The Women of The Boys: Erin Moriarty’s Starlight tries to work through her mom issues

As part of The Boys’ #GirlsGetItDone theme, highlighting the heroic women of the series, Erin Moriarty talked about Starlight’s growth in season 2 and where she sees her important relationships going forward in season 3.

Annie January (Starlight) has had a difficult relationship with her mother, Donna January (Ann Cusack), since she discovered that she agreed to the program that injected Compound V into her when she was a child. This surprising bit of news in season one of The Boys exacerbated a once-close relationship that was already becoming fractious as Annie drifted further from her deeply religious roots.

Actress Erin Moriarty spoke about the complicated mother-daughter relationship she has been dealing with in season two of The Boys. What can we expect for these two in season three?

Culturess: My question is about the growth in Annie’s relationship with her mother on The Boys. Can you tell me a little bit of where that’s heading? It’s changed so much from season one, when they both started out, kind of in this goal of getting into The Seven together, and aligned with her mother’s religious thinking.

Erin Moriarity: Yeah, I agree, because I think that complexity in a mother-daughter relationship — first of all, I think even the best ones, including my own and my mom is my best friend, I think she’s the best human in the universe — mother-daughter relationships are complicated no matter what, and I don’t think they’re portrayed enough in movies and TV shows. They’re one of the relationships that you just don’t see enough, so I do really like the inclusion of that storyline in that dynamic.

And in season two, I think a lot of what happens to Annie is not unlike what happens to other people in terms of being kind of young and inherently naive because of how sheltered you’ve been up until the point when you fly the coop and being exposed to the world… She goes through a trajectory that I think is quite common for a lot of young women, which is that she has her first real love, I think, in Hughie. She has that trust totally severed and heartbroken by Hughie.

She ends up finding out that her mom has been lying to her. She ends up finding out that the world is this big, dark place, when she thought it was a good place. She ends up finding out that, or thinking that, maybe God doesn’t exist. And up until now, she’s been someone who’s based her life in faith… So, when you’ve had your heart torn out of your chest by the people you love in the world most, you develop a wall that’s almost too thick to compensate. You kind of lose yourself a little bit.

Culturess: Annie’s growth between season one and season two of The Boys is amazing. She’s developed greater confidence. She’s more evaluative of her relationships. Do you think she can repair them?

Moriarty: So I find that in season two is a matter of her finding herself again and splitting a difference between knowing that you can’t trust everyone. But still being this innate trusting person who gives people the benefit of the doubt and is kind, and regaining trust for Hughie. And I think that includes her mom, even though towards the end of the season they were united just for survival.

Culturess: Annie and Donna started out quite close, with her mom championing her on to get into The Seven. Do you think you’ll get to explore that a little bit more in season three of The Boys? Will the two of them be able to rebuild that trust?

Moriarty: I do think that it’s the beginning of her being able to let her mother back in, and I definitely think that while season three is inevitably going to contain hardships in their relationship, and it’s going to take so much to build it back entirely, I do think that they’ve been through the worst of it and there will be a lot to explore, and it’ll be really interesting. Ann Cusack, who plays my mom, is one of the best actresses I’ve ever worked with, and she’s incredible. So I’m just like stoked for her to come back and keep exploring it with her.

The season two finale of The Boys dropped Oct. 9. What did you think of Annie and Hughie? Do you think they have a future? Will she repair her relationship with her mother in season three? Drop your theories in the comments below!