Episode 7 of Season 4 of “The Boys”: A Night That Was Anything But Quiet

Warning: Episode 7 spoilers for Season 4 of The Boys are in the following synopsis.

A HIGH-LIGHT
The episode last week was the weakest of Season 4 of The Boys so far because it was excessively focused on shock value.
The Shape Shifter’s abilities set the stage for the end with a devastating stinger.
The anticlimax and forced nature of Kimiko’s background about losing her voice detract from the overall impact of the season.
One of the most divisive episodes of The Boys so far was last week’s, in which the gang broke into a GOP fundraiser given by millionaire Supe Tek Knight (Derek Wilson) while Hughie (Jack Quaid) was dressed as a Supe called Webweaver.

Tek Knight spent the majority of the event sexually tormenting a distressed Hughie while Homelander, Sister Sage, and VP-elect Victoria Neuman made their rounds. Antony Starr, Susan Heyward, and Claudia Doumit were the actors portraying these characters.

Annie and Kimiko saved Hughie, but Mother’s Milk dealt with his own issues after nearly having a heart attack and needed A-Train’s (Jessie T. Usher) help to recover. Laz Alonso played this role. After the incident, Valorie Curry’s Firecracker revealed that she is taking medicines to milk the star-spangled Supe, pledging her devotion to Homelander. Possibly the season’s most foreshadowed revelation comes at the end of this episode: Kessler, Billy Butcher’s (Karl Urban) new ally, is actually only Billy’s imagination.

Despite the fact that Season 4 of The Boys has had its share of impressive moments, last week’s episode was among the worst of the entire series. It relied too much on shock value and featured jokes that were disgusting even by The Boys’ standards. The seventh and final episode of the season, “The Insider,” is here to possibly save the penultimate season.

Those Lads TV-MA

Action Science fiction Drama Crime
A band of vigilantes decides to root out superheroes who are corrupt and abusing their abilities.

Coming Out on July 26, 2019
Eric Kripke is author.
Cast
An ensemble cast including Karl Urban, Antony Starr, Chace Crawford, Jack Quaid, Colby Minifie, Aya Cash, Erin Moriarty, Dominique McElligott, and Laz Alonso
Heroic Thriller Episode Number 4 Production Company
Launch of ‘The Boys’ Season 4, Episode 7: The Avenue V Christmas Special by Amazon Studios
On the filming of “The Avenue V Christmas Special,” the programme opens with a puppet A-Train discussing antifa with Ryan (Cameron Crovetti). The puppet then sings a song that encourages the audience to report their own parents. After Ryan questions the show’s morality and cries cut, the director reveals that Homelander, Ryan’s father, approved the lyrics.

Despite Firecracker and Homelander’s presence, Sister Sage is tardy to the meeting at Vought Tower, where Ashley (Colby Minifie) is grudgingly discussing NFTs. After forcing Ashley to leave the room, Homelander confronts Sage and tells him about the butcher’s bugs he discovered at Tek Knight’s estate.

Believed that the death of Cameron Coleman (Matthew Edison) had been in vain, Firecracker informs the astute Supe that they are already losing followers due to their invocation of the 25th Amendment. When asked who the real mole is, Homelander tells Sage that Firecracker will be investigating instead of her: “You have brains, but I have wisdom.” It turns out that A-Train was listening in on the meeting.

As Tilda Swinton plays the role of Ambrosius, an octopus who is in love with The Deep (Chace Crawford), Crawford reads poetry to him. He is in the middle of their passionate moment when Sage sends him a booty-calling text. After returning Ambrosius to her aquarium, the Deep leaves the bewildered and distraught fisherman behind.

While visiting their extended family in Sedona, Arizona, Annie tells her mother Donna (Ann Cusack) that she needs to flee the house and hide out with them. But Donna isn’t thrilled about it; she tells her daughter harshly that her bible group expelled her when they found out about Annie’s abortion.

Hughie has been clinging to Annie’s Starlight supersuit, Donna reveals to Annie as their conflict escalates. Following their conversation, Hughie assures Annie that he will get rid of the supersuit, while Annie sobs about the impossibility of having a family in their dysfunctional society.

