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Review by Andrew Bloom
VIP9[7.8/10] There’s been a subtle theme of people breaking good on The Boys this season. It’s always been a dark show about people messing up and playing in the dirt in the hopes of keeping others clean. And yet, there’s been throughlines -- about A-Train turning to the good, about MM coming into his own as a leader, in a weird way even about Homelander becoming a better father -- that brought more and more folks into the light.
You can see that in “Assassination Run”, the finale of season 4. Time again, people choose something better, more hopeful, with a more aspirational bent than The Boys’ usual cynicism.
After a season’s worth of struggling with her past and her identity, Annie January starts to reconcile with herself. It’s admittedly strange, albeit on brand for this show, that what pushes her to that point is a sociopathic doppelganger who thinks the worst of her after being inside of her head. Not for nothing, it’s Erin Moriarty’s best performance of the season, as she revels in getting to play the heel for once. And the show’s production team does extraordinary work in putting Starlight and her double on screen together in close quarters.
And yet, what gets Annie out of her funk is a little ambiguous, but seeing a vision of her worst self presents to her, giving her the opportunity to reject it. Beating up someone who looks exactly like you, Captain Kirk-style, can apparently give you some moral clarity. More importantly, though, Annie’s confident enough to know what she wants to fight for, and who she wants to fight for it with. That's enough for her to have a breakthrough and help save the day when it’s needed most.
Kimiko and Frenchie have a bit of a breakthrough too. After participating in all of this and feeling the good vibes through difficult circumstances, they resolve to try to forgive themselves a little bit each day. The idea that there is bravery in that, a chance to grow and move forward, is heartening, especially as they find solace in the comfort they provide to one another.
I’ll admit, I’ve never been a Frenchie/Kimiko shipper. The relationship always felt a little too brother/sister to me, and beyond that, a little troubling given the state that Frenchie found and nurtured Kimiko in. But I can't deny that they’re sweet together, and with a first kiss on tippy toes, sweetness isn’t bad amid all the darkness.
Hughie aims to cut through that darkness. If there’s something in The Boys that is aspirational, that speaks to human resilience and decency, it’s his pitch to his friends and allies. The cynical view is that too often, superhero flicks tell us implicitly that violence is the solution, and that the answer to terrible danger and vicious threats is to punch them in the mouth, preferably with a superpowered fist.
Hughie proposes something radical, albeit ironically in line with the philosophy of Professor X. He suggests that forgiveness is courageous, something he learned from his dad and extended to his mom. He’s seen the way his friends’ lives have become fucked up from them becoming monsters to fight monsters. He doesn’t want that anymore, for him or them.
So when Victoria Neuman wants out, when she realizes this is a constant cycle of mutually assured destruction that only ratchets up to become worse and worse, when she sends out an olive branch to The Boys, Hughie urges them to take it. They trust but verify, in MM’s words. But they are open to truth and reconciliation, to charting a different course than the brutal and bloodstained one that the cold war between Supes and those afraid of subjugation at their hands have been pursuing since The Boys began. So when Neuman walks in, daughter in tow, ready to give peace a chance, even after all they’ve been through, our heroes, super and otherwise, are ready to accept her and find another way.
And Billy Butcher comes to tear it, and her, completely apart.
When I wrote about the evil grin Billy Butcher let loose in “Beware the Jabberwock, My Son”, I compared it to the same one Tony Soprano gives in a late season episode of The Sopranos. Without giving anything away, if there’s a consistent theme in that show, it’s about people having opportunity after opportunity to make a turn for the better, to shed the damage and dirt they’re all mired in, and for time and time again, for generational inertia or institutional entropy or just plain selfishness to drag them back in the muck.
