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xieyaohuan · 1 year

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The Gloves are Off - The Symbolism behind Homelander's Gloveless Moments in Seasons 1 through 3 of The Boys

Submitted by Xieyaohuan to the International Journal of Homelander Studies for collective peer review. Please point out any errors or oversights that you spot. All comments, disagrements and additions are welcome.

Abstract: Homelander is the main antagonist in the series The Boys (2019 - ). He is known for wearing a super hero costume that usually includes a pair of red gloves. In this paper, the authors discuss the patterns of when Homelander takes off his gloves in seasons 1-3, and analyze the themes and symbolism associated with his gloveless moments. We argue that the absence of gloves is not random but follows certain patterns that are used to convey important points about Homelander's psychology, and his most fundamental desires. There are some inconsistencies in how the gloves are used across seasons, but overall, the act of not wearing gloves is connected by common themes that run through the entire show. They are linked to Homelander's search for "home", "family", "intimacy", "belonging", and "love", and they hint towards the existence of a fledgling private persona that is separate from the much more dominant and established public superhero persona that Homelander projects to the outside world.

Keywords: character analysis, Homelander, clothing, symbolism

The Hypothesis

The character of Homelander is know for never apparing in civilian clothing and instead always* wearing his superhero uniform, which consists of a blue top, a separate pair of blue pants, a gold belt, a flag cape attached to the suit top with a pair of gold eagles, a pair of red boots, and a pair of red gloves. *Adult Homelander wears his suit during all scenes with only one exception at the beginning of episode 3 of season 3 (S3E3), when he is fully naked.

Apart from this one scene, only two parts of his uniform occasionally come off: his pants and his gloves. The pattern for when he (partially) removes his pants is easily recognizable: he takes them off in three scenes, all while having sex (S1E8, partial; S2E5, fully; S2E6, partial). The removal of the pants therefore principally serves a practical purpose and carries no greater symbolism, except when analyzed in conjunction with the pieces of clothing he does not remove during sex, a topic which will be touched upon briefly below but which mostly exceeds the scope of this paper.

By contrast, the patterns of when Homelander takes off or appears on screen without his gloves are more subtle and deserve to be explored in more detail. The authors posit that the status of the gloves is not random but carries symbolism that contributes to establishing who Homelander is as a character, what his values and desires are, as well as, potentially, giving some clues to his mental state.

Methodology and Disclosure of Author Bias

In order to test this hypothesis and determine the patterns during which types of scenes the gloves either are or come off, the authors rewatched all three seasons of The Boys. For each scene in which Homelander appeared, the glove status was noted in an Excel sheet along with brief additional details about the scene as well as information on whether the gloves where visible on screen (see Table 1). We used three main status options for the gloves: on, off, or not visible (note that in most scenes where the gloves are not visible, such as on television, they were presumed on based on context). For season 1, the status of the flap of his suit top (up or down) was also tracked. This was not tracked for seasons 2 and 3, as we had previously determined that the flap is consistently up in the latter two seasons.

Table 1: Screenshot of the Excel tracker, excerpt from S2, E1-2

In our research we mixed both inductive and deductive approaches. While our starting hypothesis was that the status of the gloves carries some form of symbolic value, our initial approach was inductive with regard to the exact symbolism and themes conveyed by the presence or absence of gloves. During the research process, we refined our initial working hypothesis to include more specific hypotheses about what the gloves symbolize. Preliminary findings indicated that the absence of the gloves appeared to be related to values and sentiments such as "home", "family", "intimacy", "belonging", and "love". All of these carry some relevance for the phenomenon known in fandom as "shipping", defined by the Urban Dictionary as "the act of [...] wanting/supporting two individuals involved in a romantic relationship."

GIF 1: A visual representation of how the authors feel about Homewell and Butchlander

In order to avoid the authors' own shipping bias, care was taken to record the status of the gloves as accurately as possible and to remain aware of our own bias during the analysis stage. For each interpretation, alternative interpretations and counter points were taken into consideration. In addition, we disclose our biases here (see GIF 1) so that the reader may take them into consideration when reading this paper and evaluating its conclusions.

Pattern description

There are considerably fewer instances where Homelander does not wear his gloves compared to when he does have them on, namely in 4 out of *ca. 40 total instances where Homelander appears in Season 1; 9 out of *ca. 65 total appearances in Season 2, and 4 (5 when counting the scene where he is fully naked) out of *ca. 55 in Season 3 (see Table 2 for an overview and brief descriptions of all gloveless moments). This means that Homelander only appears without his gloves in 10% or less of his scenes.

