‘The Boys’ Season 4, Episode 4 Recap: Just About Everyone Chooses Violence – CNET [CNET]

Yes, even Starlight.

The first three episodes of The Boys dropped last Thursday to Prime Video and set the stage for a bleaker set of storylines. In turn, it feels as if the amusing luster of the first three seasons has worn a bit to reveal its dark underbelly.

The overarching themes of childhood trauma and legacy continue to permeate in episode 4, Wisdom of the Ages. Billy Butcher grapples with his mortality as he begins to suspect something monstrous may be going on with his health. Homelander goes back to his childhood home. Annie buckles under Firecracker’s continuous attacks on live TV. And, basically, all hell breaks loose.

Read more: ‘The Boys’ Season 4 Release Schedule and How To Stream From Anywhere 

It goes without saying that heavy spoilers abound below. If you’re ready to revisit the journey taken by Homelander, Annie and the rest in episode 4, let’s go.

A Homelander homecoming

“You need to go back to the start,” Homelander’s dominant reflection told him in episode 3. “John, you need to go home.”

Homelander’s hates his given name. As he steps out of the elevator into Vought’s secret lab in episode 4’s opening moments, his disdain for the moniker once again bubbles to the surface. He does his best to mask it, though. And he succeeds for a short time.

Armed with a smile and a Fudgy, the Whale ice cream cake, Homelander makes himself at home, much to the discomfort and terror of the scientists in the room. Two scientists named Marty and Frank get the brunt of attention and end up receiving his inevitable wrath.

Frank goes first.

It starts innocently enough, with Homelander challenging him to a game of waste paper basketball. He learned the game as a kid, watching the lab worker kill time at his desk while young John was in the incinerator being burned alive. 

“Even though my skin didn’t char, it still really hurt,” Homelander tells him before sending him to a fiery death in the very same oven.

First pebble down the mountain

One of Annie’s initiatives has been getting Robert Singer’s Supe control bill passed, and it feels like an achievable goal, too. On the other hand, her mission to help troubled teens hits a seemingly immovable roadblock.

Vought International stages Firecracker’s new live show, TruthBomb: The Children’s Freedom Fighter, across the street from Starlight House. 

Mother’s Milk brings Butcher back into the fold to break Firecracker’s resolve by threatening to bring a scandal from her past to life. It backfires on them, with the conspiracy theory-loving Supe airing her dirty laundry live on TV: She had inappropriate relations with a 15-year-old boy. 

She pivots the controversy and shifts gears, again putting Annie on the chopping block. She talks about Annie’s first save. When she was just a teen, in an attempt to save hostages at a Walmart, Annie blinded a mom of three. But this info was just the appetizer to a detestable main course. With Annie’s medical records as proof, Firecracker reveals to the world Annie and Hughie’s difficult decision to have an abortion.

“You gonna tell me those teens over there are safe with her, with that baby killer?” Firecracker says to the camera, relishing in the moment. And then the storm hit. Annie beats Firecracker to a pulp, all in front of the rolling cameras, which broadcast the brawl live on TV. Starlight’s partnership with Singer immediately ends, leaving her future hanging in the balance.

Sister Sage’s plan was right on track. “First pebble down the mountain,” she said, watching it unfold on TV.

Something’s up with Butcher

Is Butcher dying from Temp V, or is there a monster growing underneath his skin? 

After his plan to blackmail Firecracker backfired, he sent Frenchie to her trailer to “give it a toss.” As you might expect, this could have gone better. Ezekiel discovers Frenchie.

You remember Ezekiel. We were first introduced to him in season 1 as Starlight’s youth pastor. Secretly a Supe, he can stretch and bend his limbs like a perverse Mr. Fantastic. Butcher arrives just in time to save Frenchie and nearly dies at Ezekiel’s hand (err, giant snake-like arm). He passes out, and, in the unconscious blackness, something else takes over.

Once Butcher comes to, he finds the trailer smattered with copious amounts of blood with pieces of Ezekiel all over the damn place. Did his Temp V use create a super-powered parasite inside his body?

Homelander is as Homelander does

Marty, the lab’s assistant director, was “mostly nice” to young Homelander. That is, except for calling the boy “Squirt” after catching him with his pants down.

As punishment, Homelander has Marty take his pants down in front of everyone and tells him to perform. Is this the most Homelander has laughed at anything? His hysterics make Marty’s murder that much more jarring. He eye-lasers a hole right through the man’s pelvis.

Barbara finally shows up. She’s the boss. There’s history between these two, and it shows.

“Did you come back here just to torment those people? Doesn’t that feel a little small,” Barbara says to Homelander. 

The point of this homecoming was to deal with his childhood trauma, to let go of his shameful human need for love and acceptance. “You’ll never be able to overcome that,” Barbara tells him. To prove her wrong, he kills everyone that’s left and locks her in that room with their remains.

His vengeance is a success. But the act of revenge is inherently human. As much as he wants to fight it, so is Homelander.

Some final thoughts

• A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) got Hughie (Jack Quaid) the Compound V for his dad. Hughie forgave A-Train for killing his girlfriend. Are A-Train and Hughie destined to be buddies?
• Hughie’s dad has Compound V in his veins. What sort of super power will Simon Pegg get?
• Again, who is that mysterious girl from Kimiko’s (Karen Fukuhara) past?
• In all seriousness, should I be feeling bad for Frenchie (Tomer Capone)? Because I don’t feel bad for Frenchie.
• The Deep (Chace Crawford) lobotomizing Sister Sage before a raunchy sex session was not on my bingo card.

Come back for more observations next Thursday, June 28, when episode 5 of The Boys season 4 hits Prime Video.