Susan Heyward's Sister Sage might have briefly worked with The Boys in Season 5, Episode 6, but fans are still wondering whether she has fully joined Butcher and the squad against Homelander.
Warning - The rest of this article includes spoilers for The Boys Season 5, Episode 7.
The Boys Season 5, Episode 7 saw Heyward's Sister Sage in a dark place, broken after being wrong about what Jensen Ackles' Soldier Boy would do with the V1. Instead of destroying it, as she thought, he gave it to Homelander, making the Supe truly invincible. This left her an emotional mess, hiding out with The Boys, as Tomer Capone's Frenchie begged her to help him crack the equation to restore Karen Fukuhara's Kimiko's original powers as Soldier Boy.
Eventually, Frenchie breaks through to her and joins him in trying to solve the problem. It's unclear how successful they were as the experiments were interrupted by Antony Starr's Homelander, who killed Frenchie in a devastating moment.
The Direct sat down with The Boys star Susan Heyward in an exclusive interview, where we asked her if Sister Sage is now truly on team Boys.
Heyward explained that "more than against Homelander," she feels "[Sage is] for herself." Her going to The Boys was "a strategic move" born of necessity, made to "a very powerful enemy." The actor fell back on the old adage to describe the situation: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
Heyward also spoke about what it was like to film so heavily with The Boys themselves, describing the experience as "a completely different show." On a character level, she was also playing "someone who is in a different mental space," with Sister Sage "start[ing] Episode 7 completely glitched out."
Her dynamic with Frenchie hits Sister Sage particularly hard, and uniquely, since "she gets from Frenchie someone talking to her like a human," something she "hasn't had... in a very, very, very long time."
More from our conversation with The Boys star Susan Heyward can be read and viewed below. The Boys is streaming on Amazon Studios' Prime Video.
Has Sister Sage Truly Switched Sides Against Homelander?
"She's Made a Very Powerful Enemy."
- The Direct: "Now in Episode 7, you have a little recovery. You get down on the dumps, but you do finally help Frenchy and Kimiko in their journey to try to find that weakness for Homelander. At this point, with her helping Frenchie, is Sister Sage firmly against Homelander? Would you say that's definitively the case?"
Susan Heyward: More than against Homelander, I think she's for herself. She's made a very powerful enemy, and she's made a strategic move to go to other people. What's the saying, it's like the enemy of my enemy is my friend. So, yeah, against Homelander, but against anyone who would do her harm. I think she's just in it for herself.
- The Direct: "Did it feel different? Because, I mean, obviously, all of your scenes were basically with The Seven, with an entirely different set of people. But then, now this episode, I mean, a little bit in six, but more so in seven, you really get to just be part of The Boys. Did it kind of feel like a whole different show for you and almost like a different character getting to exist in that environment?"
Heyward: A completely different show, [but] maybe not a completely different character, but someone who is in a different mental space. She starts Episode 7 completely glitched out, not confident... lacking confidence in her powers. And she gets, not compassion [but] she gets from Frenchie someone talking to her like a human. She hasn't had that, I think, in a very, very, very long time. It's a huge difference.
The Boys' Susan Heyward Explains Sister Sage's Weakness
"She's Completely Unmoored Because It Doesn't Make Sense.
- The Direct: "At the end of Episode 6, when Soldier Boy chooses to help out Homelander, it goes against what Sage was so confident in what she assumed was going to happen. Do you think this was the first time that she was wrong about something?"
Susan Heyward: Yes. Ever. Ever. I feel like she thought the chances of someone who performs patriarchy so deeply, who's so in touch with being, you know, I'm in charge, and who has such a low opinion of Homelander, what was the chance that he was going to find any reason to support Homelander? And you know, the idea that love is unpredictable, that love can get under any kind of status or lack of humility you might have, is a really powerful idea. So I was just like, excuse me, what?
- The Direct: "What were the endless thoughts going through her mind in that moment when she witnessed this and just panicked?"
Heyward: Oh, I think it was a glitch. I think she's completely unmoored because it doesn't make sense. And this, the stats are so—Kripke and I talked a lot about how her power works, because it's a big chunk. And he said, you know, she's always measuring probabilities, what's most likely to happen if you put people in a certain situation. So she's able to manage a ton of hypotheticals and possibilities at one time, and the possibility that Golden Geisha is going to be wearing, you know, something that's going to give her location that then... All of that was just very, very unlikely. So I think she's completely glitched out.
- The Direct: "Is she so intelligent that the concept of love and its implications are something she just can't calculate or factor into her evaluations of any situations? Is that like her weakness?"
Heyward: I definitely think it's her weakness, but I'm not sure it comes from her intelligence. Because, you know, there are stories of love and sacrifice and sacrificial actions in the past. I think it's her wound. I think because she hasn't actually experienced the love, she doesn't understand. I don't think she trusts it, and I don't think she respects it.
Did Susan Heyward Know Sister Sage's Future When She Boarded The Boys?
"I Wasn't Sure How Far We Would Go With Her Really Being a Team Player."
- The Direct: "We were all pretty confident that Sister Sage was going to eventually work with The Boys in some capacity, that at the beginning, she had some plan brewing in the background since she was introduced. Were you of the same mind when you boarded the show? And what did you think that that might have looked like eventually?"
Susan Heyward: I think narratively, it asks for it for someone who's kind of set their status so high, you want to see how they move on both sides of the chessboard, so to speak. I wasn't sure how far we would go with her really being a team player. The Boys work together. They're regular people who are really a family. They love each other, and they work together because they believe the same things.
But Sage has always kind of been an opportunist, and I was really excited to not have a redemption arc. I certainly thought it was possible. It was exciting for a moment. But no, let her be a villain and have working with The Boys be something that satisfies her selfish desires.
- The Direct: "How much of your character's overall journey did you know for a fact throughout the whole show? How much of that was shared with you by Eric Kripke when you jumped on the show?"
Heyward: In Season 4, she was just as much of a sphinx to me as she was to the audience. I had my own, you know, building that I built, but I wasn't sure if Kripke and the rest of the writers were going to kind of confirm what I had. And then for me, when Sage went to 'Gen V,' she had that affair with Godolkin, [who] broke her heart, then I kind of knew that, okay, so this is someone who's been hurt by a certain kind of person and who has been consumed with falling in love with the same kind of person, a brilliant man who then dismisses her, and that usually doesn't lead to healing. It usually leads to becoming exactly like the people who hurt you. So around 'Gen V,' I was like, okay, whatever it's going to be, I don't think there's a redemption arc in her future, so I could just dig into not playing nice at all.
The entire interview with Susan Heyward and The Direct can be watched below:
