The Boys Episode 4.06 Recap and Review – “Dirty Business” aka I am NOT Fine

OMG SHOW!  YOU BROKE HUGHIE!  I mean, what the Hell?  Oh, poor guy.  He’s the one good guy this show has.  His heart, his intentions are so good, yet he continues to find himself caught in some real f’ed up shit.  I mean, his Dad just died. He spent the opening scene with his mother spreading his ashes!  When is he going to get a break? 

Okay, now that I’ve got that out of the way, I can’t really complain about what we got with “Dirty Business.”  It was easily the best episode of the season.  There’s a lot to unpack, but I would expect that with only a couple of episodes left for the season.  I like that this episode was more focused, with most of the action happening at Tek Knight’s mansion of doom.  I mean, what a perv!  The plot felt more old school to me, a crazy sequence of events unfolding in different parts of the mansion, with each character playing their part in some way, no matter how weird things got.  And trust me, things got weird.  

By Invitation Only

Party at Tek Knight’s house, and it’s an exclusive guest list.  It’s who’s who of the right wing club, along with four of The Seven (which is still only at six if you count).  Homelander, A-Train, Sister Sage and Firecracker waltz in to a group of powerful politicians, elites and Victoria Neuman, who clearly doesn’t want to be there.   It’s all about their power play, it’s all about overtaking the government from newly elected Bob Singer.  Yes, this all sounds very familiar, doesn’t it?  A conspiracy including the Vice President elect and the Speaker of the House to take down a President.  It’s as chilling as it sounds. 

Back at team The Boys, they happen to get the guest list, thanks to A-Train.  If Butcher was in charge, he would have easily wondered why a sleaze ball like Webweaver was on the list.  Mother’s Milk instead saw it as a golden opportunity to get in and plant bugs so they could find out what’s going on.  Bad mistake!  The plan was to take out Webweaver and replace him with Hughie.  He would plant the bugs and get out of there.  Oh boy, this has failure already written all over it.  

As you can imagine, a party in this show results in private conversations, plenty of political maneuvering and backstabbing, and loads of outright stupidity.  Victoria Neuman, who clearly didn’t want to be there, got the worst of it, having some man try to explain abortion to her.  Her visualization of her head exploding was perfect.  I felt like mine was!  Then there was Tek Knight telling the story about his family earning their fortune from slave trading, right in front of A-Train.  What an asshole.  But he’s got his punishment coming.  

Among all this there was one critical scene between Victoria and Sister Sage.  Neuman was having doubts about going along with the plan, just because she couldn’t stand all the people in the room.  She wants to burn it all down.  Her story about finding a cure for her grandmother’s illness when she was young and no one doing anything about what she found, leading to the painful death of her grandmother. 

Sage:  I could cure cancer, reverse global warming, but what’s the point?  Humans are animals. And the lines at Voughtland are too long as it is. 

Victoria:  Why are you telling me this?

Sage:  Because you remember what it’s like, being a little girl, that no one fucking listens to. 

Sage’s tone turned very bitter during the conversation and she asked Neuman, is she in or is she out?  This finally tells us Sage’s motivation, something that has been lacking so far.  She’s angry, she hates humans, and it’s time to burn it all down and wipe them off the map.  It’s an interesting contrast to Homelander who also hates humans, but he wants them all to submit and worship him (his need to be loved), while Sister Sage would rather they not exist at all. It’s quite a revealing scene, and it makes her all that more dangerous.  

On the other side, Homelander felt like he was a king headed for a coronation.  He had Sister Sage to back him, he had Victoria Neuman under his thumb, all he had to do now was get everyone else to fall in line and bow to his superiority.  Why wouldn’t they, he’s Homelander.  Hee, things don’t exactly go according to plan, and that’s where The Boys team comes in, although, their plan didn’t work out so well either.  

