Season 4 of The Boys has set up the final stretch of a long ride that fans have been on since 2019. This season has made several stumbles, but finishing with a bang, Season 4 pulls itself together with an episode that makes most of those blunders feel worth it in the end.
Sharpening dull edges
This episode isn’t without its duds. Getting the weakest section out of the way, Frenchie and Kimiko finally get together, but after a season-long will-they-won’t-they that felt distracted at best. So much of their progress was spent obsessing over Frenchie’s Colin-focused melodrama instead, boiling down to a discussion about self worth that was so overdue it felt too on the nose at this point. It’s been obvious that Frenchie and Kimiko were always going to get together. Despite that, it has been wonderful to watch Kimiko grow as a character, becoming significantly more interesting in ways that maybe should have occurred sooner.
When the action of this episode kicks off, Hughie figures out that the Annie he has slept with at least 20 times in 10 days is a shifter that stole her likeness. When reunited, Annie rakes him over the coals for it. This brings the show to a frustrating head it’s been building to all season long. The handling of Hughie’s character and sexual assault is baffling, because the show gets it wrong with him even when it consistently gets it so right with Annie. This is exacerbated by the fact that it is actually nice to see Annie gain some edges. It’s fun to see her lash out, especially after going through hell and showing some grit- breaking her own bones in order to escape containment.
There’s a chance that the show is taking the chance to show nuanced growth. After all, the onus was on Hughie to recognize that the depressed Annie he’s been with all season would never just put on her Starlight costume or propose out of the blue. It opens up the floor for a discussion about how all of these characters have their baggage, and it would benefit them to address it sooner. Annie eventually comes through with lighthearted humor, but the episode still frames Hughie as if he was in the wrong for the situation occurring in the first place when the situation was the Shifter’s fault. Seeing Annie’s rage adds to her complexity, though. and we get to see more of it focused on characters that deserve it.
Both The Deep and the Supe-shifter run into Annie-sized beatings, and it’s some of the most satisfying stuff in the pair of episodes. This is especially the case after having seen The Deep’s connection with Ambrosia go terribly wrong. At first it was a lot easier to look at the octopus-themed shenanigans as just more of this show’s wackiness, but given some thought, if Ambrosia was swapped in for a human to go over the same kinds of beats, The Deep’s relationship would look significantly more horrific. Ideally, Season 5 will be able to deliver more thought provoking social commentary, without some of the confused messaging surrounding Hughie that often risks coming off as a double standard.
When the gang fully reconvenes, Hughie organizes a meet up with Neuman that ends with bloodshed, thanks to Butcher. Although Victoria Neuman has been thrilling to watch, fans have pointed out that this is the consequence of her character’s hubris. Victoria is indecisive at every step of the way, always searching for the better deal instead of trusting her gut and following through on a plan. By the time she begins to do that, her sins catch up to her. Butcher has no trust left to give to her or any other Supe when Victoria is ready to try fighting for the good of everyone else again.
Although Butcher has been scorched-earth the whole time, the season had its fun by making him genuinely consider the benefits of a more humane approach. We see the ways it could pay off, all of the guilt on his face is there in the confrontation between himself, Grace, and Ryan. However, if Ryan can’t live up to the expectation Butcher and the world have for him, then none of this is worth it to Butcher. Butcher turning his back on Ryan is a parallel that shows the unfortunate similarities he bears to his own father. It’s ironic, since Ryan fled Homelander to escape the threat of abuse. The changing tide, including Homelander’s decision to out Neuman as a Supe on TV, does get him what he wanted: Supes are deputized under martial law. He’s left with few worthwhile allies though, until the return of Sister Sage.
Sister Sage is the GOAT
When Sister Sage was set up this season, she was teased as a threat that was on an entirely new level to the villain-of-the-season types that have been dealt with so far. Outside of Homelander, some of the most interesting antagonists The Boys have faced have been Stormfront and Victoria Neuman. While they have been capable of cornering and taking out the main cast, the systematic approach that Sage has displayed was so much more terrifying to watch play out. Although she occasionally indulges, Sage has been less focused on violence, and more on making sure the walls close in.
