There was a time when Homelander used to think he was the smartest person on the planet, but then came Sister Sage, who crushed his delusions and hurt his self-respect without mercy. Homelander never actually liked the people who showed him his real face. And the moment the two met, we knew that their association wasn’t going to last long. In the seventh episode, the inevitable did happen. Sage had designed an intricate plan to shoot two birds with one stone. The Boys team had incriminating evidence against Homlaander, Neuman and Sage and somehow Sage wanted to turn the tides in their favor. However, being a person who lacked patience, Homelander fired Sage for hiding things from him. He saw Sage’s act as a sort of betrayal while she had her reasons to do so. But let’s not go there, as the arrogant man would never understand. Therefore, the question that we should be asking is: Why did Sage send a Shapeshifter to The Boys?
Homelander had assigned Sage the task to find a shooter to assassinate President Robert Singer so that Victoria Neuman could replace him after his death. It was the same plan that they had decided to put into action at Tek Knight’s party in the previous episode, but Homelander then found out that Butcher and his team had recorded their conversation and might use it against them to incriminate them for treason. That was why Homelander felt the urgency to find the leak in The Seven as soon as possible, but he didn’t let Sage get involved with that. But Sage already knew who the leaker was and didn’t reveal his identity because she had something bigger going on in her mind. She hired a Shapeshifter who would not only assassinate the president but also steal the evidence from The Boys HQ.
Now, Sage knew that A-Train was the leak in The Seven and would be following her, which was the reason why she met her assassin in broad daylight and shared the documents with them in the open. A-Train fell for the trap and sent the pictures to his new friends, in which we saw Sage handing over some documents to a “man.” But when Butcher, Annie, and Hughie arrived at the man’s house, they were attacked by a woman who could shape-shift. I guess Shapeshifter’s plan was to take Annie’s DNA then and there, but for some reason, Shapeshifter failed to do so, which is why they had to escape the building. Later, the Shapeshifter met Annie in the bar in the skin of a woman, where they anesthetized Annie and abducted her. I guess this scene took place after the team’s violent fight with Deep and Black Noir at The Boys HQ. Again, Homelander had sent these two buffoons to retrieve the evidence, but Hughie wasn’t a fool to keep them in the office so that anyone could steal it. Nevertheless, after the massive fight, the team went to a bar, where the Shapeshifter switched places with Annie and went home with Hughie while the real Annie was locked away in an abandoned house or something.
So, why did Sage send the Shapeshifter to kidnap Annie? Well, the answer is simple. Only Annie could get access to Hughie’s safe, where he had kept all the evidence against Neuman and Homelander. All the recordings from Tek Knight’s party were on that disk, and Homelander feared that Butcher and his team might leak it to the press, therefore creating a new set of problems for them. I suppose this hard disk also contained evidence against Neuman, through which Hughie had been blackmailing her since the beginning of season 4. Now, Homelander or Sage could do the same to tame Neuman in case she becomes the next president of the US. I think we’ll find out soon enough.
But as I said before, Sage and her Shapeshifter’s job is not done yet. Sage might have planned to send the same Shapeshifter (in Annie’s skin) to kill Robert Singer, and you can imagine the rest. It is a brilliant strategy. Everyone would blame Annie and her friends for the president’s assassination, making Neuman the new hero of the country with Homelander by her side and maintaining peace and order the way he wants to. Hughie and his friends, on the other hand, might be put behind bars for killing the president. So that was Sage’s grand scheme to deal with her enemies without lifting a finger, but no. Homelander yearned for blood and violence, which was why he wasn’t able to comprehend Sage’s plan. I would also like to entertain the possibility that Sage might overstep Homelander and join hands with Neuman so as to secure a respectable position in her new government. But being the kind of person Homelander is, he wouldn’t let Sage betray him so easily and would fry her brain if she tried to backstab him. So even though Homelander has fired her for now, Sage would gain back his trust after she shared the details of her plan with him.
Now, the question arises: why didn’t Shapeshifter kill Annie? Well, it could be for two reasons, I guess. First of all, the Shapeshifter might frequently need Annie’s DNA to maintain their camouflage outfit and, therefore, planned to keep Annie alive until the job was done. Additionally, the Shapeshifter might need to let Annie out ultimately, as the police might be looking for her after the Shapeshifter had assassinated the president in her skin. The creaking sound that we heard in the last episode was most likely the Shapeshifter arriving at the location to get some more of Annie’s DNA so that they could return to The Boys HQ and execute the next step of Sage’s master plan. And even though Annie is locked down in a basement, Hughie is having the best time of his life, which might create issues for the couple if they decide to address it, but let’s see what happens next.
