Has the newest season of this pop culture cornerstone really fallen off, or is there another reason for fan & viewer animousity?

(TRIGGER WARNING & SPOILERS FOR SEASON 4 & GEN V BELOW)

Ever since its release back in 2019, the cultural zeitgeist known as The Boys has cultivated plenty of viewers with its vulgar attitude, violent scenes, & backdropped with its gritty narrative about unethical superheroes & soulless corporations (ironic for an Amazon production). Based on the late 2000’s comics run by Garth Ennis, the show
resonated with viewers, considering how it not only released during an era marked with countless superhero projects, but also because of how different it was from anything else released. The caped crusaders that we’ve been conditioned to love & revere have now been perverted, and our protagonists were (mostly) ordinary people who’ve been wronged by these supposed protectors of peace. Combine this premise, the show’s ever present fixation on violence & sexual shock value, & an unbelievable cast of talented veterans & newcomers, The Boys has risen to become one of Prime Video’s flagship shows, with show runner Eric Kripke announcing recently that a fifth & final season for The Boys was in production. And honestly, that’s probably for the best.

To me, the initial three seasons of The Boys is peak television. Every episode felt like a perfectly weaved web of brilliant writing, iconic set pieces, & insightful commentary into topics like corporate culture, the entertainment industry, and even American politics. It allowed for every episode to feel fresh & each scene had purpose. However, I was left disappointed by the finished product & even more with how barren the entire season felt compared to earlier entries. In short, I think The Boys has become the victim of its own hubris, in that this entire season has felt like its gone nowhere & only exists to establish how great the final season will eventually be.

Too Many Cooks in the Vought Kitchen

In my opinion, I think that the biggest issue with Season 4 is that it tries to accomplish so much within its eight episodes but rarely gets the message out in a captivating manner or anything memorable beyond a couple of characters. Take the main threat of Season 4, Victoria Neuman, a long time enemy for The Boys & a big player in most of the events in The Boys as a whole. It’s established in the very first scene in Season 4, alongside the cliffhanger for Season 3 that Neuman is a big threat & that The Boys need to stop her from assuming the presidency. So what do they do? Well, for those who watched Gen V, you know that Neuman was integral in overseeing a virus that could kill Supes, and Billy Butcher popped in as a post-credits cameo, picking up traces of her dirty work. So naturally, Butcher decides to drop this information more than halfway through the season in Episode 5, after The Boys have been aimlessly following leads & playing right into Homelander & Vought’s traps. Even after following the lead, they run into Neuman & after some shenanigans regarding farm animals (don’t ask), the two sides stand on a impasse, even though The Boys have enough dirt to blackmail Neuman into oblivion & do nothing but sit on their hands until the blackmail gets destroyed by a Vought assassin. Also her character arc & subsequent death, while shocking initially, felt hollow considering there was no buildup.

Even if you want to talk about smaller arcs within the season, most of them feel rushed and/or that the rest is being saved for the final season. Take Frenchie, one of The Boys & Kimiko’s best friend/love interest. Only now, Frenchie’s now interested in Colin, this other guy that we never meet before this, and plot twist, is the lone survivor of a family that Frenchie killed when he worked for Little Nina. It doesn’t help that every scene with the two feels like it came out of a Netflix teen drama, but they spend so much time & effort to make it work & it just goes nowhere. Even after Colin finds out, Frenchie gets all mopey & depressed & turns himself in for every murder he’s committed…only for Butcher to bail him out two episodes later. And after all that, Frenchie goes back to his usual self & even gets together with Kimiko in the season finale, so what was the point other then showing us that Frenchie is an awful human being? Speaking of Kimiko, she barely does anything this season other than fight more Shining Light goons (what they’re doing, I couldn’t tell you), and this leads to her encountering someone from her past. Yes, there is plenty of overlap with Frenchie, and just like him, this contributes nothing to the overarching plot. I could honestly throw plenty of important characters who feel wasted like The Deep, MM, and especially Homelander’s son Ryan, who’s honestly a non factor this season.

