I have to address the elephant in the room: The A.V. Club exists in The Boys\u2018 universe. I\u2019d like to believe that, in their free time, Supes and normies are reading the site, vehemently nodding their heads in agreement to the D- we apparently gave to Lamplighter: Light Of Justice\u2018s finale. Based on the Vought Studios stuff in The Boys so far, it\u2019s an accurate assessment on how we (and probably everyone else) would grade these fictional projects. It\u2019s a good thing that Training A-Train, co-starring Will Ferrell, remains unreleased, right? Anyway, I chuckled at the shout-out, aware that I\u2019d be handing out grades to the rest of The Boys episodes. Thankfully we haven\u2019t reached the D- level yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the final season\u2019s fourth outing, some of the most annoying minds try to come up with ways to peddle Homelander as the next messiah, after his angelic vision last week<\/a>. \u201cJesus would kill for our marketing,\u201d the villainous Supe tells Firecracker while putting her in charge of the mission to spread his gospel. So she rounds up VP Ashley, her husband Father Oh (Daveed Diggs), Vought producer Courteney (Jackie Tohn), and writer\/Supe The Worm (Ely Henry) in The Seven\u2019s headquarters. They think of how to convince the world that he hath risen. Some of the ideas thrown around include Homelander parting the sea \u201cto send the refugees back where they came from\u201d and flying to global holy sites to take selfies with fans. Ultimately, he\u2019s reintroduced simply as the Prophet Of America. I suppose that explains the episode\u2019s title, \u201cKing Of Hell.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Before he takes the stage to greet his adoring fans, Homelander has a whirlwind day. He goes to Fort Harmony with Soldier Boy, hoping to find V1 and ingest it so that he can become immune to a deadly virus. On the way, the father-son duo passive aggressively diss each other in ways we\u2019ve heard before. Soldier Boy also admits that he fucked Stormfront once or twice back in the day, to which his son (who also hooked up with Stormfront) responds, \u201cI guess we\u2019re related in more ways than one.\u201d Crucially, Soldier Boy refuses to believe that she\u2019d kill herself and asks if Homelander saw the body. Are we going to get another appearance from Aya Cash in The Boys before Vought Rising?\u00a0<\/p>\n Soldier Boy also has ulterior motives (thanks to sneaky advice from Sister Sage) for accompanying his son on this field trip\u2014and it\u2019s not to provide help. So when the two of them are exchanging barbs and hunting for V1 in the abandoned, gross-looking space, Soldier Boy traps Homelander in a room with a poisonous substance. Most people would die quickly if they had it in their systems, but because of Homelander\u2019s abilities, it affects him slowly, so he only goes through painful rashes and weakened power. But what an unbelievable relief it is to watch this dude suffer, however briefly. That scene alone gets an A from The A.V. Club.\u00a0<\/p>\n The two Supes aren\u2019t the only ones searching for V1. Hughie, Butcher, MM, Frenchie, and Kimiko also arrive at Fort Harmony, hoping to secure it before their nemesis does. Unfortunately, the spores in and around this research facility are infected, and it\u2019s causing everyone to rage out. (Hughie even calls his girlfriend Annie a bitch, and, for him, that\u2019s shockingly unexpected.) Only Frenchie remains safe, thanks to the amount of drugs he\u2019s already consumed in his lifetime. But things turn dark for his pals pretty fast because Hughie, Butcher, MM, and Kimiko turn on each other on a dime, overtly expressing frustrations they\u2019ve held onto for a long time. Due to the spores\u2019 impact, they\u2019re not only unbearably angry but also honest. This whole arc drags out for longer than needed in \u201cKing Of Hell,\u201d but it makes room for some necessary character work.