Tag: Susan Heyward

The Boys Season 4 Wraps Up With a Bang – Can’t Wait for Season 5!

The Boys Season 4 Wraps Up With a Bang – Can’t Wait for Season 5!

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The aptly named season finale, Assassination Run, kicks off (in universe) on January 6 – because of course it does. Honestly this season is hitting almost TOO close to reality right now, as the real world gets more and more terrifying. And yet I still find it validating to know someone else is seeing the chaos going on and reflecting it back to me.

So, here’s all the twists and turns and surprises the season ended with – SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE SEASON 4 FINALE!

Directed by none other than Eric Kripke himself.

The story lines all converge in the finale, as they should. It’s January 6 and the news about A Train comes out (and the cancellation of that fabulous film Training A Train alas…)   Vought puts out a PSA with supes saying they take responsibility… which is exactly what they don’t. Congress counts the electoral votes as Frenchie works with increasing desperation on extracting the virus.

Torn Between Two Identities

The shapeshifter pretending to be Annie surprised Hughie by asking him to marry her, and he surprises her back by running to get his own ring and asking the same, and….yep, back in bed.

Hughie: Wow, that was great… two fingers was a lot…

Next season I hope Hughie gets to really open up about all the assault he’s endured this season.

The show has been able to say some nuanced things about female sexual assault in its four years, and it’s certainly had plenty to say about the trauma every single male and female character have endured, but Hughie’s sexual assault is an opportunity to say/show more about something not often talked about enough.

In between sleeping with Hughie, the shifter goes back to real Annie to recharge, confiding her own rather sad story. Sure, she’s a sociopath, but what did anyone expect?  She’s the ultimate example of the identity crisis every single character is having this season, literally not knowing who she is.

Shifter Annie: I barely remember what I look like. One minute I was me and the next I was Miss Jamison, my preschool teacher, and I could see every memory she had. She felt justified in doing all those shitty things…you all do. You all think you’re the hero of your own story.

Another major theme of The Boys. Erin Moriarty did an amazing job with this story line – it has to be, always, so difficult to play two versions of yourself!

While Shifter Annie is gone, Hughie calls Butcher, who tells him a story about a steakhouse in Nevada where he was gonna go with Lenny. The kind of memory you bring up when you know you’re running out of time.

Butcher: Funny what you think about when your time’s up.

He asks Hughie to go there, and to tell the Boys he’s sorry. Tears in his eyes, he hangs up.

Hughie and not-Annie and MM take Robert Singer (Supernatural’s Jim Beaver) to a secret bunker where they hope to be able to defend him and that they hope the shifter won’t get in. Oops, too late…

Singer: If you’d killed Neuman like I’d ordered, we wouldn’t be stuck underground playing pocket pool… ya idjit.

Every Supernatural fan everywhere: YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS HE SAID IDJIT!!!

To make it even clearer, he adds: Balls!

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The Boys Season 4’s Penultimate Episode ‘The Insider’

The Boys Season 4’s Penultimate Episode ‘The Insider’

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Suddenly we’re almost at the end of The Boys season 4 – it seemed to go by very quickly, didn’t it? This season’s reception has been a bit more uneven than the nearly universal kudos for the previous season, especially for the last episode and the treatment of Hughie’s assault. It’s undoubtedly challenging to keep upping the game with a show that started out with such high levels of shock, sex and especially violence right from the jump. That may be the source of some struggle this season, but I’m still thoroughly enjoying what this show does best – hold up a mirror to some of the worst parts of our real life and poke at them. There’s so much that’s over the top in reality right now, sometimes The Boys feels a little too real – but mostly for me it’s validating to see the reflection and be assured that yes, someone else sees the insanity too!

I also enjoy watching the show through the lens of what it’s trying to say, which is slightly different each season. It’s why my colleague Matt and I edited a book on The Boys, examining those themes with input from actors, psychologists and media experts. I was fascinated then, in Season 3, and I’m still fascinated now. (You can find Supes Ain’t Always Heroes at your favorite bookstore or on Amazon)

We have one more episode that will air in the wee hours of Thursday morning this week – and believe me, you do NOT want to miss it!

So, what happened last week in Episode 4.07? A lot!

