The Boys Secretly Revealed Victoria Neuman’s One Weakness

screenrant.com:

Caution: spoilers ahead for The Boys season 3

Did you spot how The Boys season 3 sneakily revealed the secret to defeating Victoria Neuman? Played by Claudia Doumit, The Boys season 2 introduced Victoria Neuman as a riff on comic character Victor Neuman, but with an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez twist. Initially, Neuman appeared as an anti-Vought congresswoman bravely speaking out against the multitude of crimes and corruption committed by Homelander and his cohorts. The Boys later revealed Neuman was season 2's mysterious head-popper — a powerful supe with the ability to psychically explode body parts at long-range. Her victims include Susan Raynor and Church of the Collective leader, Alastair Adana.

The Boys season 2 ended with Hughie joining Neuman's Federal Bureau of Superhero Affairs, and they've developed into quite the dynamic duo by the time season 3 begins. Regardless, it simply wouldn't be right for Hughie to go an entire The Boys season premiere without getting covered in guts. «Payback» sees a mysterious stranger called Tony visit the FBSA office weirdly calling Victoria «Nadia.» When a concerned Hughie follows Tony and Neuman into an alley, he witnesses a brutal fight that ends with the congresswoman detonating her opponent into a bloody mess.

Related: The Boys Can't Use Butcher's Shocking Comics Ending Despite His Powers

Without overtly drawing attention to itself, The Boys season 3's Neuman vs. Tony fight actually confirms the limits of her head-popping — and reveals her hidden Kryptonite. Before the battle, Tony confirms he and «Nadia» were once best friends growing up together at Red River, so we can safely assume he knows plenty about her Compound-V gift. When the hostility begins, Tony does two things —