(Warning: This post contains major spoilers for Episode 207 of “The Boys” Season 2, titled “Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker.”)
Lamplighter (Shawn Ashmore) lit himself up — literally — at the end of this week’s episode of “The Boys,” committing suicide in Vought International headquarters ahead of his scheduled appearance to testify against his old company before congress. He made his fiery decision once he had helped Hughie (Jack Quaid) break into the building to save Starlight (Erin Moriarty), deciding to torch himself in front of the spot where his old statue with the other Supes of the Seven used to reside, but has since been replaced by new members.
Ashmore tells TheWrap Lamplighter’s choice to die by his own hand was made before he even left the safe house with Hughie. It was actually made at the end of last week’s episode of “The Boys,” when Colonel Mallory (Laila Robins) pointed a gun at his head and almost pulled the trigger before Frenchie (Tomer Kapon) convinced her he could help them. And he almost did when he agreed to testify, but now that plan has gone up in flames.
“I think when Mallory confronts him with the gun, he’s basically like, kill me. He is suicidal, he’s suicidal, absolutely,” Ashmore said. “Whether he was actually going to commit suicide or whatever, he’s on the verge the whole time, even before they come along. So I think that the second the opportunity comes — and he talks about it, he’s like, ‘I’m dead anyway.’ There’s no life left for him when he’s talking to Hughie. Hughie’s like, ‘You don’t have to sit here and do all this and watch this stuff. It’s not healthy.’ He’s like, ‘What’s the difference? I testify and I’m dead and gone. My life is over.’”
“So I think when the opportunity to go into Vought and to help Starlight happens, in that scene where Hughie is convincing Lamplighter to help him, I think Lamplighter knows right then and there that’s what he’s going to go do,” he continued. “Because once he gets there, there’s not a lot of thought, you know? He says, ‘I wanted to do it in front of the statue. I wanted to make my dad proud.’ And it’s not there and he’s disappointed. He’s been replaced. And so I think that, from the second that Hughie asks him to go help him at Vought, he knows what he’s going to go do.”
Before they head over to Vought, Lamplighter and Hughie spend some quality time together watching supe-themed porn featuring some of Lamplighter’s old co-workers. Well OK, maybe it was awkward on screen — but Ashmore sure enjoyed shooting it.
“The Supe porn wasn’t shot when we were watching it, so we were imagining what it was going to be. We had the titles and the covers were made. But it wasn’t until I watched the the episode that I actually saw what was happening, and it was hilarious,” Ashmore said. “And it’s super twisted to be watching porn of your old friends and teammates and the people that you look up to and want to be with again. So it’s living in this weird fantasy, stuck in this rut where he just wants to be back where he was and is OK if that’s the closest he can get to it, some D-level weird porn… I also like that he’s making Hughie watch it, who is so uncomfortable with it.”
The Season 2 finale of “The Boys” launches next Friday on Amazon Prime Video.