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Review: The Boys Season 4 (2024)
As was in last season, the story did get a little messy, but it culminated into an exciting cliffhanger. I was told that this season was gearing up for the end of the series and I can see it. It did lag a bit in the middle but I mostly got hyped at the very end lol.
Spoilers.
Story
The overarching story of the season was that of Homelander trying to take over the USA, working with Neuman and Sage to strategize. Meanwhile, the Boys wanted to stop him and the people around him.
As I mentioned in my writeup for the last season, the issue with some of these season-by-season shows is that as we get further in the story, side characters and new characters need to be expanded upon and it dilutes the story because there’s too much going on. And that’s what happened in this season again. I do appreciate that the end came together but it doesn’t negate that bit of messiness during the season.
The actual writing was fine. Nothing had stood out as odd or cringe the way it had in previous seasons. But there were story lines that weren’t given enough time because there wasn’t enough time, and it would have been better to just leave them out.
The season ended with Homelander finally being able to install a puppet president. The Boys were preparing to flee but the were captured. Butcher had tried to convince Ryan to help them in the cause but he got upset and left. Because of that, Butcher took more V (since he was dying anyway) to help him in the upcoming fight.
Production
As violent as always. There was also more sexual content, which had been a growing trend since season 2 in my opinion. The acting was fine.
Characters
Homelander
One of the two main characters of this season. At this point I think we can consider Homelander and Butcher to be the two main characters. Homelander’s big quest is to take over the world, and the story at this point is running on Butcher’s timeline (before he dies). Anyway, Homelander enlisted Sage to help him with his strategy to take over the world, someone on his side since Neuman did not report to him. The issue was that he was a control freak who wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. We saw that when Sage was out of commission, he couldn’t convince the politicians that he was capable and Neuman had to step in. He wants so much but isn’t equipped but he’s trying to buff himself up and believe that he is.
During the season, Homelander visited the lab where he was grown. He humiliated and killed the workers who had humiliated him before, and he killed the others who were working there. The only person he left alive was Barbara. We don’t really know that much about her, but she was the only one that Homelander took seriously. She said that Homelander always had the power to kill any of them, but the psychologists at Vought made sure to program him in a way that he always sought their approval, or approval from someone. Before he visited the lab, he had decided he was going to destroy everyone and everything to remove the chokehold Vought had on him, and that was what he did. The problem is that in the process of trying to gain confidence, he became unaware of where he was lacking, which is a skill that all wise leaders need to have. He believed he could do it himself, that he didn’t need Sage or Neuman.
The other plot with him was between him and his son Ryan. Ryan was being integrated into the Vought ecosystem with his own shows and such. After Ryan’s staged rescue, Homelander was disappointed that Ryan was so distraught over killing a crew member. He tried another approach, using Ryan’s kind heart as an excuse to hurt others (i.e. when he encouraged Ryan to encourage the worker who was being harassed by the director to hurt and humiliate him). That being said, Homelander still didn’t have a full or even growing grasp on his son. Ran didn’t like the songs on the muppet show that encouraged right-wing views, he didn’t like that his father didn’t care for other people. He was very angry when he saw that there was a picture of Becca and Butcher in Ryan’s backpack and Ryan ran away afterwards.
Homelander was upset and distraught as the country crumbled, only for Sage to saunter in and tell him that it all went according to plan and that she’ll be there for phase two. That rejuvenated Homelander. At the end of the season he was taking with the new president who showed him that Soldier Boy was in the possession of the USA all this time. What will Homelander do with him? We shall see.
A-Train
A-Train was starting to question his ways. Up until now, he’d always been very cocky, only caring about his image as a cool superhero with cool feats. Last season, his brother got hurt by a superhero and since then their relationship was strained. A-Train was filming a movie where Will Farrell would portray his coach who pulled him from out of the slums when that was the furthest from the truth; it was always his brother who trained him. A-Train had also been talking to his nephews about his feats, only for his brother to come pick them up and tell them that those were all staged.
A-Train also started to leak information to the Boys. Sage knew of this, but she purposely let him leak just the right amount of information to corner the Boys. But I think maybe we can consider this season a slow beginning of redemption for A-Train. There was one scene where he had to help MM since he got hurt at the party with all the politicians. A-Train took MM to the hospital where a child saw him in awe and wonder and it gave A-Train a good feeling. He realized how good it felt to be doing good. Albeit it was shallow, but A-Train is a person who cares a lot about how others see him. And he realizes how truer that admiration is when he’s actually doing something good.
We’ll see more of A-Train next season. He fled Vought and removed his chip. But he’ll be around.
Deep
Deep remained Homelander’s yes man. He also played a sort of bro mentor role to Noir. It was unusual because we know Deep’s kind of a loser idiot but that’s what happens when you’re new and you just happen to be junior to someone like him. Deep didn’t really have a story. He carried on his relationship with the octopus which was cut short when she realized he was sleeping with Sage and he killed her in anger. But he didn’t really grow as a character.
There was a scene in which Deep and Noir went to attack the Boys (MM, Butcher, Annie) and Deep told Annie that he felt him being cancelled was unfair. We saw that he didn’t really change. He always believed he was right, he’d only pretended to go back on his ways to get back into the Seven. We saw that he had a complex about other people thinking that he was the smartest and the best.