Side Note – The Public Humiliation of Hughie Campbell

However, the biggest victim this season in my opinion is Hughie. I don’t know if Jack Quaid killed Eric Kripke’s dog or if an Amazon executive has it out for this character but poor Hughie goes through the ringer multiple times this season & it doesn’t lead or pay off to anything valuable.

First, let’s talk about the Campbell family drama, which takes up half the season. After Hughie’s father, Hugh, has a stroke & goes into a coma, Hughie’s mother returns after being gone for most of Hughie’s childhood to pull the plug on Hugh Sr. Hughie, like a rational human being, resorts to looking for other ways to revive his father, finally resorting on using Compound V that he got from A-Train. However, he’s talked down by Butcher after its revealed he took V to try to counter his tumour & the side effects have been, lets just say, less than optimal. So Hughie goes to see his father, only for his mom to inject Hugh. So its either she knew about Compound V & wanted to hastily try it, or she injected a mystery liquid into her comatose husband just because. Obviously, Hugh ends up killing a bunch of people by accident, and Hughie & his mom have to euthanize him so he doesn’t get killed. Other than the stellar acting from Jack Quaid & Simon Pegg especially, I hated this entire thing, considering that Hughie’s mom, the cause of this whole problem, got away with basically murder & without consequence. Even after Hugh’s ashes are discarded, she’s planning on LEAVING AGAIN, although she does contemplate staying before Hughie brushes the idea off. The whole thing feels like it solely exists to write off Simon Pegg, even though both of Hughie’s parents are alive in the comics. However, it only gets worse for Wee Hughie…

Episode 6, the episode immediately after his father dies, sees The Boys try to break into the mansion of Tek Knight, a Supe detective & Batman parody. Hughie, insisting he’s still good for field duty, takes on the disguise as WebWeaver, a Spiderman clone & invited gust of Tek Knight. However, WebWeaver was only invited to be a sexual partner for Tek Knight, who’s not only a perverted deviant, but has a fetish for having sex with anything resembling a female reproductive organ. So you’re left with Hughie, who just lost his father, being sexually assaulted by Tek Knight & Ashley, the CEO of Vought & its played as “comical”. Seeing this, coming from the same show that has Starlight being sexually abused by The Deep & dealing with the trauma all the way back in Season 1, infuriated me. It feels like such a 180 from what made The Boys so captivating, yet its played off for laughs. If you think i’m overplaying this one scene, read what showrunner Eric Kripke said during in an interview with Variety & you tell me what they were really trying to do:

(INTERVIEWER): Let’s start with the Tek Knight sex dungeon part. Where did the idea come for it? And why bring Hughie into this situation now — kicking him when he’s down by having him sexually assaulted by his childhood hero after his dad just died?

(Kripke): “Well, that’s a dark way to look at it! We view it as hilarious. Obviously, Tek Knight is our version of Batman, and we wanted to really play around with that trope: Batman’s fascist underpinnings as a really wealthy dude who hunts poor people, and then profits of the incarceration.” – Eric Kripke, Jul 4, 2024

Aside from the Batman nonsense, I don’t understand where this unnecessary hate from Hughie came from. Aside from Tek Knight being Hughie’s favourite superhero, the show has the nerve to point its finger & laugh at the man being sexually traumatized.

Then there’s the season finale, where a shapeshifter Supe replaces Starlight, as a means to delete any information on Neuman. Aside from her acquiring all the blackmail on a singular drive without issue or any backups being non-existant, the shapeshifter also proposes as Starlight to Hughie & has sex with him multiple times, and after Starlight escapes, the shapeshifter spills the beans. Now, aside from implying that Hughie was hypothetically raped by an imposter, a shaken up Hughie tries to comfort his girlfriend, but, and I need to stress this, Starlight gets mad at him for not knowing he was sleeping with a shapeshifter. It’s asinine to me, not because Annie’s unjustified in being mad, far from it, but its how she tries to deal with the issue. Hughie not only points out how she’s not the only victim here, but Hughie tells Starlight about how he identified the shapeshifter but Starlight is still furious. It’s the cherry on top of the shit cake that’s been Hughie Campbell’s character development this season. It sucks because in both the previous seasons & especially in the comics, Hughie’s been a proper protagonist who doesn’t go anywhere near this level of punishment & trauma. And guess how the season ends? With Hughie in handcuffs being arrested by Vought guards & Starlight escaping with powers that she’s been struggling all season to master.