The Life of Ryan

The theme of this episode – attempting to be your own person and who you really are — is expressed in a biting parody of one of my favorite shows of all time, Avenue Q, which I saw on Broadway with my kids a long time ago – and adored.  Vought Studios presents, of course, Avenue V, complete with puppets of all the supes and poor Ryan looking uncomfortable with every single thing they sing about.  Most of that is encouraging kids to rat out their parents and teachers and neighbors for anything that might be ANTIFA or Christmas hate.  Ryan keeps calling ‘cut’, though the director insists his dad approved the lyrics. Homelander, overwhelmed with issues of his own, leaves Ryan a snippy message to just suck it up and do it, but that doesn’t go over too well.

Ryan eventually stops the filming and addresses the camera, much to Homelander’s anger and disappointment (though he’s taking his father’s previous advice not to let anyone else prevent you from speaking your mind…Be careful what you wish for, Homelander)

(I feel like Cameron Crovetti had a blast filming this…)

Ryan: That song isn’t cool, none of this is cool. Your family isn’t your enemy, your family is all you’ve got. I’ve been thinking about my mom a lot. She died but she loved Christmas…and Terms of Endearment…and her husband Billy. But she wouldn’t love this and she wouldn’t want me doing it. My mom always told me to tell the truth.

Ryan is as torn as everyone else this season – in his case, between two dads.  At Homelander’s place, Ryan sees a package under the Christmas tree and recognizes the return address as “dontbeacunt”. It’s a photo of his mom and Butcher and their dog.

Butcher, watching Ryan’s speech on a TV in a bar, tells Kessler aka himself that’s why he’s got faith in the kid.

And then he collapses on the floor of the bar.

Butcher also reunites with the Boys in this episode, telling them about the virus Sameer is working on and that it would cause global pandemic and a supe genocide. They all notice for the first time that Butcher is sometimes talking to no one (as Kessler calls him an asshole and warns him that he’s pissing away their best shot).  Butcher agrees that they’ll only use the virus on Homelander and Neuman, much to his alter ego’s disgust.

Kessler confronts Butcher, aka Butcher confronts himself. Why does he have such a soft spot for supes? Is it because he fucked Maeve? Cares about Ryan, who’s not even his? Butcher says he gave Becca his word, but Kessler scoffs that if their love was so perfect and pure why did he go around fucking waitresses?

Nobody is better at convincing Butcher that he’s a fuck-up than Butcher himself.

The Boys are starting to pull together again, though. Butcher also got Mallory to pull some strings and free a reluctant and still guilt-stricken Frenchie. MM asks Butcher to be back in charge, saying he’s better off doing research instead of being the skipper – and trying to follow doctor’s orders. Hughie, Butcher and Annie start to figure out the assassination plot for January 6 (of course) and also find a supe shapeshifter that Sister Sage put on the job. Uh oh.

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‘The Boys’ Episode 6 Really is Some Dirty Business

‘The Boys’ Episode 6 Really is Some Dirty Business

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This is a pivotal episode, but we don’t know it until the very end. I love a good twist – hey, I’m good friends with M. Night Shyamalan – and this was a good twist. Maybe one we all started to suspect along the way, but that’s part of the fun of it.

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 6 AHEAD

Butcher: Crisis of Conscience

Butcher ain’t doing well. He coughs more and more as time goes on and he wrestles with his conscience (in the form of Becca) and his opposing desire to just do whatever the fuck it takes to get the job done no matter the collateral damage (as Kessler keeps urging him).  He’s sliding closer and closer to Soldier Boy levels of the-end-justifies-the-means and ignore-the-collateral-damage every day.

Honestly I had a hard time watching what happens with Sameer. Just looking at his hastily and brutally amputated leg makes me queasy, more so every time Butcher tries to convince Sameer to make more virus. Every time Butcher might soften just a tiny bit, Joe is there to push him onward.

Joe: Or we could just send you back in a fucking bucket if you don’t do what we say.

Becca appears and questions what he’s doing, but Joe keeps overruling her.

Becca: Are you even trying to get Ryan out anymore, or is it the same old bloodlust all over again? You’re gonna kill one Homelander and just end up with another.

Butcher claims he’s trying to save the world, and can’t do what needs to be done and “keep you happy,” dismissing Becca’s concerns in an awful parallel to how people really do push the nagging sense of guilt from their conscience aside to allow them to do truly horrific things in the real world.

The next time they meet up, Joe comments that Billy looks like shit. Billy tells him to go fuck himself (which he says he already did today – twice).

Kessler allows that he too has struggled with a dual identity, with opposing parts of ourselves – the theme of this season. How after his last tour, Joe came home and tried to be a family man, help his son, go fucking towel shopping. Be normal.

