So, in The Boys season 4’s ending, Homelander’s plan, or, should I say, Sister Sage’s scheme, actually worked out. [Spoiler Alert] There were a few hiccups and some road bumps thanks to Homelander’s insufferable pride, but in the end, the supes got what they wanted: martial law in the country. Homelander had initially planned to assassinate Robert Singer so that VP Neuman could take his place and deputize all the supes in the country so that Homelander could finally play God. And even though our not-so-friendly anti-hero Butcher killed Neuman, Sage tipped the scale in Vought’s favor and leaked the footage that framed Bob Singer for Neuman’s murder, therefore leading to the former’s arrest. In such a situation, Speaker Calhoun stepped up and invoked the 25th amendment to become the next President of the United States. So, now you may ask, what are Homelander and Sage going to do next? So, let’s get to it.
Spoiler Alert
Hunt for the Deep-State Starlighters
As soon as Homelander came into power, he organized an army of all the supes and instructed them to hunt down the insurgents. These were the people who resented the superheroes or didn’t want a lab experiment to rule over them. However, before going into that complex territory, Homelander struck The Boys first, who had been creating a nuisance for him since the beginning of the affair. The Boys team split up into three different groups, believing they would be able to lie low for some time and plan a counterattack. But Homelander, with his superpowers, was able to track them down and stop them from leaving America. The Boys were about to cross the border when they were attacked by the supes in three different locations.
The Feds arrested Frenchie from the dockyard, Hughie from the highway, and Mother’s Milk from the airport. However, it seemed like the supes helping the Feds didn’t want to arrest the supes on The Boys team, or maybe they had different plans for them. Fortunately, Annie managed to evade Cindy’s wrath. Previously, Cindy was seen running away from Sage Grove Center in season 2 and no one heard from her thereafter. The Boys season 4’s ending also suggested that Annie had regained her powers after a violent fight with the Shapeshifter. It seemed she had finally made peace with the demons inside her head that had been troubling her for the majority of season 4. Maybe she no longer blamed herself for the things she had done in the past and let go of her mountain of guilt. Maybe Hughie’s speech affected her in a positive way, as Annie decided to forgive herself to become a better person.
Coming back to the abduction, Gen V supes, who previously reported to Ashley and later swore their loyalty to Homelander, attacked Frenchie and Kimiko near the docks. Cate Dunlap used her powers to hypnotize Frenchie so that he would surrender without any struggle. Sam, on the other hand, grabbed Kimiko so that she wouldn’t be able to help Frenchie anymore. So, what was Homelander’s order? To separate the human insurgents from the supes helping them? I guess Homelander and Sage would be able to make better use of Tek Knight’s prison cells and turn them into internment camps to lock down humans and supe terrorists separately so that they couldn’t plan any further mutiny against Homelander’s fascist regime.
And yes, before I forget, in The Boys’ season 4 finale, Ashley panicked and injected herself with Compound V, thereby turning herself into a monstrous supe of some kind. The show’s ending didn’t reveal her fate, but her new avatar looked like the worst version of herself. She will probably return in season 5.
Butcher Chooses Evil To Fight Evil
Well, every time I come across such a trajectory in films or television series, it reminds me of The Witcher’s words. He had said that one doesn’t need to side with lesser evil to fight evil. But it seems like our lad, Butcher, has lost his way. His alter ego, Joe Kessler, had been telling him constantly that there was no easy way out of the supe problem. Butcher has to commit genocide if he wants to make the world safe for humans. And when he saw his son Ryan killing Grace Mallory in the CIA hospital, Butcher realized that Kessler had been right all along. That was the moment when Butcher became a slave to the supe parasite crawling inside his body. Like all parasites, Kessler doesn’t want his host to die, and Butcher’s only way to survive is to stop fighting the parasite and let it take control of his body. And that’s what Butcher did in the end. He surrendered to the parasite and killed Neuman, therefore declaring a war against all the supes. And this version of Butcher won’t stop until he has killed every supe in the world.
Before leaving the warehouse, Butcher took the only vial of the supe-killing virus from Frenchie, and if I am correct, he wouldn’t just use it on Homelander. In the new world order, Butcher would most certainly find people who resent Homelander’s dictatorship and therefore might help him mass-produce the supe-killing virus to incite a global pandemic. A literal genocide to kill all the superheroes in the world.
By the way, the show had already foreshadowed Butcher’s superpower and how he killed Ezekiel. In the fifth episode, Butcher came across a dead rabbit with a parasite exploding out of its body. He knew that Sameer had been experimenting on these animals with Compound V, and the dead rabbit was like a looking glass into his own grim future for Butcher. That made him wary of letting Kessler control his body; with Kessler in the driver’s seat, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from shedding unnecessary blood like that of Neuman. But now, when Butcher has made a deal with the devil in his head, there is no stopping him. It would either kill him or get him killed. The third option, if you ask me, is a tragic sacrifice to complete his redemption arc. It would make Butcher the hero for the world and for his son, Ryan.
Homelander Finds His Father Again
In The Boys season 3’s ending, Queen Maeve had sacrificed herself to save the world from Soldier Boy’s wrath, who had gone hysterical when The Boys tried to send him into hibernation. Later, after a violent blast, Mallory locked Soldier Boy in his glassed capsule so that he could lie there for the rest of eternity. But it seems like at the end of season 4, Homelander, who now controlled the government, found his father’s glass casket and probably wanted to wake him up again so that he could show off his achievements. Well, to be honest, it is a risky gamble. Soldier Boy is quite an unstable fella. He doesn’t like sharing things, and his narcissism level is something Homelander can’t achieve even at his worst. So, if Homelander does wake him up, then it wouldn’t be wrong to suggest that he might be inviting his own doom. It also seems like the creators of the series don’t want to leave any loose ends after the fifth finale season. Well, they need to address the Soldier Boy chapter; otherwise, some fans will surely open a reddit thread to theorize about Soldier Boy’s fate. So here we are, catering to the fandom. And also, Jensen Ackles’s return to The Boys universe is indeed going to hype the fifth season up to its zenith.
My theory is that Soldier Boy is either going to help Butcher kill Homelander, in case the latter decides against committing genocide. Or Soldier Boy will himself kill or imprison Homelander to replace him as the new dictator, and in such a case, Butcher and The Boys team will have to face Soldier Boy once again, and this time around, it might be Butcher who will make a sacrifice for the greater good.
