The Lamplighter Change That The Boys Fans Really Like
Contains spoilers for The Boys season 2 episode 6
Lamplighter has haunted The Boys long enough. Now, in the latest episode, we finally meet the guy, and he's ... not what we expected.
The last we knew of Lamplighter (Shawn Ashmore) was that he had "retired" from The Seven, leaving the spot open for Starlight. While he never appeared in season 1, his past actions were crucial to the plot. Several years before A-Train ran through Robin, Lamplighter incinerated CIA agent Grace Mallory's grandchildren. It's what originally tore The Boys apart in that infamous pre-Hughie falling out — the crew blamed Frenchie for those deaths. Now we have a little more context for this shadowy events.
In season 2 episode 6, The Boys find Lamplighter in an unexpected place: Sage Grove, a Vought facility used for Compound V experiments. When he recognizes Frenchie, a fight breaks out that leaves the group of them in danger from the violent, superpowered inmates of the facility. With tensions running high, Frenchie and Lamplighter both reveal more about what happened the night Mallory's grandchildren died. Mallory had been blackmailing Lamplighter into working with The Boys to take down The Seven. To get out of it, he attempted to murder her, but accidentally killed her grandchildren instead. As he recounts this ugly past, Lamplighter appears regretful and upset about the way things transpired. There's some real depth to the guy.
It's entirely different from the comics.
Lamplighter was a surprise to us all on The Boys
While The Boys are surprised by this reveal, so were the comic book fans. In the comics, The Seven hand Lamplighter over to The Boys to de-escalate tensions between Vought and the CIA. Mallory kills him and that's that (until we find out Vought turned him into a zombie and keeps him in their basement).
The show has taken a different route with Lamplighter, however, and many fans are apparently into it. This Lamplighter shows a little more nuance in his character against the backdrop of other Supes, who have mostly proven themselves to be self-serving jerks at best, and full-on murderous psychopaths at worst. But of course, having slightly more of a moral compass than the other Supes doesn't make Lamplighter a good guy.
"He's a bad guy that's done bad things. I don't want to spoil too much, but he has certain addictions that are pretty interesting and some habits that are pretty dark," Ashmore told SyFy. "He's very, very unhappy. He is under duress to do these things he doesn't want to do. He's not the friendliest guy. I think a lot of the stuff from the book carries over as far as his traits and who he is, but the story sort of goes in a slightly different direction."
The Boys has certainly given Lamplighter more depth, which will make his role in the story evolve in new ways. At the end of the episode, Mallory doesn't kill him. Lamplighter's display of remorse entirely changes the character's course. It seems he might actually work with The Boys against Vought. Now, with a third Supe on their side, they might actually have a fighting chance against the corrupt company and its favorite unhinged creeps, Homelander and Stormfront.