With each new season, Amazon MGM Studios’ The Boys faces the same challenge: topping what came before. In that sense, The Boys Season 4 falls short, as it’s nowhere near as shocking as its infamous predecessors.
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But then, how could it be? Following the lead of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s The Boys comics, showrunner Eric Kripke and his cast and crew have already set the standard for OTT live-action entertainment three times already. It’s inevitable that even the most gruesome death scene or depraved sex act now seems par for the course. Which presents another challenge: what do you do when the bodily fluid-soaked bar can’t get any higher?
The solution Kripke and his team seemingly settled on is “more.” More plot, more characters, more allegory, and more gross-out content. Fortunately, this approach mostly works in The Boys Season 4’s favor. While it’s occasionally overloaded and uneven, this latest batch of episodes is never anything less than engrossing.
The Boys sets its sights squarely on the political arena in Season 4. Secret Supe Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) is this close to the Oval Office. The Boys – Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid), Marvin Milk (Laz Alonso), Annie January (Erin Moriarty), Frenchie (Tomer Capone), Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) – plan to take her out first. Meanwhile, the team’s ex-leader Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) only has months to live, and wants to free his late wife’s son, Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), from his father, Homelander (Antony Starr), before he goes. For his part, Homelander hopes to strengthen his red-gloved grip on society – and recruits Firecracker (Valorie Curry) and Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) to help him do it.
That’s a whole lot of plot threads and character arcs for an eight-episode season, and The Boys Season 4 almost collapses under the weight of it all. To their credit, Kripke and his writers’ room work overtime to tie the fourth season’s many plot threads together thematically – redemption, forgiveness, and letting go are the order of the day this time around – but some storylines feel more necessary (and plot twists, more effective) than others.
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Butcher, Homelander, Marvin, and Jessie T. Usher’s A-Train separately grappling with the realization they want off the toxic superhero merry-go-round is essential. By contrast, Hughie’s family dramas, Annie’s voyage of self-discovery, and Frenchie and Kimiko revisiting old demons (while interesting) occasionally stray too far from the core narrative. Then there’s Ryan’s arc, which never fully clicks. It’s like Kripke and co. didn’t have quite enough room to stick the landing. The same goes for The Boys Season 4’s finale: it broadly hits the mark, yet feels slightly rushed.
But like I said earlier, The Boys Season 4 is still a wildly entertaining show, overstuffed or not. The action scenes are gleefully gory and inventive (Episode 1’s Bat Mitzvah dance floor brawl is particularly memorable). The needle drops are just as on point, especially a delightfully meta Nirvana track. And the foul-mouthed zingers (none of which I can repeat here) and raunchy sight gags are hilarious. No, The Boys isn’t as shocking as it once was, however, it’s not for want of trying.
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The cast continues to give it their all, too. Indeed, it’s arguably Urban’s finest performance as Butcher, exposing the ‘ard man’s soft underbelly without undercutting his ruthless edge. Starr is likewise effective at charting the next stage of Homelander’s chilling sad boy psychopath journey. Quaid, Moriarty, Alonso, Capone, Fukuhara, and Usher are all on stellar form too. Newcomers Curry and Heyward bring plenty to the table as well (particularly the latter).
Together, The Boys Season 4’s new and familiar faces keep the whole bonkers production on the rails, even when its tone veers a bit broad, or its satire is a bit on the nose. Anyone who somehow missed the subtext of the last three seasons will be in no doubt about the show’s messaging this time around. The parallels to real-world demagogues and rage grifters are rarely subtle, nor is the indictment of alt-right politics. But just because The Boys Season 4 isn’t always nuanced doesn’t prevent it hitting on – and for the most part, successfully interrogating – some interesting ideas.
Like how the best way to conquer a democracy is to let it tear itself apart. Or how everyone abuses their power, even the supposed best of us. Or what it even means to be a superhero in 2024. Predictably, these issues are rarely framed through the most optimistic lens. Yet for all its cynicism and snark, The Boys Season 4 (like Butcher) still has beating heart under the hood – and that heart believes in heroes. Not spandex-clad demigods with cartoon moral codes, but flawed human beings who want to do the right thing, and sometimes even succeed.
Sure, they’re not perfect. But then, neither is The Boys Season 4 – and it’s still a diabolically good time just the same.
The Boys Season 4 is currently streaming on Prime Video, with new episodes dropping Thursdays.
Published: Jun 13, 2024 02:45 pm