Tek Knight Gets What He Deserves

First part of the plan, take out Webweaver, which was pretty easy since he’s a junkie.  The only complication was the drugs that would take him out had to be administered up his…web hole.  Which just happened to be up his butthole.  And Mother’s Milk, the quintessential germaphobe, had to do it.  Things got a little gross, especially with the contents of the webhole.  Yes, I see everyone in the writers room cackling as they were typing this one up.  I won’t go into too much detail, other than it wasn’t as bad as what happened to MM in “Herogasm.”  That knocked out Webweaver for a while, so Hughie got to put on the suit, smell and all.  It throws off his scent so supes like Homelander don’t realize it isn’t Webweaver.  It’s also pretty gross. 

Hughie, wearing a wire so the team could keep tabs on him, arrived at the party in his suit disguise. I love Neuman’s look after she smelled him.  She was disgusted, so the disguise was working!  After planting a couple of bugs he was greeted by Tek enthusiastically, who remember is Hughie’s boyhood hero.  He guided a confused Hughie to the library and then they went down the secret hidden elevator to the basement…sex dungeon.  Webweaver had agreed to be the new “toy”.  Uh oh.  This means that the team can no longer hear or track Hughie, so Annie and Kimiko decided to go in to save him against MM’s wishes.  He reluctantly went with them, but it wasn’t like he had much of a choice.  

I tried to recap all that happened to Hughie, but I couldn’t.  It all got too weird, and this is from a show that gets weird!  I mean, poor Hughie.  I know the writers were dying for the chance to work in this storyline, but come on, you’re doing this to Hughie now?  Things really spiraled and what started out as funny took a rather disturbing turn after a while.  When Ashley showed up in full dominatrix outfit while Hughie was chained to the table in a very vulnerable position, it became obvious the boy was in deep trouble.  It got really bad when all he had to do was say the safe word, but he didn’t know it!  Then Tek, who had already done some pretty perverse things, took off Hughie’s mask when he didn’t say the right safe word.  

The whole time Hughie was in peril, I was screaming at Kimiko and Annie to hurry up!  But they had some mishaps as well.  In searching the mansion Annie ran into Firecracker, and considering it was dark in the mansion her powers weren’t working.  Firecracker was ready to rip Annie a new one when she decided to apologize.  She admitted, she is Starlight.  She tried not to be, but that’s who she is.  She did all those terrible things on the pageant circuit but she wasn’t like that anymore.  She was very sorry.  Just as Firecracker softened to her words Annie stabbed her with a syringe, knocking her out.  

On the other hand Kimiko and MM found the library they were looking for thanks to Hughie’s clues, only to find Sister Sage in there.  Sage tried to deter MM by asking him what his daughter would think if he killed her.  She kept on about Janine’s behavior issues, irritating the crap out of him so he shot her in the head.  Then he collapsed, apparently of a heart attack!  By this time Kimiko had found the book that opened the elevator door (120 Days of Sodom, hee), but she had to go get help for MM.  She got A-Train’s attention at the party and he came up to see what was going on.  By this time Sage disappeared, but MM was still unconscious. Kimiko lost her phone earlier when scaling the wall, so she had to convince A-Train to save him by quickly shuffling through books and using book titles to make her case.  How awesome is that?  This was a wildly creative way to overcome a language barrier.  It worked too, as A-Train took MM to the hospital while Kimiko and Annie went to save Hughie.  

They did manage to get to Hughie in time, but it was really close and he went through some terror before then.  Tek Knight was about to cut Hughie open and have his way with his new hole when Kimiko and Annie stepped out of the elevator.  I really love how they were trying to figure out what to do with Tek when his other sex slave, the one who was chained up and gagged wearing a red latex suit while watching the fun, broke free to deliver them a laptop with access to Tek’s bank accounts.  How nice!  Yeah, it’s a bit funny he was into this act of revenge but kept the ball gag and outfit on.  While the gang was having fun giving away Tek’s money to all sorts of liberal causes, his long time man servant (a black guy) ended up sticking a knife into Tek, killing him!  Yeah Tek, maybe all that talk of slave trading rubbed some people the wrong way all these years.  I’m stunned he didn’t do it sooner.  Good timing I guess.  

