The Boys: What’s Victoria Neuman’s Goal? Every Theory

What could Victoria Neuman be up to in The Boys season 3? Amazon’s The Boys exists in a moral gray zone where characters who should be heroes are villains, and the protagonists are… still fairly despicable. But The Boys season 2 throws a spanner in the works by revealing a deadly supe operating in the shadows. The season finale announces this mysterious figure to be Victoria Neuman – a congresswoman who had been working with Billy Butcher and the Boys to take down Vought but, in truth, was the secret enemy supe all along.

Charting her journey through The Boys season 2, Neuman eliminates the CIA’s Susan Raynor just before she can disclose vital intelligence to the Boys. The congresswoman then begins to publicly rally against Homelander and Stormfront, as well as criticizing Vought for their Compound-V scandal, before inevitably coming to align with Butcher’s gang. When the Congress hearing against Vought begins, however, heads begin popping across the room, with Neuman getting away with mass murder by masquerading as an innocent bystander. Finally, Neuman thanks Alastair Adana for his help exposing Stormfront as a Nazi – then detonates his head too.

Despite witnessing Neuman’s unflinching violence, the audience still doesn’t know her endgame. What is this super-powered politician building towards? And is she working alone, or with another group? Here are the best and most fascinating theories.

Neuman Wants To Become President

Victoria Neuman is a young, progressive politician making big moves on Capitol Hill, and she certainly isn’t afraid to cause a fuss. For any aspiring political figure, becoming President of the United States is usually the ultimate goal, and Neuman might be hoping to ride a wave of anti-supe sentiment straight through the doors of the White House.

From a purely political perspective, Neuman is in a far stronger position by the end of The Boys season 2 than at the start. She had the guts to stand up against Vought when public opinion was swaying strongly in favor of Homelander and Stormfront. She valiantly took the big bad Vought to court, and exposed the Nazi Stormfront hiding in America’s midst. Through such heroics, Neuman creates two politically attractive narratives for herself in The Boys season 2 – defeating an actual living member of the original Nazi party, and sticking a big middle finger up to “the man” by bravely taking on Vought in a David & Goliath battle.

Unlike your average politician, however, Neuman is willing to kill for the presidency. She takes out Raynor to stop the CIA getting the glory for rumbling Vought, then disrupts the hearing session because she knows Stan Edgar’s mob would win and make her look bad. Better a no-contest than an outright loss in Congress. Finally, Neuman clears up the lingering thread of Alastair and the Church of the Collective, ensuring there’s no record of her shady political maneuvering. That The Boys season 2 ends in Victoria Neuman’s campaign office is a telling indication of her future plans to seize the White House –  by any means necessary.

Neuman Is Working FOR Vought

While Victoria Neuman certainly seems to be gunning for political glory, she may not be doing so for her own gain. Much of Neuman’s plotting in The Boys season 2 directly benefits Vought. She assassinates Raynor just before the agent reveals her findings to Hughie and the gang, and then uses her powers to stop the Compound-V hearing before Vought’s reputation suffers any serious damage. In the finale’s closing moments, Alastair admits that the Church of the Collective possess enough superhero dirt to ruin Stan Edgar permanently, and Neuman turns his head into tomato salad shortly after. In all three cases, Neuman’s actions protect the interests of Vought, so it’s not a huge stretch to suggest the politician is a hidden agent of Stan Edgar’s. Homelander and Vought’s other employees evidently have no idea about her true allegiance, but if Neuman was working directly for Edgar, it makes sense for her to take charge of the Compound-V fallout. This way, Vought can control and manage the backlash. Edgar also shows a certain degree of contempt for both Homelander and Stormfront, which could explain why Neuman directly opposes the nationalist duo.

But Neuman’s goal may be more than simple damage control – she might be part of a larger Vought conspiracy. In The Boys season 2, Stan Edgar readily confesses to Homelander that, contrary to popular belief, Vought are not in the superhero business, suggesting a deeper purpose to the company’s existence. Assuming Vought doesn’t simply exist to shift merch and shoot bad movies, Edgar’s true mission is potentially to control the White House. After all, the company’s origins lie with the Nazi party, and controlling the United States wouldn’t be beyond their ambitions. Perhaps Edgar sacrificed Homelander and Stormfront to boost Neuman’s political clout, bringing her to the brink of the presidency, at which point Vought would effectively control the country.

This theory would neatly explain Raynor’s ominous last words, when she tells the Boys “it’s Vought… it’s a f**king coup from the inside.” While the ill-fated agent might simply be referring to Sage Grove and Stormfront here, she could also be talking about a literal coup, in which Vought take control of the entire country.