The Sister Sage Problem

One of Season 4’s biggest additions is the inclusion of Sister Sage, the world’s smartest Supe & new ally to Homelander. Only her addition, while it does provide some fun scenes & offers a great parallel to Homelander, breaks the core narrative that Season 4 wants to set up. First, let’s talk about Sage herself. If The Seven had knowledge of Sage & her overwhelming knowledge, wouldn’t she have already been a Vought asset instead of being nonexistent? Why are we just hearing about the world’s smartest person four seasons in, when her whole existence could’ve prevented not only the Soldier Boy incident, Stormfront going full Nazi, or even worse, her finding out who The Boys are & stopping any CIA intervention with Vought?

But going back to Season 4, Sister Sage is initially used pretty well, with her knowledge allowing for a plan that will give both Neuman & Homelander public favour with the US populous. However, it’s near the end that Sage’s cracks began to wear out on me. First, there’s how she handles the mole. It’s revealed that longtime member of The Seven, A-Train, had been leaking info to The Boys as he’s starting to see the error of his ways. This threatens Homelander & Sage’s entire plan, but Sage plays it off, saying that she knew & was only leaking information that she wanted out. So not only did she know that A-Train was working with The Boys, she did nothing, leaving countless dead as a result including one of Homelander’s top men in Cameron Coleman. And once she shares this information with Homelander, he, in complete fairness, gets angry at her, only for Sage to leave in frustration, pointing out how Homelander never had faith in her. It’s baffling to me at least, not only because for the smartest person alive, she’s very impervious to hypocrisy, but how did she not leave that room in a body bag?

Then there’s the biggest crime of all, the season finale. With Homelander at his weakest point, Sister Sage shows up after “quitting”, saying that everything that’s gone wrong was a result of her plan, which sees Homelander oversee a new puppet leader & every Supe in the country. So you’re telling me that Sister Sage not only knew that Victoria Neuman, who’s been a key ally of Homelander & Vought for two seasons at least would not only get scared & plan to betray Homelander instead of killing him, but also that she’d go running to the people who’ve been trying to assassinate her all season, only for Billy Butcher to gain a V-caused brain tumour & snap Neuman like a Kit-Kat? And she didn’t tell Homelander any of this AGAIN!? How? Like how does any of this make sense? You’re able to hold in a bunch of information, you can’t see the future. The whole point of the season was to find a way to eliminate Neuman, yet Sister Sage can just walk in saying that everything’s okay? It makes the past eight episodes feel meaningless if Sister Sage can asspull a solution from thin air. And the worst part is that this isn’t going to end, as Sage eludes to a phase two, so get ready for more Sister Sage being the true villain of the show.

Aimless Violence & Petty Satire

One of the biggest aspects of The Boys that makes it identifiable is the insane amount of gore & violence. From A-Train running through someone to Homelander mowing down a whole field of humans, you see everything in its bloody & destructive nature. Yet, it wasn’t just for the sake of shock value, as it also serves a purpose in helping show the characters descent into madness & murder. Take Season 1 & Hughie blowing up Transluscent or Homelander blowing out a Vought VP’s brains to prove his independence. It all has purpose & keeps people talking at the water cooler. Season 4, although does follow this principle sometimes, a majority of these scenes solely exist because of shock value. I’m not going to go into excessive detail but some easily notable examples include the previously mentioned farm animals & a really disgusting scene involving a sauna. Not only does it make all the violence feel mellow & cheapen the impactful violent scenes, it makes the show feel more like an episode of Rick & Morty or Family Guy, in that the violence is just another thing that watchers have gotten slate of.

