The Boys Season 4 is nearing its conclusion – and we’re finally getting somewhere. After dancing around the matter for weeks, the show finally exposes The Seven’s Benedict Arnold in “The Insider.” In addition, Homelander’s (Antony Starr) prodigal son Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) stands defiant against his father’s wishes to further brainwash Vought loyalists. These are the catalysts for imminent finale fireworks, but is it “too little, too late” given how many other loose ends Season 4 has to knot together? Billy Butcher’s (Karl Urban) still dying, there’s still a bounty on Robert Singer’s (Jim Beaver) head, and Homelander’s still trying to shape America into a lawless superhero dystopia – “The Insider” ties a few pretty bows, but frankly doesn’t produce enough outstanding drama.
Showrunner Eric Kripke and his writing team have struggled all season with a deluge of incomplete plotlines, which becomes even more evident in this penultimate episode. Take Frenchie’s (Tomer Capone) return: Butcher confesses to The Boys that he abducted Dr. Sameer Shah (Omid Abtahi), but this valiantly out-of-character moment is weakened by Frenchie strolling in right after. Past episodes made a huge deal of Frenchie succumbing to the slaughtered ghosts of his past, yet Butcher utters a line about Grace Mallory (Laila Robins) pulling some strings, and poof – Frenchie’s back in the picture. The renegade Frenchman mutters a sad-sack line about how he’d rather “f**k a jar of fishing hooks” than be outside prison bars, and we wince at the thought, but his clean-and-sappy reunion feels so inconsequential.
Thankfully, “The Insider” finds a bright spot in Ryan’s crisis of morality over parroting Vought propaganda in a Christmas special. All season, he’s been a prop for either Homelander or Butcher – an illustration of their issues more than the boy’s growth. But this week, that’s rectified: Surrounded by felt puppets of The Seven in some Hallmark-cozy, snowed-in cottage setting, forced to sing about whistleblowing on ANTIFA spies even if they’re your parents, Ryan derails the production. Denouncing the Homelander-approved lyrics about groomers, neckbeards, and pedos, he his ground and speaks from the heart, a juicy development for the character. We can sense Homelander’s wrath boiling over into Episode 8.
Then there’s A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), who’s outed as The Seven’s mole when he takes The Boys’ side during a Homelander-ordered siege of their Flatiron headquarters. The fight brings a minigun into play and lets Starlight beat The Deep (Chace Crawford) to an unconscious pulp after he “rejects” her truth – mocking the #MeToo movement – but it’s what happens after that’s more impactful. A-Train sprints to Ashley Barrett’s (Colby Minifie) office and offers to run them both to Florence, Italy (where younger, punky Ashley once felt alive). They can hide from Homelander’s impending vengeance, but Ashley declines, grappling with the Vought-bred monster she’s become (by getting wasted at 11 a.m.). Ashley compassionately reminds A-Train to cut out his tracker, but makes peace with her demons by staying put and accepting whatever Homelander-style hellfire comes her way.
Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) and Firecracker (Valorie Curry) continue to jockey for position behind Homelander, with early momentum swinging toward the lactating Firecracker. Sage tests Homelander’s patience when sarcastically joking about the “stimulating” conversations he and Firecracker must have, and it’s the first time she truly oversteps. Homelander stares through Sage, ready to laser her head off, and she looks terrified in a way we haven’t yet seen. That’s until Sage later laughs at Firecracker and Homelander for executing Webweaver (Dan Mousseau) – another false leak plugged – and confesses that she knew it was A-Train all along. Homelander realizes Sage has been in control the whole time. Heyward playing cockily intelligent, Curry providing the perfect counterbalance as a dimestore “Alexa Jones” ditz in panic mode, and Starr as a royally frustrated Homelander? It’s the good stuff.
Despite “The Insider” being a Vought-heavy episode, The Boys face their own obstacles, too. We learn that Sage is paying a shapeshifter to play “Lee Harvey” (as in Oswald) on January 6th (wink wink) and assassinate Robert Singer. In superhero terms, it makes perfect sense: a shapeshifter can be anyone, anywhere. But this complication isn’t as fulfilling as it could be because it’s being introduced so late in the game. The Boys will presumably busy themselves with hunting this face-swapping villain next week, adding yet another distraction from any Seven vs. The Boys arcs still in play. Sure, the way the shapeshifter tears away fleshy patches to reveal their newest costume underneath rotting skin flaps is perfectly at home within The Boys’ brand of icky gore. But what they promise to bring to the story isn’t overwhelmingly exciting – even after it’s revealed that Hughie is sleeping with the shapeshifter, and not his beloved Annie (Erin Moriarty), at episode’s close.
Speaking of gore, Frenchie has to save Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) after she’s injected with Dr. Sameer’s cooked-up supe virus. Frenchie offers kindness to Sameer, putting on Crazy Town as background music (RIP Shifty Shellshock) or sharing take-out meals, only to be repaid by Sameer’s escape attempt. Thick, blackened poison crawls up the veins in Kimiko’s legs, so Frenchie wraps a belt tourniquet tight and grabs a serrated saw as if he’s a Boy Scout whose troop leader is Jigsaw. As Frenchie hacks back-and-forth into Kimiko’s thigh meat, blood pools, Len’s “Steal My Sunshine” mingles with squelchy metal-on-muscle sound designs – and it’s oddly romantic? Frenchie and Kimiko are broken souls who need each other to heal, and Frenchie’s eyes fill with determination as he jumps into action. He refuses to live without Kimiko. Let’s hope this sawtoothed surgery is what leads to their final romantic endgame.
