#s4x01 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

phoenixtakaramono · 9 months ago

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Well, alright. You’d asked for it.

*Note, to keep this fair, I will be excluding unconfirmed fan theories and merely judge the overall season objectively through the lens of a writer (albeit colored a bit with a bit of bias as a fan who loves the television series). And if I’m going to be shooting alternate ideas of what they could’ve done instead, they’d be on what I think could make more long-term sequel/ spin-off profit/ be better payoffs to set-up season 5.

**Also, no matter who you stan in the show, we all collectively agree The Boys TV is mainly about the story of Butcher and Homelander. They are the main characters; everyone else is their supporting cast to tell their narrative. Before you interject and say “but what about Hughie/ Annie?”—lemme stop you there. Let me ask you honestly, if either Butcher or Homelander died in S5x01, would you honestly keep watching The Boys S5 eps 2-8?

The tl;dr is aside from episodes 4, 7-8, everything else was lackluster and forgettable. There were only kernels of things I’d liked and would keep from the other episodes, but on a whole they’d left very little-to-nonexistent impact on my viewing enjoyment. VoughtHQ had leaked all the episodes so I wasn’t surprised watching anything this season the two big twists (Joe Kessler being a hallucination, and the reveal of Soldier Boy at the end) were already spoiled for me; if anything the expression of my face the entire time was: 😐 (default) or 🫤 (meh) or 😑 (oh, they went there; it could’ve been so much better).

Episode 1: Department of Dirty Tricks

I don’t mind the opening sequence of how they (re)introduced the relevant main characters of the show. But if I had to nitpick, from the writers’ table, you have to recognize S4x01 will be a portion of your audience’s first exposure to the show. Like an opening paragraph of any book, you have to tantalize your viewers. Lure them in—and captivate them into your universe. As a showrunner, you want more people tuning in—and spreading the hype so your show is raking up numbers. Showing newcomers of The Boys epically failing to assassinate Victoria Neuman—while, yes, it does establish Neuman as a legitimate threat and a boss b*tch—is…probably not how I’d open this scene. Because, as a reminder, in S3x08, the finale is of The Boys gathered around the TV looking in horror as Neuman declares her running as VP—with Butcher coming in and diabolically looking into the camera to declare the cvnt’s gotta go. I would’ve loved to have seen this entire season drag out Victoria Neuman’s death. Show us the process of The Boys getting the CIA’s cooperation, convincing and showing Bob Singer proof that his running mate is a Supe, and making a detailed plan to take her out in S4x08. I’d prefer that they build up to it, and we witness a cinematic masterpiece of an exciting heist-like crime thriller like Ocean’s Eleven—but make it bloody and gory and with your usual on brand raunchy humor.

I like the introduction of Homelander, Ryan, and Sage. I would keep all of that. It was very cool to hear Sage deliver her Machiavellian speech about turning the masses and making her allegory comparing Homelander essentially to Caesar and the fall of empires. It’s delightfully twisted—and sets up how crazy things will get.

I have very strong opinions about Joe Kessler.

This is Joe Kessler in the show

This is Howard Joe Kessler (aka Monkey, according to Billy) in the comics

Really? This is Billy’s personification of a tough, grizzled manly man? This nerdy coward who got SAed by monkeys, got kicked in the family jewels by Butcher and whom Butcher later got him SAed by Terror? …Are you starting to see my issue with the writers deciding to cast JDM for this role—when they literally could’ve chosen any other character from the comic?

Let’s put JDM aside for now (great actor, great guy, I just think they could’ve picked a so much better role for him; what a missed opportunity). This is going to be controversial, but honestly they could’ve replaced his character with any other character in Butcher’s life—and it would’ve been so much better and more hard-hitting and more of an emotional roller coaster ride. Especially if it’s, say, a character we’ve seen before so we, the audience, already have an emotional connection to and we, with our preconceived bias, assume, just like with Billy, that they exist in real time because we’ve literally seen them in prior seasons so we know they exist in the universe.

