That's a wrap on The Boys Season 4, and you know what? As a fan of the series since Butcher dropped his first "C*nt" bomb, I'm disappointed in this week's finale. The now-untitled episode (previously called “Assassination Run,” prior to last weekend’s attempted assassination of presidential candidate Donald Trump) is The Boys’ flimsiest season capper yet. Its grand reveals aren't that grand; its organ-mashing shenanigans are hardly provocative. Every season has teased us with the promise to move the story forward only to hit the reset button at the buzzer, but Season 4 takes the cake. Prime Video's once satirically brazen and unapologetically punk-rock response to the Marvel/DC universes has become miserably predictable, hobbling around like Superman in kryptonite boots.
Let's start with ol' bloody-knuckled Billy Butcher (Karl Urban). The man who's been dying from "Supercancer" embraces his tentacles within and miraculously recovers. This shouldn't be a shock — clues have been everywhere, plus showrunner Eric Kripke was never axing Butcher before Season 5. But still, his saintly patience this season was promising enough to suggest the callous-hearted Brit had the capacity for compassion – after all, he methodically won Ryan's (Cameron Crovetti) trust without clenched fists. The finale is the culmination of his sympathetic graces, getting vulnerable in a deathbed phone call withHughie (Jack Quaid) (as vulnerable as one can be while talking about topless steakhouse waitresses), and playing Connect Four with Ryan before "expiring." And then Grace Mallory (Laila Robins) goes and ruins everything.
Ryan reacts in a moment of immaturity and panic, demanding to leave what's essentially a supe prison cell, so he hurls Grace against a concrete wall (dead upon impact) and leaves Butcher to accept Joe Kessler's (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) genocidal anarchy. Any time Butcher gets sentimental, he perceives it as weakness, and there’s a hard reboot on the Butcher we loathe and despise. Here, he reclaims elite bastard status by bisecting Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) with tentacles that spring from his chest, spilling her guts all over a mortified Hughie and snatching Frenchie's (Tomer Capone) homecooked supe-killing virus.
For a split-second, The Boys believe collaborating with Victoria could be the key to overthrowing Homelander (Antony Starr), but Butcher selfishly tears that possibility apart in milliseconds. No one can have nice things in Kripke's universe, which is on par with Garth Ennis' supremely appalling comic series, but we're past the point where persistent misery is an edgy formula. Butcher's backslide is a bummer way to close Season 4, – and not in the way Kripke intends.
Any additional momentum is tripped up by the second part of the shapeshifter’s plot, which results in an anticlimactic brawl that doubles as a hammer-to-the-head metaphor: Annie (Erin Moriarty) has to defeat herself, aka the manifestation of her inner demons. The shapeshifter sows friction in Hughie and Annie's relationship – the poor, sweet, sexed-up boy accepts a marriage proposal from Annie's doppelganger. Yet, the chameleon can’t help but feel like an underbaked villain due to her introduction at the end of an overstuffed season . She exists as a hail-mary device to further Annie's healing and reignite her powers, can’t even fulfill her threat to kill President-elect Robert Singer (Jim Beaver).
Real Annie whoops her ass, chokes her out, and yanks Hughie's engagement ring off Not Annie’s lifeless finger like it's nothing. The Moriarty-on-Moriarty fight sequence hardly deserves the showcase of the season finale , and the shapeshifter fails to leave a mark anywhere that’s not inside Hughie’s body. Hughie receives some deserved verbal lashing – which The Boys' resident in-trouble husband Mother's Milk (Laz Alonso) acknowledges with a hilariously mouthed "WOW" – everything mellows back to normal. The shapeshifter is erased from memory as quickly and sloppily as she was introduced.
Beyond the main plot, there are some things worth remembering. Frenchie and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) finally smooch, professing their love and embracing the brokenness that bonds them. Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie) injects herself with a vial of Homelander's secret Compound V stash, "supifying" before Vought's Dictator-in-Chief can order her execution. Homelander exposes Victoria’s superpowers on live TV, uncovering his erratic judgment calls as he tries to fast-forward his purification agenda. Outing Victoria sets off a chain of unspeakable events, including Homelander's "Kill' Em All" list of Vought employees who know too much information, which inches the show's Superhero Doomsday Clock closer to midnight – but that's next season's problem.
The finale’s eerily prescient political commentary hits some distressingly dystopian notes. The Deep (Chace Crawford) finds himself a blind follower of Homelander's fear-mongering regime after pathetically murdering his octopus lover Ambrosius (Tilda Swinton), epitomizing downtrodden Americans desperate enough for affirmation and guidance that they’d sign up for full-on fascism. Homelander's rhetoric about Starlighter "enemies" mirrors Trump's talking points about "woke" villains and his demonizing of the left. And it’s hard not to wince as The Boys enacts Homelander's Nazi-like plan for anyone who challenges his authority, including in-house Vought “liabilities.” Homelander's playbook has reflected our continually unprecedented reality too comfortably as of late, and as the 2024 election looms, the Season 4 finale pleads with its audience to understand the dangers of empowering bitter manbaby bullies like Homelander.
And yet its ending is tied up in a frustratingly tidy bow. Homelander thinks he's cooked after hearing about Victoria’s death – until Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) saunters in. She reveals that everything's gone exactly as it’s supposed to, and that he shouldn't worry – Homelander will still get the keys to the White House after POTUS is blamed for Victoria's assassination. Starr's lip quivers, choking back tears, as his character questions why Sage would still help after he tossed her to the curb. Her motives are simple: "I wanted to see if I could." Vought's red, white, and blue mascot would be nowhere without Sage, and he can finally acknowledge that – yet he receives gift-wrapped victory in such an unfulfilling, coincidental way. "Can't wait to do it all again next season," the brainiac mastermind essentially exclaims as she struts out Verbal Kint style – a commentary on how easy it is to manipulate our entire political system.
With authorities on their tail, The Boys look to flee the United States until the heat dies down – which fails when they're captured by Homelander's deputized supe militia. Cate (Maddie Phillips) and Sam (Asa Germann) snag Frenchie and Kimiko, concluding Season 4’s waste of the Gen V cast. Love Sausage (Derek Johns) uses his monster dong to knock MM unconscious in an airport bathroom, an unfortunate turn for the fan-favorite character who's anything but a Vought stooge in the comics. Cindy (Ess Hödlmoser) from Season 2's Sage Grove Center arc chucks a boat at Hughie and Annie's getaway vehicle, and while Hughie is captured, Annie engages her powers and flies away at the last second. Oh yeah, and Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) is still alive somewhere in a glass tube?
So much happens in the last few minutes, but I highlight all of it to say: Season 4 wraps feeling more like hype for next season than a story of its own. Season 3 ended with authority, whereas Season 4 serves plotlines that will see payoffs in Season 5. Kripke's creative team treaded water for eight episodes, gambling on a cliffhanger that highlights how truncated and incomplete this season feels. Butcher's pissed off again, Homelander's still trying to Make America Super Again – except now The Boys are split up. Things shift radically by the end of the episode: The supers are in control, and the United States is under martial law. And yet, nothing's changed all that much.