Again, I have to press this, but I think The Boys is & can be brilliant, not only as captivating television but also as hilarious & smart satire. However, this season felt more like it had only one major thing that it wanted to say & I personally feel that the messaging has been incredibly wonky. Take Episode 6, when Vought-Con, a comic con spoof used to promote Vought products & highlights how big media companies will milk a product until its dry (which is ironic coming from The Boys & Amazon). Yet, this scene is meaningless, as it serves no bigger tie-in to the episode other than poking fun at Marvel & their countles shows & films. What about Episode 3, when Homelander & Sister Sage meet Neuman at a skating performance of The Birth of Jesus only to justify a bunch of gory scenes of ice skaters getting slashed & body parts cut off? Does the performance hold any weight outside of The Boys continuously mocking Christianity all season? Absolutely. Could this scene have happened literally anywhere else & it wouldn’t have made a difference? Absolutely.

Then there’s the topic of the Starlighters & the Homelanders, two public factions that mirror the left & right sides of the political spectrum. Now The Boys has always played it fair when discussing politics, in that it shits on both sides evenly. Yet, Season 4 has the Homelanders be portrayed as the villains, while every Starlighter is a good person. It feels so cartoony & I feel like the writers missed out on an amazing chance to dilute expectations & give people a valid reason why they chose their sides. Maybe have people Homelander previously saved see him as proper superhuman figure. You could even play off how Starlight left The Seven & how many people could see that as her turning her back on the people due to Vought’s tight grip on media. But instead, we’re left with generic good guys vs generic bad guys & it feels so flat.

The Good, the Bad, & Vought

Again, I have to press this again, I think The Boys, when done correctly, can be & is brilliant at times. For one, the characters that do get the proper amount of screen time this seasom easily kill it. For me, Butcher is the best case of this & still proves to be the best aspect of the show. After his diagnosis in Season 3, he’s only got a few months left to live, & he’s set out to fufill his wife’s dying wish of making sure Ryan doesn’t turn out like Homelander. Yet his deteriorating body’s taking a toll on him & his brain starts to split off, driving him further & further into complete madness. Then there’s Joe Kessler, who goes from an ally of Butcher who wants the supes gone on orders from the CIA, to becoming a twist villain who’s actually a figment of Butcher’s ego, wanting every supe to suffer & die. It’s chaotically diabolical & that’s the stuff that made me fall in love with the show initially.

Want another aspect of Season 4? The performances are all spot on. From Homelander, Butcher, Hughie, and even Kimiko, who doesn’t even get to talk, everyone brings their A-game here. Homelander’s gone full psychotic, allowing him to do whatever the fuck he wants. A-Train starts to crack under the pressure of Sage & Vought keeping an eye on him. Erin Moriarty got to play not only Starlight, but also a shapeshifter that brings out the worst aspects of Starlight, & you can tell that she went full on balls to the wall. Black Noir’s been replaced, & as a minor character this season, he stole the show every time just by doing the bare minimum. It’s great to see Nathan Mitchell finally get to bring something more to the Black Noir character after being a mute for the rest of the show. Even Ashley, a minor character in most scenes, starts to blossom into her own person in Season 4, and if the finale has any major implications on her future, she’s up for some powerful work.

Presentation wise, everything here is on point for a major Amazon production. Scenes feel fully utilized & varied. From overdressed stages to fucked up farmhouses, you do get a variety of set pieces to keep things unique. Also I did get a kick out of A-Train hiding in Toronto in one scene, considering they film here in my hometown. Shots are clear, concise, and can be experimental at times. Even though I do rag on the lack of impactful violence, the gore effects & auditory cues are still as dicey & goopy as ever, which is always been something that’s benefitted the show from day 1. I also liked the song selection used for a good chunk of the episodes. From Old McDonald Had a Farm, Nirvana’s Heart Shaped Box, to even a Hard Rock iteration of Hava Nagila. It’s impactful at points & insane at others.

Overall, Season 4 of The Boys was pretty disappointing, not only because of the finished product, but also you can see that they saved most of their proper material for the season finale & the upcoming Season 5 in 2026. It’s the weakest season by far & it honestly sucks because with better writing, you could have a stellar product. Now, this isn’t to say that I’m not hyped for Season 5, far from it. However, I can’t justify a couple of amazing scenes to balance out every flawed issue with Season 4. My hope is that Eric Kripke & co get a chance to sit down & rethink everything that they want to achieve within their final eight episodes. In the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi: “You have become the very thing you swore to destroy!”

5/10

(this article serves as the nail in my coffin of me ever getting work on any set with Eric Kripke)