The plot twist about them being Billy’s hallucination would hit that much harder if it’s someone like, and I’m going to suggest a couple examples but hear me out: his abusive “miraculously cancer free” father, Sam Butcher it could’ve worked as a f*cked up father-son bonding experience Billy thought he was getting, but it’s already foreshadowed to us the audience that something’s wrong because Sam Butcher is said to be Stage 4 in a previous season and yet he looks somehow strong and healthy and it’s also strange because why is he in New York when he should be in London (you can even set this up to a future funeral scene where Billy shows up to his father’s grave in London, after his realization that the father he’s still seeing talk trash to him is a manifestation of his imagination and this could’ve served as a son’s projection about how f*cked up his troubled upbringing had been and how it’d impacted him and this could serve as the show’s cycle of abuse commentary, and Billy p*sses on his father’s grave as a homage to the panel from the comics). Or, heck, if it must be Kripke’s OC, maybe make it Becca’s brother—so Billy thinks he’s interacting with his grieving brother-in-law. Or make it Hughie, so when the plot twist is revealed, we, the audience, are like “What, that Hughie/ Billy’s obvious Lenny little brother substitute was a figment of Butcher’s imagination?” Or, make it Billy Butcher’s former case officer (for those who don’t know, think of case officers…like a CIA agent’s supervisor).

Literally any other character could’ve worked as the avatar of Billy’s V-ed up tumor the literal representation of Billy’s true thoughts (the devil on his shoulder, to contrast hallucination!Becca aka the good angel on his shoulder) so the writers can set him up as the show’s hidden boss/ ruthless genocidal Big Bad to defeat going into S5. And I’d just thought of these alternatives rapid-fire and off the top of my head in three minutes.

But, let’s say, Kripke is adamant about keeping JDM casted as Joe Kessler, for whatever reason. JDM is a fan favorite actor so of course you gotta capitalize on his popularity and cast him in the show. What then? Okay. You are introducing a new character in the show, so you need to get your audience emotionally invested in him. You will have failed as a showrunner and writer if I do not give two shites about him. So what I’d do instead is trim out the side-plots and make this episode (or a later episode) dedicated to showing the audience a flashback of Billy Butcher in the past. Imagine. Not only would it be an interesting insight into what Butcher was like younger, now in his days in the SAS or Royal Marines or maybe as a field operative for a paramilitary operation, we can also have the show’s idiosyncratic superhero and political satire commentary. Billy Butcher and Joe Kessler met in Panjshir, Afghanistan. Is this during the War on Terror era? Or a time even before that? Okay, imagine how much we’d care about Joe Kessler if we see a Steve Rogers and Bucky kind of friendship deep in the trenches of Afghanistan? The writers could show us a scene of Kessler shoving Butcher out of the line of fire but gets hurt—and, in return, Butcher heroically deciding to break orders to leave his comrade behind and recklessly go berserk rushing back to the frontlines to save Kessler (this is a character moment they could’ve capitalized on to endear us to Butcher and make us think, hey, despite how terrible he is, this crazy British mad dog also has a loyal, humane side to him even bad guys have their own code of morals; the showrunners could even make this flashback sequence badass and blood-pumping; it could also appeal to the patriotic historical war stans in the audience). The writers can even drop in a tongue-in-cheek Easter egg like a seemingly insignificant conversation about how Butcher and Kessler, as soldiers bonding together, heard about there being this so-called miraculous super serum that was supposed to make soldiers into super soldiers (spoiler alert: it’s Compound V)—and questioning what the heck happened to that? Wouldn’t that have been interesting? Now flash forward back to the present, and have Kessler and Butcher talk about how they’d both gotten jobs in the CIA, and the writer throw in a comic reference by joking how Butcher used to call him Monkey. Don’t reveal to your audience yet that Kessler is a hallucination (the payoff could be where it’s very subtly foreshadowed over a course of a couple episodes that Kessler, actually, had been KIA-ed or expired). The key is that the clues have to be subtle; literally the majority of the audience should not be able to have noticed the strangeness of those lingering pan shots during the first watch-though of season 4. This way the show has rewatch value of fans going back to inspect the show frame-by-frame after the twist is revealed, because now the audience can go back to try to catch what little Easter egg details they’d missed that’d foreshadowed this plot twist all along across the episodes—and now your TV ratings/ numbers are boosted because this shows that people are tuning in to watch.

