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Antony Starr in “The Boys”
Prime Video
The Boys’ worst fears are coming true as Homelander’s dark visions are realized in The Boys Season 4 finale.
The finale begins on January 6 as Congress moves to certify the election of President-elect Robert Singer (Jim Beaver) and Vice President-elect Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit), but not realizing a plan for insurrection is in play.
The Boys, of course, have been working undercover with Singer to assassinate the Neuman because he knows that the secret Supe is one heartbeat away from the presidency. If that happens, Homelander (Antony Starr) would enact his plan to round up people who don’t agree with his agenda—particularly members of the Starlighter movement—and imprison them in internment camps across the country.
The eighth episode of Season 4 of The Boys really couldn’t have come out at worse time for Prime Video and the series creator Eric Kripke, especially considering the title of the completed episode was Assassination Run.
Episode 8 has now has simply been retitled Season 4 Finale, but it won’t help much in averting any criticism. After all, talk of the assassinations of both Singer and Neuman have been among the key storylines throughout Season 4 of The Boys. The title change of Episode 8, of course, comes is in reaction to the July 13 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
Here’s a detailed recap of The Boys Season 4, Episode 8.
Note: The rest of this article includes major spoilers from the episode.
Claudia Doumit and Antony Starr in “The Boys.”
Prime Video
Recap: A New Age Of Superheroes Begins
During a visit to the Firecracker’s (Valorie Curry) Truth Bomb show on the Vought News Network, Homelander outs VP elect Victoria Neuman as a secret Supe live on the air. Neuman confronts Homelander off-set and says that the revelation of her being a Supe will doom her chances of being re-elected. Homelander says it doesn’t matter once they are in charge by uttering, “New world, new rules.”
The election is certified to make Singer and Neuman president and vice president, even though the news breaks during the certification that Neuman is “super-abled.” After hearing the news, Hughie discovers that all of the damaging intelligence The Boys had on Neuman has been wiped from his computer. What he doesn’t realize yet is that the culprit is a lot closer than he thinks.
Singer addresses the nation about being as shocked as the public is in finding out that Victoria is a secret Supe, even though he knew of her Supe abilities before and asked The Boys to assassinate her. As such, Singer is calling for “a new, free and fair election,” noting, “If Victoria Neuman becomes vice president, it will be over my dead body because she had me assassinated.”
Super Ashley
Homelander instructs Vought CEO Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie) to assemble a list of anybody in the company who has any damaging information on him and The Seven.
In a meeting with the remaining members of The Seven—Firecracker, The Deep (Chace Crawford) and Black Noir II (Nathan Mitchell)—Homelander informs them of his plans to assassinate Singer. Homelander knows this will cause rioting, so he plans to have Supes “swoop in” to restore order as a means of “defending the rightful President Neuman.”
Homelander assigns Deep and Black Noir II the task of eliminating everyone “permanently” on the list provided to him by Ashley. When Deep notes how Ashley has more dirt on The Seven than anybody, Homelander orders her execution, too. Since Ashley hears the order, she freaks out and finds Homelander’s secret stash of Compound V and injects herself with it—beginning a horrifying transformation into something that we won’t fully see until Season 5.
Butcher Is Bedridden
Inching even closer to death, Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) is visited in a hospital room in a government safe house by the specter of dead CIA Agent Joe Kessler (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who encourages Butcher to use the Supe-killing virus to commit Supe genocide.
Government agent Grace Mallory (Laila Robbins) brings Becca’s (Shantel VanSatten) son, Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) to see Butcher in what he thinks is a hospital. Butcher tells Ryan that he must go stay with Grace to truly be safe from Homelander, but he refuses.
Grace reveals some awful truths about Homelander to Ryan and informs the teen that in time he will be the only person who can defeat the world’s strongest Supe. Ryan lashes out in denial and seemingly kills Grace as he exits the safe house.
Shifty Shifter
A Supe shapeshifter continues to pose as Annie (Erin Moriarty) and seduces a blissfully unaware Hughie (Jack Quaid). After Annie proposes to Hughie, and he accepts, the shifter realizes that her skin is rotting away. She returns to the hideaway where she’s imprisoning Annie to recharge her powers.
While getting her recharge, the shifter taunts Annie with details of her sexual encounters with Hughie and other personally damaging things before informing Annie that she will be framed for Singer’s assassination.
Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonzo), Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), Hughie and the shifter who hijacked Annie’s body go to visit Singer in an underground bunker. Hughie finally figures out that it’s not Annie he’s been with, so the shifter proceeds to kill Singer’s bodyguards.
Annie, meanwhile, escapes from captivity and shows up in the president’s bunker to have a violent showdown with her Supe doppelgänger. Annie proceeds to choke the shifter to death.
