The Boys Episode 4.02 Recap and Review: WTH Did I Just Watch?

Ah, episode two.  You know, this is the one where the season premiere lulled us into a false sense of security.  Bring out the depravity!  Oh, but there is so much more.  It’s another packed hour that has us going, “What the Hell did I just watch?”

Why not start the episode with some spectacular stunt casting?  It’s the ghetto, a drug deal is going down, and guess who’s there to see it all through.  Yeah, it’s A-Train.  He’s not in his suit, he’s just some normal guy in the “hood.”  It’s all interrupted when a car pulls up and it’s…Will Farrell?  I was so not expecting that!  He’s playing A-Train’s coach, spouting a bunch of schmaltzy dialogue that basically tells us this is another one of Vought’s after school special type films.  Will Farrell totally over does it BTW, which is exactly what you would expect from him.  It’s so bad it’s brilliant, but I’m a big fan and loving every bit of it.    

Who should step out from behind the camera but the same craptastic director that we recently saw in Gen V, Adam Bourke.  He’s heaping praise on Will Farrell and even suggesting there might be an Oscar nomination!  Will of course eats this up, still honing in on the “acting” role and again, it’s brilliant.  “I’m not giving up too much of a Blind Side vibe, am I?”  Bwah!  

In the meantime, A-Train is sulking in the background over all the inaccuracies about his life, and this kicks off what I really hope will be the A-Train redemption story.  He’s still raw about what happened to his brother, who was his real life coach, and now wants nothing to do with him after last season’s incident.  This is important for later.  Of course he doesn’t have time to ponder too much because Black Noir keeps talking, something that is obviously a new problem!  It does take some getting used to, but it’s funny.  

After this bizarre opener, it’s onto business as usual.  Butcher is being an asshole, so Mother’s Milk kicks him off the team.  Kimiko has decided to give therapy a try, which is not necessarily a bad thing until she accidentally destroys some furniture.  Frenchie is in a world of hurt, as it’s revealed he killed his lover’s family while working for Little Nina.  Oops, that’s going to be a hard one to explain.  

Then there’s the absolute madness at Vought Tower, where the marketing geniuses working for Ashley decide to name Ryan “Homeboy” and give him a hideous costume.  Needless to say, Ryan isn’t thrilled with it, and neither is Sister Sage, who says so.  Ryan is a natural born supe and needs to break out on his own.  She suggests a staged rescue, something so common at Vought they have a whole department for it!  

Ashley isn’t digging Sister Sage’s involvement leading to an awesome elevator scene between them with The Deep thrown in for fun.  Ashley tries to exert her authority as CEO and is easily smacked down verbally by Sage, so Ashley dishes her crap on The Deep, cutting down his idea that he be at Ryan’s staged rescue. After Ashley leaves Sage tells The Deep she likes the idea and he doesn’t have to take that crap from Ashley.  He’s a supe and better than her.  

Ryan starts attending actual rehearsals at Vought studios for his first save.  They have a stuntman, the victims, a script, everything.  To say he’s a little put off by this process is a no-brainer.  The world behind the veil of superheroes has become a bit disillusioning.  Still, he bonds with the people there, showing that he’s got a strong human side unlike his Daddy.  

While all this is going on Ashley, The Deep, and Black Noir are there.  When Ashley tries to give The Deep more crap for being there, he takes Sage’s advice and pushes back at her in one very threatening manner.  It’s awesome, yet so sophomoric, which is quintessential Deep.   “I will drown you in your own toilet…after I’ve used it.”  Ashley folds like a cheap suit.  

Speaking of Daddy, Homelander wasn’t supposed to be part of the save.  The Deep and Black Noir were there, but only for show.  Ryan was supposed to swoop in and save the day.  Just as he does that though, Homelander shows up, because he can’t stand to have anyone steal his thunder, not even his own son.  He lets Ryan do the save, but encourages him to give the “robber”, aka the friendly neighborhood Vought stuntman, a big push.  Ryan does so, but it’s too hard and the stuntman ends up flying into a skyscraper wall and going splat in the trademark red mess that this show just loves.  Everyone is shocked but Homelander, who doesn’t see the problem.  

Elsewhere, A-Train is in a park talking to his nephews, telling them stories about his great saves, which we know now are all staged by Vought.  His brother angrily shows up (played by another SPN alum Christian Keyes) and tells his sons their uncle is full of shit and has never saved anyone.  He forbids them to talk to him again.  Annie and Hughie are watching all this from the car because Annie wants to confront A-Train for his role with the dead Homelander supporters, but Hughie stops her.  He can tell when someone is hurting and felt A-Train needs some space.  A-Train speeds off and their opportunity to talk with him is gone.  

Turns out though that Hughie’s gesture made all the difference!  A-Train shows up at The Boys headquarters with security footage will acquit the two Starlight supporters framed for the murders after Homelander’s trial.  When asked why he was doing this, A-Train said he appreciated that they didn’t interrupt him with his family.  If you remember going all the way back to the first episode, Hughie and A-Train have a very bad history.  Hughie got caught up in all this vigilante stuff after a stoned A-Train ran through his girlfriend, while Hughie was holding her hands nonetheless, obliterating her instantly and never paying a price for it.  So, for Hughie to give him this bit of mercy, it reminds us that if there is truly a hero in this story, it’s Hughie Campbell. 

The Truth Isn’t Pretty Con

Now that I’ve got the other stuff out of the way, let’s get to the bat shit crazy part.  It’s another sledgehammer poke at right wing America, just in case they haven’t figured out this satire has been needling them this whole time.  Mother’s Milk, Frenchie and Kimoko follow Sister Sage, and it leads to a convention called “Truthcon.”  Granted it’s anything but the truth, but it sounded better than “Alternate Reality Con” I guess.  Oh, and when they get there, they find Butcher is already there. 