This ties to my later opinion regarding the twist of Joe Kessler being revealed as Billy’s hallucination—and the tentacles.

Regarding Annie’s subplot with the Starlight House, they rushed too fast into the time skip with it and unfortunately, that sacrifices me from caring about any of these new side characters. I would’ve personally drawn this out by making one of these new characters somehow related to Annie’s past or unknowingly share with Annie about how much they’d admired Starlight as a result of her bravery bringing them out of their own dark trauma. Make me care about these characters—so when the violent protest breaks out, I’m much more gut-wrenched.

Also, I would axe the Colin and Frenchie sideplot completely. I’ll explain why in ep4.

Episode 2: Life Among the Septics

Homelander’s mid-life crisis and his narcissistic tendencies battling against his want to be a good supportive dad for his son is good. I liked the Sage, Ryan, and Homelander moments—especially when Sage said to Homelander’s face: “Ryan is special; he’s more special than you because he’s the first naturally Supe born child.”

What I don’t like is the aftermath of Todd’s death. It’s too quick—and there’s no satisfying feeling of payoff of M.M. feeling conflicted and whatever other emotion you, as the showrunner, want him to portray. Todd is a hilariously iconic Homelander incel fanatic who finally got his dream to meet his hero after all these seasons—and got murked by him; you can’t let Todd go out with just a whimper, writers. Todd was Homelander’s biggest fan. He had his own irl Twitter account. And you gave him a very ironic death in the show—which I would now then capitalize on. I would personally dedicate at least three to five minutes of maybe giving this side character a funeral M.M. is forced to attend and give a eulogy speech on, and this is an opportunity to slip in some kinda relevant subtle satirical commentary or wry punchline to it about not meeting your heroes—or something like M.M. telling his daughter this is what happens when you idolize celebs when they’re actually terrible people behind the scenes.

I like Firecracker’s introduction—and that she’s an obvious red neck conspiracist and Marjorie Taylor Greene inspired parody. And that she’s a C-or-D-list loser who’d be geeked out for an opportunity to be invited into The Seven thanks to Sage—and for a chance to meet and work alongside Homelander.

The whole episode of this conspiracy theory TruthCon convention is very on the nose and amusing to watch, even the centipede-man rimming each other sequence. It’s also an exposé on the American culture (with the title being life among the septics, aka British speak for life among the Americans).

I also like Firecracker revealing that she held a grudge against Annie for having spread rumors about her during their pageant days. I like the whole mean girl aspect of Annie being revealed. Personally I would’ve dragged this out to reveal her true motivation in a later episode; this way we see this new character gunning after Starlight so much and we think to ourselves—damn, woman, why do you hate Starlight so much? So if you keep it a secret for now, there’s now a mystery, so viewers will feel curious about her motivations and be more enticed to tune in.

You already know how I feel about the Frenchie/Colin subplot. It’s meaningless. I would respect it if they’d committed to it, but they didn’t and ended up chickening out of it. So I say axe it completely. I ended up pressing the 10 seconds fast forward button through his scenes—and I didn’t miss out on anything. I’m all for more bi and queer representation in my media—but my tinfoil hat conspiracy theory is that the writers threw this subplot in for Frenchie to detract from the irl controversy regarding Frenchie’s actor. I won’t get into that here but if you know, you know. Did the writers come up with this sideplot because Tomer Capone had to film elsewhere during this time so they made up this B-plot so they could have “Frenchie jailed” and let the actor finish filming his parts or finish whatever his obligation was, before coming back?

Kimiko’s sideplot about confronting her past to heal…I wished they did more for her character sideplot. Her tackling the child traffickers ring could’ve been interesting if they executed it better. Maybe axe Frenchie’s S4 subplot and make it so that it’s revealed Frenchie had accidentally helped out The Shining Light when he’d been a gun runner for Little Nina/ the Russian mafia. Imagine the potential. It turns out Frenchie and Kimiko had met long time ago; and they hadn’t realized. Maybe he’d been hurt and Kimiko, who’d managed to run away, kept quiet about his location when rival mafia members or Asian island cops were out hunting for him. Imagine how cute that’d be (“F: That little girl/ K: young man was you?”); destiny had brought them together again.

