The Boys is well-known for several reasons, including the fact that it parodies the most well-liked form of entertainment in the world right now, that Antony Starr and Carl Urban give Emmy-worthy performances, and that it offers a rather realistic depiction of what superheroes—sorry, Butcher, Supes—might be like if they were treated as they are in the pages of Marvel or DC in everyday life.
The innumerable show-exclusive Supers that Eric Kripke & Co. created, each having a fascinating origin story, superpower, and role within the series’ main plot, are another thing that makes it such a fun programme to watch for us. For instance, we learned almost everything there is to know about Payback members the TNT twins in just a few appearances: they are twins, they blow stuff up by joining hands and yelling TNT detonate, they are both equally depraved, and they probably hate each other just as much as they did Soldier Boy back in the day, which inevitably catches up to them.
Cindy, on the other hand, is one of those Supers that we only know about from the programme. Despite receiving only 5 minutes of screen time, she has grown to be one of the show’s more well-known mysteries. So who is she exactly? What function does she play in the narrative? And how precisely does she defeat Soldier Boy and Homelander, two of the most powerful Supers in history, so quickly? This film, Cindy’s Origins – Explored, aims to provide answers to all of these concerns and more.
A Supe Test Subject on the Loose – Cindy from Amazon’s The Boys
As we’ve mentioned already, Cindy is a show-exclusive character created by Eric Kripke to fill out the adapted universe that he has created. Unlike the TNT twins, who were members of the 20th century supe-team Payback, Cindy’s origin stories are much darker and way more secretive because, for starters, we don’t know anything about her besides her name and powers.
In season 2 episode 5, Starlight breaks into Stormfront’s trailer to dig up dirt on her past as the racially-motivated Supe Liberty after her road trip to North Carolina reveals just how dangerous her new teammate is. She doesn’t find any hard evidence linking her to Liberty, but what she does find is an extensive e-mail chain between her and Stan Edgar regarding a certain Sage Grove Centre.
Before she can investigate further, Stormfront enters her trailer and almost catches Annie in the act, and the two have a tense stand-off that ends with both of them effectively blackmailing each other into silence. In episode 6, we find out the horrifying truth about this mysterious “mental institution”; it was a front for Vought’s clandestine Compound V human experimentation wing.
Turns out, Vought was testing the stuff on adults in this facility. Frenchie, M.M., and Kimiko break into a security room and observe Stormfront enter an inmate’s cell and have him demonstrate his “progress”, but when he starts asking too many questions, she asks her orderly to “take care of the evidence”. In one of the best plot twists of the show, Frenchie realises that that orderly is none other than Lamplighter; the “retired” member of The Seven who was replaced by Starlight, and who killed Grace Mallory’s grandkids.
Mallory was the leader of The Boys back when they gave the Supe-killing business a go the first time, and everyone from her team hated Lamplighter; especially M.M. and Frenchie, with the latter even feeling responsible for the death of Mallory’s grandchildren because he was supposed to be tailing Lamplighter that fateful night. Everyone assumed that Lamplighter was dead because that’s what Vought means when they say a Supe has “retired” but turns out, he was alive all this time, helping them test Compound V on adult human subjects and operating as “evidence disposal”.
‘Cause here’s the thing about Compound V in the show; it only works effectively in infants. Unlike the books, where the predetermined Supe prospects are injected with their V doses while they’re in the womb, in the show, it happens post-delivery. But as Stan Edgar explains to Dakota Bob in Season 3’s opening scene, the problem with his Supes was “making the super into heroes.” Edgar believed that turning his employees into figures to be worshipped instead of making them soldiers had turned Vought into a daycare of infants and dead prostitutes instead of being a “serious company”.
And so that answers the question of why Sage Grove Centre exists in the first place; it is a testing facility to determine the stability of V in adult subjects so that Vought can get out of the Supe business. To quote Stan Edgar directly, “Cone of silence? In 5 years, I expect to be out of the superhero business.” And that’s where V24 comes in, but that’s a story for a different time.
For now, let’s get back to Vought’s version of MK Ultra and go to the main reason why we’re here; Cindy. Cindy is a test subject at Sage Grove Centre, and we don’t know much about her- or anything, really- except for the fact that she is exceptionally unstable and exceptionally strong. When Lamplighter inadvertently crosses paths with Frenchie, M.M. and Kimiko, things get real violent, real quick. They start fighting in the hallways of Sage Grove Centre and, of course, any fight in The Boys is incomplete without total carnage.
But perhaps they should’ve been more careful with this one because they end up breaking apart Cindy’s cell door and she walks out looking like a wolf lost in the woods. Sean Ashmore immediately turns into Jesse Plemons by channelling his inner Todd Alquist and trying to remind Cindy that he was her friend. But it becomes clear rather quickly that Cindy really doesn’t care about any of that; if you’re wearing a Sage Grove uniform, it’s open season on you, and that goes for Frenchie, Kimiko and M.M. as well.
