Neuman and Annie/Starlight in “Unfinished Business”

Hey, so… where's Hughie?

Oh, he's just camping with his dad for a couple days.

[laughs] Okay. Okay, good. Great. I thought he was avoiding me or something, you know… 'cause he was scared I was gonna pop his head.

[beat; swallows hard] Hmm?

Come on, Annie. [sees Annie's eyes glowing] Put them away. I'm not gonna hurt you or Hughie or your families. [Annie blinks and her eyes return to normal] Besides, you'd lose.

Then, why are you here?

Because I wanna help you.

Huh. "Help". From the psycho who blew up Congress.

Look, most of those guys passed around deepfakes of me on the House floor blowing bin Laden, so I'm not exactly overwhelmed with sympathy. Annie, you need me. You're all alone. I mean, come on. That "#Homelight" shit? That looks like you're in a hostage video. Blink twice if I'm wrong. And what, you gotta play nice with the guy that throat-fucked you on your first day of work? And Maeve? They say Maeve is in rehab, but you and I both know she's probably dead. I'm all you got. Come on, Annie. You and I were friends. None of that has changed for me.

Are you ever gonna get to the point?

You have 193 million Instagram followers. Lend me your influence, and I'll lend you mine. I can protect you from Homelander. You'll finally be team captain for real. And in return, you help me goose my numbers. I can finally get my education reform bill passed. We can make things better, Annie. For my daughter. For a lot of daughters. Come on, what do you say?

[pause] You're right. This whole place… I'm so fucking tired… of listening to people tell me I need to be shitty in order to win. Fuck you. And fuck Homelander, and fuck Vought and this "whatever it takes" crap. You're just gonna end up sitting on top of the steaming pile of shit that you built. I'm done. I'm fucking done. I'm not doing it anymore.

You're not gonna be doing anything if Homelander kills you.

Yeah, maybe. But then I'll know I'm not working with a fucking nutjob. So, either pop my head or get the hell out.

[beat; gets up] Hey, keep this between us. It'd be really tough to take out America's sweetheart, but not impossible.