*Only approximate numbers are given for his total number of appearances per season because some scenes where he shows up only briefly, such as when flying by or overhead, were not counted. For other scenes, there could be legitimate disagreement on whether to count them as one or multiple scenes. The main point that Homelander wears his gloves in 90% or more of his scenes applies regardless of the margin for error.

Table 2: All scenes where Homelander's gloves are off

There is a limited number of characters around whom Homelander appears with his gloves off. These are, in order and by season:

Season 1: Madelyn (twice), The Deep†, Madelyn's baby*, Starlight* (In all scenes in Season 1 where Homelander does not wear his gloves, he also has his flap down at the same time)

Season 2: [Madelyn†], Ashley*, Blindspot*†, Ryan (3 times), Becca (twice), Maeve†, Starlight†, Stormfront

Season 3: [Stormfront†], Ashley* (twice), The Deep†, Cassandra*, Starlight†, Victoria Neuman*, VNN host*

[ ] Characters in brackets are not on screen physically, but things or places reminding Homelander of them are.

*For characters marked with an asterisque, the authors believe that they could (or should) be discounted from the character pattern analysis in one or more scenes of that respective season.

†Characters (or an object or setting reminding Homelander of them) marked with a cross are the ones where he makes physical contact with his bare hands.

There are also several instances where Homelander is by himself when the gloves are off: two in Season 2 (one when he drinks Madelyn's breast milk in her office and another where he goes through Becca's things while she is gone), and two in Season 3 (one when he mourns Stormfront and one when he is in his penthouse taking phone calls). In addition, there is one instance in Season 1 when Starlight runs into him staring at Madelyn through the wall that should be counted as Homelander being by himself, as he clearly did not anticipate Starlight seeing him like this. If the scene where Homelander is fully naked is to be counted as a "gloveless" scene, the same logic should apply, as he was expecting to be alone.

Similarly to how Homelander only takes his gloves off around a limited number of characters, there are only a limited number of places where Homelander is gloveless. These are:

Madelyn's office: twice in Season 1 with Madelyn present (three times if staring into her office through the wall watching her counts), and once in Season 2 alone (before Ashley barges in on him)

Meeting room of the Seven on the 99th floor: once in Season 1 (with the Deep), and once in Season 2 (with Maeve)

The hallway of the 99th floor: once in Season 1 (watching Madelyn)

Becca's place: four times in Season 2 (three times with Ryan or Ryan and Becca present; once while alone)

His penthouse: four times in Season 3 (twice alone, once with company, and once while fully naked, which arguably does not count and/or should be analyzed separately)

VNN studio: once in Season 3

Last, there are a limited number of activities Homelander typically engages in without his gloves on (note that what is relevant here are his original intentions, not what actually ended up happening due to the actions of another character):

Private time with Madelyn, trying to impress her and prove his competence

Private time with "family" (Ryan and Becca), doing classic "family things" such as having breakfast together, playing baseball, or saying goodnight - all things he would only know from having studied them in theory in the lab

Attempting to bond with former and/or prospective love interests (Maeve, Starlight)

Spying on Madelyn through the walls

Rummaging through Becca's home while she is away

Trying to be close to a dead love interest by spending time in a setting that contains memories of them (Madelyn, Stormfront)

Spending time by himself in his penthouse

Threatening and/or disciplining junior members of his surrogate family team (Deep, Starlight)

Threatening to kill or killing/injuring supes (Starlight, Blindspot)

Drinking milk

There is only one scene to the best of our recollection where he drinks milk with his gloves on, and that is when he milks the cow in S3. GIF from S2E3

These activities roughly fall into the following categories: seeking out love and family, enjoying the benefits of "family", stalking his love interest and his "family", spending time alone, and performing his private family duties as the "family patriarch" of the Seven (as he would see it).

Of at least equal importance is the fact that there are some activities he never does without his gloves on throughout all three seasons:

Public appearances (with one exception)

Performing official duties as The Homelander

Flying (he does use some of his other super powers without gloves, such as warming Madelyn's breast milk with his laser eyes and using his x-ray vision to stalk her, but when he flies, the gloves are always on)

Killing non-supes (he lasers most of them, but when he does use his hands, he always wears gloves; by contrast, he has killed and threatened to kill supes with his bare hands in his capacity as the family patriarch of the Seven)

Touching non-supes, with the exception of Becca, whose waist he touches briefly without gloves in S2E7, but in a possessive way that is meant to assert dominance

Sex (with one possible exception when he masturbates on top of the Chrysler Building, as only one glove is clearly visible in the scene, so the other could theoretically be off though, let's face it, it's probably on)

So the activities he only does while wearing gloves are mainly those that are connected to The Homelander in his official professional capacity, anything to do with getting too close to or touching non-supes, and sex (with both supes and non-supes).