The Boys end up running for their lives when Cindy makes another orderly implode all over the hallway and breaks open all the doors in the facility. Bullets don’t seem to faze her ‘cause she’s shot 8 times in the back and her reaction is essentially a death stare and a ker-splat. Even when Stormfront shows up for “evidence disposal”, Cindy is the one person she can’t keep down.
Stormfront kills everyone else who had “escaped” and electrocutes Cindy into a state of shock, thinking that she’s dead too, but at the end of season 2 episode 6, Cindy opens her eyes and runs away from Sage Grove Centre, hitching a ride in a car with her destination unclear. In the YouTube web-series Seven on 7 with Cameron Coleman, which ran through 2021 in the lead-up to season 3’s premiere in 2022, Cindy is referenced in a news update.
In the October edition of the Fox News Parody, Coleman brings up a “homicidal hitchhiker” who has been killing people after getting in their rides recently in the area near Sage Grove. Black Noir, who has recently recovered from the effects of eating an Almond Joy, pledges to take her down on VNN. But we think that’s going to be hard for him to do, now that he has cut off his tracking chip and is on the run from Soldier Boy following the events of Herogasm.
But where does that leave Cindy? She’s clearly an extremely powerful Supe, because surviving Stormfront’s electric shocks is no joke. She is also dangerous, as is evidenced by her behaviour and her disturbed mind set. But other than the fact that she spent a good portion of her life drugged up and out-of-sorts as Vought’s lab rat, we don’t know anything about her. But that doesn’t mean we can’t venture to guess, and there are several theories out there as to who Cindy might really be. Let’s break them down, shall we?
Cindy could be Victoria Neuman’s Long-Lost “Sister”
Before the finale of season 2 of The Boys dropped, everyone assumed that the mysterious head-popper was Cindy just because of how similar their abilities were. We’d already seen Cindy cause a man’s intestines to spray-paint the walls of Sage Grove Centre, and popping heads wouldn’t exactly be hard for a Supe that can crush reinforced steel gates, now, would it?
But as the finale revealed to us, the head-popper was none other than Congresswoman Victoria Neuman; head of the Federal Bureau for Superhero Affairs and Hughie’s new boss. This was a major plot twist because at the time, Victoria had been made to look like the good guy through and through; she was rallying public opinion against Vought, she was willing to get Butcher and his team federal bankrolling, and she even made it a point to tell Grace Mallory that they were in this together.
Turns out, that was all a steaming pile of horse crap because, as season 3 revealed to us, Victoria Neuman is the adopted daughter of Stan Edgar; meaning that she’s his mole in Congress and everything she’s doing is in service of protecting Vought, not tearing it down.
After this revelation was made, it was assumed that Cindy was Victoria’s relative; perhaps her sister or her daughter, given that Supes don’t age the way normal people do. But Hughie’s investigation into Red River and his boss’ shady nickname “Nadia” confirmed to us that Victoria Neuman wasn’t even her real name; as we’ve mentioned already, she was adopted by Stan Edgar at a young age and we actually get to see her daughter in season 3 episode 4 where she injects her with Compound V in an effort to save her life; no matter the cost.
So this rules out Cindy being Neuman’s daughter entirely, but she could be her long-lost sister. After all, Red River is an orphanage for the super-abled. It’s possible that Nadia and Cindy are actually twins. That could explain why their powers are so similar. Now, we get that Kimiko and Kenji had totally different powers and they’re siblings as well, but we refer you to the TNT twins once again.
Tommy and Tessa’s powers were literally linked to their sibling connection. If they didn’t hold hands and yell TNT detonate, nothing would happen. It’s possible that Cindy and Neuman are twins too, but with opposing power sets. Cindy’s powers make people and things implode, while Victoria’s powers cause things to explode.
But this is most likely a far reach, simply because 1) Victoria Neuman is a ruthless politician who went after her own father figure to protect her interests and she would’ve gotten Cindy off the streets if she were this close to her, and 2) it seems that Vic’s powers have something more to do with blood rather than explosions because if you’ve noticed, her victims tend to bleed from their noses right before their heads pop like an overripe melon and most importantly, 3), Cindy was a test subject at Sage Grove. She got her powers during the time she spent there. So Cindy and Vicky being sisters is probably not true. But it is possible that she might be connected to another Supe-based organization.
Cindy could be a part of the Church of the Collective
Rest in peace Alastair Adana, you toxic personality. The Church of the Collective was one of the more entertaining players introduced in season 2. Besides helping Supes “find their true purpose” by taking control of their bank accounts and probably dosing them with mind-control drugs through Fresca, we don’t know much about The Church, except for the fact that it has been operating since the World War 2 era.
