We’re one episode away from the finale of The Boys season 4, but this week’s episode “The Insider” doesn't hold its breath in anticipation. Instead, we get some huge character moves, a big reveal about what will go down next, and one of the biggest fights in the history of the show.
But before we get to all of that, let’s say come-come my lady to a little recap on how we got here. After all, you are my butterfly, sugar baby.
The big, ongoing plot leading into the episode is the identity of the leak at Vought Tower. We know it’s A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), who has been feeding info to MM (Laz Alonso). Heck, even Sage (Susan Heyward) know’s it’s A-Train but hasn’t revealed it yet, for reasons that become clear this week. But multiple people have died along the way to discovering his identity, including poor Anika (Ana Sani) and not-so-poor Cameron Coleman (Matthew Edison). And in the midst of this, due to the selfless act of saving MM in last week’s episode, A-Train knows what it’s like to be a hero, thanks to the smile of a child. And who among us hasn’t had a moment of self-realization due to the smile of a child? None of us. Nobody.
The other big revelation last episode was that Joe Kessler (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) isn’t real. He’s actually a figment of Butcher’s (Karl Urban) tumor-addled brain, and was the force that took over Butcher, allowing him to kill Ezekiel (Shaun Benson) a few episodes back. Oh, and Butcher/Kessler has scientist Sameer Shah (Omid Abtahi) locked in a warehouse, minus one leg, working to recreate the Supe-killing virus from Gen V.
As for the rest of the Boys, Hughie (Jack Quaid) is wrestling with the death of his father, Annie (Erin Moriarty) is ostensibly suffering from Supe impotence, though that doesn’t play into this week’s episode at all, and Frenchie (Tomer Capone) is in jail due to all those murders he committed back in the day. Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) is not happy about that, by the way.
Moving to the Seven, Homelander (Antony Starr) formed an alliance with Firecracker (Valorie Curry) in last week’s episode. And by “alliance” I mean “she revealed she’s taking metoclopramide in order to lactate so she can breastfeed him like a little baby.” Eat your heart out, Survivor. They do alliances, that was my joke there.
Other important facts to know include that The Deep (Chace Crawford) is cheating on his octopus girlfriend Ambrosius (voiced by Tilda Swinton) with Sage, but only when the latter is lobotomized. Black Noir II (Nathan Mitchell) can fly and has narcolepsy. And Ashley (Colby Minifie) is spiraling after making an alliance with A-Train. And by “alliance” I mean “alliance,” nothing weird going on there.
Two other important bits to remember: Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) is feeling increasingly conflicted about what his father, Homelander, is asking him to do (aka kill and bully people), while Butcher tries to appeal to his better nature. And Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit), the VP-elect, has agreed to go through with a plot to invoke the 25th amendment, and, as we find out this week, assassinate president-elect Bobby Singer (Jim Beaver). See if you can guess what date they’re going to do this all on. Go on, guess.
There’s a lot more to get into, so let’s get into it.
The Boys, Season 4, Episode 7 “The Insider” recap:
"The Insider" is written by Paul Grellong and directed by Catriona McKenzie. It’s Christmas-time in the city. Which is weird to see mid-July, but hey, I’m sure they’ve already taken all the July 4th decorations off the shelves at Amazon and put up Christmas goods already, so whatever.
This gives us a good sense of the progression of season 4, which started on the day of the election in November and seems like it will end next week on, uh, January 6 with an attack on Washington, D.C. Subtle, The Boys ain’t.
We open on The Avenue V Christmas Special, which gives us a nice framing for the Ryan storyline and another banger of a parody song from The Boys composer Chris Lennertz. I pasted the full lyrics of the song over the ending credits below, but they’re specifically designed to irk Ryan, who is torn between his allegiance to Homelander and Butcher. I will note here that when we last saw Ryan he was fully bonded with Homelander, but in this episode he’s back to being conflicted and only needs one highly suspicious package from Butcher with a family photo in it to full-on rebel.
While I’ve generally been enjoying this season, this is yet another example of it feeling like a bunch of scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. How did Ryan go from giggling with his dad while P.A. Bonnie (Conni Miu) slapped the crap out of Bourke (PJ Byrne), to… This? Unclear, but it’s enough that one episode of Homelander being busy and dismissive on the phone leads to Ryan having an on-air meltdown before stalking off. This of course makes Butcher very happy (right before he collapses on the floor of a bar).
