You can die from your own “f*ck”. THE BOYS – Season 4 recap

I only fully realized this thought clearly after 4 seasons – The Boys is a show that radically opposes all anti-human ideologies and boldly condemns them. It’s the only way, even if it means an ultimate confrontation rather than a hypocritical peace. It also vividly shows that anyone who sows mindless hatred can also perish by it. Usually, though, they don’t understand this until they lose something, but it can’t be just a piece of their ear. And although the creators had to bend to avoid hysteria by changing the title of the final episode (Assassination Run) when there was an attempt to assassinate Donald Trump, it is clear that this finale is about him. Or rather, about the possible deadly consequences of all total ideologies, which seduce masses of followers – not supporters. It’s worth remembering this subtle distinction when describing people present at political rallies. The door to the final, 5th season has been masterfully opened. Eric Kripke and Evan Goldberg just need to not waste this potential and ideally hit the viewers even harder.

Although my Polish world is very divided, looking at the American one, I wouldn’t want to live in it, guided only by the legend that the USA is an oasis of freedom and opportunity. Looking from across the ocean, not much of that legend remains, and maybe it was never really real? We only saw the USA from behind the “iron curtain,” hyperbolizing that desired freedom. And when we got it, we know as citizens its price, so we no longer yearn for American predatory capitalism, nor for citizenship because we have a significant problem with it due to its tradition forgotten and interrupted by partitions. But that doesn’t mean I want to go back to standing with my mom in a queue with meat ration cards. The other radical side of this coin doesn’t interest me either.

The Boys reminded me how politics can influence the life of an ordinary person and define it, and in turn, how that person legitimizes this state of affairs until something radically shakes them up. Our Poland was shaken up last year, and the US a few years ago, but apparently, more tremors are coming, both there and here. This results not so much from the weakness of the electric shocks but from the trembling hands of the rescuers who perhaps aren’t up to the task of saving someone’s life. In short, a complete failure and as usual, a disappointment. The creators of The Boys are trying to find both solace and some solution, a diagnosis of why this has happened and is still happening. After all, no one in politics is crystal clear. You always choose compromises while fulfilling various duties. Always?

The entire 4th season of The Boys was marked by the fight of the Starlighters against Homelander and his followers. There was a lot of blood, twitching intestines, curses where the word “cunt” reigned supreme, almost abstract tendencies of superheroes to anal insertions and copulating with octopuses, but that’s just one layer of the show. However, the creators were cautious with nudity, which surprised me and made an unpleasant impression that they weren’t entirely honest in their controversial message. If they go all out with violence, they should go all the way, but they don’t. On the other hand, The Boys has an incredibly rich symbolic and philosophical layer. It requires a humanistic background to understand the allegories, well-developed cognitive abilities to decipher the meaning of psychological maps, how the human brain works, and what can deceive it if it has no foundation in either knowledge or the strength of an independent personality.

Each episode surprising in some way

All of this formed into a neat, 8-episode whole, with each episode surprising in some way, until a cascade of unexpected events occurred in the finale, leaving some anger, dissatisfaction, maybe even disappointment, but also hope that the Homelander bubble will finally burst, and he will not just die but at least lose his power, so he has to confront his perverse demons as a mere human being. And that changes the perspective entirely. The jar of hair will fill up faster, and its sight, for this fundamentally weak personality, may become unbearable and even lead to suicide. By the way, the scene where Homelander takes the hairs out of the jar and scatters them signifies some acceleration of the destruction of his personality. He is already just a shell with enormous power that needs to be properly controlled. This is Sister Sage’s role, not that of the dim-witted Firecracker with a mind clouded by lactation-inducing drugs. And what role will Butcher take in this group with his alter ego, so diabolically played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan?

Since there is a 5th season planned, it could be guessed that the season finale would not resolve anything, but rather complicate things further. Some characters will disappear from the board, but the main ones will still remain, along with Butcher, who will reveal his true face as either a superhero or a supervillain. The choice is up to the viewers, similarly with Homelander. For some, he is a tempting character, and they secretly want to emulate him. We don’t lack such figures in history, especially those who considered themselves some sort of God’s hand capable of eradicating all immoral behavior from the world, of course with blood and iron and under some adopted ideology, with the love of Jesus and Mary on their banners, or Allah, but in essence, it’s the same “devil,” following the humor of Kripke and Goldberg.

In The Boys, Homelander hit these types of environments and gained followers among them, even though they didn’t realize that the show openly MOCKS them. The rest of the leftists were to be exterminated according to plan, but no method of killing had been invented yet. We probably don’t need to look far in history, and Homelander doesn’t so much simulate Donald Trump as Adolf Hitler. Trump is rather a puppet in much more powerful political hands. Remember the final conversation between Homelander and Sage. The showrunners know what they are doing when creating metaphors of the relationship between American society and the Washington establishment.

The most important message of the 4th season of The Boys

In summary, death by one’s own fuck should be painful to have any meaning. Painful not so much for the one showing the middle finger and forcibly pushing it into the victim’s eye, but for those around who chant to push the finger deeper and into other orifices. Blunt, like all of The Boys, but it’s not bluntness without justification, made up for fun and to laugh at the weaker, poorer, rainbow people, and all those who, according to Butcher, are cunts. It’s true that life is hard if you’re a cunt, but not being one is a great challenge we often learn all our lives and succeed only just before death when it’s too late for everything. This aspect, so to speak, educational in The Boys, I will remember because something valuable needs to be taught to children about life.

Above all, what the show’s heroes face, that you cannot remain passive in your dreams or succumb to those who, out of their fear and incompetence, want to destroy our motivating sense of worth. Homelander’s was degraded to the level of an euglena, and out of it came a MONSTER, with virtually unlimited space for cancerous growth. So let’s not be cunts. This is the most important message of the 4th season of The Boys.