Homelander and Barbara in “Unfinished Business”

Homelander

It’s funny. I–I remember it being so much bigger. You know why I used to call this the Bad Room?

It was just a room, John. It’s neither good nor bad.

Homelander

That’s easy to say from the other side of the door. Now–

Did you come back here just to torment those people? Doesn’t that feel a little… a little small? They were just following orders. Dr. Vogelbaum’s, Stan Edgar’s and mine.

Homelander

Yeah, but they followed them. Not one of them had the backbone to stand up and say, “This is wrong.”

‘Cause they were scared.

Homelander

I was a child.

They were scared! You know, I was there the day that you were born. They paid some poor runaway two grand to carry the embryo to term. But you lasered her guts open from the inside. You rose in the air with your umbilical cord still attached, like some creature out of myth… or nightmare. You killed three doctors and a nurse while you were at it. And then–just trust me–it was downhill from there. So, yeah. Yeah, everybody was terrified of you, from your first breath.

Homelander

But you weren’t? [chuckles]

We have no physical power over you. We never did. You could’ve broken out of here anytime you wanted. We couldn’t have stopped you. But you didn’t. [pause] Because you couldn’t stand the idea that we would be disappointed in you. Your need for approval and for love. Vought brought in the best psychologists in the world. They developed the protocol to carefully engineer that need so that you would be obedient. In many ways, that was our greatest success.

Homelander

I don’t need any of it anymore.

Doesn’t matter what you do to me or the rest of the staff here. Your need for love is so deep. It's so human, you’ll never be able to overcome that.

Homelander

That’s where you’re wrong. I’m not human, and neither is my son. And I’m going to raise him so that he knows it. You know, I really do wanna share with you why I called this the Bad Room.