Oh, and also, Stormfront used to be a member; which is how A-Train was able to help Starlight and Hughie expose her in the first place. But how could Cindy be related to the Church of the Collective? Well, it might have something to do with that disgusting Fresca after all. Recall that when The Deep first started meeting members of the Church, he was handed Fresca whenever he met them and he’d just start drinking it without questioning them.
As season 2 progressed, we saw that the Fresca had made Deep more suggestible than he generally was, something A-Train picked up on instantly. It’s a big reason as to why A-Train didn’t drink it himself, and also why Stan Edgar refused it when he met with Adana in his lavish home.
The connection between Sage Grove and the Church could perhaps run deeper than anyone expected, because it’s possible that the latter was involved with keeping the inmates at Sage Grove heavily sedated and suggestible. One of the reasons why Victoria Neuman pops Adana’s head is because he says he has enough dirt on Vought to drag them through the mud, and as we’ve already established, Vicky can’t have any of that.
It’s possible that this dirt is related to Sage Grove; after all Stormfront was the designated overseer of the project and she was involved with the founding of the Church in America. Cindy could be one of the escaped members of the Collective because as we know, Adana’s Church is more like a cult that exploits it members to the maximum extent and then dumps them on the wayside when they start questioning things by calling them “toxic personalities”. It’s possible that she was one of these personalities and that she somehow ended up in Sage Grove as punishment. We’ll have to wait and see whether this is the case, because Cindy could also be a contingency plan for Stan Edgar.
Cindy could be a failsafe option for former CEO Stan Edgar
We know that Stan Edgar is a man whose plans have plans. When your entire company is facing financial ruin but you’re smiling like a maniac because you have the men who did it in your crosshairs, you know that nothing can faze you because you’re prepared for literally anything. Stan was so confident in his position that he even allowed Stormfront to join The Seven, fully aware of her past and her feelings about “his kind”.
In fact, the only time we see him with a genuine look of fear on his face is when Vicky betrays him and sides with Homelander to keep her daughter Zoe safe; but we don’t think that that’s going to stop him from getting a measure of revenge himself. After all, this is the same man whose “first and final offer” to Butcher was to not leak Ryan’s existence and he’d call off Black Noir, which really isn’t that much of a bargain if you’ve seen the episode and know the bigger picture.
Though Stan is weirdly proud of Vicky for having played him just like he taught her, it’s hard to accept that this is the end of the line for him. In fact, there is a possibility that he already has a backup plan in action; and that’s Cindy. After all, it was Edgar who commissioned the Sage Grove studies, and after getting taken off of the board of directors of Vought International, it’s only a matter of time before someone comes looking to make that more permanent.
It’s possible that Edgar has some sort of contact with Cindy- after all, he has contacts everywhere- and that they’re collaborating on the hitchhiker killings because judging by the cars she gets into, they are anything but random. This theory is a far-fetched one, though, because there are too many unknown variables at play here. What is clear, is that Cindy is basically The Boys’ version of another streaming-exclusive bald girl with telekinetic powers.
Cindy is a parody of Eleven from Stranger Things
From her look to her confinement to her powers themselves, everything about Cindy reminded us of Eleven from Stranger Things which made us ask ourselves; is she a parody of Millie Bobby Brown’s iconic character? And the answer seems to be a firm yes. Consider this; Cindy and Eleven have both had life trajectories that are a bit too similar. They were both part of illegal human experiments that gave them inhumane powers.
Their character designs are nearly-identical. And their character behaviour, too, more or less mirrors each other. Cindy is essentially Eleven in her feral state, minus the intense nose-bleeds because her powers don’t really strain her all that much.
Cindy, like Eleven, was heavily-experimented upon with drugs and Compound V; fans of Stranger Things will recall that Eleven’s mom was a subject of Project MK Ultra, making Cindy analogous to her character in spirit and background. And the most-blatant connection these two characters share is the fact that their primary superpower is telekinesis; and insanely strong telekinesis at that. Eleven can literally break necks with a gesture of her head, while Cindy blew apart several cell doors with a flick of her wrist.
But what really makes this connection evident is the fact that show runner Eric Kripke is known for trolling famous- or shall we say infamous- moments in pop culture and history. For example, Victoria Neuman’s public persona is heavily inspired by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; to the point they even ape AOC in one of the many in-universe memes Stormfront generates to discredit her.
Another example would be The Deep’s cover of “Imagine”, which is practically a frame-for-frame recreation of the disastrous 2020 celebrity movement that saw Gal Gadot try to raise everyone’s spirits during the pandemic by singing this John Lennon classic. Stranger Things is one of the biggest streaming-exclusive TV shows off all time, so it was not a question of if The Boys parodies it, it was a question of when.