Pattern Analysis and Interpretation by Season

As noted above, by sheer number of scenes, Homelander wearing his gloves is the norm, while Homelander taking them off is a somewhat unusual occurance. Therefore, it makes sense to look at especially at the scenes where the gloves are off or come off and see what, if anything, ties them together. In some cases, multiple interpretations are possible, but some themes are fairly consistent across individual instances and seasons.

Season 1

The character arc for Homelander in Season 1 is a dark coming of age story, where he changes from a character who, although clearly an antagonist, is relatively well-adjusted and content with his situation to one who is growing increasingly restless and discontent with his role as a public mascot of Vought prized only for his looks and public speaking skills ("smile, look pretty, say my lines"). He wants to be recognized for his intellectual contributions to Vought instead, especially by his boss Madelyn Stillwell, who is also his oedipal love interest/obsession. (Incidentally, all of this character development should have happened much earlier during his twenty years at Vought, but that is the topic of a different essay.)

From the character arc perspective, it is notable that in season 1, Homelander only takes his gloves off (and has his flap down) in episodes 2 and 3 (his early "rebellious teenager" phase), not later during the season. So to an extent, this "informal" look is temporally associated with the earlier stages of his character arc when he is still a more "innocent" and "playful" version of himself - someone who has done bad things but who has not yet, for example, abandoned a plane full of passengers to die (arguably one of the most important scenes to define Homelander as a character for the viewership). It is possible that it was intentional to let the more informal look, especially the more playful "flap down", disappear as the character grows even darker and more determined to prove himself and put his mark on the company's direction in the worst possible ways.

Independently of the temporal dimension and the character arc, other patterns and themes associated with gloveless appearances emerge in S1 that are more significant and that recur in S2 and S3, namely privacy and intimacy as well as his desire for a home, love, and family. Homelander only dresses "informally" in the (relative) privacy of the 99th floor (or, in S2, in Becca's home). By contrast, whenever he is outside Vought Tower (doing press, on missions, on stage, etc.), participates in large meetings, chairs a Seven meeting, or acts in any other form in his formal professional capacity as The Homelander, he is dressed fully with his gloves on (with one notable exception in S3, discussed below).

His informal look ("gloves off, flap down") is spatially and thematically tied to Madelyn as his mother/love interest and her office as a location where he can play around a bit with who he wants to be when he is not in public, all while trying to get her attention and proving himself to her. Out of the four instances in S1 where he has his gloves off, two take place directly in her office. The first is when, to her great annoyance, he barges in on her while she is just finishing up pumping breast milk (see GIF 2) and she ends up confronting him about the mayor's plane.

GIF 2: Nope, we do not knock before we enter someone's office around here (S1E2)

The second is in the presence of her baby when he first complains to her in her office about the talking points she gave him for Believe Expo (not to be confused with the scene where he tracks her down while she takes Teddy to the pediatrician - in that latter scene, he is outside Vought Tower and wears his gloves).

The third instance takes place when Homelander stands in front of Madelyn's office, watching her through the wall pumping breast milk (see Video 1). While Starlight surprises him, he clearly had no intention to be seen by her like this. As a person, she is therefore irrelevant to his glove status in this particular scene (unlike later gloveless scenes where she is present in S2 and S3); it is the location and the person he is spying on (Madelyn) that are relevant to the absence of gloves.

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Video 1: Good thing he's not creepy, or this scene would be reeeaally creepy, S1E2

Notably, the next time he stalks Madelyn in S1E5 and she calls him into her office and lets him suck on her fingers (see GIF 3), he is in full costume, flap up and gloves on, either because he realized the hallway on 99 is not as private as he had previously assumed, having been surprised by Starlight once, or because the season progression required a more formal look and Homelander felt he could no longer allow himself to be vulnerable by showing up in anything but his full attire even on the 99th floor.