For The Boys being split and at odds with each other and excluding Butcher, I hate it. Remove that from this season. It’s a retread of previous seasons—and it bogs down the story when it doesn’t have to. You only have eight episodes. There’s no tension—because you already know they’re going to all somehow get together again, so this feels like unnecessary drama for drama’s sake.

Episode 3: We'll Keep the Red Flag Flying Here

This is the episode that delivered Karl Urban putting on an apron and going through the process of lovingly baking drug-laced cookies for Ryan—and, in the end, doing the morally right thing by binning the cookies and, instead, having an actual emotional heart-to-heart with Becca’s child. This feels like progress. It feels necessary. And I like that. It’s fanservice—but it’s fanservice with a bit of a reference to Sam Butcher having been a baker who ran his own bakery back in London in the comic. So of course William J. Butcher must’ve picked up on some baking cooking? skills from his dad and maybe from his mum?.

I’ll be honest, this is the only thing^ plus Homelander’s meltdown at the end of the episode that interested me. They needed a way to transition into Homelander's homecoming episode, and I actually enjoyed seeing him express his frustration at Ryan ("why am I not enough for you?"). Perfect and much needed character moment. Everything else though in the episode I’ve forgotten—which means it was unmemorable and lackluster and could’ve been skipped. This might've been the ice skating episode and if it is, I'd either remove the scene of Hughie escaping through the ducts (how is the common layperson supposed to know ducts are made of zinc? how wouldn't Homelander's hyper-sensitive sense of smell and hearing not be able to pinpoint where Hughie is?) or go about Hughie's plot armor a different way.

I don’t have much of other suggestions because this ties into my thoughts for the other episodes. Now you’d freed up more screentime to focus on other important things.

(⬇️For my thoughts about eps 4-8 ⬇️)

Episode 4: Wisdom of the Ages

It’s our insight in Homelander’s upbringing, and is important for both character introspection and plot development. I am relieved Antony Starr took a look at the script Kripke initially showed him—and went, “wait, that’s cruel and flat if I just go in and slaughter them; if I’m returning to my origins, I think it’d be more complex if I return to my origins and it’s like I’m still this lost child.” (Not his exact words from the interview but you get the gist.) I have nothing I’d change about this episode. I love everything this episode—whenever the camera reverted back to Antony Starr’s scenes.

My gripes with this episode is minor in the grand scheme of things. It has to do with the Frenchie/Colin subplot (okay, we saw the disaster a mile away; and this later inspires Frenchie to turn himself in…the writers could’ve literally skipped this whole subplot and it wouldn’t even detract from the story. In fact, this frees up screentime to focus on far more important things to advance the plot or give character development time).

The abortion subplot is also unnecessary drama. You could’ve removed it—and it doesn’t detract from S4’s story. Abortion already is such a controversial sensitive topic, and if the writers insist on the abortion subplot, okay, since this is a dark comedy satirical show, I would go balls to the wall and make this an episode 1 reveal where Annie has been puking all over and gaining weight. It’s when she misses her period that she thinks ‘oh no’ and whips out a pregnancy test. Now the writers have an opportunity to lampoon both sides. Maybe both Hughie and Annie are on the fence about it—and this is a character moment where Hughie reveals Butcher’s and Becca’s backstory to Annie. Everyone is encouraging them to have the baby but 1) they’re involved in a dangerous fight against Homelander/ Vought so do they really want Annie to be incapacitated and potentially lose their child, 2) what if it’s a Supe baby; what then are the complications and body horror potential HL literally lasered his bio mom’s belly and, in the comics, Ryan had literally killed comic Becca from childbirth and comic Butcher had to kill the baby himself, 3) and now there’s this fear that maybe Vought could get their hands on their child, take him/her away from them, and raise them like a lab rat. Do they really want all this to happen? The writers can show Hughie and Annie having a conflict about this instead of the Shifter Annie conflict, and it would hit harder. Do you understand the point I’m making? Do you see the emotional upheaval and impact this could’ve had—instead of the offscreen mention of Annie having an abortion?

