Season 4, Episode 4 of The Boys has brought all the simmering ingredients introduced this season to a roaring boil. Here, we see just how bleak Butcher’s future is looking, Hughie and his dad are a powder keg waiting to ignite, and Sister Sage has full hold of the reins. The odds are more stacked than ever against the main cast, and that’s a great thing.
Note: spoilers for S4E4 of The Boys will follow from here on out.
New directions for old characters
Some of the developments that come out of this episode have taken full seasons to build up to. It’s nice seeing all of that payoff as the characters begin to enter a new status quo. Getting some of the smaller stuff out of the way first, Butcher asks M.M. to take care of Ryan, assuming he’ll die before they take out Homelander.
A realistic view on things coming from Butcher is sobering, which sets up how dire his situation is after having abused Temp-V. There’s a chance that he might survive this or next season, but if he does, Butcher will be a drastically changed character. A version of Butcher that is willingly emotionally vulnerable does seem to indicate that his character arc may be over, or near it, which makes my hopes for his survival low.
Next, there’s Frenchie and his relationship with Colin. So far, Frenchie has played a much smaller part in the season than usual, but his actions have had a ripple effect in two directions. The destruction of his relationship with Colin may cause Annie to reassess who she’s spending her time around. Even though she has refused to partake in the same amount of violence as the rest of the crew, it might be rubbing off on her. Next, and maybe more importantly, Frenchie’s actions have allowed the space Kimiko needs to follow her own focused plot this season. That growth happens with Hughie, which is refreshing because it gives the audience something different from the same beats Kimiko has retread with Frenchie for the past two seasons.
In contrast to Kimiko learning that she isn’t necessarily a monster because she has Compound V flowing through her blood, this season appears more interested in showing us why that’s the case. In her encounters with the Shining Light Liberation Army, Kimiko shows a reluctance to fight and the capacity for empathy, something that appears to be tortured out of the people hunting her. What makes this more interesting is the reveal that shows that she was one of the people doing that torturing. It forces us to ask whether Kimiko can gain some kind of closure here, even if it’s not her fault that she was put into those situations. Does the good she’s been doing recently outweigh all of the horrible from before?
Hughie evolves
Kimiko is forced to communicate more effectively under pressure with Hughie, who may not understand her quite as well as Frenchie might. Butcher and Annie have been closer to him, in many ways. It’s interesting to see Hughie explore his personality outside of those pillars. As Hughie is forced to fight, he does something he’s shown the potential for but rarely delivers on: he believes in himself. In many other parts of this series, Hughie has relied on Annie, Butcher, and even Soldier Boy to do the dirty work. But in a do-or-die moment, he grows. Fighting back and winning on his own, Hughie proves here that he’s more than just the team’s tech guy.
Hughie also understands the toll that comes with taking a life, looking conflicted after doing so. Perhaps he’s reflecting on moments like when he tells A-Train that all of this started because he killed Robin. This has been Hughie’s motivation for the entire series so far. In season 4, the show finally displays a self-awareness about the fact that it’s becoming an old excuse.
If it were all just about Robin, Hughie would have stopped earlier. Despite that, other and frankly more interesting things have propelled him forward, things like the sour taste of betrayal that comes from realizing that Neuman is a Supe. This is connected to Hughie’s pursuit of justice for Robin, but with Neuman, Hughie was finding a way to move on. He was making new friends and holding the moral high ground over Butcher. He’s had no space to recover, been forced into new fights, and now we see how the series lead deals with it. It’s part of why Hughie tried Temp-V last season. It’s also why he couldn’t cope with the thought that his father might die, and that everyone besides him has come to peace with that. That’s what leads him to ask a favor from A-Train, dredging up more of Hughie’s past.
Incidentally, A-Train has been reaching his peak as a character. His redemption arc at times seems too good to be true, and anyone who enjoys predicting where things go next may be worried for his safety. A-Train’s story this season has raised an alarming number of death flags. A-Train has been following a much more optimistic looking path than characters usually end up on. By making allies with people like Hughie, Ashley, and M.M., it shows us that, on theme with Kimiko’s current arc, perhaps he doesn’t need to right every wrong. That’s impossible for him now. Maybe a more feasible task is putting in an earnest effort to be better, and to listen to the sense of guilt that’s been pushing him down this path. Good deeds rarely go unpunished in this show, but if A-Train is killed, likely by Homelander or Sister Sage, at least he might finally go out as a hero.
Our biggest threat so far
Some of the biggest shifts of the season follow. During the premiere of Firecracker’s #Truthbomb, she owns up to an affair with a boy while calling out Annie for acting holier-than-thou. This leads to Annie flying into frame and giving her a beatdown. The direct consequence of this is that Annie’s massive online influence has diminished, a calculated attack by Sister Sage. Until now, Annie’s reputation was somewhat of a safety net for The Boys to fall back on. Sister Sage knows this, which is why it’s just the first domino of what is likely to be a master plan.
If Sister Sage is able to get her way, she poses one of the biggest threats The Boys have seen so far. Homelander has always been the guy who can just kill the team if he gets the chance, but Sister Sage is systematically dismantling the group and leaving them open for it. Thanks to Sage, they’ve never been weaker.
There are seemingly limitless possibilities to what Sister Sage can do, which is what makes her so interesting in comparison. Homelander does what he does best this episode. While it is great, it’s also not as terrifying as it used to be, because he’s done it before and Homelander has so many flaws. Sister Sage is the smartest person in the world. Because of that fact, it’s difficult to shake the feeling that everything happening this season is a part of whatever her plans are.
Even things like Annie getting hits in on Firecracker at all, seem to happen because Sage wanted them to. She was feeling (justifiably) petty after Firecracker called her “uppity.” If that’s what she’ll do over a minor slight, what about Homelander, who’s trying to trap her? Sage has gone as far as to manipulate Homelander, sowing distrust between him and Ryan. That could work as a fail-safe if either of them becomes more of a threat to her. At every step, Sister Sage is out-thinking the entire cast. Because of her track record for flawlessness so far, if she’s made a mistake, it’s hard to see where that is.
Sage has had her eye on the rest of The Boys for a moment, and it’s equally difficult to see where they can earn a win against her. It’s a race for information, and that’s something this crew has been notoriously bad at getting right, choosing to wing it in most situations and barely scraping by. There are some wildcards here, like Butcher and his new unknown power, Hughie’s newly Compound-V-powered father, and Annie’s growing abilities. However, it’s currently more reasonable to expect Sage to find some counter to all of these things.
What comes next?
This is also why, personally, the scene where Sister Sage gets The Deep to lobotomize her was more uncomfortable than watching Homelander terrorize the workers that raised him. Again, we are now familiar with the carnage Homelander has wrought. It’s nothing new. Sage’s lobotomy was gruesome, and leaves more questions than answers. Could her penchant for escape be her downfall?
Where previous episodes this season of The Boys have dragged, every scene in this episode flows into the next, tying everything up in a satisfying knot and leaving us with much to think about. Eventually, we’ll be seeing Cate and Sam from Gen V show up as the newly crowned “Guardians of Godolkin.” There are many things this could mean for Hughie, Butcher, and the rest of The Boys, but few of them are good.