GIF 3: Yup, the gloves stay on during the act (S1E5); nope, they don't come off in S1E8 either

The only other instance where Homelander has his gloves off in S1 is when he confronts the Deep about going to Madelyn about the mayor's plane in episode 2 instead of to him. This scene takes place shortly after Madelyn confronts him in her office, where he wears the same informal look. Arguably, he simply went directly from her office to the meeting room of the Seven in his informal attire. However, unlike in the other three scenes, the gloves are visible in this scene, lying in front of Homelander on the table. So if he had wanted to appear in his full professional capacity and outfit, he could have put them back on fairly quickly.

We therefore argue that the themes of family and intimacy apply in this scene as well, but with Homelander not as the recipient of love and affection but in the role of "family patriarch" disciplining his children to ensure their loyalty to him. First, Homelander does refer to the Seven as "his family" multiple times. Allowing himself a certain intimacy and familiarity around members of his team, especially while in a 1:1 setting on 99, would be in line with other gloveless scenes. More importantly, in this scene, Homelander performs what he sees as a necessary duty as the head of the family. This is to ensure their loyalty to him, which by extension, in his mind, guarantees that the family the team runs well.

There are other scenes where Homelander takes his gloves off around junior members of the Seven to show them some tough love and bring them in line during later seasons, including another scene where he bullies the Deep (or, as he would see it, where he demands a token of complete submission to the head of the family before letting him back on to the team). So while this scene could also be interpreted differently, the "family patriarch" interpretation makes most sense based on both how Homelander views himself vis-à-vis the Seven and on parallels with coparable scenes in S2 and S3.

Season 2

Season 2, for the most part, fairly unequivocally ties the glovelesss moments to Homelander's search for family and love. The presence and absence of his gloves are largely disconnected from his character arc and are instead primarily tied to places, memories, and people he associates with having his own family.

In episode 1, the connection to Madelyn's office and her memories is picked up again when he enters her office, which is under renovation. When he enters and first starts rummaging through her stuff, looking at old photos of them together, the gloves are still on. He then takes them off off-screen before the camera cuts to him opening her fridge and taking out the last bottle of her breast milk, warming it up and drinking it. It's the last intimate memory of a person he regrets killing, and taking the gloves off is a way to get close to a person he wanted both as mother and as lover one last time.

GIF 4: Don't look at the tongue, look at the hands! S2E1

Ashley then surprises him, and he keeps the gloves off in her presence, as well as when they go to see Blindspot together. As these scenes are consecutive, Ashley (and Blindspot) do not seem particularly relevant as characters around whom Homelander takes off his gloves, beyond the observation that he does not feel the need to put them back on and assume his full professional persona in their presence. The other point of potential note is that he hits (and ends up killing) Blindspot with his bare hands, an "honor" that seems to be reserved for supes. (However, while HL does not kill "normies" with his gloves off, there is variation with regard to supes; for example, he wears his gloves while killing Noir.)

While dead Madelyn's memories in her barely recognizable office are deserving of a gloves off moment, the alternate reality he creates in the cabin with Doppelganger does not. It's a set up he ultimately knows to be fake and that fuels his self-loathing for even needing such a set-up in the first place, as he indicates when he kills Doppelganger after he has transformed into a Homelander lookalike. Although the cabin is a private place that he experiments with, and where he also takes Ryan later, it is not a home, and Doppelganger is certainly not family.

Instead, for most of S2, Homelander takes his gloves off when he is at Becca's place, that is at his new "home" with his involuntarily little 1950s family he so desparately wants to make a reality. He plays baseball with Ryan without his gloves. His gloves are also off when Becca is gone and he is rummaging through the home, drinking milk from the fridge, smelling her clothes and doing other creepy stuff to create intimate impressions of her place. His gloves are off when he has breakfast with Becca and Ryan (though he does put them back on before he goes outside and pushes Ryan off the roof). And his gloves are off when he tells Ryan goodnight. In sum, he takes his gloves off during all the little family rituals he has known in theory for so long but has never experienced himself minus the creepy stalking.

GIF 5: Let's not think about the fact that the gloves lying on the breakfast table touching the fruit have probably been in a lot of people's guts. S2E3

Notably, just like in S1, the kind of intimacy and love associated with absent gloves is completely unconnected to sex (make of that what you will; it definitely breaks the authors' hearts to know it may just be something the Meow Meow does because he thinks it might win people over so that maybe he can get some real love and affection down the line). Homelander wears his gloves during all of his sex scenes with Stormfront; in fact, the only scene where he takes them off in front of her is in episode 7, when they are both visiting - yup, you've guessed it - Becca's place.