The reveal of Butcher having taken V off-screen was a bad decision. This is a character defining moment for Butcher. Why did you make it off-screen? As a writer, I would’ve shown Butcher being torn up about it or—if they must save screentime—show it via flashbacks of his internal struggle. Show, don’t tell. The conversation he had with Hughie would’ve hit that much harder when Hughie contemplated injecting his dying father with V.

Episode 5: Beware the Jabberwock, My Son

The way Homelander changed his methodology of manipulating reconnecting with his son after is, in my opinion, not bad. Adam Bourke is a slimy man who deserved to be slapped. This also shows Ryan becoming more like his father, in a way. We get to see Ryan enjoying the power he has—but it’s “justified” because Ryan is essentially saving a damsel in distress.

Everything else though at the farm, oh boy. The return of Stan Edgar was fun, but too short. I honestly felt Giancarlo Eposito’s cameo was underutilized. He should’ve been the star of the episode—with the obvious virus plotline being introduced. Personally I would’ve moved this higher up as an earlier episode or foreshadow to this farm. Literally this could’ve been in S4x01 because in the last episode of Gen V S1, we see Butcher smirk at the implications of there now being this deus ex machina virus to take down Homelander. This could’ve been a strong opening episode, especially for those who haven’t read the comics or haven’t seen Gen V.

With what we got, I mean…yeah, the V-ed up rabid chickens, water buffalo, and sheep with bamboon fangs are kinda funny—as well as Butcher’s hilarious quips about V-ed up Kentucky fried chickens and his cold suggestion for the team to split up (“you don’t got to be the fastest *smirks* just not the slowest”) but the entire sequence could’ve been resolved much, much quicker and not be as drawn out.

I did like the metaphor of Butcher releasing the Temp-V lab rabbit (a metaphor of himself, and it’s a rare glimpse of his soft side), and the foreshadowing of the tentacles out of the rabbit’s lifeless body and Billy stomping it to death. I also liked the inclusion of Dr. Sameer Shah.

The B-plot of Hughie euthanizing his V-ed father, gee thanks mom, see what your power of attorney did…I will begrudgingly accept because this shows us the consequence had Hughie actually gone through with his plan. But obviously it can’t be Hughie—so it has to be his mom. I understand the possible writing intention. Plus, in the entire episode, this Hughie scene between Hugh Sr was the most emotionally invested I had been in this episode. Simon Pegg gave his best performance, and it’s the proper send-off to give to the man whom Garth Ennis based his comic Hughie’s appearance from and who had voiced Hughie in the animated Diabolical episode. I say, this is very deserved. Now, the mother sideplot, I can argue, was frankly underutilized; either the writers could’ve gotten rid of her character entirely (I prefer this because she’s honestly unnecessary to the plot) or dedicated more screentime to her. If you argue she was needed because she’d encouraged Hughie to propose to Annie and tie her down with the family heirloom ring, Hugh Campbell Senior could’ve done that. It fits the narrative of him being a single father for Hughie—so it’s even more devastating that he passes away. A lot of the audience can resonate with the loss of a paternal figure.

*EDIT: Hughie’s mother was underutilized this season. Imagine if we, instead, got to see Hughie encounter his mom at her MLM-like business with Voughtality selling herbal supplements and oils. Imagine the delicious conflicted feelings, and we see how brainwashed his mom is. Imagine that torment. His character arc could be trying to reconnect with his mom after his dad passed away—and trying to get her to see the truth. It can be The Boys’ social commentary on MLMs and cults and fanaticism and capitalism/ big corporations.

Episode 6: Dirty Business

Ah, this episode…every episode 6, according to Kripke, has to be the wildest episode in the show. I fear…that, while, yes, it was kiiiiinda wild, this isn’t the wild epic reviled? shocker they were hoping we’d feel and instead made a lot of people unhappy. This is the start of the “Hughie being SAed across three episodes straight” trend. S3x06: Herogasm was liked not only for the shock value of debauchery but also because it’d advanced the plot.

