Review: The Boys, "Life Among The Septics" | Season 4, Episode 2

"People need a symbol. Someone they can rally behind."

Photo: Jan Thijs/Prime Video

I can’t find it at the moment,¹ but there was an article a number of years back in which Republican and Democratic strategists and commentators were interviewed. The Republicans all talked about how they (and their candidates) would receive the daily messaging and soundbite-approved talking points from the RNC, and promptly either parrot them publicly themselves or direct their candidates to do so. The Democratic strategists and commentators, almost to a one, talked about how they’d ignore those daily memos, because, as they said, “I have better ideas and better ways to say them.” (I am seriously paraphrasing, here.) Any time people ask why Dems are so bad at getting their message out, I’m reminded of it. Honestly, I think about it a lot.

You see where I’m going with this.

Thematically, this is one of the more cohesive and artfully assembled episodes the show has done. It wasn’t perfect, but in terms of connecting the many disparate storylines with an overarching concept, it blows a lot of other installments out of the water. (Or, to quote Sage, “It blows harder than Nancy Reagan on the MGM backlot.”) Vought, Sage, Firecracker—they understand the power of symbolism, of circular messaging, providing a clear and easily digestible narrative that speaks to their target audience. “I bring ‘em together, tell ‘em a story, give ‘em a purpose,” as Firecracker succinctly explains to Sage, when pushed about whether she’s dumb enough to actually believe the bullshit she’s peddling. “I mean, which would you rather believe: That you belong with a community of warriors battling a secret evil, or that you’re a lonely inconsequential nobody that no one will ever remember?” (For an even more succinct take, there’s always Bruce Springsteen: “At the end of every hard-earned day, people find some reason to believe.”)

She doesn’t have the resources or the intelligence to take it beyond the low-level pandering that puts her in front of drooling men at events like TruthCon, but Firecracker is sharp enough to execute the same rough fundamentals of propaganda and cult-of-personality tactics that Sage is just beginning to practice on a nationwide/global level. It’s not even that smart: It’s one of those things that more or less everybody understands at this point (hell, 10-year-olds can explain why Bruce Wayne became a bat when he decided to fight crime). It’s a staple of not just superhero narratives, but narratives, period. Plato’s cave gets at this, among many other intellectually fecund examples. Symbols are more powerful than words.

So why are the good guys always so bad at it? The generous answer is that they want to be better—to avoid the reductive propaganda and simplistic, dumbed-down messaging that seems to be so facile and appealing. The fact that life is complicated is analytically important. Unfortunately, complications don’t create soldiers. They create confusion. Madelyn Stillwell got this. Stormfront really got this. Sage and Firecracker get it. And when your goal is power, when you don’t care about making things better, or indulging in humanism (or Butcher’s preferred target of scorn, compassion) or all the things that make us kinder and more forgiving, well, that’s why you’re better at it.

Annie January knows this. She gets the importance of symbols, of hope, of someone to place your faith in, even before Hughie reminds her of it. And yet she doesn’t want to participate, for all the reasons outlined above and more. Being a supe was the most miserable time of her life. It left her traumatized, disillusioned, and cold. It’s all too easy to understand why she wants nothing to do with “Starlight.” But ultimately, seeing the way their opponents have weaponized it forces her to reconsider. She doesn’t give Hughie’s “I’m just so sick of losing” speech from last season, but it’s certainly percolating under the surface. She wants to reassure, to inspire—and that means putting on a light show and standing above her cheering admirers, in order to give them hope and motivate to continue fighting for the side of good. Or, as she tells Hughie, “I’m gonna let a shitbag like A-Train step up, but I won’t?”

Credit: Prime Video

The hunt for more symbols, more power, leads Sage to TruthCon. Which by extension leads our heroes, who know Sage was behind the frame job against the two black men accused of killing Todd and the other Homelander fanatics, to the event as well. The episode nails the tone and tenor of these kinds of events, as anyone who has seen or attended them can attest. The testosterone and wannabe militaristic roleplaying, the barely veiled racism, the percolating anger funneled toward false but easy targets like “global pedophile rings” or immigrants—it’s all there, with the little flourishes of humor the show always utilizes to leaven the dispiriting reality that stuff like TruthCon really exists. (“Deep’s Blue Sea Room” is a phrase I’d wager someone in the writer’s room has been sitting on for awhile.)

It also becomes the setting of the climactic fight, after the con ends and the space is repurposed for the family-friendly—and excellently themed—bat mitvah, “The Marvelous Ms. Rachel.”² It’s an action sequence delightfully enlivened by the presence of “Splinter,” a dimwitted Multiple Man-esque supe last seen engaging in a daisy chain of self-salad tossing that left all his doubles with pinkeye. Sage, unsurprisingly, was on to our team from the start, setting up a sting operation to trap them. And sure, they survive (even if Splinter doesn’t), but Sage’s larger purpose is still achieved—more ammunition for public mobilization against the good guys.