As for Homelander, he’s busy trying to figure out the identity of the leak. As Sage correctly predicted back in the season premiere, Homelander’s narcissism got the better of him. Firecracker is a yes man, she’s pumping him up while diminishing Sage. It doesn’t help that — as noted above — Sage has known about the leak this entire time, but didn’t say anything because she was feeding A-Train the info she wanted him to have. Even though Sage is fired by the end of the episode, it’s nice to have some confirmation that she has a big, overarching plan, and I’m really hoping that pays off in the finale. Because right now, the smartest person in the world sort of seems to be winging it. I’m not the smartest person in the world, but I can also say, “this was actually part of my plan the whole time,” too. So take that, Sage.
This all leads to Firecracker being put in charge of finding the leak, and while she doesn’t find the leak, she finds a leak: Webweaver (Dan Mousseau). While the Supe confesses to giving info to Butcher, Homelander quickly realizes he isn’t the guy they’re looking for but literally tears him in half anyway. It’s interesting to see Firecracker horrified by this… Perhaps she’s starting to realize just how in over her head she really is?
Back to Sage’s plan, is what's happening with The Deep part of it? He’s been on a dark spiral ever since she told him to start flexing his superhuman muscles, and in this episode he freaks out and kills Ambrosius in a scene that is both terrifying and hilarious. I don’t know if they give Emmys to people who do the voice of an octopus on a superhero show, but if so, give Tilda Swinton that Emmy… Her drawn out death scene as The Deep listens was easily the high point of the episode, even as it was the second lowest point of The Deep’s arc on this series.
The Seven vs The Boys
The low point comes pretty soon after, as Homelander specifically ignores Sage’s advice to just let Butcher die of natural causes and instead sends The Deep and Black Noir II to kill him. Annie is also there, and what follows is one of the best fight scenes the show has done in a long time. Before we get there, though, Dark Deep calls back to his sexual assault of Annie in Season 1 and throws the rote apology language back at her, telling her he does not respect her story, Me Too is over, and other absolutely awful things. A-Train is on a redemption arc; The Deep has finally revealed the vicious, evil jerk he always was.
But about that fight. Butcher takes on Noir, who falls asleep in the middle of the fight, while Annie and The Deep bash each other around The Boys’ Flatiron Building office. In the middle, Butcher calls on Joe Kessler to step up, but he doesn’t – which makes me wonder what “Joe’s” endgame is here.
I mentioned A-Train’s redemption arc, which dovetails neatly with what’s going on with MM. Marvin Milk wants to get his ex-wife and kid out of dodge before January 6, leading to a four-seasons-in-the-making reconciliation. But before he can head to Belize to sip rum punch on the beach with his wife, A-Train tells MM about the kid who smiled at him, and how being a real hero felt better than anything he’s ever done with Vought. And that’s on MM.
Of course, A-Train shows up in the middle of the fight to help Annie take down The Deep. And of course, MM shows up to use a gatling gun (don’t check me on this fact, I do not know what guns are what) on Noir, knocking him out the window. It’s a great, “the gang’s all here” moment… Only by episode’s end, A-Train is the one that’s hoofed it out of town with his whole family, while MM is stuck without his family, back in charge of The Boys.
A few random thoughts about the scenes at Vought Tower. While The Deep and Noir are very much on the side of evil right now, their “bro,” scene after the fight was hilarious, and Noir confessing his love for Sage was the loudest I laughed all episode. Add in that Noir and Sage have clearly been having sex without her needing to be lobotomized, like with The Deep, and you’ve got a pretty much perfect minute of comedy.
Ashley also gets some great moments this episode. The Homelander NFTs she shows off were straight rips of the ones Trump was selling, and her frazzled line, “Apparently you’re not just buying JPGs, you’re joining a community!” was all that needs to be said about the previous real-world tech grift (the current one is AI, of course). Also, shouts to the quick shot of young Ashley at a protest wearing a Che Guevara shirt right after she can’t bring herself to leave with A-Train. A nice, relatively subtle – sometimes the show is subtle, I guess – indication of how far she’s fallen.
Back to The Boys, Frenchie is…out of prison this episode, adding to the whole “wait did I miss something” nature of this season. Butcher got him out to help Sameer make the virus, so while everyone else is off doing their various missions, Frenchie and Kimiko finally get a chance to talk about what’s been going on between them. Frenchie confesses he’s been scared to let her see him as he really is – a murderer – and she retcons her previous origin by explaining she can’t talk because back in her Shining Light training days, she was told to kill other young girls, and whoever made the first sound died. So she hasn’t made a sound since.