 

As Sister Sage hands over a file to an unidentified individual on the street, A-Train captures the moment and transmits the photos to MM. Butcher returns to the office and tells the team that he was responsible for Sameer’s (Omid Abtahi) disappearance while MM shares the images with The Boys.

He goes on to say that the only virus that might kill Homelander would trigger a worldwide epidemic, wiping out all Supes. At first, Annie thinks Butcher still wants to carry out the plan, but he denies it as Kessler keeps whispering in his ear that he is destroying everything.

This makes Annie furious. For Sameer’s benefit in developing a more stable virus strain, Butcher informs the crew that he persuaded Grace Mallory (Laila Robins) to release Frenchie (Tomer Capone) from prison.

Without any happiness in his voice, Frenchie tells the crew he would choose death to freedom. MM reassigns leadership of The Boys to Butcher after informing the team that he feels unfit to do so following his panic episode.

In the seventh episode of season four of “The Boys,” Ryan receives a Christmas present from Butcher.
Opened under Homelander’s tree, Ryan discovers a present from Butcher. Inside, he sees a photo of Butcher with his mother, Becca, played by Shantel VanSanten. At the same time, MM informs his ex-wife Monique (Frances Turner) that she and Janine (Liyou Abere) need to leave the country until things calm down, and he offers her $10,000 in cash and plane tickets to Belize.

Monique wants to know what’s going on and kisses MM as he starts to answer her question. She then asks him to come with her. Even when MM says he can’t, she insists he come nevertheless.

After a night of drinking, A-Train finds Ashley in front of a VNN newscast, where they are reporting that Cameron Coleman has passed away from a brain aneurysm. Knowing they only have a short window of opportunity before Homelander discovers they are responsible for the leak, Ashley tries to persuade A-Train to accompany her on a flight to Florence, Italy.

A second vision of Kessler appears to Butcher and scolds him for his callous disregard for Kimiko and Annie’s safety in relation to the virus, as well as for Becca’s well-being during her lifetime. After that, Butcher breaks into an abandoned flat, claiming to be the one who lived there when Sage gave him the data, and he takes Annie and Hughie with him.

The six-day assassination plot involving Robert Singer (Jim Beavers) is documented in a folder that Hughie finds on January 6. After a startling commotion interrupts their discoveries, the trio searches the flat and discovers a battered woman (Naomi Frenette) hiding in the wardrobe. Annie finds burns on the woman’s body and rushes to her aid, but the woman attacks both Annie and Hughie before escaping the flat in a panic.

As she runs away, the woman snatches several garments from an elderly woman who is carrying her laundry. As the woman starts to tear off her skin, she leaves a trail of bloodied flesh behind her, which Hughie and Annie find disgusting. The three become disoriented and miss the Supe right as the Shape Shifter completes their metamorphosis. A-Train pays MM a visit, inquiring as to his absence from the flat with Butcher, Annie, and Hughie.

He then proceeds to tell MM about his quiet conversation with the youngster who stared at him in wonder as he left MM at the hospital. The speedster then points out that the struggle against the Supers would continue even if he leaves the country, and that whatever he wishes to leave behind will accompany him to Belize. Kimiko and Frenchie keep an eye on Sameer while he works in the lab. They learn from the kidnapped scientist that Butcher exhibited strange behaviour, including having conversations with himself.

Believing that the recently captured Webweaver (Dan Mousseau) is the mole, Homelander and Firecracker confront him. In his naiveté, Webweaver confirms the allegations, saying that he let Butcher use his costume to get into Tek Knight’s party. As Webweaver confesses that he wasn’t responsible for the leak, Homelander starts to choke him. In response, Homelander rips Webweaver’s corpse in two, murdering him while Firecracker watches in despair.

Episode 7 of Season 4 of “The Boys” Reveals Kimiko’s Speech Impairment

Image courtesy of Prime Video featuring Karen Fukuhara as Kimiko in The Boys, Season 4, Episode 7.
Kimiko remains enraged because he rejected her visits and assistance when he was in prison, despite Frenchie’s best efforts to communicate with her. After Frenchie presses her for an explanation, she reveals that she went silent the night she killed another girl in the Shining Light camp. Kimiko tells Frenchie that she despises herself and her transformation, and Frenchie asks why. After a brief exchange, they reveal their intention to release Sameer once he finishes the virus, defying Butcher’s requests.

