‘The Boys” Shawn Ashmore Breaks Down Lamplighter’s Fiery Fate

Let’s just get it outta the way up top: SPOILER ALERT for The Boys Season 2, Episode 7. We’re getting deep into this episode’s scalding hot moment, and there’s no need to delay any longer! So if you haven’t watched it yet, pop open another tab and start streaming. If you have watched—let’s get into it!

This week’s episode of The Boys‘ sizzling sophomore season saw a major development for one of the show’s near stars, Lamplighter. After getting to know him a lot last week (he got a flashback and everything), Lamplighter really stepped into the spotlight in Episode 7—and it incinerated him! In a surprise twist, Lamplighter didn’t agree to help Hughie break into Vought just to rescue the captured Starlight. It wasn’t a rescue mission for Lamplighter so much as a suicide run—but even that didn’t go as Lamplighter planned. He wanted to make his fiery statement in front of his old statue in Seven HQ, but he’s already been replaced. He’s old news, but that didn’t stop him from lighting up.

Shawn Ashmore, the ex-X-Man who jumped back into the superhero genre to play The Boys‘ notorious fire starter, shared one final hot take about his character: turns out, he wouldn’t have changed a thing about Lamplighter’s fate.

“I felt like it was completely fitting,” Ashmore told Decider. ” This is a suicidal character, there’s no doubt about it. When Mallory confronts Lamplighter at the end of [Episode 6] in the ambulance, I mean, he’s basically telling her to kill him. He’s accepted that he wants to die. So I knew that’s where it was going. And again, for him to burn—he inflicted upon himself the thing that brought so much pain to Mallory, [and] to the Boys, by killing [Mallory’s] grandkids. I thought it was very fitting and kind of full circle—and I can’t imagine him going out any other way.”

At least Lamplighter didn’t go out alone: he had Hughie (Jack Quaid) by his side. Of course he didn’t exactly let Hughie in on his plan, which resulted in our favorite mild-mannered regular dude freaking out. Ashmore had nothing but positive things to say about his scene partner, the man who had to react to his character’s self-immolation.

“Jack was amazing. He’s as nice a guy as he seems,” said Ashmore. “Very funny, very quick—there’s a scene where Lamplighter and Hughie are walking through the Vought hallways and Jack was like, ‘Hey, do you want to maybe improvise some stuff while we’re doing the walk?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, cool.’ And he was so prepared. It’s improv so didn’t prepare the lines, but he had a couple ideas, starting points… And before every take, he would just say, ‘Okay, I’m gonna move on to another one.’ And then we would just do this walk and talk. Again, most of that didn’t make it to the screen. But the fact that he’s that loose and that open, and the show allows him to be that—it’s amazing.”

It’s good to know that even while Lamplighter and Hughie were going through horror onscreen, at least the actors were enjoying themselves offscreen.

The Boys‘ big Season 2 finale drops on Amazon’s Prime Video on Friday, October 9.

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