Annie becomes angry with Hughie over the intimate relationship he had with her shapeshifter doppelgänger. Hughie struggles to defend his actions, saying, “I thought it was you!” In an apparent move to take Hughie back, Annie tells him that he needs to get tested for every STD known to mankind, saying that she is not getting “shifter syphilis.”
Jack Quaid and Erin Moriarty in “The Boys.”
Prime VIdeo
Butcher Unleashed
Homelander threatens to kill Neuman’s daughter Zoe (Olivia Morandin) and informs her that she will be his puppet when she ascends to the position of commander-in-chief. Knowing she has no way of escaping her predicament, Neuman asks Hughie to watch after her daughter in the event of her death.
Hughie proposes to The Boys that they save Neuman and use her in their fight against Homelander. Mother’s Milk agrees to save Neuman and after initially objecting to the idea, Annie goes with the plan.
Kimiko admits to Frenchie (Tomer Capone) that she lied about telling him to be with someone better than her—namely, his boyfriend, Colin. Frenchie tells Kimiko that there’s no one better than her and they kiss.
Butcher regroups with The Boys and says there will be no deal with Neuman. Suddenly, Butcher’s immense powers from his Temp V injections kick in and tentacles emerge from his chest and wrap around Neuman before he tears her in half. Butcher walks away as his fellow members of The Boys stand in shock.
Sister Sage Returns
Homelander is dejected when he learns of Neuman’s death, but then the banished Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) returns with a new plan. Since Singer was caught on tape reprimanding Mother’s Milk about not killing Neuman, the president is taken into custody by Capitol police.
Sister Sage tells Homelander to take a call from Speaker of the House Calhoun (David Andrews) to discuss her new plan. Once Congress invokes the 25th Amendment to remove Singer from power, Calhoun will become president. Calhoun’s first action is to declare martial law in the U.S. and promises to deputize hundreds of superheroes, who will in turn report to Homelander.
Homelander takes the podium to memorialize Neuman and blames her death on deep-state Starlighters. He says that the Supes under his new world order and will rout out the traitors from the government and the streets, declaring “America will be safe again.” Homelander then adds, “And to the Starlighters, whatever rock you’re hiding under, we’re coming for you. I’m coming for you because today a new age of superheroes begins.”
Annie, Hughie, Frenchie, Kimiko and Mother’s Milk meet one last time to get fake passports and flee—only to be captured by the Supes from Godolkin University in Gen V.
Zoe is brought to the Red River Institute—a group home for orphaned Supes—following her mother’s death. Red River was the place her mother grew up in before then-Vought CEO Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) adopted her.
In an end credits scene, Calhoun brings Homelander to Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), who was presumed dead at the end of The Boys Season 3. Soldier Boy is lying unconscious in an incubator.
“The Boys” Season 4.
Prime Video
Review: An Uneven Season
Eric Kripke has a huge problem on his hands with the fifth and final season of The Boys—and it began long before the release of Episode 8 and the unfortunate subject matter of political violence.
In short, The Boys Season 4 simply became too political from the very first episode this season. As such, the series from the get-go lost its satirical edge, irreverent humor and over-the-top blood, guts and gore that made it entertaining appointment TV in the first three seasons.
Of course, the political undercurrent has always been a part of The Boys, since Kripke has made no secret of the fact that he’s anti-right wing and Homelander is essentially a stand-in for Trump. With Season 4 taking place during a presidential election year, however, Kripke has made his political messaging in the series a priority.
Kripke even warned viewers of it in a telling interview with The Hollywood Reporter a week before Season 4 started streaming on June 13. In short, his message to viewers during the THR interview was if you don’t want to listen to his social agenda, “Go watch something else.”
One thing Kripke clearly hasn’t considered is that maybe his viewers don’t want his political commentary in The Boys, whether they agree with him viewpoint or not. Entertainment programming, after all, is meant to provide escapism from the things that drive people crazy in everyday life—and that largely includes an escape from the political venom that is spewed from both sides of the aisle every day of the year. Especially in these trying times, the last thing viewers want to see is a show that ratchets up political rhetoric.
Valorie Curry and Chace Crawford in “The Boys” Season 4.
Prime Video
Thankfully, Kripke didn’t play a full court press game with Season 4, because it there are no doubt some moments of brilliance spread throughout the season. Without question, the series was at its irreverent best this season with Episode 5, which memorably involved flying feral sheep.
Unfortunately, episodes like No. 5 were too few and far between. In the middle, there were episodes that were either too serious for their own good or in the instance of Episode 6, just downright twisted and depraved.
Purely from a filmmaking standpoint, Episode 8 is expertly constructed as several storylines from this season converge into an unnerving finale for Season 4. Apart from its problematic storyline, Episode 8 at least shows that Kripke has some great storytelling sensibilities. Unfortunately, the episode also sets up a grim start to Season 5, where infusing more politics into the storyline can’t be avoided.
All eight episodes of Season 4 of The Boys are streaming on Prime Video, along with Seasons 1 through 3.