He didn’t die so we’ll see him again next season. We’ll see if anybody manages to turn him against Homelander though.
Sister Sage
Sage was a new character this season. Her superpower was being the smartest person in the world, due to the fact that her brain constantly regenerated. Homelander enlisted her to help with his masterplan. Sage manipulated public opinion, as well as individuals, in order to put forth the plan. And we saw at the end that she did this just to see if she could. She very much was a mastermind. And she’d be here for phase 2, to put forth the second act of the masterplan.
Firecracker
Firecracker was another new hero this season. She was very much embedded in the right wing political scene. She had a podcast where she spouted conspiracy theories. Sage enlisted Firecracker to help her in getting Homelander to the top. Mostly, Sage pit her against Annie to bring her down. Firecracker and Annie had both been in hero pageants as kids and we learned that Annie had been very mean to her. Firecracker held that grudge until now. And so Firecracker spouted hate against her, goading Annie to attack her, which then turned public opinion against Annie. Firecracker wasn’t happy about being beat up, but she recovered.
Firecracker put Homelander on a pedestal, he was her hero, literally and figuratively. When Homelander thought Sage was lying to him, Firecracker used that opportunity to establish her loyalty to Homelander. She’d taken drugs so that she’d lactate. She somehow found out that Homelander liked drinking breastmilk and that was proof of her devotion to him. But as the season went on, we saw that Homelander couldn’t rely on her for much else. She didn’t have the brains to help him with his masterplan.
Ashley
Ashley was basically going mad at this point, despite still being the CEO. Of course she was deathly afraid of Homelander still, pulling out her hair and basically being bald. But she was starting to think about getting out. A-Train and Ashley bumped into each other when they were both doing things they shouldn’t have been, and that grew their shared sentiment of Vought being a terrible place.
Normally, Ashley took part in BDSM to alleviate her stress but her partner, the reporter, was no longer attracted to her as he felt she wasn’t a girlboss anymore. She got revenge on him by framing him for being the leak, though Sage knew the truth. Nonetheless, Ashley’s BDSM habits remained a strong theme and I’m not sure for what other than shock value (like the scene when she and Tek-Knight were supposed to have a BDSM scene with Webweaver who was actually Hughie in disguise).
Towards the end, A-Train convinced Ashley to get out of Vought. As Homelander read out his plan to kill anyone in Vought who had dirt on him, Ashley snuck in to his place and took V. So she’ll be back with powers, and maybe she and A-Train will be seen helping the Boys.
Ashley’s arc was a long time coming. She was so pleased when Stilwell was gone because she would become CEO, only for her to be completely under Homelander’s control. As a human, she feared for her life. She was not as smart as Stilwell, was not able to keep Homelander under her thumb as she owed her job to him. So she tried to take out her stress on other things (sex, herself). But she’s burned herself out now. The stress has nowhere to go. She knows now that she needs to leave. Only that Vought isn’t just a simple company, it’s much dangerous than just resigning from your typical job.
Victoria Neuman
Neuman was working with Homelander this season. She was vice-president elect to Singer who strongly supported anti-supe laws. That was her original platform too, but we’ve seen over the past two seasons that her goal really was to become the president, and that she would use whatever platform she could to get there. Even if she was a superhero, she could support anti-superhero laws if it benefited her. And now it suited her to revert back to supporting superhero laws since that was why Homelander allied with her.
We learned a little bit more about Neuman’s backstory. Soon after she was of age, she had sex with a scientist at Vought and that was how Zoe was conceived. We met that scientist Sameer when Edgar was trying to take the Boys to see the virus that could possibly take out superheros. Neuman believed Sameer had died in the ensuing supe farm animal attack, but Sameer had been kidnapped and amputated by Butcher to recreate the virus. Victoria never learned that Sameer had been used. If she did, she’d probably be quite upset.
Homelander outed Neuman being a supe on television which put into motion the events at the end of the season, where Singer went into an underground bunker and was attacked by the shapeshifter who was posing as Annie who was killed by actual Annie. Neuman then called Hughie wanting an out. She and Zoe were taken to the Boys’ hideout. However, Butcher showed up all V’ed up and killed Neuman because he was tired of striking deals. And ironically Zoe was sent back to the orphanage that her mother grew up in.
Neuman was someone who wanted power but she didn’t really know what for. Homelander knew he wanted power because he wanted approval. Neuman was just raised to want power, given that her father was Stan Edgar. She said she was doing it to protect Zoe, but as things got out of control, she realized she didn’t know what she was doing, and in fact made life more dangerous for Zoe.
Hughie
Hughie no longer took any V, despite really liking it last season. He was back to helping the Boys.
He had a subplot in which his father had a stroke, and he ran into his mom again, since his dad made her the power of attorney. This made Hughie very upset, as his mom had been out of his life for so long and he felt she didn’t have the right to oversee his father’s health. His father wasn’t doing so well so Hughie had A-Train steal V for him to inject into his father. At the last minute, Hughie opted not to shoot his dad with V, but his mom did it, thinking that was Hughie’s intention. His dad grew the ability to go through walls and other barriers (like people’s bodies). This confused him greatly and he killed at least a few people that way. At this point, Hughie’s dad was also starting to grow confused, thinking that Hughie was still a child. In the end, Hughie used a drug from Frenchie to euthanize his father so that he could die as peacefully as he could, seeing his ex-wife and his son in front of him. I thought this subplot (Hughie’s relationship with his dad) was a bit unnecessary. I guess the story was about putting his father to rest when it was time, letting things go when it was time and that he would be prepared when it was Butcher’s time. I felt it was kind of cruel to put his dad through that though. I guess that subplot was also to do with Hughie reconciling with his mother, and reconciling rights. Maybe Hughie was Butcher’s second chance. He was able to make good all the things Butcher could not.