Neuman Wants Revenge On Vought (For Compound V)

Instead of working for Vought, Victoria Neuman may actually by seeking revenge against Stan Edgar and his Compound-V cohorts. The Boys has already revealed that superheroes are made by injecting babies with the infamous Compound-V serum, and this fact is now public knowledge thanks to Hughie and Starlight, leaving some superheroes feeling conflicted about their employers. But Neuman seems to know about Compound-V before The Boys season 2 begins (why else kill Raynor?), so perhaps the politician has a long-standing grudge against the people who injected her during infancy. The deaths of Alastair and Raynor, as well as the courtroom incident, all appear to work in Vought’s favor, but Neuman might actually be making sure she strikes the final blow, allowing no one else to steal her revenge on the folks at Vought tower.

This ties into another popular Victoria Neuman theory – that she’s a natural-born supe like Ryan Butcher. If Neuman was the daughter or granddaughter of a Vought test subject, she would’ve watched her entire family suffer the aftermath of Vogelbaum’s biological meddling. Now, Neuman wants to use her political power and skull-shattering abilities to bring down those who wronged her and her kin.

Neuman Wants Revenge On Vought (For The Past)

Instead of wanting revenge for being forcibly injected with Compound-V, is Victoria Neuman’s grudge against Vought rooted in real-world history? As suggested by Reddit user Signal-Amount6162, Frederick Vought almost certainly would’ve carried out Compound-V experiments on captured Jews before giving the formula to his own wife. Neuman could either be a surviving test subject (older than she looks, like Stormfront) or a descendant of a Jewish Compound-V subject who inherited superpowers. The “Neuman” surname is of German and Jewish descent too, adding further weight to the idea that Victoria is in some way connected to a Holocaust survivor, and has made it her mission to bring down Vought in the modern day.

Many The Boys fans suspect Victoria Neuman may be somehow related to Cindy – the mysterious, powerful supe found in Sage Grove. Not only are their powers suspiciously similar, but Cindy is confirmed to have a role in The Boys season 3. Cindy and Victoria might both derive from the same family line – one who escaped, and one who remained in Vought custody. If this theory proves true, would Cindy support her sister’s crusade to destroy Vought, or would she begrudge Victoria for living freely while she rotted in Sage Grove?

Neuman Wants To End/Control Supe-Kind

Thanks to her successful stand against Stormfront, Neuman is placed in charge of a government body looking into supe affairs when The Boys season 2 ends. Neuman’s new agency will be regulating those imbued with Compound-V, keeping an eye on Vought, and ensuring superpowers aren’t used to circumvent the law. To this end, Mallory has recruited Billy Butcher as a member of the team, and the Brit’s work will now be generously funded by the U.S. taxpayer through Neuman. But since the congresswoman is a supe herself, it’s strange that she’d willingly lead a government agency against her own kind. Maybe the anti-supe task force proves Neuman has big plans for folks with powers.

For whatever reason, Neuman might want to end supes for good. Commanding Butcher and having jurisdiction over anti-supe operations is a great way to achieve this, and would also explain why Neuman directly opposed Stormfront and Homelander, since they wanted to use Compound-V to make more supes in The Boys season 2. Now that she’s trusted by the public, Neuman can begin systematically eliminating superheroes with Butcher’s help. In a similar vein, Neuman may be seeking to control or recruit supes. Neuman is clearly one of The Boys‘ most powerful characters, and could lead a superhero rebellion should she feel so inclined. By monitoring and having access to the entire supe population of the U.S. as part of her new job, Neuman can cherry-pick the best fighters to add to her revolution. Was this her goal from the beginning?

About The Author

Craig Elvy
(3624 Articles Published)

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Craig first began contributing to Screen Rant in 2016, several years after graduating college, and has been ranting ever since, mostly to himself in a darkened room. Having previously written for various sports and music outlets, Craig’s interest soon turned to TV and film, where a steady upbringing of science fiction and comic books finally came into its own.
Craig has previously been published on sites such as Den of Geek, and after many coffee-drenched hours hunched over a laptop, part-time evening work eventually turned into a full-time career covering everything from the zombie apocalypse to the Starship Enterprise via the TARDIS.

Since joining the Screen Rant fold, Craig has been involved in breaking news stories and mildly controversial ranking lists, but now works predominantly as a features writer.
Jim Carrey is Craig’s top acting pick and favorite topics include superheroes, anime and the unrecognized genius of the High School Musical trilogy.

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