This article was published on July 20 and republished on July 21.
The Boys had a really great finale to end what I would otherwise consider to be a rather uneven season. Crazy plot twists and Homelander’s sprawling power grab made it a must-see episode and raised the stakes heading into season 5, its final season.
But the show also did something I very much hated, they killed off what I would consider the show’s second-best character. Spoilers follow.
That would be Claudia Doumit’s Victoria Neuman, a staple of the show who wildly surpassed her source material variant, one that had a big crossover part in Gen V and has been key to the storyline for years now.
Right when it seemed like she had reached the apex of her redemption arc, turning on Homelander and his plan to make her president (after he exposed her as a supe on live TV), the seemingly invincible head-exploder gets torn apart by Butcher, newly taken over by his Jeffrey Dean Morgan parasite that twists her in half with tentacles that erupt from his body.
Even in a show that often does shocking, brutal deaths, I did not like this one. It did not feel good. Doumit has been an incredible addition to the show, a more compelling character than I would argue all of The Boys at this point in the series and her arc has been fascinating to watch. I only call her the second-best character because well, I mean, how are you ever going to top Antony Starr’s Homelander?
Doumit seems to be taking it in stride, better even than her coworkers like Starlight’s Erin Moriarty. Here’s video of them chatting about her death. This is also how I learned she’s Australian.
I just think she was too good of a character, too important of a character to be sacrificed to Butcher like this, even if it establishes him and his parasite as a genocidal menace now. It seemed like she should have been an important part of the final season rather than meeting her end like this. I don’t know, I always feel like there’s a difference between deaths that hit hard because of the character, and deaths that feel bad because it seems wrong to cut a great actor loose from the series.
Anyway, I look forward to seeing her in other projects in the future. I am not going to hold out for the idea that she can stitch herself back together like Kimiko, and I think she’s really gone.
We will conclude on a more upbeat note here, Did you know Doumit is dating Hughie’s Jack Quaid in real life? Very cool!
Update (7/21): Claudia Doumit has further thoughts on her untimely death, and she really does not seem to hold it against the show, saying it’s a “cautionary tale” (for the show, not for like, being an actor). Here’s what she told The Wrap:
“She represents the self-destructive nature of one’s pursuit of absolute power and that pursuit will always cost an individual their integrity and humanity,” she said.
This also did not come as the biggest shock to her when she was originally cast in the show in the first place:
“From the moment I joined this show, I thought she was going to die. Not because anyone told me but because I knew what show I was coming on to. I honestly thought it would be sooner. I just feel lucky that I spent as much time on the show that I did. I came on at the end of Season 2 and I thought OK, I’ll have a few episodes and they’ll kill me. Then came Season 3, and I thought OK I’ll have a few episodes and they’ll kill me, and they didn’t.”
Eventually she was called into a meeting with Eric Kripke and given how it was positioned, she knew it was coming. She said it was like a break-up in a way (though it seems clear she doesn’t harbor any ill-feelings). She seems really great and again, I am sure she is going to get some great roles after this.
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