Review: The Boys, "Department of Dirty Tricks" | Season 4, Episode 1
"We're whistling our way towards a fucking apocalypse."
Welcome to Episodic Medium’s coverage of season four of The Boys, Prime Video’s grisly look at a world of superheroes. As always, this review is free for all, with subsequent reviews—episodes two and three will follow in the coming days—exclusively for paid subscribers. For more information on our schedule for June and what your subscription gets you, check out our About Page in the meantime for more information.
You know what they say about Chekhov’s Glass Jar Of Superhuman Pubic Hair: If you put it on a tray in episode one, you must use it for some extremely gross but relevant reason by episode eight.
The Boys has never been one to shy away from tossing another narrative ball in the air, confident it can juggle them all effectively. And historically, it’s mostly done exactly that, give or take a Black Noir. What began as an entertaining but sometimes fairly straightforward subversion of superhero tropes in service of a gonzo (albeit obvious) meditation on “power corrupts” quickly grew more rich and involving with each passing year. Season three was its darkest but most compelling outing yet, leveling up from the Nazism-under-every-right-wing-rock tale of Stormfront in season two. After plunging headfirst into topics like manipulation of digital media and how cults of personality are formed and maintained, it set its despairing (but never as nihilistic as it’s often accused of being) satirical sights on the shifting ground of allegiances: political, emotional, and moral. In Eric Kripke’s clever adaptation of Garth Ennis’ far uglier source material, almost no one sets out to betray or hurt another person they care about. It just happens—and often in the pursuit of seemingly noble ends.
But let’s not sideline the fun, which is half the reason we’re here. This is still a show where people get fists punched straight through their heads and viscera explodes on everyone in the immediate vicinity, usually accompanied by a puerile gag or cartoonishly repugnant set piece. For every surprisingly earnest redemption arc like Maeve’s, there’s a Herogasm. And that tonal whiplash, more often than not, is the fun.
Last season ended with Butcher sacrificing his vendetta against Homelander in order to save Ryan, only to have the caped psychopath stroll off with the kid, his team remove him as leader, and all of that just to find out his use of Temp V is going to kill him within a year or so. The first episode back smartly and efficiently carries on those dynamics, in ways that pay off existing relationships while also using them to convincingly launch new subplots. As I mentioned above, there’s a lot of narrative balls in the air here, so let’s take them one at a time.
Our main storyline has swung smack into the presidential race, where Robert Singer and head-popping vice presidential candidate Victoria Neuman are busy winning their bid for the White House. I was relieved the show immediately revealed Singer to be in on The Boys’ attempt to kill her, both because it’s exhausting watching characters be in the dark about things that were long ago revealed to the viewer (not to mention everyone around them), but also because—after two seasons of the odds being comically stacked against our protagonists—having the resources of the CIA at their disposal finally gives some legitimate juice to the two-pronged fight against Homelander and Neuman. It opens up the worlds in which the team can travel, paying dividends for both plot and character.
It also sets up Butcher’s new temptation. (Hi, Jeffrey Dean Morgan!) Running out of time, sidelined by his own team (with very fucking good reason, it should be noted, as he single-handedly fucks up their six-months-in-the-offing plan to kill Neuman) and hallucinating visions of his dead wife, in comes old friend Kessler to offer him a spot with a team who seems to actually value him. I hope Morgan’s character is genuine; the least interesting angle here would be yet another asshole in friend’s clothing introduced just so he could betray his longtime buddy. Plus, it would give Butcher something to do besides toy once again with the idea of betraying Hughie, a move that officially hit diminishing returns after he knocked Hughie out last season. (Credit for quickly squashing that notion, with a selfie of his butthole to Neuman, no less.) A Butcher that is hugging Hughie and mourning his failed vengeance quest is a more interesting iteration of the character.
Homelander’s story, by contrast, has gone from occasionally reflecting Trumpism and contemporary politics to full-on aping them in ways that are often funny, but even more often uncomfortable in their familiarity. This runs the gamut from his trial for murder, stemming from lasering apart the head of a leftist protester in season three’s finale (shades of our ex-President’s “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?”) to the QAnon mimicry of his supporters. Whether it’s the vlogger parroting baseless talking points about the pedophile tendencies of anyone who dares oppose the head of The Seven or the literal sacrificial victims to the cause of Homelander (R.I.P. Todd), the show is leaning into its parody of our current political landscape in ways that would seem thuddingly obvious if real-life wasn’t becoming a worryingly close copy of a copy.