GIF 6: Perhaps it was just too visually appealing for the show runners to ensure that Homelander always wears his boots and gloves during sex? (And no, that normie is no Starlight.) S2E6

There are two more scenes in S2 where Homelander takes off his gloves. One is in episode 4 when he threatens to kill Starlight in the elevator (see Video 2). Someone somewhere said that Homelander having his gloves off during that scene is the universal sign for meaning business. It's quite possible that that's all there is to the symbolism in this scene. However, there is a certain parallel to what Homelander does to the Deep in S1 (and what he does to him again in S3). He is acting in his capacity as the family patriarch, demanding absolute loyalty from the supes he considers to be the most junior members of his team. In this case, Starlight has already disappointed him, and he is ready to eliminate her as part of his self-perceived duty as the head of the family. Read this way, his willingness to disembowel her with his bare hands is another twisted manifestation of "family" that fits a certain (if not conclusively established) pattern.

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Video 2: We only kill our surrogate children with our bare hands around here. S2E4

The other gloveless scene is in episode 3 when he seeks out Maeve on 99 right after he got chased away by Ryan. In this scene, the association of gloves off with the search for intimacy, family and love seems to apply again. Homelander is frustrated he failed with his experimental hostage family and is looking for some kind of connection at a similar level. The obvious choice is his previous love, Maeve, who will belong to him forever in his head. Yup, that's the scene where that little gloveless awkward wave is from (see GIF 7).

GIF 7: GIF quality like it's 2023 and we're on mobile! S2E3

When she pretends to reciprocate his feelings, he is genuinely overwhelmed for a moment and grabs her hand (see GIF 8). Of course, he doesn't actually believe her because he's beginning to catch on to her relationship with Elena and asks her about it directly afterwards. But this is Homelander who is fully capable of rationally understanding that somebody hates him while still wanting to believe so desparately that somebody loves him that he can hold two completely contradictory thoughts in his head at the same time. And that makes this a short but genuine gloves off moment.

GIF 8: No snarky comment, this makes us emotional af. S2E3

GIF 9: No seriously, just look at that face, that's five different emotions in under two seconds. S2E3

A big thank you to @deliciouskeys for pointing out that this scene strongly parallels a second scene in S3, where Homelander takes Starlight's hand in a public setting. The parallels and the significance of both the Maeve and the Starlight scene will be discussed below.

Season 3

In S3, there are fewer gloves off scenes again, and they are most frequently associated with private moments in his penthouse. This makes sense because for most of S3, he has no family or lover he can share these moments with in a "home" en par with Madelyn's office or Becca's house. The first instance where he has his gloves off is in episode 2 after Stormfront killed herself. He is lying on her bed in his penthouse touching her blood with his bare hands. The scene mirrors Homelander drinking Madelyn's breast milk in S2E1. In both scenes, he is trying to get close to the person he loved and lost for one last time without his gloves getting in the way of direct contact with the respective bodily fluid only thing that's left of them.

GIF 9: Full disclosure, we are a bit scared that one of the revelations in S4 when they run out of cheap shock value will be that HL is keeping what's left of Madelyn's and Stormfront's corpses somewhere.

With one exception, the remainder of the gloves off scenes in S3 show Homelander in a private setting in his penthouse. In one of them, he is completely naked and is surprised by Ashley. This scene was only included for completeness' sake in the strictest sense but will not be analyzed here as it makes points that clearly go beyond glove symbolism.

In another gloveless scene in episode 3, Homelander serves a meal to the Deep, his wife and Ashley in his penthouse, #justicefortimothy. On the one hand, the glove status makes sense from a purely pragmatic perspective because who wants to eat with gloves on that have been in who knows whose guts. On the other hand, this scene parallels the other two scenes where Homelander takes his gloves off to assume his role as family patriarch (towards Deep in S1 and towards Starlight in S2). Again, he is disciplining a weak inferior "child" and gives him a test of loyalty before letting him back into "the family". Like in S1, where he chokes Deep, he makes physical contact again in this scene, massaging his shoulders while forcing him to eat his friend. Yay, family?

The other gloveless scene that takes place in his penthouse is when he is by himself in episode 7, yelling at Ashley on the phone, Ryan's address in front of him, before taking Soldier Boy's call. There is nothing inherently remarkable about this scene other that it fits the S3 pattern of Homelander mainly taking his gloves off within his own home.