Hughie also proposed to Annie, albeit shapeshifter Annie, so they’re entering a new stage of their relationship. But it doesn’t really change the trajectory of the story. It was only meant to hurt Annie in the context of the story, of having such an important moment be taken away from her by the shapeshifter.
Annie
Annie started a movement that was anti-Vought. I guess she kind of took Neuman’s role from season 1. And that was why Sage needed to target Annie and take her down. Firecracker fully got the right-wing side to take her down, saying she was a baby killer for having an abortion (ignoring the fact that Firecracker had sex with a minor).
There was a growing theme over the show about Annie not being as good of a person as she was initially portrayed. She was portrayed as a good Christian girl gone wild but still a good girl by Vought. We first saw her being challenged by Firecracker, who said that Annie had said cruel things to her. We saw that Annie remembered every word and she was sorry, but she knew there was nothing that could be done. Annie was starting to lose control of her abilities, and she would act out in violence, like how she beat up Firecracker on camera. In a confrontation with the shapeshifter, the shapeshifter ridiculed her for seeing herself as someone who could do no wrong. She swept her pageant cruelties under the rug. She believed beating people in public was not her true self. But the truth was that Annie did all those things. This theme of Annie’s was addressed differently in the past, it was more about how she was starting to uncover the cruel parts of herself. But I guess the way this is supposed to round out is that she’d always had those parts of her, she just tried to hide it to make herself feel better.
At the end of the season, Annie and Hughie were going away together, but Hughie was captured by a supe and some other personnel. Annie fled the scene, figuring she could do more for Hughie from the outside if she was not captured rather than fighting the supe right then and there and risk them having reinforcements.
Annie had been learning to fly during the season, but we saw that she was struggling to control her electricity powers and was prone to outbursts. She seemed in control when she fled from the supe, but I think she’s going to be more powerful when we see her next season.
Butcher
Butcher had a limited time frame to live because he’d taken too much temporary V. It was also taking a big toll on his health. He thought he’d recruited an old friend, Joe Kessler, who’d help him in recruiting Ryan and taking down Homelander. He was hallucinating Becca who would be his voice of reason. But we found out that Butcher was hallucinating both of them. It wasn’t Kessler who did cruel things to Sameer, it was Butcher himself who’d done it.
Butcher came back to the boys from time to time. Sometimes M.M. needed him to help with captaining the team, and sometimes Butcher would go back and do his own thing. He was very in and out.
Butcher’s relationship with Ryan had been poor ever since last season when he pushed him away and Homelander swooped in. But Butcher did still see him fondly. He was very wary of using Ryan as a weapon against Homelander. At the end of the season, he was very ill. He asked Grace to help him with talking to Ryan and we find out that they decided that Ryan really was their only hope in going against Homelander. Grace was blunter about it and Butcher tried to be a little softer, but Ryan was still upset and fled. Realizing that Ryan wasn’t an option, Butcher pumped himself full of V for one last battle. Specifically, it seemed he took a kind of V that was at the farm lab. There was a rabbit who’d had a monster burst out of its body like in alien, and we saw Butcher have those tentacles bursting from his chest too at the end.
As I mentioned, the show is coming down to Homelander vs. Butcher. As broken men from broken families trying to be fathers.
M.M.
M.M. as mentioned would captain the Boys when Butcher was off doing his own thing. Todd, his ex-wife’s former partner was killed at the beginning of the season, used as martyrs by Homelander and Sage to paint the Starlighters as violent and bloodthirsty. M.M. had very little personal storyline though. He flip-flopped between staying out of the Boys and going with them. And he continued flip-flopping at the end. He was going to flee with his ex-wife and daughter, but A-Train convinced him to stay to fight. There was also a subplot where M.M.’s daughter had anger issues which were implied to be inherited from him. But that kind of falls under the umbrella of M.M. struggling to be a good role model for his daughter by not engaging in violent work as the Boys do. But M.M. was taken in by the supes at the end, by his nemesis the Love Sausage guy.
Frenchie
Frenchie met a guy, Colin, at the Starlight Foundation who he was attracted to, but he realized he had killed his entire family years ago. He was very guilty all the while he continued sleeping with Colin. Kimiko tried to encourage Frenchie to go out with Colin, but I don’t remember if she knew about their past history. Anyway, Frenchie eventually fessed up and Colin was understandably very upset and told him never to come near him again. Frenchie later couldn’t handle the guilt and turned himself in to the police. Butcher broke him out to work on the virus.
At the end, Frenchie and Kimiko got together. But he was taken into custody, seemingly by a supe who hypnotized him into going on his own.