That's what I think of when I think of Billy Butcher here. God help him, for all that he’s been going through, he’s tried to keep a hold of his better self. He’s held onto the memory of Becca as the manifestation of his better angels. He’s set aside decimating all Supes because it would hurt one that he loves. He’s tried to protect his surrogate little brother, asking Hughie to carry on his wishes, even if he can't be there. He even offers an apology, albeit a vicarious one, to The Boys that he’s asked so much of. For as blackened as Billy Butcher’s soul has become, he’s held onto enough of the light to stay afloat.
And he’s done it for Ryan. God help him, he loves the kid. When Grace wants to push him or force him or cajole him, Billy gets her to ease off. He wants to convince the young lad, show him where he’s safe, rather than trap him in the same kind of cage where Homelander was made into a monster. This is a caring, empathetic side of Billy, the side that we’ve only seen come out rarely. And when he thinks he’s on his deathbed, when the easiest thing to do is try to tell a kid what’s what, he responds with compassion and kindness.
And it isn’t enough.
It’s not Billy’s fault. Everyone’s understandable here. Grace loves Ryan no less but she knows the stakes and takes a direct approach that just ends up scaring the poor kid. Ryan doesn’t know his own strength and rightfully fears being made into a lab rat or a weapon and doesn’t want a parent who fears him. And Billy knows the stakes too, but tries everything to reach the kid as a father, not a captor, and as a loved one.
And it still fails. Grace still dies for it, at Ryan’s hands. After everything, Ryan still goes back to Homelander.
That's it. The glass is shattered. The thing that held Billy Butcher back from the darkness is gone. He tried. He tried with everything in him when the easiest thing in the world was to give in. And it still wasn’t enough. As with Tony, there is tragedy in that, in someone succumbing to their worst impulses, and losing the good parts of them in the process. Especially when death and destruction follows in their wake.
All the good work comes to naught. The Supres get what they want. Homelander is unhinged and losing control. He outs Vicky. He scares off Ryan and seems to be threatening him. His proceeding based on impulse rather than plans results in him having to come up with a quickfire hitlist to keep people in line. And despite all his screw-ups, he comes out on top.
It’s the part I have the most mixed feelings about. There’s something to the idea that this was a part of Sage’s plan, albeit with a few bumps in the road. Her engineering the situation so that even Homelander’s predictable vanity leads things to where she wants them is a touch too perfect. But there’s something to be said for the idea of Homelander trying to lead, resulting in nothing but disasters only for the smart people in the room to ultimately prop him up and put him in power anyway.
That said, the political commentary is even more on the nose than usual. I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it’s good to call a spade a spade, and especially in an election year, pointing out the oppressive tendencies that are the echoes of real life events makes some sense. On the other, at some point it starts to feel like set dressing and bluntness in lieu of actual incisive social commentary.
Still, there’s something to be said about the total loss. Homelander gets what he wants, and immediately uses the power to sic his superpowered thugs on the “undesirables” just like he always hoped. The Deep doesn’t care about actual respect or intelligence, just strong-arming people into offering it out of fear. The duly elected representatives are gone, and in their place is a puppet of malign forces. The good guys either get locked up or barely escape. For all the good, for all the hope, the forces of evil win out here.
Maybe you need evil to fight evil. For all the restraint and decency Hughie, Annie, M.M., Frenchie, Kimiko, Vicky, and more have shown, it leads them to being captured, coopted, killed, or sent on the run. The closing notes The Boys leaves us with in its fourth season (aside from a Soldier Boy tease) is one where the high-minded and hopeful crash into a wall of indifferent cruelty, exemplified by the man who used to be their leader.
Maybe Billy Butcher did die in that hospital bed, or at least the last decent part of him did. He tried to hold onto that part, for Becca, and for Ryan. But Becca is dead. Ryan is a killer who’d rather go back to his father. And little brother stand-in Hughie is now just standing in the way.
In his place is a tentacle monster with no pretense or remorse, ready to rip Supes in two without so much as a please or thank you. The closing image of “Assassination Run” is Butcher unleashed, gazing in the rearview mirror at his dark avatar, with no more compunction about trying to be good. After so much nudging our heroes toward the light, The Boys ends with the battle lost, the villains in power, and the sandpaper soul of Billy Butcher turned to brutality and maybe even genocide once again.
