The Boys: What's With Homelander's Milk Obsession?

Summary Homelander's milk obsession stems from his desire for a mother figure.

Madelyn's false maternal act contributed to Homelander's Oedipal complex.

Season 3 hints at a disturbing twist with Homelander potentially being Stormfront's son.

Why does Homelander like milk in The Boys, something the show has made a point of emphasizing? Throughout season 1, Homelander's jealousy of Madelyn Stillwell's infant son became increasingly clear, finally peaking in the finale. In a shocking turn of events, he kills Stillwell after confronting her about her continued dishonesty regarding his offspring. The Boys season 2 continued this story, showing a despondent Homelander lurking around her empty office, eventually helping himself to the leftover bottle of breast tmilk he finds in her freezer.

The scenes between Homelander and Madelyn Stillwell stand out because of their bizarre, uncomfortable nature. Homelander is a powerful man-child capable of leveling a city on a whim, and Stillwell was the Vought executive tasked with keeping him under control. The latter accomplished this by appealing to his deepest desires — not for a sexual partner, but for a mother. Homelander actually drinking Madelyn Stillwell's breast milk in The Boys season 2 is the natural continuation of this arc.

Related Homelander's Soldier Boy Twist Fully Explained The Boys season 3, episode 7 confirms a major link between Homelander and Soldier Boy. What happened, what does it mean, and what comes next?

Homelander's Milk Obsession Explained

Madelyn Helped Create His Oedipus Complex

The Boys season 2 explores that Homelander may be a sociopath, but he does have a genuine desire to belong to a family and clearly has unresolved resentment toward Vought, the corporation that raised him to be their star property. Homelander was made in a lab — and unlike other heroes who were still raised in a home environment, such as Starlight, Homelander's upbringing was at the hands of scientists trying to make him into something they could use.

Because of this, The Boys season 2 sees a desperate attempt at bonding between the show's twisted Superman and Homelander's son Ryan. However, he struggles to do so because he lacks the basic experience of a normal loving relationship. Madelyn offered that with her strange pseudosexual Madonna act, but — as Homelander discovered in season 1 — it was all a lie.

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Homelander didn't just kill Madelyn because she lied to him about Ryan; he killed her because she revealed to him that her maternal act toward him had been just that — an act. In the end, his obsession with watching her pump breast milk, his jealousy of her relationship with her infant son, and his actual drinking of her breast milk were all behaviors of a frustrated, lonely man. It could be considered an Oedipus complex or just "mommy issues" — either way, Homelander is motivated to fill a void that results from his unorthodox upbringing.

Homelander's Milk Obsession Has Been Explored In Unique Ways

Antony Starr Said They Add Milk To Several Scenes Now

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Homelander Milk Moments Episode Title Stillwell "Tames" Homelander "Good For The Soul" (S1E5) Homelander Drinks Stillwell's Breast Milk "The Big Ride" (S2E1) Homelander Milks The Cow & Drinks It "Here Comes a Candle to Light You to Bed" (S3E7) Firecracker Lactates For Homelander "Dirty Business" (S4E6)

However frustrated and unstable he may have seemed before, The Boys season 3 catapults Homelander to a new level of unhinged, bringing his milk fixation into the new season with aplomb. According to Starlight, "there's something wrong with Homelander... something broken... he's lost his f**king mind." While these statements could have easily applied to Homelander in previous seasons, The Boys season 3 does seem to be reaching for yet more shock value.

Foremost among this evidence is the fact that Homelander is seen milking a cow and reacting to it in either an orgasmic or appalled manner – and possibly both. This isn't unrelated to his milk obsession, but it does signal a new and perhaps even more disturbing direction. Antony Starr, who plays Homelander, described the experience of milking the cow as disgusting (via CBR), but it could be that Homelander gets pleasure from the milking. Starr also said the milk obsessions is a purposeful joke (via Deadline).

"Homelander found some of her breast milk in a freezer and lasers it, starts drinking it, gets caught." "And it was so funny and weird, and I think I sent Eric an email after that scene going, ‘Dude, we gotta get as much milk in this show as possible. This is gonna be like a little motif or a signature thing. Like, we have to do it.’ And he was like, ‘One step ahead of you, brother. I’m putting it in everything.’" "We don’t have to do anything with it, either. If I just look at someone and sip milk, there’s a twist to it. It’s become a really fun thing. "

However, in season 4, it took a more disturbing direction. Firecracker (Valorie Curry) is the latest character to have an infatuation with Homelander. She joined The Seven and intended to enter some kind of relationship with Homelander. She knows about his milk infatuation, and she starts taking prescription medication that causes her to lactate so that Homelander can finally breastfeed on someone. Showrunner Eric Kripke said it was an obvious decision to make (via Variety).

"When you take that character and how slavishly devoted she is to Homelander, and how she would do anything for him — as she’s made abundantly clear by saying it like seven times in a row to him — that giving him the thing he wants most in the world becomes logical, in a bananas sort of way."

Homelander's Real Mother Theory Could Make His Milk Obsession More Disgusting

Some Believe Stormfront Is Homelander's Mom

The Boys season 3 revealed that Soldier Boy is Homelander's father (conceived via sperm Soldier Boy donated to Vought), but the identity of Homelander's mother still hasn't been revealed. His lack of a maternal figure is a clear cause of his Oedipal relationship with Madison Stillwell and his breast milk fixation. However, a popular The Boys theory adds a whole new level of disgust to the already pretty gross Homelander milk obsession: there's a plausible argument to be made that Stormfront is Homelander's Mom.

Stormfront, Homelander's ill-fated love interest and an outright Nazi, was over 100 years old. Her whereabouts at the time of Soldier Boy's sperm donation are still unknown. Soldier Boy revealed in Season 3 of The Boys that he knew Liberty (Stormfront's former identity). He also mentioned the two started the first Herogasm party, indicating they already had a relationship that was, at the very least, sex-positive.

There's every chance that Stormfront received Soldier Boy's sperm and gave birth to Homelander.

There's every chance that Stormfront received Soldier Boy's sperm and gave birth to Homelander. The timelines all match up, and Homelander holding Maeve hostage to harvest her eggs feels like incredibly ominous foreshadowing. If Stormfront is indeed Homelander's mother, then his milk obsession and Oedipus complex will take an even darker and more revolting turn in the final season.

Season 4 of The Boys never dealt with the issue. However, season 5 will be the show's last season, and Soldier Boy is returning, so there is a chance for an answer. It could reveal more about Homelander's mother, especially since Homelander's relationship with Ryan and his father's identity became key themes in The Boys. If Homelander's mother is Stormfront, the breast milk and cow udder antics of the most powerful Supe in The Boys will have served as setups for one of the grimmest arcs in television history.