It’s all very nice and sweet, and Sameer does indeed remake the virus under their watch. We also hear some sweet tunes, like Crazy Town’s “Butterfly” and Len’s “Steal My Sunshine” in the process, so everything is looking – and sounding – great. That is until Sameer injects Kimiko with the virus and hobbles off to safety. Luckily, the virus turns out to work under Walking Dead rules, where if you chop off the limb quickly enough it stops the infection. So Frenchie cuts off her leg, giving the gang another sample to make the virus from.
So, to review… In Gen V, there was a secret lab called The Woods where they were developing a Supe virus and testing it on kids. The goal was to build something strong enough to kill Homelander, and then they were going to push it further to kill all Supes by making it airborne. Then everything but one sample was destroyed, which went to Victoria Neuman. This season on The Boys, Neuman was trying to figure out how to use it to kill Homelander, but then everything but one sample was destroyed, which they used on a dead body to stop some killer sheep. So Butcher kidnapped Sameer to try to get him to remake the virus in order to kill Homelander, and then they were going to push it further to kill all Supes by making it airborne. Except Sameer only made one sample, which was destroyed when he injected it into Kimiko. So now Frenchie is going to remake the virus and build something strong enough to kill Homelander and Neuman, and…
I’m starting to feel a little crazy here. Please either move this virus storyline forward, or move on. Thank you.
How The Boys failed Hughie
I realize I haven’t talked about what’s up with Hughie and Annie this episode, and frankly, I’ve been putting it off to last because…the show messed up here. I don’t mean the first part of the episode, which continues to honestly depict the ongoing abortion storyline with nuance and care. Annie gets railed on by her mom for having an abortion, but Annie is still not sorry, explains why she did it with a very typical liberal explanation – why bring a kid into this dumpster fire of a world? – and Hughie supports her.
No, we need to talk about the shapeshifter. Turns out, that’s who Sage hired to be her “Lee Harvey” on January 6 and kill President Singer. Annie, Hughie and Butcher discover this after entering the shifter’s apartment. She slashes Hughie’s hand, touches a cleaning lady, and as they chase them through the apartment building, the shifter tears off their skin to become the cleaning lady. It’s a level of gross shapeshifting in a way that only the former showrunner of Supernatural can bring to TV, and it works.
Hughie takes a little side trip to visit Neuman instead of going to urgent care for his slashed hand for a great scene where he buys her bodega snacks and tries a last ditch effort to forestall annihilation. For any House of the Dragon watchers, I had immediate flashbacks to a similar scene of Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) appealing to Alicent (Olivia Cooke) from two episodes back, also trying to forestall war. And just how Rhaenyra told Alicent info she didn’t know that should have turned the tide, when Hughie tells Neuman about the planned internment camps for dissidents, it’s already too late for her, too. She’s going to be VP, and then President. Sorry, Hughie, nice try.
Gonna put a trigger warning for SA past this point.
In the previous episode, Hughie was sexually assaulted by Tek Knight (Derek Wilson) and Ashley, and the show used it as an opportunity to get Hughie to talk about his dad’s death – not the fact that he was assaulted. There’s no two ways about it, and the general conversation online was hoping that would be picked up in some way in this episode. Unfortunately, the show doubled down, and did not talk about it. I’ll caveat this that we still have one episode to go, so we may get a more nuanced discussion of this in the finale. But for the moment… This is not great.
What specifically is not great? Well, the shifter pretends to be a fan of Annie’s, then knocks her out in a bar bathroom and chains her to the floor of an apartment. Then the shifter turns into Annie, dresses in the Starlight costume, and has sex with Hughie. Sorry to be blunt about it, but that’s rape. Hughie was raped. Last week he was sexually assaulted, this week he was raped. Will the finale, which is also presumably going to have some sort of January 6-style assault on Washington, D.C., potentially release a Supe killing virus, and maybe tie up what’s happening with Butcher, Ryan and Homelander make time for the multiple weeks of sexual assault Hughie has been dealing with? I sure hope so, but I’m not holding my breath here.
