The Boys Season 4: Major Problems

The long awaited season 4 of Amazon's The Boys came back to our screens, and while many were curious how it would build on previous seasons, this season ended up being half dragged out filler and half weirdly structured character arcs conjured out of thin air.

This video above covers most of the major issues, but in this article, I'll be diving a little bit deeper.

The Ryan/Homelander Parallels

The parallels between Ryan and Homelander aren't exactly subtle, but they do serve to emphasize the difference between father and son. Two key moments in this season that highlight this contrast are: the puppet Christmas special and the Ryan-Butcher-Mallory scene.

Ryan's actions in the puppet Christmas special are a direct callback to season 3's second episode "The Only Man in the Sky" (which was such a turning point of an episode that it used to be the only episode title I could remember until I made the above video). By this point in the season, Homelander has basically been frustrated with a loss of control following his affiliation with Stormfront and her subsequent exposure as a Nazi. Sick of being sidelined by Stan Edgar and Starlight, Homelander blows up during his birthday special.

After years of telling people they're the real heroes and presenting a Vought-crafted facade, this is Homelander finally letting go and exposing himself as a narcissist. During this moment, Ashley's in the TV control room watching this and tells production to cut to commercial, and Homelander threatens them not to.

Fast forward to season 4 episode 7: Ryan's stuck doing this Christmas special with a script approved by Homelander. It's basically a propaganda piece for kids about how the adults around them are up to no good and should be reported to Vought if they use any hint of "woke" speech (i.e. try to teach you to respect those different from you). This makes Ryan extremely uncomfortable, and after a busy Homelander brushes his concerns aside, Ryan interrupts the Christmas special as it's live on the air. He explains how this isn't okay, but only after Ashley tries to cut to commercial and Ryan tells the control room, respectfully, not to.

This moment highlights the way Ryan operates versus the way his father does. Both felt empowered enough to speak out, but they did so in very different ways and after a very different set of circumstances.

And therein lies the issue.

Homelander's blow-up came right while Vought trying to shut him up. On the other hand, Ryan's call-out is placed strangely in terms of his overall story. Raised by Becca, Ryan's fundamental beliefs haven't changed since he's been under Homelander's tutelage, and his father's influence is something's he's grappled with this whole season. In episode 2, Ryan accidentally kills someone during a staged save and Homelander tells him it doesn't matter. Ryan later indicates to Butcher that his father's attitude upsets him, and in episode 7, he publicly goes against it.

But smack in the middle of all that is episode 5, in which he bonds with Homelander over deriving pleasure from punishing someone. It's an important cornerstone in Ryan's development, but rather than being seamlessly threaded into his journey, it's just inserted. The transition from their relationship in episode 3 to their relationship in episode 5 works due to Homelander having confronted his past, but it's what comes after that creates the issue.

After the switch to the old Ryan in episode 7, episode 8's Ryan-Butcher-Mallory scene switches back again. Grace Mallory tries to keep Ryan in a metal box to force him to be their weapon against Homelander, and just as you recall the lab director Barbara telling Homelander in episode 4 that he could've left anytime he wanted and chose not to, Ryan himself points out that this is what they tried to do to his dad.

The scene ends with Ryan taking out Mallory, and while he clearly didn't intend to kill her, he seems to not really feel the same way about it that he did with Koy in episode 2, simply leaving the scene as fast as possible. This ties in with episode 5's Ryan-Homelander bonding moments, in which Homelander expresses his distaste for growing up a controlling environment and how he doesn't want to do the same to Ryan. The parallel here is that while Homelander was trapped by his need for approval, Ryan has no problem forcing his way out because he spent over 10 years with a loving mother.

But these final two episodes leave us with flip-flopping "Good" Ryan and "Bad" Ryan moments, to use simple terms, and there's just this massive disconnect between these two sides of him — the one that strongly disagrees with Homelander's way of thinking, and the one that relates. This is clearly done to make the character feel unpredictable, but instead it makes his story feel disjointed because the writers didn't do that extra legwork to smoothly meld these aspects of his character together.

As I said in the video, Ryan is portrayed more as a manifestation of the constant push and pull between Butcher and Homelander, rather than as a fully realized individual whose own journey interweaves with their animosity. If this show means to parallel Ryan with Homelander to maximize the payoff when they inevitably face-off, then Ryan needs to be treated as his own person, one who is possibly even more dangerous because he's not crippled by the need for approval. One whose strong sense of justice combined with his newfound desire to punish people for his pleasure could bode ill for those who cross him.