Kimiko
Kimiko bumped into a girl she knew from Shining Light who had a bone to pick with her, though Kimiko was reluctant to fight her. That storyline wasn’t really expanded upon, I was a little confused, and I believe that girl ended up dying. But I guess it was all a reminder for Kimiko of who she was. She revealed that she was mute because when at Shining Light, she was in a trial where she had to fight another person and they both were not allowed to make noise. So it was related to her trauma, but not the way her brother Kenji thought.
I do appreciate the friendship that we had between Kimiko and Annie as the only supes in the Boys. Of course they fought alongside each other but I felt they could confide in each other in various things, both in terms of being supes and just as the two women in the boys. Anyway, Kimiko and Frenchie got together and Kimiko was very excited to share that with Annie hehe.
Kimiko and Frenchie were taken in to custody at the end. As Frenchie was walking into the armoured vehicle himself, Kimiko regained use of her voice, shouting “no” at Frenchie. But she was held back and presumably would also be apprehended.
Ryan
Ryan spent most of this season with Homelander. As mentioned, he was being integrated into the Vought ecosystem. First, Homelander set up his very first rescue but it was completely staged which disillusioned Ryan. Ryan also accidentally killed one of the actors and was very upset about it, which disappointed his dad a lot. Vought kept trying to push Ryan to do more superhero-type stuff by Ryan didn’t like it. Homelander recognized this, and decided to let Ryan choose whether or not to do certain shows.
So Ryan got off without doing the superhero show. Homelander tried to get to Ryan through other means. There was a time he asked Ryan what he wanted to do, and Ryan said he wanted to help other people. Homelander got Ryan to ‘help’ that woman being harassed by the director, but appealed to the teenage boy side of Ryan who might like to see some fucked up stuff (in this case, the director getting hit). It seemed that Homelander didn’t get far with that side though. I thought it was odd to introduce it and not expand on it. Anyway, Ryan ended up doing a show with muppets. However, the muppets were saying really racist and right wing stuff which made Ryan feel really weird, to a point where he stopped broadcast t tell the viewers himself that he thought the muppets weren’t right, that we should love our families.
Butcher would find ways to talk to Ryan. First it was through a video game. Another time, Homelander had Ryan visit him with the plan to drug him and send him away but he decided against it. Ryan also found a picture of his mom and Butcher under the Christmas tree which made him miss Butcher. So that was why he went to the hospital (actually a CIA facility) to visit Butcher.
Ryan was very distraught when Grace laid on the news strong that Homelander was a bad person, that he killed everyone on that flight, that he raped his mother, etc. Grace emphasized that Ryan was the only shot at killing Homelander and Butcher unfortunately had to agree. Ryan was very upset because he didn’t want to kill anyone. Ryan pushed and killed Grace in anger, and ran away on his own.
But we know that Ryan’s going to come back next season. And I’m excited to see what he’ll do.
Themes
Racism
This was part of the bigger theme of right-wing politics. We saw this again with A-Train. As the one mainstay of the Seven who’s black, he’s always suffered microaggressions and we saw them here in that movie that he as filming which was completely made up and not reflective of his life at all.
It was refreshing seeing A-Train and Sage both on the Seven but not being in agreement. Just because they’re both black doesn’t mean they’re automatically friends. They are still their own people, and we saw they definitely ended up on very different sides of the war.
Politics
Homelander and Vicky were trying to take over the USA in their own ways. Homelander wanted to rule with fear (and maybe some adoration if it could be afforded to him) and Vicky wanted to rule under the pretense of politics. They would work together. And it became obvious that the actual politics introduced were both just tools for them to get to the top. Why did Sage bring in ultra right wing Firecracker? Because she was simply a tool to take down Annie. Actual politics doesn’t mean anything to them. They’re just using whatever is easiest to control the masses.
As a super smart person, politics is just a game to Sage. She admitted that this was a fun experience for her, and she just wanted to see if she can do it. We’ll see it again next season too, when she helps Homelander with phase 2.
Childrearing
Family remains a consistent theme in this series. Raising children is not easy and we see the cycle in which people from difficult childhoods continue to not be able to parent the best way.
Homelander grew up without a family. He was raised to be completely reliant on the approval of those who tested on him. Only now as an adult did he see them as humiliating and cruel. And he killed those people in an attempt to get some justice for his younger self. But as a dad, he failed to realize that every person is different. There was a scene in which he got angry and told Ryan that he’d given everything that Homelander had ever wanted as a kid. He didn’t understand that Ryan didn’t want all that. Part of that is Ryan just being a different person, part of that is Ryan’s upbringing by Becca. Homelander wanted to induce violence in Ryan but Ryan just wasn’t about it, even if he showed a slight bit of interest.
Butcher also came from a broken family. His father was abusive, he abandoned his brother who committed suicide. He pushed Ryan away. But we see he’s coming around. He admitted to Ryan that he did a bad thing by blaming Becca’s death on Ryan and pushing him away. He’s trying to be nice to Hughie in an attempt at justice for Lenny and all the kids like him who needed to be acknowledged for who they are.
Victoria kind of had no idea what she was doing with Zoe. She kept convincing herself she was trying to protect Zoe when she decided to side with the supes. But given that she was raised by Edgar and turned on him, family is complicated for her too. She realized that Edgar was using her. So what would her relationship have been with Zoe? She was using Zoe as an excuse for her own ambitions.
