Season four of “The Boys” on Amazon Prime concluded July 18 in an epic one-hour finale episode. It depicted a rise of political tension in its superhero universe by continuing satirical and raunchy humor. This laid a foundation in preparation for its fifth and final season.
A lot of the strengths consisted of main character developments for A-Train and Starlight. In season one, A-Train was one of my least favorite characters. However, seeing his redemption arc as the show continued felt very well-paced. His reflection on what it’s like to truly be a hero and not what is presented to the public was satisfactory. And he ended up turning out to be very likable.
Starlight’s journey of self-discovery while tackling her powers was well fleshed out. She’s always been limited due to needing electricity. However, learns that she can use other sources of energy such as the sunlight to elevate her abilities. I’m excited to see how her powers advance even more in season five.
Homelander was so well written and performed to near perfection by Antony Starr. His deteriorating mental state has been reaching a climax as the series progresses. This season, he went on multiple killing sprees that made me partially sympathetic. That’s what I think is so good about this character. His villainous outbursts always have a reason but as a viewer, I still got scared every time he came on screen.
My favorite part of this season was the finale. It had my jaw dropping and I felt so sad when the episode ended because it left off on a phenomenal cliffhanger.
As much as I loved this season there were some notable weaknesses. I understand needing to treat this as a build-up for the ending, but there were so many plot points I felt they could’ve been expanded on and instead they relied too much on unnecessary shock-humor that could’ve been cut from the show entirely.
“The Boys” has always had raunchy or gross scenes depicted as humorous throughout the show. Most of the time it’s funny and works well within the plot. However, this season felt overboard.
The best example was in episode six. Hughie gets sexually assaulted and it’s played for laughs. In the scene, he’s going undercover as a superhero and is forced to do explicit acts against his will. It wasn’t funny to watch, just disappointing how the writers made the male victims out to be a joke. All I could think about is if this had been a female in Hughie’s position, would the writers still have played it for laughs?
A smaller problem I had was how Frenchie’s entire character felt so weak. They knew the direction they wanted to take him in but executed it poorly. I didn’t care about him and he felt kinda forgettable.
Overall, I’d rate this season of “The Boys” an 8/10. It still had incredible scenes and characters that were extremely well executed. I’m excited to see new episodes that come out.
