Amazon’s The Boys gave us Queen Maeve, the second-strongest member of The Seven and the ultimate feminist icon. Except she wasn’t. She was a cynical, jaded Supe who let innocent people die on a hijacked plane because her psychopathic ex-boyfriend told her to.
Yet over the course of three seasons, Maeve went from being a passive victim to sabotaging Homelander’s plans as much as she could. She got tired of feeling bad about her role in enabling the corruption surrounding her and decided to do something about it. But what does redemption look like when you’re complicit in a horrible tragedy?
The Cost of Staying Quiet
When we meet Maeve in Season 1, she’s second-in-command of The Seven. A carefully marketed symbol of female empowerment who has little control over her own life. She’s also Homelander’s ex-girlfriend, but is still paired with him for missions and marketing campaigns. It’s enough for Homelander to maintain a controlling, abusive relationship with Maeve even when they’re no longer dating.
The fiasco with Flight 37 represents everything wrong with her situation. When the plane is hijacked, Maeve actually tries to save people, showing she still has a genuine desire to do good. Then Homelander accidentally destroys the controls, dooming everyone on board, and decides the best solution is to let them all die rather than risk bad publicity.
Maeve follows his lead out of fear for her own life. She watches 137 people plummet into the ocean, then attends a press conference about the incident. While Homelander uses the tragedy to advance his goal of getting Supes in the military, Maeve is racked with guilt over the role she played.
Unlike the rest of The Seven, who abuse their powers for personal gain, Maeve actually feels remorse. She wanted to be a real hero and that knowledge makes her complicity so tragic. She knows better, but she doesn’t know how to make the madness stop.
Maeve Grows a Spine in Season 2
Maeve also keeps her relationship with Elena secret from Homelander, knowing he’d use her as leverage. She’s proven right when Homelander outs her as a lesbian on live TV (Maeve is actually bisexual).
It was another way to humiliate Maeve, as well as deflecting criticism by turning her into a diversity hire. Vought moves immediately to commodifying her queerness with “Brave Maeve” merchandise.
Ironically, Homelander’s attempt to reassert control over Maeve frees her from the hold he has over her. More importantly, she finds footage of what happened on Flight 37. The plane incident that’s haunted her since the first season becomes her weapon.
Throughout the season, Maeve continues to push back against Vought. She saves Starlight from Black Noir, joins the former and Kimiko in beating Stormfront down after discovering she’s an Nazi. And in the season 2 finale, when Homelander threatens to take Ryan from Butcher, Maeve shows up threatening to release the footage of what really happened on Flight 37. She agrees to keep quiet as long as Homelander leaves her and Elena alone, lets Butcher leave with Ryan and stops hunting Starlight down. Being a slave to his desire to be loved, Homelander reluctantly gives in to her demands.
Seeing Maeve put her abuser on a leash is incredibly satisfying.
Queen Maeve Becomes a Real Hero in Season 3
By the time season 3 rolls around, Maeve has become an important ally for the Boys, providing Butcher with Temp V and information about Soldier Boy. She also stopped drinking and started training for the day she has to fight Homelander.
Unfortunately, Homelander catches on and imprisons her beneath Vought Tower. He threatens to harvest her eggs in the hopes of conceiving an extremely powerful child with her. Thankfully, Starlight rescues her before he can get the chance to act on those plans.
The finale brings everything full circle when Maeve finally gets her long-awaited brawl with Homelander. It’s a brutal fight that costs Maeve one of her eyes, but she does hold her own. She gets some punches in and even stabs Homelander in the ear with a pencil.
The fight is put on hold when Maeve notices that Soldier Boy is about to explode. Thinking quickly, she grabs Soldier Boy mid-detonation and jumps out the window, sacrificing her chance to kill Homelander to save everyone in the building.
It’s a subversion of the typical heroic sacrifice. Maeve doesn’t die. She loses her powers in the blast but fakes her death with the Boys’ help. The season ends with Maeve escaping with Elena to live somewhere Homelander will never find her.
Queen Maeve isn’t a pure victim. The Flight 37 incident alone makes her complicit in mass murder. But she’s not a villain like Homelander. She was trapped in an abusive system with someone who would kill anyone she cared about if she stepped out of line. Her redemption doesn’t erase what she did in the past. What matters is that Maeve made a choice to do good to the best of her ability.
That’s the best thing The Boys does with her character. Maeve’s arc is about finding the strength to reclaim your agency, even when the odds are stacked against you.