Firecracker’s actress, Valerie Curry, mentioned that she personally headcanons Firecracker having feelings for Starlight. I would’ve loved to see that extrapolated in this episode (and hinted in other episodes, like maybe showing us a couple seconds where we see Firecracker had kept an old crumpled magazine cover of Starlight in a f*cked up kinda creepy Starlight shrine with her face’s likeness showing signs of having been sparked or scratched out) because that adds a whole new layer of complexity to her character. We got a bit of it when she’d cornered Annie at the Vernon estate after she’d emerged from the bathroom with bloodshot eyes having felt a little hurt being excluded by the Mean Girls cool club (Homelander, Sage, and Victoria) and Annie apologizes to her face about it not being cool to have said that about her in the past—but then Annie showed her true intentions stabbing her in the neck.

Now, imagine, instead if we’d drawn this out even more. Firecracker’s writhing on the floor and screaming at her that she knew Annie was a lying backstabbing snake—and she blames herself for being stupid to have given Annie one more chance, and look where her forgiveness had done to her? She yells to Annie, who looks back guiltily, that Annie is still the b*tch from her memory and she’s not the good person that she thinks she is. Do you see how much more powerful this’d be instead of what we got?

Tek Knight, oh Tek Knight, look how they’ve massacred you, my poor hole obsessed man. Personally I’m all for creative liberty (for example, I would argue the genderbent female Stormfront in the show is an improvement on the comic’s male Stormfront who’d been Homelander’s real biological father technically/ sperm donor/ clone variant of his DNA). I’d even liked what they’ve done with him in Gen V S1—and was looking forward to what shenanigans he’d wreak in The Boys. And, oh boy, this is the best the Writers Room could come up with? Tek Knight is VERY different in the comics; I mean, yes, Butcher and Hughie did beat him up but in the end they decided to spare him. Comic Tek Knight is aware he has a problem (his obsession with f*cking holes) and sought therapy to no avail and even sent his Laddio away so he doesn't do the unthinkable to his minor sidekick.

Personally, since now the Vernon correctional facilities plot is going nowhere (is it? Or maybe, upon his death, by proxy he’d transferred the deed over to Homelander for his supposed modern-day imprisonment camps?), I would maybe have the entire thing take place at a Vernon Correctional Facility instead of at his manor/ Tek Cave obvious Batman reference with the whole BDSM plot. Or, heck, if you’d really wanted the BDSM plot, maybe make your corrupt judges being bribed to stuff-the-Vernon-jails-with-innocent-men-so-he-can-be-rich irl commentary (because it is a thing irl; even Leverage TV did an episode on this with this concept), have The Boys infiltrate a Vernon jail (it can only be Hughie, Frenchie, or if you want to go ham-fisted with the social commentary, go with M.M.), and have that character react to discovering a secret cabal of depraved folks forcing ordinary powerless prisoners to be pimped out as BDSM s3x toys for Supes and senators/ other powerful people in high positions of authority—and their deaths being disguised as runaways, killed by jail mates, su*cide, violent prison riots, what have you. Think about it. To these Supes and politicians and authority figures, they don’t think they’re doing a bad thing—because they’re giving punitive punishment to criminals i.e. “the bad guys” by depriving them of their rights and free will and consent to say no and subjecting them to their perversions. Think about the f*cked up social commentary implications and potential.

Think about it. Tek Knight is a parody of Bruce Wayne/ Batman and Iron Man. Think about what we could’ve gotten had the writers satirized Arkham Asylum/ Gotham Prison in The Boys universe. This could’ve been an episode about the American prison system.

The reveal of Kessler being able to see hallucination!Becca didn’t land a huge impact on me. 1) VoughtHQ spoiled it with their Fight Club “fanart.” Even if I hadn’t seen VoughtHQ’s leaks, this “plot twist” could’ve been seen a miiiiiiiiile away. The writers made it so obvious (Butcher talking to the air) that the twist just didn’t land as hard as it could’ve….