Overall
I did find the ending kind of hype as we finally had focus back on the main story line, of Homelander trying to take over the USA, and the boys being captured. Looking forward to season 5 when it comes out.
Spoilers.
Story
The overarching story of the season was that of Homelander trying to take over the USA, working with Neuman and Sage to strategize. Meanwhile, the Boys wanted to stop him and the people around him.
As I mentioned in my writeup for the last season, the issue with some of these season-by-season shows is that as we get further in the story, side characters and new characters need to be expanded upon and it dilutes the story because there’s too much going on. And that’s what happened in this season again. I do appreciate that the end came together but it doesn’t negate that bit of messiness during the season.
The actual writing was fine. Nothing had stood out as odd or cringe the way it had in previous seasons. But there were story lines that weren’t given enough time because there wasn’t enough time, and it would have been better to just leave them out.
The season ended with Homelander finally being able to install a puppet president. The Boys were preparing to flee but the were captured. Butcher had tried to convince Ryan to help them in the cause but he got upset and left. Because of that, Butcher took more V (since he was dying anyway) to help him in the upcoming fight.
Production
As violent as always. There was also more sexual content, which had been a growing trend since season 2 in my opinion. The acting was fine.
Characters
Homelander
One of the two main characters of this season. At this point I think we can consider Homelander and Butcher to be the two main characters. Homelander’s big quest is to take over the world, and the story at this point is running on Butcher’s timeline (before he dies). Anyway, Homelander enlisted Sage to help him with his strategy to take over the world, someone on his side since Neuman did not report to him. The issue was that he was a control freak who wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. We saw that when Sage was out of commission, he couldn’t convince the politicians that he was capable and Neuman had to step in. He wants so much but isn’t equipped but he’s trying to buff himself up and believe that he is.
During the season, Homelander visited the lab where he was grown. He humiliated and killed the workers who had humiliated him before, and he killed the others who were working there. The only person he left alive was Barbara. We don’t really know that much about her, but she was the only one that Homelander took seriously. She said that Homelander always had the power to kill any of them, but the psychologists at Vought made sure to program him in a way that he always sought their approval, or approval from someone. Before he visited the lab, he had decided he was going to destroy everyone and everything to remove the chokehold Vought had on him, and that was what he did. The problem is that in the process of trying to gain confidence, he became unaware of where he was lacking, which is a skill that all wise leaders need to have. He believed he could do it himself, that he didn’t need Sage or Neuman.
The other plot with him was between him and his son Ryan. Ryan was being integrated into the Vought ecosystem with his own shows and such. After Ryan’s staged rescue, Homelander was disappointed that Ryan was so distraught over killing a crew member. He tried another approach, using Ryan’s kind heart as an excuse to hurt others (i.e. when he encouraged Ryan to encourage the worker who was being harassed by the director to hurt and humiliate him). That being said, Homelander still didn’t have a full or even growing grasp on his son. Ran didn’t like the songs on the muppet show that encouraged right-wing views, he didn’t like that his father didn’t care for other people. He was very angry when he saw that there was a picture of Becca and Butcher in Ryan’s backpack and Ryan ran away afterwards.
Homelander was upset and distraught as the country crumbled, only for Sage to saunter in and tell him that it all went according to plan and that she’ll be there for phase two. That rejuvenated Homelander. At the end of the season he was taking with the new president who showed him that Soldier Boy was in the possession of the USA all this time. What will Homelander do with him? We shall see.
A-Train
A-Train was starting to question his ways. Up until now, he’d always been very cocky, only caring about his image as a cool superhero with cool feats. Last season, his brother got hurt by a superhero and since then their relationship was strained. A-Train was filming a movie where Will Farrell would portray his coach who pulled him from out of the slums when that was the furthest from the truth; it was always his brother who trained him. A-Train had also been talking to his nephews about his feats, only for his brother to come pick them up and tell them that those were all staged.
A-Train also started to leak information to the Boys. Sage knew of this, but she purposely let him leak just the right amount of information to corner the Boys. But I think maybe we can consider this season a slow beginning of redemption for A-Train. There was one scene where he had to help MM since he got hurt at the party with all the politicians. A-Train took MM to the hospital where a child saw him in awe and wonder and it gave A-Train a good feeling. He realized how good it felt to be doing good. Albeit it was shallow, but A-Train is a person who cares a lot about how others see him. And he realizes how truer that admiration is when he’s actually doing something good.
We’ll see more of A-Train next season. He fled Vought and removed his chip. But he’ll be around.
Deep
Deep remained Homelander’s yes man. He also played a sort of bro mentor role to Noir. It was unusual because we know Deep’s kind of a loser idiot but that’s what happens when you’re new and you just happen to be junior to someone like him. Deep didn’t really have a story. He carried on his relationship with the octopus which was cut short when she realized he was sleeping with Sage and he killed her in anger. But he didn’t really grow as a character.
There was a scene in which Deep and Noir went to attack the Boys (MM, Butcher, Annie) and Deep told Annie that he felt him being cancelled was unfair. We saw that he didn’t really change. He always believed he was right, he’d only pretended to go back on his ways to get back into the Seven. We saw that he had a complex about other people thinking that he was the smartest and the best.
He didn’t die so we’ll see him again next season. We’ll see if anybody manages to turn him against Homelander though.
