‘The Boys’ Season 4 Episode 5 Recap: “Beware The Jabberwock, My Son” 

The V52 Expo teased last time on The Boys is now in full flower, and Vought’s 10,000 PSI propaganda hose is saturating the convention’s rabid attendees with diarrhea, the liquefied and branded kind. It’s all-encompassing. There is a Vought vertical for your kink! Onstage, The Deep and smarmy Vought News Network mouthpiece Cameron Coleman (Matthew Edison) talk up phases 7 through 19 of the VCU timeline. An ad for the Vought Faith channel appears. And Cate and Sam from Gen V surface to promote a shitty Vought college comedy. The murderous rampage on humans they incited, sanitized for the pliable masses. But that Gen V storyline is still bleeding. To the team, Billy Butcher has revealed the existence of the superhero-killing virus cooked up at Godolkin U. It could still be key to their takedown of Homelander and the Seven, and Butcher’s got a line on how to locate the stash, which was stolen by Victoria Neuman. “Harmless to humans,” he explains. But for supes? “Fuckin’ diabolical.” It’s a gold line Karl Urban was born to interpret as Butcher. 

While Homelander stands stewing in the wings at V52, silently glitching as he recalls his mass murder-retribution on the Vought researchers who raised him in a torture chamber, Butcher and Mother’s Milk spring Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) from federal lockup. The disgraced Vought exec will be pardoned if he helps them locate the anti-supe virus. It’s a weird team-up. But it gets even weirder when Neuman arrives at the farm property where Edgar has taken MM, Butcher, Annie, Kimiko, and Frenchie. This is where she has been secretly experimenting with both Compound V and the antivirus. It’s also where she injected her daughter Zoe with V. (Edgar is none too happy to learn how his grandchild can now deploy people-eating tentacles from her face.) And to make things the most weird down on the farm, it’s where this entire unlikely group is attacked by V’d-up barnyard animals.

If V-crazed chickens, cows, and sheep aren’t enough for you, howabout a shot of Compound-V accelerating Simon Pegg’s Hugh Campbell from brain dead dad to awake and murdering maniac? It’s one way to enliven this sputtering storyline, which has really boxed in the Hughie character. But it also generates more questions about the role of Rosemarie DeWitt’s Daphne Campbell, his previously absent mom. It was mentioned once, early on in season 4, that Daphne works for something like Vought’s version of Avon. But now, she casually injects her comatose husband with Compound-V after it conveniently falls out of Hughie’s pocket? She just rolls with it as Hugh is suddenly awake and phasing through walls, ripping out security guards’ hearts, and randomly killing nearby innocents? And then she stands by as Hughie prepares a drug cocktail that will put Hugh Sr. under again? If Daphne is actually some kind of villain in cahoots with Vought, it’s been a stumble for The Boys to try and set that up.

Since it emerged in the 1950s, Vought’s propaganda arm gradually evolved its superheroes from postwar protectors of freedom into the flashy embodiment of shock and awe. But Homelander’s addled mind wonders: why not both? In a meeting of the Seven at Vought Tower, now including Cate and Sam, Homelander pitches them on what he characterizes as a battle to save America. They’ll have to do some terrible things. Violent and merciless things. “Maybe even cool things.” But that’s war. And when they’re done, freedom will ring, and the country will be safe for Ryan’s generation. Or something. His whole speech really represents what Homelander has come around to understanding about himself. Humans made him. But not in their image. He broke their mold. He killed his makers. The final solution to burn out his insecurity is to make impossibly powerful beings like him, his son, and the rest of the Seven not protectors of humankind, but unquestionably in charge. “You’ll no longer be beloved celebrities. You will be wrathful gods.” 

The farm’s secret lab was destroyed, and with it most of the anti-supe virus, transforming the Boys’ impromptu team-up with Edgars and Neuman into a play for basic survival from psychotic ruminants. Amid the chaos, Victoria and Annie grudgingly shared how they’re more alike than is comfortable, each of them managing differing outward and inward identities. And while she gets a roundhouse punch for saying it, Victoria’s correct: “You’ve been Starlight for so long, do you even know who Annie is anymore?” This internal struggle might also be why Annie’s suddenly having trouble getting her powers to kick on. (Neuman calls this “projectile dysfunction.”) And while MM sends Edgars back to prison – no virus, no pardon – Neuman ends up hijacking the convoy and busting out her adoptive father. Those two will certainly be up to something, something that may or may not align with Vought and Homelander’s plan for violent divine ascendance. But they also fell for a classic Billy Butcher ruse. With all of the bodies being blown apart on the farm, only a leg was recovered from Dr. Sameer Shah (Omid Abtahi). The chief of Neuman’s secret V-lab was also her lover, and the biological father of Zoe. But now, unbeknownst to anyone, including the rest of the Boys, Butcher and Joe Kessler have locked Sameer away in a secure location. And they’re gonna put that scientist to work making more of that sweet sweet supe-killin’ juice. 

BOYS NOIZE

• VNN host Cameron Coleman was also pulling double-duty as Ashley Barrett’s submissive. (Remember when he was naked and bound on the floor of her office?) But ever since demotion by Homelander, Coleman is no longer attracted to her. “I need a dom who’s dominating,” he tells her with a smug dismissal. But it comes back on him. Because A-Train made her complicit by telling her about his data leak, she manipulates Coleman’s phone records to make it seem like he called Mother’s Milk with the falsified crime analytics. And once Homelander gives his godmaker speech to the Seven, they comply with his demand for fealty by beating Coleman senseless.

• Frenchie has become increasingly consumed with guilt, particularly in light of his falling in love with a guy who’s entire family he murdered. He wishes he could believe in absolution, wishes he could serve some kind of penance. But what good is a belief system like Catholicism in a world riven with unchecked random violence? “Some sins,” he tells Annie, “some sins God shouldn’t forgive. Some sins deserve eternal damnation.” Or at least punishment here on earth. And episode 4 ends with Frenchie turning himself into the NYPD. “I’ve committed many murders…” 

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.