In a season batch of episodes that played at aspirations toward kindness, forgiveness, and growth, only to let them all crumple under the weight of cruelty and loss once more, this may be The Boys darkest ending and bleakest ending season yet.
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@andrewbloom finally, someone who actually has a grasp of storytelling and story arcs. That not every arc has to be contained in one season, nor every answer given in the first five minutes of the first episode.
"I just feel like I'm not getting a clear direction for this role."
Two episodes in, and I still feel like this season is too busy juggling multiple subplots. Black Noir's line I quoted above seems apt to describe these first two episodes.
The few arcs they're developing do seem promising. We get a glimpse of A-Train wrestling with his conscience, Ryan struggling with his humanity amidst the narcissistic supe circles led by his dad, and The Deep trying to exert some power over his Vought overlords. The Frenchie romance drama is also heading somewhere, although it often feels like any storyline involving Frenchie veers off on its own tangent with no direct link to the main plot.
Pacing, however, is the more glaring issue. With so many subplots they're knitting there's no clear "hook" to indicate what's going to drive this season. It lacks both the intensity and mystery they had in Season 2 (exploding head menace and court drama against Vought) and Season 3 (Soldier Boy and the quest for ultimate weapon against Homelander).
It feels like sequences happen just to justify character development—for instance, the scene with Splinter (the body multiplier guy) feels forced, given that The Boys are held back by such a mid-level supe when they've taken down Translucent before. The whole Sister Sage escapade, attempting to portray her as the smarter character, relies on dumbing down the heroes. As Sage said, do The Boys really think she wouldn't figure out they're tapping their phone? So much for infiltration, MM.
It also feels like the last two episodes have been quite tacky. It's as if the show is self-aware that its audience unironically mirrors the people the show is mocking, so now they have to spend two episodes explicitly highlighting how ridiculous those people are—e.g., the lines between Frenchie and Kimiko mocking the Truthcon participants. It just feels very on the nose and lacks the cleverness that they had before. Even the whole theatrics on "rescuing people from the badguys" (saves) no longer has its cynical wittiness, despite the scene being one important plot point to drive Ryan's character forward.
Oh well. At least Black Noir is funny. And I share his sentiment. Let's hope we're getting some direction in Episode 3.
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@drkickflip13 my guy, get a grip. Watch episode 1 of Season 2 and 3 again. Hell, watch Gen V's episode 1. They all had a very strong start that set the course for the season. That's what a good premiere is supposed to do.
This season feels closer to one of those slowfest TV shows planned to stretch over several seasons, so they cram in all these plotlines at the beginning, which they’ll eventually forget one by one. It's too focused on building unnecessary subplots.
If you like that sort of stuff, all power to you. And just to note, I do enjoy a proper slow burn. But that's not what The Boys is about and known for.
[7.0/10] This is another episode of The Boys where it feels like there’s ten million things going on. Let’s focus on the good stuff.
The dynamic between Homelander and Ryan continues to be one of my favorite parts of the season so far. Ryan is trying his best to do what’s expected of him, but doesn’t fit into his dad’s role or the life HOmeladner wants for him. Homerlander is ostensibly trying to build something for his son, but subconsciously worries about aging and being replaced. Given the trajectory of the show, and Homelander’s own weird quasi-oedipal fixations, you can see him turning on his son at some point out of a concern that Ryan will supplant him. Hence Homelander showing up to Ryan’s first save despite Sage telling him not to.
And poor Ryan! You feel for this kid, just going align with what everyone wants of him ,but feeling insecure and out of control. His tears over accidentally murdering the stuntman make you feel for this kid who’s being placed in a situation he doesn’t understand and isn’t suited for. And the writing and performance of Homelander continues to be outstanding, with him not even processing that Ryan’s upset about the death of someone Homelander considers a “toy”, but rather assuming he’s upset at Homelander stepping into his limelight.
