The following contains spoilers for The Boys Season 3, Episodes 1-6, streaming on Prime Video.
From the moment that A-Train evaporated his girlfriend by running straight through her body, Hughie Campbell has been the show's de facto hero, and the story of his revenge against the superheroes of Vought International has been the series' driving story arc. However, over the course of the show's three seasons, another character has undergone a startling transformation and, along the way, created one of the show's most captivating arcs. That character is, against any audience member's expectations, The Deep.
An aquatic superhero with the ability to control and communicate with underwater species, The Deep is Vought's version of Aquaman and one of the most popular members of The Seven. However, behind the scenes, The Deep was an insecure, narcissistic bully who used his position to mistreat and abuse people he deemed beneath him. This culminated in a horrifying situation in which he forced himself on new Seven member Starlight, threatening her with expulsion from The Seven if she did not comply. However, unlike his other victims, Starlight fought back, exposing his despicable behavior and turning him into a pariah. Kicked out of The Seven, the underwater superhero was banished to landlocked Ohio and began a road to recovery that has, amazingly, made him one of The Boys' most sympathetic characters.
Stuck in Sandusky, Ohio, The Deep finds himself struggling to adapt and experiences a sexual assault of his own at the hands of a crazed fan who is aroused by his gills (not that Season 3 is holding back on creepy sex scenes). The experience makes him realize how his own victims must have felt, and he tries to find ways to make amends. Most of these end in failure, such as his attempted rescue of a lobster at a supermarket, only to have the crustacean killed by an unaware fishmonger. All of this leads to a very embarrassing arrest and subsequent bailout by another hero, Eagle the Archer.
Eagle brings The Deep to the Church of the Collective, a cult-like religious group focused on self-healing and wellness. He enters into an arranged marriage with Collective member Carol and surreptitiously aids Seven member Queen Maeve in obtaining footage of a doomed flight that Homelander was responsible for crashing. All of these efforts are not entirely altruistic, of course, as The Deep continues to hope that his reformation will earn him back his slot in The Seven.
By the time Season 3 begins, The Deep has realized that he was being used by the Church, who took control of his bank account and used his public persona as a vehicle to bolster their own image. However, The Deep's outspoken criticism of the Church (combined with the death of Church head Alastair Adana at the hands of Victoria Neuman) helped raise his profile enough to land him a spot back in The Seven. Unfortunately, as before, not everything is as it seems.
From the start it is clear that The Deep's reinstatement is strictly for PR purposes, and he is there seemingly just to be abused and humiliated for Homelander's amusement. This is most evident during a horrifying dinner scene in which The Deep is forced to eat a living octopus (with whom he had a somewhat unusual friendship) as Homelander looks on in amusement. The look on The Deep's face at this moment shows a man completely trapped by his circumstances and not entirely sure how he got there in the first place.
The Deep's behavior in Season 1 was inexcusable, and he was rightly punished for it. But, over the course of the ensuing seasons, The Boys has managed to do something extraordinary, by showing the fragility, insecurity and humanity underneath his boorish exterior. For all of his macho posturing and toxic behavior, it seems that, deep down, The Deep is a man who just wants to find a way to be a hero again. The question remains whether The Boys will give him that chance.