Sister Sage
Sage was a new character this season. Her superpower was being the smartest person in the world, due to the fact that her brain constantly regenerated. Homelander enlisted her to help with his masterplan. Sage manipulated public opinion, as well as individuals, in order to put forth the plan. And we saw at the end that she did this just to see if she could. She very much was a mastermind. And she’d be here for phase 2, to put forth the second act of the masterplan.
Firecracker
Firecracker was another new hero this season. She was very much embedded in the right wing political scene. She had a podcast where she spouted conspiracy theories. Sage enlisted Firecracker to help her in getting Homelander to the top. Mostly, Sage pit her against Annie to bring her down. Firecracker and Annie had both been in hero pageants as kids and we learned that Annie had been very mean to her. Firecracker held that grudge until now. And so Firecracker spouted hate against her, goading Annie to attack her, which then turned public opinion against Annie. Firecracker wasn’t happy about being beat up, but she recovered.
Firecracker put Homelander on a pedestal, he was her hero, literally and figuratively. When Homelander thought Sage was lying to him, Firecracker used that opportunity to establish her loyalty to Homelander. She’d taken drugs so that she’d lactate. She somehow found out that Homelander liked drinking breastmilk and that was proof of her devotion to him. But as the season went on, we saw that Homelander couldn’t rely on her for much else. She didn’t have the brains to help him with his masterplan.
Ashley
Ashley was basically going mad at this point, despite still being the CEO. Of course she was deathly afraid of Homelander still, pulling out her hair and basically being bald. But she was starting to think about getting out. A-Train and Ashley bumped into each other when they were both doing things they shouldn’t have been, and that grew their shared sentiment of Vought being a terrible place.
Normally, Ashley took part in BDSM to alleviate her stress but her partner, the reporter, was no longer attracted to her as he felt she wasn’t a girlboss anymore. She got revenge on him by framing him for being the leak, though Sage knew the truth. Nonetheless, Ashley’s BDSM habits remained a strong theme and I’m not sure for what other than shock value (like the scene when she and Tek-Knight were supposed to have a BDSM scene with Webweaver who was actually Hughie in disguise).
Towards the end, A-Train convinced Ashley to get out of Vought. As Homelander read out his plan to kill anyone in Vought who had dirt on him, Ashley snuck in to his place and took V. So she’ll be back with powers, and maybe she and A-Train will be seen helping the Boys.
Ashley’s arc was a long time coming. She was so pleased when Stilwell was gone because she would become CEO, only for her to be completely under Homelander’s control. As a human, she feared for her life. She was not as smart as Stilwell, was not able to keep Homelander under her thumb as she owed her job to him. So she tried to take out her stress on other things (sex, herself). But she’s burned herself out now. The stress has nowhere to go. She knows now that she needs to leave. Only that Vought isn’t just a simple company, it’s much dangerous than just resigning from your typical job.
Victoria Neuman
Neuman was working with Homelander this season. She was vice-president elect to Singer who strongly supported anti-supe laws. That was her original platform too, but we’ve seen over the past two seasons that her goal really was to become the president, and that she would use whatever platform she could to get there. Even if she was a superhero, she could support anti-superhero laws if it benefited her. And now it suited her to revert back to supporting superhero laws since that was why Homelander allied with her.
We learned a little bit more about Neuman’s backstory. Soon after she was of age, she had sex with a scientist at Vought and that was how Zoe was conceived. We met that scientist Sameer when Edgar was trying to take the Boys to see the virus that could possibly take out superheros. Neuman believed Sameer had died in the ensuing supe farm animal attack, but Sameer had been kidnapped and amputated by Butcher to recreate the virus. Victoria never learned that Sameer had been used. If she did, she’d probably be quite upset.
Homelander outed Neuman being a supe on television which put into motion the events at the end of the season, where Singer went into an underground bunker and was attacked by the shapeshifter who was posing as Annie who was killed by actual Annie. Neuman then called Hughie wanting an out. She and Zoe were taken to the Boys’ hideout. However, Butcher showed up all V’ed up and killed Neuman because he was tired of striking deals. And ironically Zoe was sent back to the orphanage that her mother grew up in.
Neuman was someone who wanted power but she didn’t really know what for. Homelander knew he wanted power because he wanted approval. Neuman was just raised to want power, given that her father was Stan Edgar. She said she was doing it to protect Zoe, but as things got out of control, she realized she didn’t know what she was doing, and in fact made life more dangerous for Zoe.
Hughie
Hughie no longer took any V, despite really liking it last season. He was back to helping the Boys.
He had a subplot in which his father had a stroke, and he ran into his mom again, since his dad made her the power of attorney. This made Hughie very upset, as his mom had been out of his life for so long and he felt she didn’t have the right to oversee his father’s health. His father wasn’t doing so well so Hughie had A-Train steal V for him to inject into his father. At the last minute, Hughie opted not to shoot his dad with V, but his mom did it, thinking that was Hughie’s intention. His dad grew the ability to go through walls and other barriers (like people’s bodies). This confused him greatly and he killed at least a few people that way. At this point, Hughie’s dad was also starting to grow confused, thinking that Hughie was still a child. In the end, Hughie used a drug from Frenchie to euthanize his father so that he could die as peacefully as he could, seeing his ex-wife and his son in front of him. I thought this subplot (Hughie’s relationship with his dad) was a bit unnecessary. I guess the story was about putting his father to rest when it was time, letting things go when it was time and that he would be prepared when it was Butcher’s time. I felt it was kind of cruel to put his dad through that though. I guess that subplot was also to do with Hughie reconciling with his mother, and reconciling rights. Maybe Hughie was Butcher’s second chance. He was able to make good all the things Butcher could not.