It also sets up an opportunity for a Butcher redemption arc, which the show then undercuts at the very end. After being fired immediately following his confession of his health status (we’re at about six months to live for him, now), Butcher shows up to try and seize control of the situation, only for M.M. to throw him out. So when Butcher reappears just when he’s needed and rescues everybody, it’s understandable to think he’ll be back with the team—especially after the genuinely heartfelt plea to M.M. that he makes back at the office, all but begging for help rescuing Ryan, in order to do one good deed before he dies. Instead, the show blows up the seeming reconciliation: “Too fucking little, Butcher…too fucking late,” M.M. spits, and we cut to credits. There was no Kessler this episode, but after being so definitively rejected by his team, it’s almost certain Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s offer to Butcher is about to be accepted.

Some other supporting storylines are being put into action here, as well. Frenchie’s inebriated call to Cherie reveals the real reason he’s being weird around Colin: back in his former life, Frenchie killed Colin’s family, something that will presumably go over about as well as pinkeye in the chocolate fountain at a bat mitzvah, when Colin finds out. And Kimiko, who has thus far this season been doing little more than supporting Frenchie’s affection for the other man (admittedly in a very funny way, after she drinks four six eight of A-Train’s boozy energy drink), suddenly confronts her past. A sign of fake pedo-ring nonsense uses the picture of a woman from her dark past, and after briefly pondering actually doing the work with her therapist, the news alert on the Shining Light—the group that killed her parents and kidnapped her and her brother into their ring—instead sends her out the door. We haven’t really explored this part of her character since season two; it feels overdue for a Kimiko side quest.

And meanwhile, Homelander’s efforts to have his son follow in his footsteps keep blowing up in his face. Especially this time, he has no one to blame but himself, sabotaging Ryan’s meticulously choreographed rescue scenario and so throwing the kid off his game that Ryan gets startled into flinging his fight-maestro buddy Koy to his death, rather than the genteel toss they had planned. These scenes with the two of them tend to follow a standard template: Homelander is initially understanding and encouraging, but quickly loses patience’s with his son’s insistence on caring about people. What makes it effective is the groundwork already laid. We’ve seen Homelander arguing with himself in the mirror, a part of him still craving that human connection and approval. He gets so upset with Ryan because his kid is the part of himself he’s working to bury. That’s gonna be tough when there’s a sentient reminder of it calling him out on a daily basis.

Symbols of hope keep circling the edges of the frame. A-Train wants to be one, but beneath the stories he tries to feed his nephews, he hates the things he’s done. Hughie just wants to believe in one, his support for Annie a way to distract himself from the pain and betrayal he feels from his mother. Butcher wants to tear them all down, refusing to accept that a world with symbols of hope is a world without, well, hope. But everyone knows how powerful they are. It’s just a question of what to do with that knowledge. Too bad Sage isn’t sharing.

Stray observations

• I was mostly convinced we were about to watch an A-Train flashback at the beginning, until Will Ferrell stepped out of the car, and the appalling Blind Side-esque (name-checked, even!) tales got nicely, if a little broadly, skewered. Bonus points for “Ferrell Streep.”³

• The filming also helped reveal that the new Black Noir is mostly treating his latest gig as an acting challenge.

• Always happy to see Rosemarie Dewitt pop up, and she’s doing a fine job underplaying what could’ve easily been a bit too hammy role as Hughie’s mom.

• The reveal of the “Homeboy” poster made me laugh.

• Honestly, a lot of choice one-liners this episode, though my favorite might’ve been Ashley’s exasperated response to Deep: “Stupid people who think they’re smart make me wanna eat my own shit.”

• Also, Sage is a little too smart for her own good, not noticing that Homelander is already doing exactly what she was worried he’d do: resenting her authority. She might want to listen to Ashley’s advice.

• Homelander’s vanity gets checked again this episode, overhearing the media team gossiping about how many millions it cost to airbrush out his signs of aging in Dawn Of The Seven.

• Valerie Curry is clearly having a ball playing the love-to-hate-her Firecracker.

• Similarly, I owe Jessie T. Usher an apology. I really thought he was over-the-top in season one, but A-Train’s self-hatred has really given him a way to lock into the character and deliver a strong performance. Most Improved Performance award, there.

1. I really would rather not admit the embarrassing amount of time I just spent trying and failing to find the source material.

2. Ah, the cross-promotional benefits of being on Amazon. Though it’s fair to say it’s not so cross-promotional when Firecracker says they’ve “infiltrated a Zionist cabal,” and then points her camera at a standee of Tony Shalhoub.

3. In an interview with Variety this week, showrunner Eric Kripke said there’s a bunch of “A-list fans” of the show who have asked to guest, which helps explain the run of people like Tilda Swinton and Ferrell popping up in these cameo-sized parts. (You may recall last season began with a movie-within-the-series appearance by Charlize Theron.)