…About the breastfeeding scene. Personally, when Antony Starr said this was the craziest thing he’d done, my mind leapt at far wilder possibilities. So when VoughtHQ leaked that it was this scene, I was a tad let-down, lol. But I suppose I’ll take it. Homelander’s 100 micro-expressions, going from shock to confusion/ intrigue, during that scene was funny. That shot of milk getting squirted into his mouth was obviously done for the fanservice and the memes. You can expect fan artists and fan writers to go crazy with it because, hint, think about what else that white liquid could be substituted with and squirted into his face/ mouth.

Episode 7: The Insider

It’s the Christmas episode. Why, on god’s green earth, would you choose to ignore the perfect opportunity presented on a platter to you to not tie this back to the Vought Christmas party 12–13?—years ago (look, it happened in S1x07, and this is the 7th episode of S4 le gasp) and peel back the curtain to reveal more details about what might’ve happened between Becca Saunders and Homelander a decade ago? It’s the catalyst for Butcher’s antagonism against Homelander. This is a huge missed opportunity for both plot development and character development for Butcher.

What could’ve hit even more is Ryan, after receiving the framed photograph from Butcher, asking Homelander about how he’d met his mother in the first place and got him conceived when his bio mom had been in a loving relationship with this other man smart, Ryan, you’re now showing your smarts. And Homelander fumbles to tell him a fairytale version of How I Met Your Mother—but we get a true flashback simultaneously that contradicts exactly what he’s telling Ryan.

Now you have an opportunity to make it clear cut and double down on the SA angle of Homelander having r*ped her (now you spell it out for the folks in the audience who still don’t believe it; you leave no room for ambiguity anymore), or if you want to make it complicated you have an opportunity to showcase that Becca had known Butcher had cheated on her with a waitress and so in a fit of revenge she’d gone to cheat on him with Homelander—except it’d backfired on her. And now you have the opportunity to make Butcher feel even more of a survivor’s guilt because this meant she’d done it because of him. So this is his fault, this is what he tells himself.

Otherwise, I loved this episode essentially being about Ryan's turn in the spotlight and his character introspection moment. ...That's all I liked, plus this tying back to Butcher being smug and proud of him. And Homelander's scenes.

The last minute reveal of Shapeshifter Annie is introduced too late for me to give a damn. This could’ve been a really cool concept. They should’ve introduced her much earlier in episode 1 or 2; personally I prefer episode 2 because maybe you could tie her to someone Sage had found at the TruthCon expo. Because to me this is an obvious satire of the whole concept of reptilian lizardmen walking amongst us, camouflaging themselves as ordinary people in society. I would’ve preferred seeing hints of Shifter Annie early on to establish for as this threat lurking in the background—so when this happens where she shifts into Annie, bam, it hits that much harder. As of now, this subplot of Shifter Annie feels randomly injected too late into the season.

Episode 8: Season Four Finale/ Assassination Run

Victoria Neuman, like her comic book male counterpart Victor Neuman (Vic the Sheep), was always going to die one way or another. I don’t get the outrage seeing her go the Gen V enjoyers who watched Gen V first and came to watch The Boys after that are even more obvious. In the comic, Neuman was sworn in as president of the United States after Bob Singer dies and this is how sworn-in president Victor Neuman goes out:

Personally I do not mind her death being this early and in S4, but with her being set up as this cunning political savvy boss b*tch in the TV series, it would’ve been even more compelling, dramatic, and fun Easter egg reference to the comic if the writers kept her alive until S5, when the inevitable betrayal happens and Homelander rips her head off in Homelander’s descent into madness—or The Boys or Butcher kill her instead.

The way Shifter Annie subplot was resolved was anticlimactic. I might’ve cared a little more if it wasn’t mostly this one episode where we get to see her be a threat. Wouldn’t it have been so much more interesting and f*cked up if the writers showed Shifter Annie, as VoughtHQ initially alleged, becoming very, very enamoured by this happy married double life she could be having with this tall twink of a man? Give her some more depth. Annie blowing up at Hughie for not noticing…I’m on two fences about it. I get it; she was imprisoned for that long so she took it out on Hughie; it’s very human. On the other hand, Annie would not f*cking blow up at Hughie because he, too, had nonconsentually been conned into f*cking a stranger and proposing marriage to her. What could’ve been a sweet moment between them had been ruined by this chameleon homewrecker.