Hughie also proposed to Annie, albeit shapeshifter Annie, so they’re entering a new stage of their relationship. But it doesn’t really change the trajectory of the story. It was only meant to hurt Annie in the context of the story, of having such an important moment be taken away from her by the shapeshifter.
Annie
Annie started a movement that was anti-Vought. I guess she kind of took Neuman’s role from season 1. And that was why Sage needed to target Annie and take her down. Firecracker fully got the right-wing side to take her down, saying she was a baby killer for having an abortion (ignoring the fact that Firecracker had sex with a minor).
There was a growing theme over the show about Annie not being as good of a person as she was initially portrayed. She was portrayed as a good Christian girl gone wild but still a good girl by Vought. We first saw her being challenged by Firecracker, who said that Annie had said cruel things to her. We saw that Annie remembered every word and she was sorry, but she knew there was nothing that could be done. Annie was starting to lose control of her abilities, and she would act out in violence, like how she beat up Firecracker on camera. In a confrontation with the shapeshifter, the shapeshifter ridiculed her for seeing herself as someone who could do no wrong. She swept her pageant cruelties under the rug. She believed beating people in public was not her true self. But the truth was that Annie did all those things. This theme of Annie’s was addressed differently in the past, it was more about how she was starting to uncover the cruel parts of herself. But I guess the way this is supposed to round out is that she’d always had those parts of her, she just tried to hide it to make herself feel better.
At the end of the season, Annie and Hughie were going away together, but Hughie was captured by a supe and some other personnel. Annie fled the scene, figuring she could do more for Hughie from the outside if she was not captured rather than fighting the supe right then and there and risk them having reinforcements.
Annie had been learning to fly during the season, but we saw that she was struggling to control her electricity powers and was prone to outbursts. She seemed in control when she fled from the supe, but I think she’s going to be more powerful when we see her next season.
Butcher
Butcher had a limited time frame to live because he’d taken too much temporary V. It was also taking a big toll on his health. He thought he’d recruited an old friend, Joe Kessler, who’d help him in recruiting Ryan and taking down Homelander. He was hallucinating Becca who would be his voice of reason. But we found out that Butcher was hallucinating both of them. It wasn’t Kessler who did cruel things to Sameer, it was Butcher himself who’d done it.
Butcher came back to the boys from time to time. Sometimes M.M. needed him to help with captaining the team, and sometimes Butcher would go back and do his own thing. He was very in and out.
Butcher’s relationship with Ryan had been poor ever since last season when he pushed him away and Homelander swooped in. But Butcher did still see him fondly. He was very wary of using Ryan as a weapon against Homelander. At the end of the season, he was very ill. He asked Grace to help him with talking to Ryan and we find out that they decided that Ryan really was their only hope in going against Homelander. Grace was blunter about it and Butcher tried to be a little softer, but Ryan was still upset and fled. Realizing that Ryan wasn’t an option, Butcher pumped himself full of V for one last battle. Specifically, it seemed he took a kind of V that was at the farm lab. There was a rabbit who’d had a monster burst out of its body like in alien, and we saw Butcher have those tentacles bursting from his chest too at the end.
As I mentioned, the show is coming down to Homelander vs. Butcher. As broken men from broken families trying to be fathers.
M.M.
M.M. as mentioned would captain the Boys when Butcher was off doing his own thing. Todd, his ex-wife’s former partner was killed at the beginning of the season, used as martyrs by Homelander and Sage to paint the Starlighters as violent and bloodthirsty. M.M. had very little personal storyline though. He flip-flopped between staying out of the Boys and going with them. And he continued flip-flopping at the end. He was going to flee with his ex-wife and daughter, but A-Train convinced him to stay to fight. There was also a subplot where M.M.’s daughter had anger issues which were implied to be inherited from him. But that kind of falls under the umbrella of M.M. struggling to be a good role model for his daughter by not engaging in violent work as the Boys do. But M.M. was taken in by the supes at the end, by his nemesis the Love Sausage guy.
Frenchie
Frenchie met a guy, Colin, at the Starlight Foundation who he was attracted to, but he realized he had killed his entire family years ago. He was very guilty all the while he continued sleeping with Colin. Kimiko tried to encourage Frenchie to go out with Colin, but I don’t remember if she knew about their past history. Anyway, Frenchie eventually fessed up and Colin was understandably very upset and told him never to come near him again. Frenchie later couldn’t handle the guilt and turned himself in to the police. Butcher broke him out to work on the virus.
At the end, Frenchie and Kimiko got together. But he was taken into custody, seemingly by a supe who hypnotized him into going on his own.
Kimiko
Kimiko bumped into a girl she knew from Shining Light who had a bone to pick with her, though Kimiko was reluctant to fight her. That storyline wasn’t really expanded upon, I was a little confused, and I believe that girl ended up dying. But I guess it was all a reminder for Kimiko of who she was. She revealed that she was mute because when at Shining Light, she was in a trial where she had to fight another person and they both were not allowed to make noise. So it was related to her trauma, but not the way her brother Kenji thought.
