Writer’s note: The second paragraph of this article (just below the first image) contains a basic outline of the show’s premise. There are no spoilers that weren’t already inferred in the show’s own trailer. However, be aware that potential spoilers may be inferred throughout the review.
Even though the superhero genre has been lacking recently, Amazon Prime’s The Boys (2019 – Current) has soldiered on. The Boys is a biting satire of superhero content, meaning that it only gets stronger as the genre gets weaker. The success of the show has even led to multiple spin-offs, all gaining respectable viewership numbers, and only increasing The Boys’ already massive legion of fans. After a long wait, the fourth season has finally aired, with the already announced fifth season set to conclude the main story. All that being said, has the fourth season maintained the show’s bulletproof record, or are there now cracks in the armour?
We are reintroduced to the titular CIA group, The Boys, consisting of Butcher (Karl Urban), Hughie (Jack Quaid), Annie (Erin Moriarty), Frenchie (Tomer Capone), Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) and MM (Laz Alonso). As they have for the previous three seasons, the team is dedicated to their battle against Vought, the powerful conglomerate which controls the country’s most popular superheroes, known as The Seven. While the public still sees these costume crime fighters as celebrities, media personalities, influencers and movie stars, The Boys know the truth: these ‘heroes’ are all violent, sociopathic, power hungry lunatics. This is most true of Homelander (Anthony Starr), who is poised to take control of the entire country through his political puppet, Vice-President Elect Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit).
Right from the first season, The Boys was never afraid to cross any lines with its depictions of violence and sex. The show was immediately noted for its brutality, which was simultaneously shocking and hilarious. After a while, it seemed that no mainstream TV show or film could ever match its viciousness. With The Boys well and truly the most bloody show available, all it can do now is try to outdo itself every season. Thus, season four can’t help but feel gratuitous, which the show miraculously avoided until now. While the overwhelming cruelty can be hard to take, it’s just a symptom of a larger issue. Where the show previously managed to find narrative purpose with its violence, it now feels as though blood and guts are smeared all over the screen just because there’s a quota of savagery to hit each episode.
The earlier seasons of the show delivered compelling and energetic stories, with plenty of dramatic, funny and topical arcs for its heroes and villains. Season four stays true to the show’s narrative intentions, but it’s not nearly as engaging this time around. There’s always been an abundance of characters to keep track of, but the first three seasons always managed to keep every storyline tied to the main goal. This time things are dispersed, so it feels like the engine is running with no one driving the car. It’s not uncommon for TV shows to have its characters be aimless in later seasons, but in this case it seems to be a mistake in the storytelling. The audience is clearly supposed to be just as engaged as they were in earlier seasons, but too many of the arcs either don’t make sense, or fail to make any significant impact.
This isn’t helped by the new characters, all of whom are weak and unconvincing. In some cases, the reason for their inclusion is clear, but their intended point doesn’t amount to much. In worse cases, the show tries to inflate the importance of these new players, but the audience can easily see that they aren’t nearly as important as the script insists they are. It comes across as very condescending writing, as the show is convinced that these new characters are smarter than the viewer, yet that’s rarely the case. If the average viewer can easily predict every single plot turn, double cross, twist and reveal, clearly they’re not that smart. Additionally, the extra attention paid to these flat new characters means that there’s less attention paid to the already established characters, which negatively affects their development.
All of this results in the majority of the season failing to progress the themes and narrative in a substantial way. Across these eight episodes, the amount of things actually accomplished could’ve been done in three episodes. With that in mind, the major plot and thematic progressions which do occur are exciting, transformative, and fascinating. You spend the entire season feeling like it’s time to stop watching the show and do something else, only for the final episode to come out of nowhere and make it mandatory for you to see how this story ends in season five. The strength of this season’s conclusion doesn’t fix any of the previous issues, but it does leave you curious and excited.
Ultimately, The Boys is now in a very precarious place for a TV show. There’s clearly still plenty of goodwill based on the strength of the show’s previous highs, but season four is a fairly notable disappointment. With only one season left, let’s hope that the conclusion justifies the journey, otherwise we may be looking at a bigger fumble than the ending to Game of Thrones (2011 – 2019).
5/10
Best way to watch it: Skip to the final two episodes. It may make more sense that way.