The scene with Butcher on the hospital bed, with Grace Mallory and Ryan visiting…I don’t necessarily hate it. Could it have been executed differently—and much better? Oh, most definitely. The writers essentially scrubbed away all of Butcher’s character development this season by “allowing Joe Kessler control of his body”—and cue evil genocidal maniac Butcher in S5 that I am pretty sure Hughie will still be the one to end him like in the comics. Like, c’mon. Unless Butcher self-sacrifices himself at the end nobly in S5, the narrative has been setting up the budding emotional tension and conflict between Hughie’s and Butcher’s final confrontation. But going back on topic, I could see the argument of Grace not thinking clearly in the moment like a concerned aunt/ grandma—and it backfired on her. Ryan coldly looking at her warm corpse is an obvious callout to Butcher, and us the audience, how eerily similar Ryan still is to his dad, Homelander. He’s Becca’s son, but he’s still his father’s son. It’s a very painful reminder for Butcher—which is why he cedes control to evil Butcher (tumor Kessler).

...In this season, they'd really nerfed Homelander a lot, huh? Not only the zinc ducts, but also him being a teary crybaby.... Ah. I don't mind it per se, but...man, I need to be reminded of the Homelander we saw in S1-2 (and S3). Him telling Ryan about the Bad Room off-screen was also a terrible decision; if this was instead acted out, it would make Ryan’s conflicted feelings even more heartbreaking because this is a 12-year old kid whose father scares him/ makes him uncomfortable, but this is still his flesh-and-blood biological father; he recognizes his father is a broken man but he’s literally the only parent this child has left. This is a situation irl that certain members of your audience will be able to relate to.

I did like what they did with Ashley though, with her taking V. I'm super curious what her superpower will be in S5. I also liked Sage coming back and telling Homelander she had fun coming up with this plan—just to see if she could. Stone cold. I love her.

I have a gripe with the V-ed tentacles (what the hentai tentacle p0rn?). Not only is it lame as h3ll (I understand this is probably a parody to capitalize on the Venom symbiote hype, as well as this possibly being a reference to the Diabolical episode), but they had a perfect set-up before with Butcher's powers in S3 ironically matching Homelander's with the super strength, durability, and laser eyes. It was sweet, perfect poetic irony, drawing uncomfortable parallels between Butcher and Homelander—and showing that they're foils of one another, two sides of the same coin. They could've shown us Butcher experimenting on his own body to see if he can find Homelander's weaknesses that he can use. It was the perfect set-up. But nooooo, now we have tentacles. This creative decision was probably made for the memes. Say what you will of The Boys writing staff, but they know their fanbase. TV Canon Tentacles Butcher was definitely fanservice.

The Soldier Boy reveal at the end…they have Jensen Ackles. With that star power and his surprising popularity with The Boys fans and Supernatural fans, I can understand why they hamfisted an end credit scene where he cameos again—and that’s the cliffhanger we end the season on, where Homelander tearfully overlooks his cryofrozen biological father and idol. Personally idgaf about Soldier Boy—my controversial opinion: Soldier Boy is honestly an overhyped character—but, again, I get it. Gotta make the fans excited. It’s fanservice.

Overall though, I really enjoyed Sage’s moments and A-Train’s redemption arc throughout the episodes.

I'm still tentatively excited for S5. I hope the writers learn from their S4 mistakes and deliver us an epic finale that goes out with a bang and not a whimper.

These are my own personal opinions however. If you were in the Writers Room, what would you change/ keep?

Would anyone want hear my honest unfiltered opinion(s) or breakdown about what I liked/ didn’t liked/ wished the writers had done differently for The Boys season 4, now that the season is complete and all 8 episodes are out?

Because, spoiler alert:

#the boys #the boys tv #the boys season 4 #the boys season four #billy butcher #homelander #hughie campbell #annie january #ryan butcher #kimiko miyashiro #frenchie the boys #mother’s milk #marvin milk #the boys season 4 spoilers #are there more things I would've wanted to see? yeah but everyone else has mentioned them in the subreddit or here #I'll reblog this in the morning for the morning folks #phoenix talks

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