By stoking the fires of nationalism and rousing an existing cult ready to act on Homelander’s orders, Sage has used the normalized threats that were hinted at seasons ago. Back then, Stormfront talked about “White genocide” and mentioned that when it comes to fighting a culture war, people “just don’t like the word Nazi”, even if they liked her ideas. That was when the world of The Boys was still one that allowed villains like Homelander some form of a moral high ground, compared to the alternative. He looked baffled as Stormfront attempted to indoctrinate Ryan into her ideologies, and even Ryan looked confused.
Since then, with examples like Gen V showcasing the effect of the “Supe Lives Matter” movement, we’ve seen an increase in the way everyday people, as well as CEOs and politicians, are willing to use instrumental violence. Applied with a collective ideology, it’s more of a threat, and that’s something that Homelander now depends on to succeed. When Sage shows a way forward, Homelander is now more than willing to take her up on it. The trust that people place in Homelander is new, and it’s Sage who made sure he got there by inciting riots, using Annie and everything she represents as a scapegoat, and laying low once things got tense.
It seemed like the show was eating its own foot and diminishing that threat after Homelander got rid of her for being an embarrassment at Tek-Knight’s party. Regardless, Sage swoops back in for phase two. The audience gets to see exactly what makes her a villain: she doesn’t care who gets hurt, and she likes doing all of this stuff to test her limits. The best example of her plan working is Ryan; by building him up as an idol to rival Homelander, he’s been taught to appreciate this shifting culture. It benefits him, powerful people still cater to his ego after he kills, and even if Homelander is terrifying, Ryan doesn’t look so bad stacked up next to him.
This is part of why Grace and Butcher lose Ryan. Everything that The Boys have been working towards falls apart because of the dynamics people like Sister Sage have been encouraging. Here, The Boys shows its hand: it doesn’t matter if Sister Sage survives next season or how well she can handle a fight, she represents the success of an ideology. If she dies, the world is set up to ensure that her plans follow through anyway. That’s a lot scarier than Homelander just killing everybody.
What comes after a coup?
While the world itself shifts, we see Ashley really regret that she didn’t take A-Train up on his offer to skip town. Wherever A-Train is right now, he’s avoiding the fight that awaits him if he ever shows up again. It doesn’t seem like this is just the end of the road for him, though. With characters like Soldier Boy showing up in the post-credits scene, it feels reasonable to expect that characters who have been out of the ring may come back for one last fight.
Additionally, it would be interesting to see Queen Maeve return to help these characters out when they’re ready to finish the fight. Although she’s gone off to find her happy ending, and A-Train has done similarly, it would make sense for these characters to feel obligated to help the main cast out of a sense of duty.
In the last couple of scenes, everything goes so horribly for The Boys that it leaves us hoping that something or someone will help them out. Hughie, M.M., Frenchie, and Kimiko are all taken care of while Butcher and Annie are put to task. It’s possible this will force them to work together in season 5. Neither of them would enjoy doing it, but characters have worked through more unlikely odds before. Hopefully, since characters like Firecracker are still there, Season 5 spends some time fleshing out the way that she serves as a narrative foil for Annie.
Season 4 also walked a nice tightrope with Sam and Cate, who fans love to hate. They were introduced to the audience of the main show at a glance and then having them come in clutch for one of the biggest turns of the episode. From now until Season 5 drops, many people are going to be wondering what Cate told Frenchie to do. If Cate’s instruction was something along the lines of “forget her” regarding Kimiko, it’ll likely have consequences that last for the length of season 5. This could be a new way for Frenchie and Kimiko to find each other, literally as well as emotionally. Hopefully that time is spent doing something more interesting than creating new angst for Frenchie around the heaps of murder he’s partaken in.
The pacing has fixed itself and it feels like season 4 was biding its time the whole way though. Over on The Backdrop, Darren Mooney suggests that the pacing issues we’ve been watching play out are in fact a reflection of the uncertainty that Season 5 would truly be the show’s last. It feels that if much of the filler was trimmed, Season 4 might have been the last one instead. If this show was paced the way it was all the way back in Season 1, we might have been finished by Season 3, even if Hideo Kojima wanted it to go on forever. Despite all of its Season 4’s flaws, this episode represents the sharpness The Boys is best known for. Here’s to hoping that Season 5 provides that same consistency.