Kimiko sees a booth of videos of kids in cages and that triggers all sort of flashbacks for her, so she starts chugging a few beers.  One, three, ten, the number keeps changing when it’s obvious to Frenchie she’s tipsy.  She still keeps signing to him in very unsubtle language that he should be screwing Colin.  It is the comic relief portion of the segment, and after what’s coming next we need it! 

Sister Sage is taking an interest in a weak supe by the name of Firecracker.  Why?  She’s a right wing nut that can be described as Margie Taylor Green mixed with Alex Jones, spouting all sorts of crazy conspiracy theories in a deep southern drawl while pitching an assortment of merch.  Needless to say, this woman isn’t the best and the brightest.  She has an online following though, so I guess that gives her a platform.  The panel is titled, “Starlight and the Hollywood Pedophile Cabal,” letting us know that Starlight is her favorite target.  

Enter Firecracker’s trusty sidekick, and we finally get to see Rob Benedict’s character.  I don’t think we’re ever going to think the same of him again!  His name is Splinter and he’s a supe.  He has a very unique power, he can split himself into two and create perfect clones of himself.  So, during the panel setup, we see multiple Splinters getting things ready.  Is this a type of character that Kripke and company can exploit with maximum sickness?  Oh hell yes.  

Splinter leaves after setup, and that’s where this show hits another all-time low.  Multiple Splinters are found by Frenchie and Kimiko naked together in the sauna, forming a human chain where each one has head in ass performing oral sex on the one in front of it.  The lead Splinter is keeping the chain aroused by staring at a picture of Firecracker.   This description is being tame.  Just watch the episode, with the wide shot showing them all going at it at the same time, and you realize that yes, they went there. No standards and practices at Prime Video!  A stunned Frenchie and Kimiko see what’s happening and declare they’re cool with it. What I’m wondering is did the Splinters continue after they left?  I guess that part has been left up to the imagination.  

But that’s only half of it.  MM gets a tip that of a big meeting happening in a ballroom at 9 pm.  They go to the ballroom next door to setup surveillance, but it’s a trap orchestrated by Sister Sage, who is smart enough to figure out that’s exactly what a group spying on them would do.  I guess Butcher figured that out too, because he shows up just in time for a big, gruesome, totally bloody fight to break out.  Suddenly Splinter starts tearing himself into two multiple times to create more Splinters.  The problem is, they’re completely naked when they split off, so there’s multiples of them full frontal fighting the team and clearly outnumbering them.  

The fight, which does not spare the gore, eventually spills over into an adjoining ballroom, where a girl’s Bat Mitzvah is going on (the theme is a shoutout to another big Prime Video series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, just for cross promotional purposes).  So, there’s MM, Frenchie, Kimiko, and Butcher taking their licks from a bunch of naked clones in a party setting.  It’s as bananas as it sounds.  When one clone goes down bloody, two more form!  It all ends when Butcher shoves a tire iron through the back of the throat on the primary Splinter, and they all go down.  That girl is going to have the most memorable Bat Mitzvah ever!  

Apparently, the full frontal of Rob and all those clones was a prosthetic.  To get the swing of the penis right, they had to put ball bearings in it each side!  There was a prosthetic of his butt too in the sauna scene.  Kripke explains it all in these interviews (along with other tidbits from this episode), and I picture this work will proudly end up on some VFX guy’s resume.  

https://tvline.com/interviews/the-boys-season-4-episode-2-mrs-maisel-bat-mitzvah-scene-1235260676/

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/the-boys-season-4-premiere-splinter-ryan-homelander-1236023386/

After all that madness, the end tries to wrap up all these scattered plots, but it all seems like background noise to me after what I just witnessed.  Ryan naturally is devastated over his first kill and tries to talk to Homelander about it.  Not a good idea!  He tearfully wonders what’s the point of being a superhero if they don’t actually save anyone, and doesn’t want to do a save again.  Homelander, who showed up with two milkshakes for the heart to heart, gets angry, berates Ryan for essentially caring, and then leaves with the milkshakes.  Yeah, that’s not going to win his son over for sure.  Ryan has to know by now that Dad is a psychopath.  

Hughie confronts his mother at the hospital, who has power of attorney for his Dad’s medical decisions, but nothing more comes of that plot.  After the security cam footage is revealed and the so called killers released, Annie at the courthouse shows off her trademark Starlight glow, embracing the hero that people want to see.  Finally Butcher and MM are at the Boys headquarters, still reeling over the big fight.  Butcher tries to share the same thoughts of regret that he did to Kessler last episode, but MM isn’t buying it.  “Too little too late,” he says.  Yeah, Butcher had that coming.  It won’t stick.  It never does. 

Thinky Thoughts

All in all, this one was definitely a lot more action with stunt casting thrown in.  Was it great?  Yes, yes it was.  

I really like the idea that A-Train is the next one of The Seven to flip, just like Queen Maeve last season.  Of course there’s the risk he’ll end up dead like Black Noir for his betrayal, so I hope he’s playing smart.  

I’m still very intrigued by Sister Sage and her taking quick control of the situation at Vought.  Maybe she’ll end up having the nerve to do what Ashley can’t.   

I’m not sure where they’re going with The Deep, which isn’t much different than previous seasons, but I keep hoping they give him something to work with.  

Hughie is the real heart of the show and the true hero, but this family drama isn’t giving him a great story line so far.  There’s time left I guess to see where this is going, but so far I’m bored.  

I’m not really sure how to grade this one.  For outright, ballsy creativity, it’s an A.  For story, some parts fell flat, like Frenchie and Hughie, so I say B+.  So, let’s meet in the middle and say A-.  

Coming up next, a twisted Kripke dream comes true.