I continue to like the business with Sage. She clearly has a bigger agenda at play, and knows exactly how to play people to achieve it. The Boys hasn’t always been perfect at paying these kind of grand schemes off, but for now, I’m happy to be along for the ride. Her rightly pointing out that Ryan needs to stand alone, turning Deep against Ashley, and stoking the conspiracy nuts all make you wonder what she’s getting at. Sometimes it’s more exciting to see the plates spin than it is satisfying to see the writers finally stack the dishes, but I still like the fact that she seems to have a bigger plan in play.
That said, I’m nonplussed by most of what happens at the ersatz QAnon festival. The cornpone Jubilee knockoff, Firecracker, and the perverted Multiple Man knockoff, Splinter, don’t do a lot for me. Taking aim at the tinfoil hat crowd is certainly topical, which is a good mode for The Boys, but there’s nothing particularly incisive about the parody or deep about the show’s observations on why people turn to that kind of conspiratorial nonsense.
I’m not made of stone. There’s fun to be had in the heroes and villains crashing a bat mitzvah and going to town with mid-fight photo booths, heavy metal horahs, and menorah-based stabbing. But the show has done this sort of thing so many times by season 4 that it loses much of the novelty. I will say, as a fan of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, it’s amusing the see The Boys’ network stablemate get such an amusing shoutout here.
The material with the actual Boys leaves me mostly nonplussed. I’ll admit, I have some investment in Butcher trying to be honest for once, getting kicked out of the group, and still coming around to save his friends. The show gets at something real about the sad dynamic between him and MM, with the sense of Billy genuinely having made some changes but it being too late given all the shit that he’s put Marvin through. But it’s a little quick and given how much else is happening here, doesn’t get enough time to breathe.
It feels like Frenchie and Kimiko have already kind of reached the end of their arcs and now the show is grasping at straws for what to do with them. Kimiko struggling with her past and maybe going on a revenge spree plays like a rehash of what the show already did with her brother. And Frenchie’s new boyfriend turning out to be the child of a family he killed is a silly, soap opera-esque contrivance.
Speaking of which, I have real mixed feelings about the Hughie’s mom storyline. Jack Quaid does great work as a grown child struggling with the return of a parent who abandoned him. Hughie’s mom already has a certain presence to her, between the essential oils nonsense and the sort of passive aggressive, vaguely condescending school teacher tone she takes with Hughie. I’m compelled by their scenes together.
But the whole, “Your father’s been secretly talking to me for a couple of years and has granted me power of attorney” is another dumb soap opera-esque twist. I guess the show needs a reason why Hughie wouldn’t just kick her out, but it’s still awfully convenient. Maybe it’s all part of some Vaught plan to get to Hughie or something, but that would be even sillier.
I also don’t really care about Annie’s struggle with whether or not to be Starlight. As with Frenchie and Kimiko, it seems like we’ve kind of done her arc multiple times now, and the show’s running out of ideas for the character.
That said, strangely enough, one of the characters I’m most compelled by here is A-Train. The notion of his brother actually getting through to him, and him warning to do something genuinely heroic, is low-key inspiring. Him recognizing Hughie’s kindness in front of his family, and providing exonerating evidence for the men falsely accused of beating up Sage’s plants is one of the few genuinely good things we’ve seen him do. Nothing gold can stay in The Boys, but I’m intrigued by his change of heart.
Oh yeah, and seeing Will Ferrell play a Blind Side-esque mentor figure is worth a solid laugh, and so is the new Black Noir continually not really understanding his character.
Overall, I wish these episodes had more focus and momentum, and we’ve reached the point in the show where many of the character journeys seem to have reached their natural ends, only to continue on regardless. But there’s still some quality story threads to follow, particularly those on the supe side of the equation right now.
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@niquezvosu Why do you care?
