This review contains full spoilers for The Boys Season 4, Episode 5, “Beware the Jabberwock, My Son.”
If you’ve read The Boys comics, you’re probably pleased that Prime Video’s adaptation isn’t anywhere near as perverted and edge-lord-y as its source material. Eric Kripke’s show has chosen to modify much of Garth Ennis’ superhero satire, but the latest episode of Season 4, “Beware the Jabberwock, My Son,” proves that the showrunner hasn’t ditched everything from Ennis’ pages. Because if there’s one thing the show and comics agree on, it’s torturing Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid). He’s everyone’s favorite punching bag because he’s the innocent wee mouse of the group. Testing Hughie is the franchise’s bread and butter, but even then, the Campbell family tragedy of “Beware the Jabberwock, My Son” feels especially vindictive – and somewhat like overkill.
After Compound V turns Hugh Sr. (Simon Pegg) into an amnesiac murder machine, Hughie is forced to humanely execute his father. These are the consequences of Hughie’s actions last episode: Even though he made the responsible choice at the last second and dropped the stolen Compound V vial, his mother, Daphne (Rosemarie DeWitt), slipped the blue superdrug into Hugh Sr.’s IV drip. He wakes up good as new – only now he can dematerialize through solid objects, like when he accidentally bisects a fellow patient by glitching into his abdomen. Hughie spent the last few episodes furious that Hugh Sr. secretly granted Daphne legal power to “Do Not Resuscitate,” and now karma makes him follow up on that order in merciless The Boys fashion.
My problem isn’t the performances. Quaid, DeWitt, and Pegg are all throwing emotional haymakers as the Campbells address years of marital and parental trauma amid a juicy hospital massacre. What’s frustrating is the way Kripke and team conflate torturing their characters with evolving them. Hughie can apparently only have one parent in the picture, so they draw out his father’s demise in exceedingly melodramatic and graphic fashion. It’s right after Hughie forgives A-Train, too – one step forward, 17 steps back.
The same goes for Frenchie (Tomer Capone), who ends the episode by turning himself over to the police, coming clean about all of the murders he’s committed in an abrupt swerve that curbs his arc with Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara). I get that both Hughie and Frenchie (despite their evident differences) need to heal before they can grow. But The Boys keeps telling the same stories over and over, and it’s a real drag on Season 4.
The other main thread of “Beware the Jabberwock” involves Butcher (Karl Urban), The Boys, and surprise guest Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito). Butcher drops the bombshell about Victoria Neuman’s (Claudia Doumit) supe-killing virus, noting that even though it poses an immediate threat to Annie (Erin Moriarty) and Kimiko, it’s better in their hands than Neuman’s (or worse). Edgar leads everyone to his safehouse, a farming estate in the hills, which he finds ransacked. Surprise! Neuman ambushes them with her muscle, so they all start searching for the leftover virus together, only to discover that V-powered animals have taken over the compound.
At least there’s room for levity in this episode: Opposite Hughie’s crushing storyline is a creature-feature sidequest pitting The Boys against flying, tentacle-shooting, bloodthirsty barnyard adversaries. First it’s chickens, then sheep, and almost a V’ed-up bull – until the sheep assert their dominance by gnawing the bovine into bitty chunks. Butcher and crew can only flee in confused terror as bulletproof terrors straight out of some Z-grade horror film pick off bodyguards one by one. It’s suitably bonkers, and provides a hint of the unserious anti-superhero show we love. But the dueling focuses of “Beware the Jabberwock” feel incompatible. The bleeding-raw heartache and unearthly livestock carnage never fit together in yin-and-yang harmony.
As for Homelander (Antony Starr) and his Seven coup, they’re in the backseat. Vought is focused on their V52 expo – a send-up of Disney’s D23 event – which has all the superheroes putting on their best face for the public. This leads to some hilarious line readings, like The Deep (Chace Crawford) introducing Vought’s new custom technology that recognizes a user’s race and “personalizes” product placement. There’s also a humorously cluttered timeline of upcoming Vought movie releases that pokes fun at Marvel’s phase announcements, and A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) talks about expensive reshoots and ballooning budgets like it’s a good thing for viewers. The Boys isn’t being subtle, not in its political commentary or its corporate skewering.
We finally get an end to Homelander’s pesky mole problem, though the actual culprit, A-Train, remains at large. Vought CEO and glorified meat puppet Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie) hears his confession, implicating them both now, so she acts on a solution. After Vought News Network anchor Cameron Coleman (Matthew Edison) dumps Ashley – her vulgar dominatrix aren’t "dommy" enough for him – she frames Coleman as the leak. Homelander gathers his faithful Seven and new followers like Gen V’s Sam (Asa Germann) and Cate (Maddie Phillips) to declare his intent to turn product-peddling superheroes into wrathful gods. That begins with Cameron’s execution, which is nothing more than a ruthless gang beatdown committed by the most powerful “heroes” in the world – all thanks to Ashley’s nastily despicable actions.
This season of The Boys started out, and continues to feel, predictably unpredictable. Of course A-Train is off the hook (for now) and someone else dies horribly for his actions. Of course Butcher ends the episode by revealing he kidnapped Neuman’s virus-making husband and sawed his leg off to make everyone think he’s sheep food. The bad guys keep winning, the good guys keep getting screwed, and the poisonous environment in which everyone is trying to survive has lost some of its sting. Maybe my lukewarm reaction is driven by an inability to embrace both the wildly divergent tones of “Beware the Jabberwock, My Son”: monster massacre vs. familial ruination. Or maybe Season 4’s habit of repeating itself – telling the same old stories, relying too much on shock value – is draining some of The Boys’ juice.
