The Boys are back with the return of Karl Urban, Karen Fukuhara, Jack Quaid, Laz Alonso, Erin Moriarty, Claudia Doumit, Jesse T. Usher, Chase Crawford and Antoni Starr as Homelander. Season 4 of The Boys picks up with The Boys under the new leadership of MM and saving humanity from Homelander’s heinous actions before it is too late.
For this season of The Boys in particular, especially with the current presidential election, I felt that the premise was so close to home that it was disturbingly accurate. I mean the season finale had to change its title from Assasination Run to Season 4 Finale due to the recent assassination attempt of Donald Trump and the disclaimer before the episode to acknowledge their accuracy. Overall, this season definitely had some flaws but finished strong and got us anxiously waiting for the final fifth season!
Let’s talk about some of the criticism I had with this season of The Boys. I believe the explicit content was a bit too much for me this season. As a veteran watcher of The Boys, I know that there will be moments that will make it very hard to watch but the introduction of the Tek-Cave was a surprise and I was willing to not have experienced it. I totally get it, that each season, it has to get more and more outrageous because there are fans that enjoy seeing how far the gore and sexual weirdness can go. But the one I definitely had to skip was Sister Sage’s lobotomy scene. And the death of Victoria Neuman was a disappointing element because I would have loved to see how she would have been supportive in the Boys’ mission but sadly we will never know.
One of the greatest parts of this season was, you guessed it, THE A-TRAIN. I still can’t forgive A-Train for what he did to Robin and Supersonic but this redemption arc of his was well deserved. Especially him and Hughie being able to bury the hatchet. Plus, his fight with the Peak, I mean the Deep, was a long-time coming! A-Train’s character development was so complex and the struggle he had to deal with throughout season 1 to 4, it really paid off. Well done writers and Jesse T. Usher!
Antoni Starr’s Homelander standout in Season 4 Episode 4 is a noteworthy performance because you can cut the tension with the plastic knife that they were using to cut fudgy the whale. In that episode we really got to experience the pain and torture that Homelander had to undergo and start to empathize with him which is a dangerous feeling to have for a psychopathic superbeing who has no regards to human life.
As always, I must praise Karen Fukuhara’s performance as Kimiko, although she has no lines, she delivers such emotionally driven performances with her eyes and facial gestures that really portrayed the sadness of Kimiko’s past and present.
Overall, although The Boys Season 4 has some very intense scenes that made me turn away, the set up for the final season is bonkers! This gives me the same rush that I had when Avengers: Infinity War ended and had to wait for Avengers: Endgame, and if this is anything similar, we know that it is going to be diabolical!