And it looks like they did just that when they introduced Cindy to the story. So as you can see, there are several theories as to who Cindy is and what her goals might be. And while debating it online is going to be fun for all of us in the community, Eric Kripke did confirm that we will be seeing her again.
He’s done this a couple of times across his show where he has set-up characters for future action. He introduced Jamie the Bloodthirsty Hamster in Season 3 episode 4 and let him go loose in Russia; when he broke the episode down later for Entertainment Weekly, he said that he was working on bringing him back in some capacity. The same is true for Cindy, and perhaps even more so than Jamie because she is a special case. Cindy is a Supe who can become The Boys’ key ally in the fight against Homelander and Soldier Boy because of just how unique her powers are.
How Powerful is Cindy? Could she defeat Homelander and Solider Boy?
Technically, yes. Cindy could defeat Homelander and Soldier Boy if her powers are what we think they are, that being telekinesis of the highest degree. Now, you might think that if she is so powerful then how come Vought was able to keep her detained at Sage Grove for so long? Well, 1) Vought injected her at Sage Grove so she didn’t have these powers before she got there and 2) they routinely abused and drugged their subjects to keep them in-line so it is possible that for most of the time she spent at Sage Grove, Cindy was buzzed out of her mind and so she couldn’t retaliate.
It’s worth noting that Lamplighter was making the rounds when he came across The Boys and he essentially didn’t finish slipping drugs to the inmates. If he had, maybe Cindy wouldn’t have escaped, but we’re getting too detailed now. Everything you need to know about her powers happens after she escapes, anyway, so let’s get to them, shall we? Like most Supes, Cindy has enhanced physical strength and durability.
Her skin isn’t as tough as Translucent’s or even Starlight’s; the latter was only stunned when she was attacked with a .50 calibre bullet twice, but Cindy’s back was bloody after getting shot at by Sage Grove’s security team. But it doesn’t look like she cares all that much about getting hurt, and her durability might run deeper than it looks, because she was able to survive a full-powered blast from Stormfront that was meant to kill her.
What really makes her a threat is her telekinetic powers. Cindy seems like an affable enough person when we meet her first; until M.M. manages to piss her off. And then we see just how monstrous her strength can be. She nonchalantly breaks off a dozen cell doors constructed like those of a bank vault to ensure none of the subjects ended up escaping; and this is after she makes a that same soldier who shot her full of holes implode inside-out and leave his intestines in the hallway. It’s this telekinetic ability that makes her so dangerous.
Cindy seems to have been inspired by Jean Grey from the X-Men; when she was first spotted on the TV series, comic book readers thought that she was going to be Amazon’s version of Silver Kincaid. In the comics, Silver Kincaid is the overt Jean Grey rip-off as she possess all the same powers and has a costume that even looks like Marvel Girl’s. That theory was debunked when Amazon’s Silver Kincaid debuted as a contestant on American Hero.
Though she does have the same powers as Jean Grey in the show as well, which we spotted while checking out her hero profile, she was brought in so Homelander could crack a couple of Al-Qaeda jokes at her expense. Which is horrible, yes, but also very Homelander if we might add.
That leaves Cindy, and given the fact that Eric Kripke has confirmed she will be a wild card in the story going forward, it makes much more sense that she would be the Jean Grey figure in this story. She does behave a lot like Jean from X-Men: The Last Stand, so there could be something there. And more than that, her powers aren’t strictly restricted to her person; if she can’t make Homelander or Soldier Boy implode, she could impale them without their knowledge by simply manoeuvring an object and making it run through them.
Granted, she’s going to need to find something sharp enough to break their skins, but with enough force, it isn’t impossible that she might be able to kill them. As for whether it does end up happening, that remains to be seen; but suffice it to say that Cindy is going to be a major player in the future, and it is all thanks to her broken power scaling.
Marvelous Verdict
So, Cindy can be Vicky sister, she could be a former member of the Church of the Collective, she could be Stan Edgar’s secret weapon, or she could just be Eleven’s long-lost sister who accidentally crossed over into The Boys’ universe via the Upside-Down. There are a lot of ifs and could bes surrounding her character, and that is by design. Eric Kripke likes to sprinkle in details now and pay them off a couple seasons later.
But that is what makes her such a compelling character. We know almost nothing about her, and yet here we are, speculating as to who she is and where she’s going. Now, we can’t claim to know everything about Cindy and her backstory, so if there’s something that we missed here, let us know in the comments! What we can claim is that she’s going to be pivotal to how the story of Amazon’s The Boys unfolds and enters its own version of Endgame; so keep watching and stay on the lookout for Cindy.