Starlight Masters Flying

Ryan wasn't the only character with major flaws in character arc. I talked at length about Starlight in the video above, so I now want to further explore the acquisition of her newest power. The season 3 finale showed Starlight flying for the first time, but this type of flying was more akin to hovering in the air and landing hard with no control, as we see her trying again to master in the first episode of season 4. On the other hand, the season 4 finale showed Starlight literally take off into the sky, out of sight in a split second. So with this drastic change in her ability to control and expand on this power, you'd think there would've been some serious development regarding this in season 4.

Well, you'd be wrong. Instead, we get this strange arc about her struggling with her powers for literally no reason other than Firecracker taking a few jabs at her. If this season was meant to be about her realizing the full extent of her abilities, then we should have seen her go through that.

Rather than creating an arc about losing confidence in her abilities to the point where her powers don't always work properly, the writers should've focused on some sort of mental block that was prohibiting her from reaching that next level in her superhero ability. Instead of this random new subplot with Firecracker, Annie's story should have been intertwined with The Deep's, as it has been since day one.

This would create a dual narrative centered around power: how it's lost, how it's regained, and how it affects people. They shouldn't have relied on Sage to prop up The Deep via elevator convos and post-lobotomy hookups. It makes more sense to derive his arc from having to kill those Hometeamers in episode 1 of the season and explore how he slowly begins to feel powerful again in the aftermath of his punishment.

In the meantime, Annie's journey could actually incorporate the abortion storyline that was only vaguely mentioned by Firecracker as a means of humiliating her. Since Starlight's story has been tied with women's bodily autonomy from the start, this would be a great addition to that theme. This show missed the opportunity to actually deal with the topic of abortion in a way that exhibits the medical horror and trauma that women face when going through this. Unless we actually see Annie's mental duress during the process and the subsequent public judgement, Firecracker shouting about killing babies is just another one of many one-off references to right-wing propaganda.

Annie's difficult experience could then tie into why she's not able to develop her flying ability and eventually build up to a climactic moment in which she's finally exhibits the full extent of that ability. As it stands, the existing revelation feels unearned due to the lack of buildup and development, so ideally, there would be some significant moment prior to the final montage in which she masters her flying ability. This would provide the basis for the later scene so that it feels more developed while still maintaining the element of surprise.

Of course, the worst part of her season 4 arc was definitely the super corny shifter conversation in the finale. It's a really strange and manufactured way to have Annie overcome her struggles because the shifter isn't even its own person. We have no idea who they are, why they would care about lecturing Annie, why they would be grinning in super corny ways behind Hughie's back or to Annie's face as if they somehow have a personal stake in anything that's happened. They just exist to give us super cringey horrendously written dialogue while looking like Annie to convey some semblance of internal conflict.

The Return of Kimiko's Voice

Another powerful character moment that was undercut by poor writing was Kimiko finally finding her voice. This girl hadn't spoken a word in the 4 seasons we've seen her on screen, so her first words should've been a monumental event.

I want to compare this to an extremely powerful scene from Rise of the Planet of the Apes in which the ape Caesar speaks for the first time, shouting "No."

This is a massively shocking moment because he's an animal who just spoke a human word. However, Caesar's learned behavior is carefully developed over the course of the film leading up to that moment, so it doesn't feel like they just threw that in there for shock value.

Meanwhile the lead-up to Kimiko's moment was really underwhelming. Early in the season, she tries to regain her voice via therapy, but this doesn't seem to suit her. The show then takes her on this random stroll down memory lane as the fighting ring girl from her past shows up. She gets over her guilt by telling Frenchie that this is the reason she can't speak, even though they said something different before. Then they magically become a couple, he gets dragged away from her, and she finally yells.

This is a massive disservice to her character. Her struggle with voicelessness should instead have been tied to her feeling like she doesn't have a voice in the metaphorical sense either. After everything she went through in season 3, perhaps there's a situation that leads her to feel that she doesn't really have anything to say — that she's just the unkillable muscle, easily expendable. That's what she was when she was created as a supe-terrorist, and that's essentially her role in The Boys. They could then develop this over the course of the season, culminating in a moment where she has no choice but to use her voice in order to stop an injustice, or to bring about some form of change. And I mean literally, a situation where if she doesn't physically speak, it all goes to to hell.