\u00a0<\/p>\n In season four, Butcher grew isolated from his friends because of his blinding desire for revenge. He pushed everyone away when he became a Supe and hasn\u2019t exactly been able to bring folks back in his corner. Hughie was the only one vouching for him, but in his anger, even he doesn\u2019t seem to care what happens to Butcher as the two duel. As for Kimiko\u2019s temper tantrum, she unleashes on her boyfriend, reminding Frenchie that she is no damsel in distress. Thanks to Fort Harmony being so messed up, The Boys are ultimately able to sort out their issues in what feels like a haze. Hopefully, they\u2019re all on the same page now and can get back to that season-one energy this show desperately needs. All\u2019s well that ends well for them, because MM and Butcher practically make up and the team heads out of there and silently enjoys listening to \u201cMambo No. 5\u201d in the car.\u00a0<\/p>\n But before they depart, Homelander and Butcher come face to face when the former is still trapped. \u201cDid your dad put you in time out?\u201d Butcher asks him, adding that it doesn\u2019t matter what Homelander achieves\u2014he\u2019s never going to be happy. Time and again in season five, Homelander is being told that he\u2019s a weak, pathetic loser. Do they not realize they\u2019re only riling him up further? Now that he considers himself to be a Prophet, I fear what he\u2019ll do. The only reason he escapes from Fort Harmony is because Frenchie, in his stable condition, discovers what\u2019s causing the rage spores to spread. Another Supe, who looks like a dime-store version of Game Of Thrones\u2018 Three-Eyed Raven, is making it happen. Frenchie convinces Soldier Boy to kill this weirdo, which stops The Boys from raging out, frees Homelander, and causes Soldier Boy to reflect on his past and tear up.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Boys also deduce that the V1 is missing, and the only one who could\u2019ve grabbed it is a Supe named Bombsight, who used to work with Soldier Boy in the \u201950s. We know very little about this dude, besides the fact that he starred in Vought Studios\u2019 1953 thriller The Curse Of Fu Manchu. (If The A.V. Club existed back then, I\u2019m certain it would\u2019ve gotten a D- as well.) We do know that Mason Dye is playing Bombsight in the upcoming prequel, so it\u2019s safe to assume he\u2019ll be making his way into The Boys pretty soon. After last week\u2019s episode moved the plot along, I liked that this halfway point progressed in character development. But I hope the remaining four installments focus on closing out The Boys instead of setting up its prequel\u2019s characters.\u00a0<\/p>\n Stray observations<\/p>\n \u2022 In case you were curious, The A.V. Club was also a part of the Arrowverse <\/a>and The Other Two<\/a>. Saloni Gajjar is The A.V. Club\u2018s TV critic.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I have to address the elephant in the room: The A.V. Club exists in The Boys\u2018 universe. I\u2019d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-545002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u2022 \u201cI\u2019d say it\u2019s all about numbers with you suits, but Vought+ never releases any.\u201d\u00a0
\n\u2022 So Homelander can smell Soldier Boy all over Firecracker, but he doesn\u2019t realize that Butcher et al. are in Fort Harmony just one floor below him?\u00a0
\n\u2022 Annie spends \u201cKing Of Hell\u201d reuniting with her dad, who abandoned her when she was a kid. She learns that he left because he couldn\u2019t stand that his wife was obsessed with the V1 stuff. She also meets and bonds with her half-brother and stepmother. The one lesson she takes from her father, who seems truly regretful, is that she shouldn\u2019t abandon the ones she loves. So she flies straight back into Hughie\u2019s arms. For his part, Hughie tells her that she picked the right day to miss.\u00a0
\n\u2022 My favorite line delivery of this episode is the way Valorie Curry\u2019s Firecracker says a shaky \u201ccongrats\u201d to Homelander after he announces that he\u2019s the next Jesus Christ.\u00a0
\n\u2022 For those keeping score, Sister Sage tells the President to defund public schools so that students don\u2019t turn into woke jihadis and learn about gay penguins.\u00a0
\n\u2022 MM was likely right when, in his anger-fueled mindset, he said Frenchie and Kimiko wouldn\u2019t survive for longer than six months as a couple, huh?
\n\u2022 Grossest scene award: Did I mention the weirdo Supe stuck inside the walls of Fort Harmony?\u00a0<\/p>\n