The Boys Season 4: A Superhuman Feat

SPOILER WARNING FOR SEASON 4 OF THE BOYS!
This past Thursday brought the highly-anticipated season 4 finale of Amazon Prime Video’s The Boys, and what a high note to end on. As polarizing as the fourth season’s contents have been for the show’s fanbase, many seem to agree its final episode was packed to the brim with great pacing, conclusions, and setup for the show’s final season.
Before getting into much of what was executed in yesterday’s finale (both cinematically and literally, but we’ll talk about that later) we need to address the elephant in the room. As close as The Boys can veer to reality and current world events at times, the conclusion to season 4 was preceded by a very unfortunate coincidence. The season finale, fittingly titled Season Four Finale at the moment of writing, was originally set to be titled Assassination Run, which would have fallen in line with how the Victoria Neuman & Robert Singer plotline was set up to conclude narratively. However, no one could have predicted in the time between the penultimate and final episodes of the fourth season a real assassination attempt on former president and currently running candidate Donald Trump. To distance themselves from the incident while assuring viewers all acts of political violence portrayed in the episode were fictional and coincidental, Amazon chose to rename the episode and insert a disclaimer beforehand. However, to our knowledge, no actual contents of the episode were removed, changed, or added as a result of this.
The political violence in question doesn’t exactly mirror the incident either, for what it’s worth, though it did remain surprising as far as its portrayal went. Everyone seemed to have their theories on which characters wouldn’t make it out of the season alive, as its narrative seemed to set up some of the highest, darkest stakes for a lot of the main cast to date. However, the originally titular assassination is only one of two major deaths actually shown onscreen by the time the credits roll. Sure, much of Vought’s employees with dirt on The Seven were mass murdered by the superhero group, as well as the head of the CIA, but the real danger lies in the death of Victoria Neuman by none other than Billy Butcher. Throughout the season, we’ve watched Butcher grapple with whether he wants to leave his mark on the Supes before he expires, or if Ryan’s straying off Homelander’s path could redeem some of them in his eyes. However, when Butcher witnesses Ryan kill Grace Mallory in front of him (the second major death in the finale) he decides enough is enough; if going bad is what it takes to save the world, he’ll have to work quickly and on his own terms before time is up. Armed with nothing but a car and a shot of Frenchie’s virus, he rides off into the night with the mirage of Kessler in the backseat as the credits roll.

The resolution of Homelander’s conquest for control of his nation is much different in direction than he had it drawn out, though its implications are perhaps even more chilling than initially thought. When marshal law is declared, we’re treated to every single member of the Boys minus Annie getting apprehended and taken into federal custody by the Supes that Homelander’s deployed on day one, specifically targeting Starlighters.
A lot of information about the season’s contents leaked beforehand through the now defunct Instagram account @voughthq, though the account’s credibility is thrown into question when looking at a lot of the little details as well as scoops that just flat-out weren’t true at all. Annie did fly away from the scene Hughie was apprehended at, though it wasn’t symbolic of her “leaving him” nor was it the final scene of the season. Their claim that A-Train wasn’t “use[d]…enough” is more than a little misleading as he was the Vought leak and a central storyline of the season was his attempts to leave the Seven and redeem himself in the eyes of Hughie and the rest of the Boys. In addition, Starlight never even got high with Frenchie as they claimed, nor did Ryan’s season end “with him covered in blood”. Even with an ACTUAL Vought leak rapid-firing on social media, the season managed to deliver with plenty of surprises, shocking resolutions, and intense setup for a final season undoubtedly set to be one of the biggest moments in pop culture and streaming history.
All eight episodes of The Boys‘ fourth season are now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.