‘The Boys’ Season 4 Episode 2 Recap: “Life Among the Septics”

Part of what makes the universe of The Boys a lot of twisted fun is how it skewers the places, behaviors, advertisements, and people of our own, which is how we get Will Ferrell popping out of a shitbox ’90s Honda at the beginning of Season 4’s second episode (“Life Among the Septics”). A-Train is rightly pissed that Vought has reduced his biopic to a racial caricature, and Biggie’s “Hypnotize” competes for airspace with a treacly inspirational score as Ferrell’s “Coach Brink” implores superfast Reggie Franklin to return to practice. (This sequence also features a recurrence of PJ Byrne as Adam Bourke, who we last saw in the Boys spinoff Gen V, blowharding his way through teaching an acting class.) The movie shoot moment doesn’t really go anywhere, besides “Ferrell Streep” being a pretty decent zinger. But it does increase A-Train’s frustrations with Vought, Homelander, and the Seven, which the laser eyes wannabe god has transformed into on-call chaos zone gig workers.

When Homelander commands the Seven to commit murder, the current version of Noir wonders, are they just supposed to do it? Yes is the short answer. But whoever’s in the tactical battle suit should know that Homelander also ripped out the last Noir’s guts in a fit of rage, and there was zero accountability. On this show, it’s an in-universe understanding that people are shot up and butchered and turned into pink mist as often as they regenerate or simply reappear, and the remaining characters just move on. Even Homelander’s murder trial proved to be a formality, just as he assured Victoria Neuman. But bossing around the Seven and threatening Neuman are just meetings that could’ve been emails. Homelander’s real problem is indoctrinating his son Ryan into the everyday traveshamockery of life inside Vought International. The marketing dorks have developed the persona of “Homeboy” for Ryan, complete with a suit that riffs on his dad’s supe drip. But the kid’s first “save” as a hero is the usual claptrap, designed and built by Vought for the cameras. When Ryan uses too much power and murders the Vought stuntman playing a gun-waving bankrobber, nobody even cares.

“Grab your shit and get the fuck out. Or I’ll throw you out.” Laz Alonso’s expanded role as Mother’s Milk, now that he’s leading the Boys, is extremely welcome. Alonso emphasizes his character’s sensitivity as much as his ability to kick ass, two traits that smash into each other when Billy Butcher levels with the group about his terminal diagnosis. MM seems truly committed to his CIA mission tasking, and Butcher’s slovenly, angry dying drunk act is cramping his style of command. The Boys have tracked Sister Sage to Truthcon, a ridiculous conspiracy fest held in the conference rooms of an exurban hotel. But the smartest person in the world made that deduction, and they fell right into her trap. She commands Firecracker and her multiplicity-style supe buddy Splinter to kill MM, Frenchie, and Kimiko at Homelander’s behest. A wild fight ensues, with as many versions of the same naked guy on display as there are brazen acts of violence. (Kimiko is shot in the head, but like we were saying, on this show that’s just a passing blip.) The Boys really only win with an assist from a late-arriving Butcher. And Firecracker flees the scene to live free and TikTok for another day.

Annie and Hughie weren’t at the Truthcon scrum because they were tailing A-Train, whose stolen valor over a series of his own Vought “saves” might impress his nephews, but is checked by an actual truthbomb from his brother. (“Your uncle is no hero.”) Ashamed and angry, A-Train decides to drop digital proof on the Starlighters that their people had nothing to do with the murders outside Homelander’s trial, which has the added effect of leading Annie back to Starlight’s superpower. If she can be a beacon of hope in this busted world, then so be it. 

It’s not in Homelander’s fucked up wiring to understand how Ryan can feel any kind of remorse. (And watching Antony Starr modulate Homelander’s features as he struggles to suture the supe’s static grin to his face is hilarious.) Humans are fragile, he tells the boy with empty sincerity. We can’t save them all. But his son is already putting together the bigger picture. Vought, Homelander, the entire superhero apparatus – they don’t want to save anybody. It’s a closed loop system, siphoning glory from a society rendered dumb by conspiracy theories, with people who grasp at lurking evils unable to recognize the real threat. How this growing realization will factor into Butcher’s attempts to free Ryan from Homelander, we’ll have to see. But with A-Train wavering in his support of Vought, and even Noir questioning the Seven’s motivations, The Boys stumbling onward toward their supe-killing mission seems like the least of Homelander’s problems.  

BOYS NOIZE:

• T-shirt game as character signifier. As a Detroiter, Sage has already rocked a vintage Palace of Auburn Hills T, as well as a ‘Made in Detroit’ number featuring what seems to be a sentient hot dog. And not to be outdone, Mother’s Milk has appeared in shirts emblazoned with the logos for 50 Cent, Eric B. & Rakim, and Outkast.
• “I look back at my life, and all I see are the messes I made. And I ain’t got time to fix it. Maybe I can do one thing right, with the time I got left. Get Ryan safe. But I can’t do it without ya.” It’s an embittered little speech from Billy Butcher, with a fantastic delivery from Karl Urban – after all, it first appeared in the trailer for Boys season 4. But MM, even with the hint of understanding in his eyes, is just so cold-blooded. “Too fucking little, Butcher. Too fucking late…”    

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.