Developing her story around her own growth and struggle would have been more compelling than relying on a poorly executed romance with Frenchie, which has been so painfully one-sided it's not even funny. Even then, their interactions for the most part feel very friend-coded, and it's only a few instances in which Frenchie seems to feel something for her, but Kimiko definitely does not reciprocate. Not even in this season, like you'll never convince me she sees him as anything more than her surrogate brother.

This was probably the writers giving into pressure from the fans, but forsaking good writing to surprise the audience is never the answer.

Sage: Plan and Powers

This season really had no shortage of surprises as Sage had two moments where she revealed she knew something all along. While one worked, the other one just felt like, "Surprise!"

The first reveal comes in episode 7, when she admits she knew A-Train was the leak. This works because of previous scenes that build up to this: in episode 3, the way Sage talks about the leak indicates she might know more than she's letting on, and in episode 5, she has a conversation with A-Train that strongly suggests she knows it's him. So when Homelander confronts her in episode 7 and she explains that she intentionally utilized A-Train to provide misinformation to The Boys, it adds up (whether she told the truth or made that up to protect herself since the information A-Train leaked was actually helpful to The Boys, which may have been what she really wanted).

However, the second reveal is less convincing. When Sage comes back to Vought in episode 8, congratulating Homelander on the success of her plan, she reveals that Victoria Neuman's death actually works in their favor. While it's no surprise that she kept a lot to herself so that Homelander wouldn't mess things up, we have no idea what it is that she kept from him other than the recording device that incriminated Singer, the seduction of Deep and Noir, and A-Train being the leak. Was that it? Because we pretty much know the purpose of all these aspects in her plan and none of them explain her new attitude towards Victoria.

Sage claims that Victoria Neuman would've made a bad patsy for them, and sure, I agree. But that's because I've actually seen Neuman in action. I've seen the way she and Homelander have been butting heads for two seasons, and I've seen the kind of person she is. Sage, on the other hand, has had two scenes with her in episode 6, and one of those was in her brain damage stage.

The other scene involved her revealing to Victoria a bit about her own backstory and hinting at her true motives. It gives the impression that Sage intends for Victoria to be on the same page as her, and that together they might be able to undermine Homelander and Vought in the future.

So when Sage shows up in episode 8 with a party balloon saying that both Singer and Neuman being gone was the plan all along, that feels unsupported. I would rather have seen Sage hear the news of Neuman's death, visibly react to it, then maybe pick up her phone before cutting to her showing up at Homelander's to tell him about how she managed to make Singer go down for an assassination attempt. Maybe even a scene with then-Speaker of the House, now-President-elect that suggests Sage's true intentions to put him in the Oval Office. Again, it's not surprising that she's prepared for all possible outcomes, it's just annoying for the show to omit scenes that would better develop this story.

Of course, her story did have one positive. When they introduced her as the smartest person in the world, I was a bit concerned that they had written a black woman whose intelligence is derived from a superpower. But then we find out that her actual super power is the way her brain physically works, and its ability to regenerate. Her intelligence comes from her own hard work and utilizing her brain to its maximum potential, as we see in her introduction scene with her reading a book while at the same time listening to something else educational. It was her own choice to educate herself as much as she can and that's how she became the smartest person in the world.

New Noir

New Noir was a strange addition to season 4. He was comic relief as he attempted to fit into this role that so clearly wasn't for him, but honestly, I don't really care for him. It all feels a bit too try-hard. Plus it ends up leaving him a bit underdeveloped. He's a trained actor who has Noir's powers because of the Noir suit I guess and likely wasn't committing any violent crimes prior to becoming the new Noir. So shouldn't that have been a bit weird for him, having to kill people?

He finds out from The Deep that the old Noir loved killing and immediately adopts this for their fight with Butcher and Starlight, but why would he even agree to this role? Hopefully they further explore his character in season 5, beyond the acting fish-out-of-water and the weird and corny forced bromance with The Deep (I refer you to the scene of them just saying "Bro" to each other for twenty seconds). Otherwise, he's just kinda there.

Going Forward

Season 4 overall felt like a poor attempt to bridge the gap between where the writers left off and the ending they were rapidly approaching. The final season won't be out until 2026, and even though they'll be working on Gen V in the middle, I hope they can pick up the pieces of this terrible penultimate chapter and stick the landing on the most talked about show of this decade.

Feb 8, 2025 Update: So this show kinda sucks. Read why: The Boys Kinda Sucks