Ashley is way too far gone for a redemption arc but her story is intriguing in The Boys

If there is one thing The Boys teaches us, it’s that people aren’t wholly good or bad. We’re human, and we have grey areas.

Sometimes, those grey areas can be morally explained and accepted. Hughie and Butcher both used Temporary-V to give them an advantage in The Boys Season 3. As much as we all knew it was wrong, we could understand their reasoning for doing it.

However, there are some characters who have continually made bad choices. The good they do now and then doesn’t make up for the bad that they have done. One of those characters is Ashley.

Sure, she helped Maeve fake her death at the end of The Boys Season 3, but she remains the CEO of Vought. She continues to support Vought in doing all the terrible things. We all know that Homelander doesn’t really give her the choice, but Ashley could have stepped away, even at the risk of death time and time again.

Ashley notes how easy it is to do bad things in The Boys

The most recent episode of The Boys gave us an intriguing insight into Ashley’s character. She made the choice to frame Cameron Cole as the mole to protect A-Train (and herself). She knows that she could be protected if she turns A-Train in, but she has made the choice to stick it to Vought by working with A-Train.

Now A-Train is getting out of dodge. He has to. His secret is out after he went to join Butcher and Starlight in the fight against Black Noir 2.0 and The Deep. A-Train could have left alone, but he went to Ashley first to give her a chance to leave.

She chose not to. She gave a great speech about how it’s so easy to be bad. And it is. The easy choice is to do the bad things, whether it’s to take part in the abuse or just turn a blind eye to it. The hardest thing is to stand up to those who are doing wrong. Ashley knows that she isn’t the person she wanted to be when she was younger, and she needs to hold the line. She needs to continue trying to stop Vought, even though it will likely kill her.

This isn’t a redemption arc for her. She’s way too far gone for a redemption arc. In fact, she’s not necessarily going to help The Boys in their fight against The Seven. She won’t run from this, though, and that makes her storyline interesting. It’s sure to end with her death in The Boys Season 4 finale.