Queen Maeve is the true hero of The Boys. So why is she getting sidelined?

polygon.com:

The Boys — no stranger to high-level parodies — decided to get in on the fun of “Celebrities Read Mean Tweets” by having its cast read one-star reviews on video after the release of season 1. Dressed as Queen Maeve, actress Dominique McElligott chuckles as she reads, “Queen Maeve felt like a throwaway character. Her arc could have been handled better.” Without missing a beat, McElligott looks up at the camera and states, “More screen time for Queen Maeve.”

Frankly, I agree.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the season 3 finale of The Boys.]

The season 3 finale of The Boys culminated in another attempt to take down Homelander (Antony Starr), this time with the “help” of Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles). Both season 3 and its finale, in particular, are two of the show’s strongest installments. But one of the reasons “The Instant White-Hot Wild” stands out, for the better, is because one of its featured characters was Queen Maeve, a character that has been consistently underused.

Maeve’s arc over the last three seasons has been slowly gaining the courage to break away from a toxic environment (in her case, both Vought and Homelander) and reclaim her strength and identity in return. It is about finding hope at rock bottom or finding something that could eventually turn into hope, which is an incredibly complex story that hasn’t been explored in the comic book or superhero subgenre at this magnitude. But little in the show seems to do her journey justice.

Queen Maeve has been a series regular of The Boys since its pilot episode, yet has always had a perplexing presence in the series. She’s a longtime member of the Seven, deemed the second strongest person in the world, right behind Homelander. The two often went on