Jack Quaid Desperately Wants To Lead 'The Boys' and It'll Never Happen

The Boys Season 5 premiere smashed onto Prime Video this week with a much-needed sense of clarity as the show mostly stops spinning its tires and moves towards its endgame. I say “mostly” because we still have moments where Homelander (Antony Starr) holds the idiot ball and papering over it with his now very literal daddy issues can only do so much. Granted, Homelander does finally try to murder Hughie (Jack Quaid), which is something he could’ve easily done to him and most of the team during the showdown at Camp Freedom. I get it. Homelander wants to taunt Butcher (Karl Urban), but that schtick has gotten very old.

Speaking of Quaid, apparently, he’s been on a constant hustle behind the scenes to make Hughie the leader of The Boys for several seasons. It’s to the point where his co-stars actively troll him as his attempts fail every single time.

Via Polygon:

Alonso says Quaid was visibly upset in season 4 when Milk took the reins of The Boys while Butcher was dying of cancer. But Quaid made one last pitch for the show’s final season, which opens with MM, Hughie, and Frenchie (Tomer Capone) locked in a “Freedom Camp.”

“He invited Tomer and I to lunch to discuss how in prison camp he’s going to be the leader of The Boys and we’re going to listen to him,” Alonso says. “We never went to lunch with him. We left him unread in the group chat. It’s so hilarious. He’s done everything in his power every season to establish him as the leader and we love him for it. It became a joke. We respect him, we love him as a leader, but it became, Let’s not make him the leader just because he wants to be.”

Could this be a feint, and Hughie will take the reins? Maybe, but that would do Starlighter (Erin Moriarty) dirty after she sacrificed her soul by giving into Butcher’s tactics. Hughie is the heart and soul of the team, the voice of reason, but when it comes time for the tough decisions? The lad ain’t got it in him. Although, there was that whole season where he took Compound V and kept murdering people while constantly naked…

More importantly, I cannot stress the hilarity of Season 5 opening with Homelander waving off a damaging scandal by blaming AI only for Melania Trump to give press conference the very next day where she felt the pressing need to suddenly claim images of her with Donald’s late best friend are fake. The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke swears the final season was written before the election, so between the AI defense and rounding up people for social media posts (which also happened in the premiere), I would start hitting him up for lottery numbers. Take that man to Vegas.