SPOILERS FOR EVERY SEASON OF “THE BOYS” AND SEASON ONE OF “GEN V”
“The Boys” is a satirical superhero show created and showrun by Eric Kripke (“Supernatural”). Based on the comic book series by Garth Ennis and Darick Robinson, the show follows the titular vigilantes as they fight the corrupt superheroes (“Supes”) of their world and the corporation that backs and franchises each of them. The show’s excellent cast includes Karl Urban (“The Lord of the Rings”), Jack Quaid (“Scream”), Antony Starr (“Banshee”), Laz Alonso (“Avatar”), Erin Moriarty (“Jessica Jones”), Karen Fukuhara (“Suicide Squad”) and Chace Crawford (“Gossip Girl”).
While this show has been around since 2019 and has been positively received, things have unfortunately erupted with the release of its fourth and penultimate season. Conservative audiences have recently fired back after discovering that they were the butt of the joke the whole time, claiming that this is the worst season of the show due to its “wokeness” and criticisms thrown at Former President (and convicted felon) Donald Trump. The weird thing is that on one hand, it is baffling to me that after five years, fans just discovered the show’s incredibly un-subtle commentary that was present from the very first season (if not the very first episode). On the other hand, I would have to agree that this is easily the worst season to date. It’s still good, thanks to excellent performances, but the writing has taken a massive dip in quality, resulting in a messy season that almost destroys what I loved about the show in the first place.
A large element of this season that didn’t work for me was how some of the protagonists were written, especially in comparison to how they had been written in the past. One of the most egregious examples is Frenchie, who was given a bizarre arc in which he starts having sex with a man named Colin, whose family was murdered by Frenchie back when he used to be a hitman — and this entire storyline feels like an act of character assassination. Frenchie has always been an incredibly flawed character with a checkered past, and while we have been told that he used to be a contract killer, he has not done anything to imply that he would start sleeping with somebody whose family he had massacred. This is something that I could maybe see one of the antagonists doing, but not one of the good guys.
The worst character arc in the season, however, was that of Hughie, which is especially disappointing as he’s one of my favorite characters. For some reason, this season just felt like torturing him, with him having to kill his own father… and then getting sexually assaulted twice. The first time is played for laughs essentially, and the second time isn’t even treated like an assault, even though there was a shapeshifter who turned into his girlfriend Annie and then had sex with him; if the infamous scene from “Revenge of the Nerds” is considered a rape scene, then so should this.
This season’s mishandling of sexual assault is something that is shocking in a lot of ways, first of which is the fact that the topic has been handled respectfully in previous seasons. The very first episode of the show has Annie getting sexually assaulted by superhero The Deep as a sick sort of orientation before she joins the show’s superhero team, The Seven. Not only was the act done offscreen, but it is taken very seriously and serves as great commentary on casting couches in the media industry. However, Hughie’s assault is treated as a joke, which continues an awful trend in minimizing the damage of male sexual assault, which is way too extensive for me to delve into, so I will instead recommend a video from YouTuber Pop Culture Detective. Not only that, but the fact that Annie gets mad at him for having sex with the shapeshifter feels incredibly unempathetic considering that she is a survivor of assault and Hughie was just raped by someone pretending to be his girlfriend.
However, there is a lot of criticism towards this season that, more than anything, shows that media literacy is a big issue within audiences. The Rotten Tomatoes audience score is the lowest of the series to date, with it being rated at 54% at the time of writing. Many of the critiques have been about how woke and political the series has gotten, and the ridiculous thing about this is that the show has been political from the beginning — and it hasn’t even been subtle about it in the slightest. Granted, I can admit that the references are a bit more on the nose than usual, with characters criticizing “critical supe theory” and constantly referring to liberals as pedophiles, but the show has always been discussing capitalist greed, the #MeToo movement, eugenics and many other political topics. So at this point, if you have been watching this show and have been unable to pick up on any of these themes, then I genuinely don’t know what to tell you — you should maybe touch some grass.
All in all, “The Boys” season 4 is truly the worst season of the show so far, yet, it isn’t for a lot of the reasons that certain conservative audiences seem to be harping on. The show still has excellent performances, great visual effects and (occasionally) fantastic writing, but this just doesn’t have any of the same bite that those first three seasons did. Here’s hoping that this show manages to end on a bang.
