The Boys Season Four Episode 7 Review
The penultimate episode of ‘The Boys’ manages to be a overall a strong episode, teasing audiences with what they can expect in the season finale. The action is great, there is a strong twist the characters are left in a position where the finale can pick them up and run with it. There are however some minor gripes, but overall the episode was an amazing watch.
Starting with some of those gripes, is that Frenchie. He just gets plucked out of prison by Butcher offscreen, and it makes everything with his storyline this season feel weaker and pointless. While it seems like Frenchie has overcome his issues of being a murderer, audiences don’t see this growth, and it’s not a change in his character for the better. He just goes back to the Frenchie audiences knew.
This episode also resolves the battle for Ryan’s soul premise that this season has been toying with. It’s unclear if anyone thought that Ryan was ever going to become another Homelnader, it’s been pretty clear throughout that Ryan doesn’t have the same sadistic streak, but this episode does away with this throughline completely. Ryan has to star in an authoritarian Christmas ad, but by the end he decides that he disagrees with it entirely and trash talks Vought instead, thus definitively proving that his soul isn’t in danger of beocming like Homelander’s. And this is done without the intervention of anyone, so it’s unclear who’s fighting over his soul in the first place.
The episode does however still continue the fight for Butcher’s soul, as him as Kessler are still arguing over how the Supe virus should be used and the consequences of that. Butcher is attempting to move past the anger that Kessler is filling him with, but it’s visibly difficult, and it’s clear the struggle is taking a toll on him. While it’s unlikely Butcher will die in the next episode – ‘The Boys’ does have a season 5 already announced – it’s clear he will emerge from the season 4 finale as a broken man, struggling to go on.
Seeded throughout this episode is a twist. During a raid one a target’s house, one of the the Boys’ is swapped with a doppelgänger. The episode leads audiences down one direction, but at the end of the episode it’s revealed that the audiences were misled, and it’s a satisfying conclusion that makes sense. The only small criticism is that it once again screws over Hughie, who has been relentlessly punished this season.
Turning to the Supes, while Firecracker and Homelander don’t get that much to do (other than Homelander’s ego getting another one over him), it’s Black Noir and the Deep that truly shine. ‘The Boys has the Deep undergo what is a fairly mundane romance – he meets a girl, then meets another girl, and is caught cheating by the first girl – it’s done with an octupus voiced by Tilda Swintonin place of the first girl, which adds a hilarious twist to the conversations, and in how the encounter ends. It’s something that could only be done in ‘The Boys’. Deep also exchanges some great lines with Annie as the two fight, and Black Noir gets to fight, though he’s clearly not as powerful as the old Black Noir.
Overall, this was an enjoyable episode. It was funny in all the ways that audiences have gotten used to, the action was enjoyable, and the conflict was clear and well executed. There are some gripes, like Ryan’s arc autocompleting without any input from ‘The Boys’, and Frenchie’s conflict being resolved offscreen. As far as the final episode of season 4 is concerned, it’s in a healthy spot as this episode leaves it with a clear scenario to tackle with several variables that could go in any number of different directions. Hopefully it can use those variables in a satisfying manner to give this season of ‘The Boys’ the sendoff it deserves.