Kessler: But everywhere I looked I saw the ruined faces of those men that you and me tortured and killed. I couldn’t square up who I was at home with the shit I’ve done. That guy taking out the trash and watching Sports Center, that wasn’t me. The real me likes to hear ‘em scream.  So tell me, Billy, who’s the real you?

It’s the theme of this season. Who, indeed, is the real you? The real any of us?

When Billy tried to be “normal” with Becca, did it all just feel like an act? Like the darkest case of imposter syndrome?

Too Close to Reality Once Again

Another hard-to-watch story line in this episode belongs to Hughie. Fresh from sprinkling his dad’s ashes around the city he loved, Hughie infiltrates Tek Knight’s Federalist Society big money party to get some intel. This is accomplished by MM incapacitating a minor supe named Web Weaver (by shooting something up his butt because this show is fascinated with butt stuff, seriously – and with MM getting squirted in the face with substances, this time some web when he “puts it in the wrong hole”.) You can’t make this stuff up.

MM: There ain’t enough Purell in the fucking world.

(Nor enough mindfulness apps, which MM keeps desperately using).

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‘The Boys’ Delivers a Gut Punch Episode with ‘Wisdom of the Ages’

‘The Boys’ Delivers a Gut Punch Episode with ‘Wisdom of the Ages’

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Before we get into the fourth episode of Season 4 of The Boys, arguably one of the best episodes of the series, there’s other exciting news for the show – Jared Padalecki, who Eric Kripke cast as Sam in Supernatural, has finally said yes to hopefully joining The Boys in Season 5. If, as we suspect, Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy will also be back in Season 5, the entire Supernatural fandom will be sat and waiting impatiently (not that many of us aren’t already doing that this season, thoroughly enjoying SPN alums Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Rob Benedict (RIP Splinter) along with the entire stellar cast of The Boys).

I’ve been hoping Jared joined The Boys when his schedule allowed for a long time, so I’m thrilled to hear that might well be happening soon!

(You can catch up on all things ‘The Boys’, including deep dives into the characters and everything that makes the show special – plus exclusive interviews with Jensen Ackles on Soldier Boy and other cast – with that book Jensen’s holding, Supes Ain’t Always Heroes. Links at the end of the article fyi).

So, where are we now in Season 4?  The fourth episode of Season 4 of The Boys takes a dark dark turn – as in, things go very wrong for a lot of people.

It’s been more than a week, so I’m assuming you’ve caught up with all the insanity of the first three episodes (Spoilers for those episodes ahead). To recap:

The Insanity so Far: 4.01 to 4.03 Recap

Homelander and company have a plan for taking out poor Robert Singer and putting in fellow supe Victoria Neuman. On a personal note, Homelander is so obsessed with aging that he’s collecting gray hairs in a jar – gray hairs from anywhere he finds ‘em. He’s also sick of being surrounded by sycophants and imbeciles, proving it by demanding that The Deep give A Train a blow job and having them stand up and start getting to it (much to Ashley’s obvious excitement which was a touch I loved!).

That was a weirdly fitting counterpoint to Season 1 when The Deep forces Starlight to give him a blow job – and actually does go through with it. I love that the show remembers its own history.

Butcher’s having a crisis of conscience as he contemplates how much he’s willing to do to Ryan to “get him on our side”, personified in visions of Becca. Butcher’s new buddy Joe Kessler is not only played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan but has also traumatized the Supernatural fandom by channeling John Winchester (the character he played on that show) by insisting to Butcher that yes, he’d train his son up to be a killer. (Which is just what John Winchester did to both his sons).

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The Wild Ride Continues: Season 4 of ‘The Boys’ Kicks Off and I’m Here For It!

The Wild Ride Continues: Season 4 of ‘The Boys’ Kicks Off and I’m Here For It!

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(Includes events in the first three episodes of The Boys Season 4 but we’ve left some of the biggest spoilers for you to experience yourself…)

The first three episodes of The Boys dropped in the wee hours of the morning yesterday, much to the delight of fans who’ve been waiting for almost two years for more of their favorite show. While we were waiting, Dr. Matt Snyder and I put together a book of essays and interviews from the cast of the show and psychologists and media experts who love it, dissecting the complicated characters and what makes them tick – Supes Ain’t Always Heroes. I was hoping to see some of the themes in the book picked up in the new season – which they were. So let’s dig in! What’s happening with all our favorites?

