No Surrender Cinema: The Boys (S4 Eps1-3)
I can’t believe that October is going to mark 18 years since I was first introduced to Billy Butcher, Wee Hughie, and the rest of the titular Boys when I picked up issue #1. The comic, as most know by now, strayed from normal superhero conventions to show a very, very dark side of superheroes, pulling the curtain back on a world full of Marvel and DC pastiches to reveal a world where the power that these heroes have has corrupted most of them beyond redemption. Fast forward to the present day, where Amazon’s live action adaptation has returned for its fourth season, and while it’s never been a page for page recreation of Garth Ennis’ controversial comic book series, the first three episodes of the new season certainly did not hold back in reminding us of just how dark a place this world can be. Let’s take some time to talk about it in a new No Surrender Cinema!
SPOILER WARNING: As always, I try to keep spoilers to a minimum for new media, but there may be things discussed that you’d rather save as a surprise. Feel free to read on at your own risk, or come back and finish up the article after you’ve caught up on these episodes!
When I started watching the Season 4 premiere of The Boys, I was taken aback by how much of the previous season had left my mind; that’s when I realized it’s actually been two years since we saw Homelander take his disdain for humanity to the extreme by using his laser vision to zap off the head of some poor sap who dared to criticize him out loud. That incident has led to quite a bit of strife for the schizophrenic Superman of The Boys’ universe, as an anti-Homelander brigade motivated by Annie January, aka Starlight finds itself engaged in a culture war with Homelander’s supporters. It’s a plot point that reflects the same type of political tribalism we see every day on the news, right down to a plot thread about those committed to Homelander’s cause being the gullible types who get sucked into QANON-ish conspiracy theories plugged by a superhero named Firecracker, who we later find out has a personal reason for using her platform to gain a spot in the premier super-team, The Seven.
Homelander, who was already outed as a narcissistic psychopath long ago, seems less concerned with the ramifications of him killing an innocent (of which 12 intimidated humans on a jury find him not guilty despite it being a public murder) than he does with the discovery of some gray pubic hair. That’s right, the biggest enemy our (supposed) hero has in the early hours of season 4 is Father Time himself. This encourages Homelander to try and maneuver his son Ryan, the product of Homelander’s rape of Becky Butcher, into using his inherited powers as a full-time superhero and sidekick to his father. Ryan’s reluctances only serves to keep Homelander teetering on the edge, taking it out on one of the poor saps who were helping to fabricate Ryan’s heroic debut by sending him to a splattery demise.
Homelander’s got his problems, but so do our heroes. Collectively, they’ve got to deal with Homelander and presidential hopeful Victoria Neuman, a Scanners-esque supe who has used Compound V on her teenage daughter, resulting in a rather frightening metamorphosis. Frenchie struggles with his demons and his sexuality, as he finds himself charmed by a man with whom he shares a rather unfortunate past with. Kimiko decides to get drunk as a way to bury the past that continues to haunt her, but a mission at an event called TruthCon (a conspiracy theorist convention) opens up old wounds. Hughie has to cope with his father falling ill and being hospitalized, combined with the reappearance of his absentee mother, combined with nearly dying himself during at least one tense encounter. MM is a changed man, and not necessarily in a good way, as the stress of the job has gotten to him so much that he can barely eat, a clever way that the writers snuck in actor Laz Alonso’s real-life body transformation, which threw me off so much that I had to double check if the role had been recast. Then, of course, there’s Billy Butcher, who finds out that the injections of Temp V that he’d been taking to level the playing field against the supes has done a number on him, creating a tumor that’s left him with roughly six months to live.
The show certainly doesn’t waste time piling on the heavy plot points, but they also don’t waste any time getting to the action either. The mission at TruthCon delivers the first truly shocking moment of the season, one of those “oh my God, they just did that” moments of shock value. It’s not as if The Boys comic refrained from doing something outlandishly inappropriate or gory, but there are times where it feels like showrunner Eric Kripke is trying his best to top Ennis’ wildest ideas. It’s a scene that features a supe who has the ability to spawn clones of himself using that power to fulfill a rather perverse fantasy, which segues into a fight between The Boys and the clones at a young girl’s Bar Mitzvah that leaves our (anti)heroes trying to figure out how to disarm a bunch of naked clones armed with heavy artillery. I won’t spoil the whole scene, but at least one clone dies by being drowned in a chocolate fondue fountain.
On the flip side, the superhero characters also hit some bumps on their journeys. Ryan is apprehensive about following in his father’s footsteps, and becomes torn about his prior ostracizing of Butcher. A-Train feels conflicted about his role in Homelander/The Seven’s current plans, and starts to think that his allegiances might be misplaced. Firecracker, the super-powered internet troll who loves to rile up all of the gun nuts and conspiracy theorists, reminds Starlight of a moment in her past where she wasn’t being her best self, and she’s going to pay for it. The Deep continues to be a punchline to most, but gets a confidence boost from new Seven member Sister Sage, whose power is that she’s supposed to be the smartest person in the universe. It’s a trait that Homelander seeks to exploit, immediately making Sage his new confidant and second in command, thereby reducing Vought CEO Ashley Barrett to nothing more than a lackey.
The first three episodes certainly set up a lot for what is left to come, and with the news that Season 5 of The Boys will be the last, I expect a lot more bad shit to go down over the course of the rest of the season. I know that in the comics not every one of the good guys got their happy ending, so it will be interesting to see if all of the doom and gloom follows a few of our characters to the finish line, or if they’ll all be able to survive one last stand against the superpowers that be.
Season 4 of The Boys, along with all previous seasons, is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
