, however, seems to be leaning more towards Homelander being inherently evil, rather than just a twisted experiment gone wrong, as was posited in season 1. A recent promo video for Amazon's upcoming second season delves deeper into Homelander's laboratory upbringing, at a slightly older age than the character was in season 1's flashback scenes. While being tutored about the outside world (in Vought's own twisted American pie style, of course), young Homelander asks his tutor to be his mother and, after she replies in the affirmative, desperately embraces her. Gruesomely, Homelander's strength crushes his tutor's insides and she dies on the spot. The middle-school aged hero appears horrified and hides under a blanket, while the scientists make clear that this isn't the first incident of this nature.
At first glance, this seems to support the sympathetic view of Homelander first hinted at in The Boys season 1. John was raised in a cold, unloving bubble, desperate for parental affection, but was denied such love because of his overwhelming power, ultimately leading to an utter lack of human empathy. When the white coats have cleared the room, however, the young boy comes out from his covers, takes a look at the corpse laying on the floor and a menacing smile creeps across his face, betraying a sense of sadistic satisfaction.
This completely flips the more forgiving view some might've had about Homelander's origin story. Firstly, the scientists believe the boy to be suffering from isolation induced depression, but they're also under the impression that he's killing the tutors by accident. Young Homelander's creepy smile is more or less proof that he's fully in control of his abilities by this age and is murdering the tutors simply because he wants to, rather than because he's deprived of love. Taking this idea further, if hiding under the sheets was all an act for the scientists, was the "does that mean you're my mummy?" shtick also a facade hiding a genuinely evil psyche?
This promo scene for The Boys season 2 doesn't necessarily discredit the idea that Homelander has both mommy and daddy issues - it's quite clear that he does - however, it perhaps gives rise to the notion that the leader of the Seven uses his troubled past as an excuse to indulge his violent tendencies. Even at a young age, Homelander had figured out that he could literally get away with murder if he put on the 'little lost child' act and played scared.
Extending this theory to the present day of The Boys season 1, has Homelander been using the same trick in adulthood? Every time he does something wrong or oversteps the mark, Homelander seems to play the innocent, especially with Madelyn Stillwell. And each time the Vought executive learns of one of Homelander's misdeeds, her shock is quickly replaced by a sordid maternal need to pacify the superhero and reassure him that everything will be fine. This grim relationship is exactly what made Butcher think kidnapping Stillwell would give him leverage over Homelander, but the villain killed her without a second thought. This surely proves that Homelander isn't tormented by his past at all, and is using the same old tricks he learned in the lab. His childhood might've been a difficult one, but the issues Homelander faced aren't the cause of his evil, they're just being used to excuse it.
The Boys season 2 is expected to release in 2020 on Amazon Prime Video.