Neuman & Singer: Winning Ticket

I can’t help but like Victoria Neuman. I know, I know, she’s exploded lots of people’s heads, but she’s been used her whole life and is more focused on protecting her own daughter than anything, which is one of those universally relatable motivations. (Okay, okay, so Zoe is now a tentacle-spewing supe herself, but still).  In the first three episodes of Season 4, we see that while once she was, I think, genuinely friends with Hughie, now they’re at odds. Actually that’s an understatement, but Neuman takes it in stride.

Neuman: You guys are actually getting worse at your jobs!

I love her running mate too, Presidential candidate Robert Singer. He’s a bit less enthusiastic about her, with good reason.

Singer: Everyone told me to pick Buttigieg instead…

(I happen to know how much Beaver relishes this show and that kind of dialogue. You can read all his thoughts on The Boys and his character in his exclusive interview in  Supes Ain’t Always Heroes: Inside The Complex Characters and Twisted Psychology of The Boys)

Homelander: Daddy Issues

I’ve read some reviews that question whether focusing on the same big bad for four seasons will have to get old, but honestly? This season brings a whole new batch of neuroses and Oedipal struggles for Homie to deal with, and I’m here for that. So much of Homelander’s life has been anything but ordinary, but one of the things he confronts in this season is something that’s as universal as breathing – aging. How do you think he’s going to handle that? Yep, you probably guessed right.

And then there’s parenting. It’s tough to put your progeny in the spotlight when your own narcissism is insisting it should be YOU there, even if you really do care (as much as you’re able). Soldier Boy was proof of just how hard it is to break the horrors of intergenerational trauma, and hoo boy, did Homelander ever have a lot of that. Trauma with a capital T. We learn more about John’s early upbringing in the first episodes of this season, as he goes back to visit his first “home”. With a Fudgie the Whale cake.

That’s a real Time Magazine cover, btw, as showrunner Eric Kripke tweeted. He’s right, this show’s marketing team is beyond amazing!

I will forever relish the character of Homelander for a) Antony Starr’s brilliance and b) the opportunities it offers for real life parallels that are so on the nose they’re almost painful. He emerges from his trial calmly telling everyone to “remain calm, you’re all very special people” and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

The New Supes Drop Some Truth Bombs

New supe Sister Sage energizes Homelander – and the show itself. As Homelander’s supporters square off in a shouting match with Starlight supporters, she comes up with the plan to manipulate public opinion against the Starlighters. And she knows the value of a martyr. Much like Stormfront, Sage is introduced in a way that makes us think we’re going to like her. Her apartment is literally floor to ceiling books and not much else, befitting for the smartest person in the world.

Sage: That person is too smart to give a fuck about Pottery Barn.

She’s also refreshingly and brutally honest with Homelander, commenting on his enlarged prostate and his gray hairs and that he’s “going through some existential midlife stuff.”

Sage also easily manipulates The Deep (and hooks up with him over their mutual love of Outback’s bloomin’ onion, which, valid) and knows how they could pitch Ryan as the newest chosen-by-God hero.

Sage: The chosen one narrative only works if he stands alone. Hollywood trains people to fall in love with the white boy saviors.

Oof, she’s not wrong.

Firecracker, on the other hand, is sort of a mini Stormfront, in that she’s every offensive thing we hear proclaimed on the ‘news’ and in the media every single day. She’s transphobic, anti-vax, you name the thing and she’s saying it – on her “Truth Bomb” youtube channel usually.  Occasionally she says something that really is a truth bomb. “What are you selling?” Sage asks her at the TruthCon convention.

Firecracker: Purpose. These people have nothing, maybe just lost a job or a house. I tell them a story, give them a purpose.

This show hits you in the stomach just when you least expect it.

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New Season of ‘The Boys’ Drops Tomorrow – Five Favorite Things about Season 4!

New Season of ‘The Boys’ Drops Tomorrow – Five Favorite Things about Season 4!

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(No spoilers. This review is made possible by advance screeners of The Boys Season 4 for review purposes).

Let the excitement begin! The new season of Prime Video’s hit streaming show ‘The Boys’ premieres tomorrow with the first three episodes after an almost two year wait. I’ll be back with episode reviews for this season, but overall I loved the entire season. Without any spoilers – because that would ruin all the fun – here are five reasons why. So you can look forward to the new season and enjoying it just as much as I did!