The Deep learns about Ambrosius’s sexual involvement with Sister Sage via her. After a long and angry dispute, Ambrosius finally confesses to The Deep that Sage is using him. He destroys her aquarium and confines her to his closet as a form of revenge, then listens with tears to her calls for rescue as she suffocates to death.

Not long after that, The Deep swears his undying devotion to Homelander. Hughie personally visits Neuman in an effort to persuade her to abandon Homelander’s insane scheme to kill Singer. He educates Neuman about Starlighter incarceration camps, something the latter had no knowledge of before to Tek Knight’s gala. Nonetheless, Hughie departs devastated since he was unable to persuade Neuman to side with them.

Homelander had assigned The Deep and Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) to meet Butcher and Annie when they returned to The Boys’ headquarters in the Flat Iron. Fights break out as the two Supes launch attacks. A-Train and MM burst into the office at the last second, just as The Deep is about to inflict a wound on Annie.

They assist the two in defeating The Seven by knocking them unconscious. A-Train hurries to Ashley’s office to inform her that Noir and The Deep have discovered his true identity as the leaker. He begs her to escape with him, but she says no, and warns him to remove his tracking chip first. After the fight, Annie, MM, and Butcher go to a pub, where a woman approaches them and asks to take their selfie.

Inquiring about Kessler’s identity, she approaches Butcher after overhearing him call out the name during the office attack. MM informs Monique over the phone that he will not be able to accompany her to Belize.

Firecracker tries to reassure Homelander with the news that A-Train was the source of the leak. Sage enters the office and affirms that she was aware A-Train was the leaker and that it was all a part of her grand scheme. After her dismissal from the Seven, Homelander sent Sage packing for Detroit. Upon her departure, Sage encounters Noir and The Deep, whom she informs of her dismissal.

After that, it comes out that Noir has been having an affair with Sage as well. Sameer stabs Kimiko in the leg with the virus in an attempt to escape from the lab.

As Sameer flees, Frenchie amputates Kimiko’s leg with a saw to stop the spread of the virus. Frenchie and Kimiko show Butcher and The Boys the severed limb and tell them that the virus they have could kill Neuman, but Homelander would be immune.

During the recording of the Avenue V Christmas Special, Ryan interrupts the live broadcast to criticise Vought. He then goes on to discuss his mother, stating that she was married to Butcher instead of Homelander. He concludes by stressing that children should trust their families.

Before he passes out on the floor, Butcher joyfully watches the transmission from a pub. Annie wears her Starlight costume to surprise Hughie at the end of the episode, and the two then have intercourse. Annie wakes up from her nap when Hughie is fast asleep, discovers that she is not Annie but rather the Shape Shifter from before, and steals Hughie’s laptop before fleeing the flat. Along with the Shape Shifter, who snapped a selfie with Annie and then abducted her in the bar, we see the real Annie shackled in an undisclosed location.

Although this week’s episode of The Boys wasn’t quite as good as episodes 4 and 5, it was a marked improvement over previous week’s. It was unsettling to see The Deep, who has always been a horrible human being, transform from a comedic relief into someone considerably more disturbed. An Oscar-winning actress like Tilda Swinton cries out for help in Ambrosius’s dying moments, which makes the way his arc with the character ends distressing, even though it was darkly humorous at start.

Even though it’s crucial to Kimiko’s narrative, other parts of this episode, such the revelation of why she can’t speak, feel forced into it. You might have forgotten about Kimiko’s past by the time the credits roll because there’s so much going on around her flashback. On the other hand, the fantastic portrayal of the Shape Shifter’s abilities plays into the show’s strength in body horror while giving us a devastating buildup to the series conclusion.

Poster for Season 4 of The Boys featuring Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Karen Fukuhara, Tomer Capone, Laz Alonso, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

REVIEW

Episode 7 of Season 4 of The Boys is an improvement over last week’s, but despite a fantastic cliffhanger, it feels hurried in the end.