The one big aberration to this pattern, not just in S3 but across all seasons, where Homelander breaks his rule of not appearing in public as The Homelander without his gloves on, is in episode 6 when he appears with Starlight and Victoria Neuman on a VNN talk show (and storms off just a few questions in after feeling ambushed). In the scene, Homelander is on the show without his gloves, perhaps because he is so freaked out (this is the next Homelander scene right after the Mirrorlander scene) that he fails to uphold his official dress code for public appearances.

Whatever the reason, when he sees Starlight, he tells her he is really glad she is there before squeezing her hand, taking her aback with how genuine he sounds.

GIF 10: Brought to you snark free again. S3E6

As mentioned above, there are parallels with the scene in S2E3 where Homelander awkwardly takes Maeve's hand. First, in both scenes, Homelander has just lost someone really important to him. In S2, he was chased off by Ryan after pushing him off the roof; in S3, he just learned that Noir abandoned him after hearing of Soldier Boy. In both cases, he rationally knows that both Maeve and Starlight hate him, but he still cannot let go of the hope that perhaps they are going to be there for him after all.

Given the context, it is obvious that this moment is not for show; he actually means it. The lack of gloves serve to underline the search for human connection, love, and any kind of friendship or support. Just like with Maeve in S2 after losin Ryan, in this moment of desperation Homelander is genuinely projecting his search for real family and love onto Starlight for a very brief moment.

Summary and Some Concluding Observations

The Boys is a show written by many people. As such, just like other themes and symbolism, the use of the gloves does not line up perfectly across seasons and episodes, and some inconsistencies should be expected. Despite all this, certain patterns do emerge and are consistent enough to be of note.

The first is his public versus private persona, though drawing a clear distinction via glove wearing habits only works in one direction. With one exception, Homelander never appears in public without his gloves, but there are many scenes which for a normal person would be considered his private life in which he does wear gloves, sex being the most obvious but not the only example. This should come as no surprise. Officially, as per his own words, a private Homelander persona does not exist: he gave up on his "secret identity" "a long time ago", as he tells Starlight when she catches him ostensibly staring at his own portrait in the hallway.

This shows two things. On the one hand, it is obvious, and the many instances when he wears gloves in otherwise "private" situations confirm, that his public persona bleeds into his private persona to such an extent that most people, including himself, believe he does not even have a private persona. On the other hand, and this is perhaps the more surprising revelation, Homelander still attempts to have a private persona through his search for family. He may have given up on what he considers his "secret identity", but he has not completely abandoned the public-private distinction and the idea that there should be something intimate in his life that is not part of his public persona, namely giving and receiving love from a family. (And however skewed his understanding of love in a family context may be, it is still less screwed up than his equation of public adoration with love.)

The second pattern, relatedly, is the clear association of gloveless Homelander with these very particular ideas about family (both the benefits coming with it and the duties he has to perform), love, and "nesting". Showing himself without his gloves on is, for the most part, reserved for a certain small circle of people he considers, or desperately wants to be, his family, though Homelander himself assumes different roles and personas (ranging from someone who is searching for an equal to love him to family patriarch) depending on the context and who he is dealing with. Whatever his exact role, going gloveless is reserved for contexts where he can be fully himself because the people he is showing this part of himself either are or are supposed to be so loyal and committed to him they would not (dare to) take advantage of any vulnerability he shows them.

Several people or groups of people stand in as his family from this perspective. In season 1, it is his main love interest, Madelyn. It excludes her baby, which is not only not his, but active competition for Madelyn's love. He shows himself to her from his playful, personal side in her office mainly to gain her attention in his early stages of realizing he 1. wants to be more than a pretty face for Vought but also 2. he is losing the battle for Madelyn's heart to... a mewling accessory shitting its pants and drinking up all the milk.

In season 2, it is Ryan - and, by biological family extension, Becca - are Homelander's chosen family that he showers with what he sees as love and affection. Consequently, it is Becca's home where he is most frequently seen from his most private side without his gloves. This includes both appearances in front of others - both Ryan and Becca - but also private moments where he is alone and is trying to commit the place to his sensory memory.

In season 3, Homelander has no clear place comparable to Madelyn's office or Becca's home that is tied to his ideals of family. He resumes his role as family patriarch familiar from previous seasons, but overall, he is pretty lonely throughout the season, so his own place stands in as the place where he appears most often in informal dress without gloves (or fully in the nude once). Interestingly enough, Starlight is the only person he briefly tries to connect with on an equal level in his search for love.

Much more could be said on the topic of glove symbolism, but it is Sunday evening, and this essay is already too long, so we will leave it at this and maybe pick up some of the strands touched on here in future articles.