Number 5: Rob Benedict. I can’t spoil anything, but I just have to say that although his character is only in one scene in one episode, he really made an impression! Full disclosure, I love Rob. I loved his character Chuck aka God on Supernatural – he’s a talented actor and a talented musician and a talented writer too. But perhaps I had never seen the full extent of his talent until this role. So many facets of his character in one scene (it’s actually a fairly complicated series of scenes that all run together). Rob even made me feel a mix of emotions for his character – I laughed, I covered my eyes, I even felt a bit bad for him. I chatted with Rob on the weekend and told him my mixed reactions and he laughed. Let’s just say he can’t wait to hear everyone’s thoughts on what he brings to this portrayal…

Number 4: Jeffrey Dean Morgan. I can’t spoil anything about his character either, but suffice it to say that JDM and Karl Urban together eat up the screen like a couple of movie stars. They play off each other perfectly – in fact, I would bet money that the two had a blast working together. Butcher is, if anything, an even more fascinating character in Season 4, which is saying a lot because he’s been pretty fascinating all along. Urban and Morgan have the same sort of rough-hewn charm even when their characters are violent, like Butcher or Neegan on The Walking Dead often are, and the two in a scene together are doubly charming (and sometimes doubly disturbing).

Number 3: The continued parallels to real life, brilliantly interwoven into the plot. Sometimes it’s a throwaway line here and there that makes you go OOOF. Sometimes it’s a story arc that has so much to say about something that isn’t just fiction. There’s so much validation to knowing that someone else is seeing the insanity around us too, and then putting it on our screens in a slightly displaced fictionalized form so we can all look at it without cringing too much.

Number 2: The new supes! Sister Sage and Firecracker join the chaos and energize the Seven and the show. They each have parallels to real life that make them extra interesting, but it’s their dynamic with both the existing characters and with each other that really make this season pop. Susan Heyward and Valorie Curry sizzle when they’re onscreen together. Both are unlikely choices for the Seven and both have unexpected twists and turns to their story arcs that took me by surprise – I love when a show can surprise me! Both also have an interesting relationship with “the truth” which offered a lot of real life commentary options.

Number 1: The deep stuff. Not The Deep stuff, though his story arc in this season is part of it. Almost every character has an evolution over the eight episodes, going in vastly different directions. Much of that evolution is driven by something universal and ultimately very human – the need to figure out who we are and define ourselves in some coherent way. To discover our identity. To “go home” and figure out how and what and who shaped us, whether we wanted them to or not. Sometimes that means breaking away from an identity foisted upon us and remaking ourselves the way we want to be. Sometimes that means trying to break away from the constraints and traumas of the past to be free of them, only to be sucked right back into the chains that has left around us, keeping us from being someone different. Sometimes that means not being able to figure out who the real you is at all. You can follow each character’s journey, sometimes cheering for them and sometimes despairing when the journey is downhill not up. It’s quite a feat to afford each character that room to evolve and enough screen time to follow their journey when you have so many characters!

I was also thrilled to see that the show is continuing its exploration of many of the themes that are included in the new book ‘Supes Ain’t Always Heroes: Inside the Complex Characters and Twisted Psychology of The Boys’. Toxic masculinity, breaking the chains of generational trauma, personality disorders, PTSD, racism, sexism, social media. The book delves into all of those, and takes apart all the complicated characters to see what makes them tick, with exclusive interviews and insights from the actors as well as media experts and psychologists. If you haven’t checked it out yet, catch up on everything about the first three seasons with Supes wherever you buy books, and then get ready to dig into Season 4.

I’ve loved this show since its very first episode, and it hasn’t disappointed me yet. I love that its characters keep slogging it out, every kind of obstacle – physical, psychological, emotional, societal – thrown in their way. Beaten down, halfway to giving up, struggling to hang onto themselves, but they keep fighting. Along the way, there are some unlikely heroes, and some tugs at my heartstrings.  It’s an oddly hopeful commentary on humanity at a time when the struggle is more real than ever.

Eric Kripke confirmed this week that Season 5 will be the final season for The Boys, so my expectations for next season are even higher than they were before. He’s also talked about how much he’d love to have his good friend (and part of his Supernatural family) Jared Padalecki join in the fun. I spoke to Padalecki about how much I personally would love that a few weeks ago, so let’s hope he takes Kripke up on his invitation!

Fingers crossed!

Do yourself a favor and be sure to watch the first three episodes of Season 4 of The Boys on Prime Video tomorrow!!!!

Photos courtesy of Prime Video

–Lynn

You can read more about Supes Ain’t

Always Heroes, with insights from the

actors including an exclusive interview

with Jensen Ackles, and lots more at:

Supes Ain’t Always Heroes