Yet the show refuses to let Homelander fall into one-note villainy. Rather than just hammering home the “it’s lonely at the top” theme repeatedly, Homelander spurns his circle of ever-more-pathetic yes men to seek out Sage (or “Sister” Sage; as she acidly notes, Vought “can’t have one of us without a racial qualifier”). Her intelligence and horrifying realpolitik gives him meaning and purpose, Sage becoming the Steve Bannon to his super-powered Trump. In some ways, she’s a Stormfront 2.0, someone who can’t wait to use his abilities to carry out her machinations, only this time without the personal affection or ideological blinders. Sure, he’ll still order Deep to perform oral sex on A-Train to prove their pitiful sycophancy, but with her help, those commands are soon applied to worryingly propagandistic ends—literal ends, in the form of Todd and his fellow bludgeoned dimwits.
Meanwhile, the rest of our heroes are grappling with the fallout of their various choices, almost all of which harmed someone they love. Hughie beats himself up for not being a better son prior to his dad’s stroke; M.M. tries to locate Todd to help his troubled daughter, who is acting out following the divorce; Starlight watches her pleas for tolerance fall on deaf ears as her friend and her organization’s best asset is beaten senseless by Homelander supporters. Some of these play better than others; Simon Pegg has been there since episode one, making Hugh Campbell’s coma at least pluck a heartstring. The introduction of a new love interest for Frenchie, by contrast, feels too abrupt by half, the character’s introduction rushed and the development haphazard. And Butcher’s offhand mention of an anti-supe virus Neuman is overseeing development of is even more offhand, when it seems like something our heroes should immediately be dropping everything to investigate.
In other words, the show is struggling to keep all these balls going up and down in sync. (Insert appropriately puerile joke here.) This isn’t a new problem—season three’s premiere felt similarly overstuffed—but it’s straining mightily to keep these many parts moving. When you get all the way through a recap of the events from this episode and realize you haven’t even mentioned the bloodthirsty adolescent who can shred Kimiko’s arm clean off with her mouth tentacles, there may be a slight surfeit of developments. Nonetheless, we’ve got a whole season to expand on the events of this hour, and The Boys has earned my trust. Let’s see where it goes.
Stray Observations
Welcome, everyone, to the reviews of season four! One of the things I’m most looking forward to this season is hearing from the commenters, because this show is nothing if not a near-endless fount of provocations on which to debate. Whether it sticks the landing or not, that part should be fun.
Ashley couldn’t hide her enthusiasm for Homelander’s command of sexual assault to Deep and A-Train. Colby Minifie is so, so good at playing fucked-up.
M.M., meanwhile, is still at his best when exasperated: “Fucking Gruyère puffs?!” He also gets one of the best non-gruesome, non-political jokes: “I just logged in five minutes ago!”
I get why it was such a short scene, but Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s introduction needed more time to breathe. That scene was all about Butcher, meaning we still know basically nothing about this new, presumably important, character.
Kimiko’s post-splat face is a rare instance of the show actually not reveling in gratuitous gross-out.
The real-life alignment of Trump’s trial/s is almost too much kismet. Production wrapped over a year ago, yet the in-universe ads fundraising for Homelander’s Legal Defense Fund feel like they could have been filmed yesterday.
They’re certainly playing Ryan’s ambivalence close to the vest, but I did laugh at his and Homelander’s simultaneous, “…toys for our amusement!”
Yes, that was Tilda Swinton as the voice of Ambrosius, the lovestruck octopus.
“I do NOT want to miss Smash Mouth.”
Who wants to take bets on what’s happening inside Butcher’s head? Give me your best guess.
Glad to see that you're reviewing this season, Alex!
For me, I'm looking for *new* stories from the show. It feels like they've been stuck in the same rut for too long - Butcher wants to kill Homelander, Homelander wants to rule over all the lesser humans, etc. The latter is especially concerning; Sage feels just like Stormfront right now, in terms of plot function. Are we rerunning S2? It's good that Butcher didn't betray Hughie for the tenth time, but all of this is feeling a little familiar, so I'd love to see them branch out.
The one exception is Frenchie's new love interest. Question, since it's been so long and I've forgotten: did we know Frenchie was into men? To me that felt like some welcome inclusion in a show that has been, for so long, very white and straight and male. (Yes, I know, Maeve, but our primary POV characters are Butcher, Hughie, and Homelander, let's be real.)
One thing that interested me was this episode's assumption that viewers have seen Gen V. I can imagine Butcher's mention of the supe virus from Gen V S1 being outta nowhere for viewers who hadn't seen that show, so its very offhand use here was interesting. I'll be curious how they treat that going forward. The danger, of course, is when shows expect you to watch every offshoot, which can get exhausting and start to feel like homework. I quite liked Gen V, except for Homelander's role at the end, so it worked fine for me, but I wonder about those who haven't seen it.
i thought this episode was sloppy but has earned our trust like you said. the "got hughie's files right here for ya" prank reminds me how outrageously funny this show can be.