It’s particularly unfortunate if so, given how the show took care with Annie’s storyline in Season 1 and continued to deal with it through this very episode. While I’d prefer no sexual assault, in general, if you’re going to do a storyline, please present male sexual assault with the same care as you do female sexual assault. These are serious issues, and I get that it’s hard to balance all that with octopuses who quote Lisa Vanderpump and goofy puppet songs, but that’s the show you created, so do better. Please.
Anyway! Alexa, play Dave Matthews Chill Mix, because we’ve got only one more episode to go.
Easter eggs & cameos:
Avenue V was first introduced in Gen V as a hallucination Sam Riordan (Asa Germann) was having due to childhood trauma. It’s a Sesame Street-style puppet show hosted by Jason Ritter. Or at least it was hosted by Jason Ritter in Sam’s hallucination, I don’t know if that’s a regular thing.
A real-life Easter egg, I guess, but Ryan says “I need to go 10-1,” which is actual production code for “I need to take a piss.”
Still Waters Run Deep is the name of the poetry book by The Deep. Make it for real, Amazon! You used to sell books, remember?
Don T. Beakunt (aka Butcher) “lives” at 27 Lakeview Rd. in Jersey City, NJ, 07030, which, you probably aren’t surprised to learn, is not a real address. Vought Tower, however, is at 1777 6th Avenue in NYC, which is an actual building (at least according to Google Maps). Specifically, it’s a Pret a Manger inside Trump Parc East, on the south side of Central Park. Take from that what you will.
There’s a quick shot of Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) on the cover of Vought Men’s Magazine.
Here are the lyrics to what I’m for the moment titling “If You See Something, Say Something”:
"When you see something, say something
Report that groomer when he comes for you
See something, say something
‘Cause he hates America and Christmas too
It’s the woke principal and his husband, Chad
Or could be your uncle who says Supes are bad
It might even be your Mom and your Dad
But listen to the golden rule
If you see something, say something
Call 1-800-1-VOUGHT
Could be a moocher from the welfare state
Or your teacher who tries to indoctrinate
A socialist who says the stars and stripes aren’t great
Keep your ears open, and your eyes stay peeled
But whatever you do make sure your lips aren’t sealed
When you see something, say something
Pick up the phone and make the call
When you see something, say something
Supes make the world a safe place for us all
It might be the people who don’t trust the cops
Or when Sean Penn says that Supes should stop
It might even be your Mom and your Pop
But don’t forget the golden rule
If you see something, say something
Call 1-800-1-VOUGHT
Could be the scientist who makes vaccines
The guy with the beard who’s a beauty queen
The immigrant who keeps your apartment clean
Keep your ears open, and your eyes stay peeled
But whatever you do make sure your lips aren’t sealed
Put them on the naughty list
We can’t let those commies win
So when you see someone who’s looking sus
Just turn those losers in
When you see something, say something
Report that groomer when he comes for you
See something, say something
‘Cause he hates America and Christmas too
Probably those who don’t believe in god
And anyone who thinks that Supes are a fraud
So tell them all the golden rule
If you see something, say something
Call 1-800-1-VOUGHT
And you’ll be a hero too!"
Does Homelander drink milk?
Nope. In fact, he flat out refuses it from Firecracker. He’s changed!
Does Hughie get covered in blood?
Yes, he does! Not covered, necessarily, but he slips in the bloody mess the shapeshifter leaves behind, and then has his hand slashed by her. Classic Hughie. Please talk to Homelander about getting back on track with the “milk” thing. Thanks.
Love Sausage Award for most gross-out moment of the episode:
Despite the shapeshifter sloughing off her skin, it has to be Webweaver nervously pooping out webs from his webhole, and then getting torn in half by Homelander. Even Firecracker was not on board with that!
Burning questions:
Ryan stopped himself short from saying some sort of truth before stalking off the set of the puppet special… What was he about to say?
What does “Joe” want? If Butcher dies, he dies… Right? So where is this aspect of Butcher’s personality pushing him to?
Does Sage have a plan? Really? And if so, is getting fired part of her plan? Is she going to get a five-minute long villain monologue at the end of the season explaining how this all fits together?
Ambrosios says The Deep made her “come so many times.” Despite a solid 30 seconds of research on my part, I don’t have an answer to this one: can an octopus orgasm? Perhaps we’ll find out in the finale. Probably not, though.
The Boys streams Thursdays on Prime Video.
If you or someone you know needs to reach out about sexual abuse or assault, RAINN is available 24/7 at 800-656-HOPE (4673), or online at RAINN.org.
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