I do appreciate the friendship that we had between Kimiko and Annie as the only supes in the Boys. Of course they fought alongside each other but I felt they could confide in each other in various things, both in terms of being supes and just as the two women in the boys. Anyway, Kimiko and Frenchie got together and Kimiko was very excited to share that with Annie hehe.
Kimiko and Frenchie were taken in to custody at the end. As Frenchie was walking into the armoured vehicle himself, Kimiko regained use of her voice, shouting “no” at Frenchie. But she was held back and presumably would also be apprehended.
Ryan
Ryan spent most of this season with Homelander. As mentioned, he was being integrated into the Vought ecosystem. First, Homelander set up his very first rescue but it was completely staged which disillusioned Ryan. Ryan also accidentally killed one of the actors and was very upset about it, which disappointed his dad a lot. Vought kept trying to push Ryan to do more superhero-type stuff by Ryan didn’t like it. Homelander recognized this, and decided to let Ryan choose whether or not to do certain shows.
So Ryan got off without doing the superhero show. Homelander tried to get to Ryan through other means. There was a time he asked Ryan what he wanted to do, and Ryan said he wanted to help other people. Homelander got Ryan to ‘help’ that woman being harassed by the director, but appealed to the teenage boy side of Ryan who might like to see some fucked up stuff (in this case, the director getting hit). It seemed that Homelander didn’t get far with that side though. I thought it was odd to introduce it and not expand on it. Anyway, Ryan ended up doing a show with muppets. However, the muppets were saying really racist and right wing stuff which made Ryan feel really weird, to a point where he stopped broadcast t tell the viewers himself that he thought the muppets weren’t right, that we should love our families.
Butcher would find ways to talk to Ryan. First it was through a video game. Another time, Homelander had Ryan visit him with the plan to drug him and send him away but he decided against it. Ryan also found a picture of his mom and Butcher under the Christmas tree which made him miss Butcher. So that was why he went to the hospital (actually a CIA facility) to visit Butcher.
Ryan was very distraught when Grace laid on the news strong that Homelander was a bad person, that he killed everyone on that flight, that he raped his mother, etc. Grace emphasized that Ryan was the only shot at killing Homelander and Butcher unfortunately had to agree. Ryan was very upset because he didn’t want to kill anyone. Ryan pushed and killed Grace in anger, and ran away on his own.
But we know that Ryan’s going to come back next season. And I’m excited to see what he’ll do.
Themes
Racism
This was part of the bigger theme of right-wing politics. We saw this again with A-Train. As the one mainstay of the Seven who’s black, he’s always suffered microaggressions and we saw them here in that movie that he as filming which was completely made up and not reflective of his life at all.
It was refreshing seeing A-Train and Sage both on the Seven but not being in agreement. Just because they’re both black doesn’t mean they’re automatically friends. They are still their own people, and we saw they definitely ended up on very different sides of the war.
Politics
Homelander and Vicky were trying to take over the USA in their own ways. Homelander wanted to rule with fear (and maybe some adoration if it could be afforded to him) and Vicky wanted to rule under the pretense of politics. They would work together. And it became obvious that the actual politics introduced were both just tools for them to get to the top. Why did Sage bring in ultra right wing Firecracker? Because she was simply a tool to take down Annie. Actual politics doesn’t mean anything to them. They’re just using whatever is easiest to control the masses.
As a super smart person, politics is just a game to Sage. She admitted that this was a fun experience for her, and she just wanted to see if she can do it. We’ll see it again next season too, when she helps Homelander with phase 2.
Childrearing
Family remains a consistent theme in this series. Raising children is not easy and we see the cycle in which people from difficult childhoods continue to not be able to parent the best way.
Homelander grew up without a family. He was raised to be completely reliant on the approval of those who tested on him. Only now as an adult did he see them as humiliating and cruel. And he killed those people in an attempt to get some justice for his younger self. But as a dad, he failed to realize that every person is different. There was a scene in which he got angry and told Ryan that he’d given everything that Homelander had ever wanted as a kid. He didn’t understand that Ryan didn’t want all that. Part of that is Ryan just being a different person, part of that is Ryan’s upbringing by Becca. Homelander wanted to induce violence in Ryan but Ryan just wasn’t about it, even if he showed a slight bit of interest.
Butcher also came from a broken family. His father was abusive, he abandoned his brother who committed suicide. He pushed Ryan away. But we see he’s coming around. He admitted to Ryan that he did a bad thing by blaming Becca’s death on Ryan and pushing him away. He’s trying to be nice to Hughie in an attempt at justice for Lenny and all the kids like him who needed to be acknowledged for who they are.
Victoria kind of had no idea what she was doing with Zoe. She kept convincing herself she was trying to protect Zoe when she decided to side with the supes. But given that she was raised by Edgar and turned on him, family is complicated for her too. She realized that Edgar was using her. So what would her relationship have been with Zoe? She was using Zoe as an excuse for her own ambitions.
Overall
I did find the ending kind of hype as we finally had focus back on the main story line, of Homelander trying to take over the USA, and the boys being captured. Looking forward to season 5 when it comes out.