So the obnoxious Tek Knight is dead, and the gang retreated to HQ to listen to the bugs that Hughie planted earlier.  Things do not get better.  In a fun twist Sage went back to the party in brainless state, totally ruining Homelander’s plan for her to present the agenda.  He tried to explain things the way she does and failed miserably.  While Homelander struggled she sat in the corner shoveling chocolate cake into her mouth, smiling and giggling.  It’s exactly that sort of twisted humor at the right time that added a little relief to a grim situation.  Victoria then stepped in and delivered a speech that sent the message she’s on board with the plan:

Truth is America is not a democracy. The word makes people feel safe but the founders never trusted the masses because they’re stupid. You should be able to operate without any restriction whatsoever. Support me and that is what you’ll fucking get.

Gee, how familiar does this sound in this day and age?  Hitting a bit too close to home?  Not just democracy, but now humanity is in danger.  The Boys team listening to this were disturbed.  They know now that they’re coming for them and plan to place them in those beautiful Tek Knight prisons.  Not good.  That’s when Hughie tried to talk about everything that happened and just says it as it is.  “I’m not fine.”  I’m with ya Hughie, I’m not either.  Come on Annie, that boy needs your hug.  We all need a hug.  

Time For a Real Twist

There’s still more, and I’m already exhausted.  Homelander was feeling humiliated about how everything went down and went into a major sulk.  So Firecracker used her failure to her advantage.  She came clean with Homelander, she was bested by Starlight, who was at the mansion.   Tek Knight is dead, and no doubt Starlight has something to do with it.  Homelander didn’t take the news well and wanted to put some holes in her with his laser eyes, but Firecracker had her way in.  She’d been taking drugs that let her produce breast milk!  How did she learn that secret?  She squirted him with the milk and then pledged her loyalty to him.  He instantly forgot about everything, he wanted that milk!  In a classic comic book shot that painted Homelander for the man-child he is, she breastfeeds Homelander on the couch, his cape stretched out along with him on the couch with a giant American flag in the background.  Just wow, it’s season one all over again. Well played Firecracker.  You’re still going to end up dead someday, but well played.  

Talk about things going bad, let’s get to the big reveal with Butcher, who wasn’t in this episode much and I strangely didn’t notice.  He’d been hanging out at wherever he was keeping Sameer and had a constant discussion with Kessler on what to do about the virus.  Kessler tried to convince Butcher by talking about this past that the virus should be unleashed on everyone, but Butcher still had a big problem with that.  Things got tense later and enter Becca, who implored Butcher that he had to keep Ryan safe and couldn’t go through with the plan.  That’s when Kessler shouted to shut her cakehole.  Huh?  He can see her?  Alright, the signs have been there for some time, but wow.  He isn’t real either.  That’s when it dawned on Butcher, Kessler was never real the whole time.  The montage of him talking to the empty spaces was interesting, but not surprising.  The real Kessler died years ago on one of their missions.  

You got to love what Jeffrey Dean Morgan did with this scene, laying into Butcher who is clearly losing himself.  He was the one that took control and ripped Ezekiel to shreds.  He’s the inner monster taking control of Butcher.  The one that isn’t going to do the right thing.  The one that doesn’t care who lives or dies, just as long as all supes are gone.  Because deep down, that’s what Butcher has always wanted.  Even if Annie, Kimiko and Ryan die.  Closing with the “Daddy’s home” line was just icing on the cake.  Just perfect.  

Other Thoughts

I felt really happy for A-Train when he dropped MM off at the hospital while a young boy outside was watching.  He was starstruck, like he was watching a real hero.  A-Train finally got to know that feeling.  It was magical after four seasons of apathy. 

The Deep and Black Noir were left behind?  They should have stuck Firecracker with them, but I guess they needed her for the Annie confrontation scene.  This new embrace of violence by The Deep is kind of unnerving, and I’m not sure if this new Black Noir will work since he doesn’t really like violence.  Don’t listen to The Deep, Noir.  He’s a dumbass.  

MM turned out okay in the hospital.  Turns out it was a stress attack, not a heart attack.  More doubt coming!  

So, what did we learn?  The Boys have some catching up to do.  Despite learning about the plan everyone is a bit of a mess right now.  It’s this lack of identity stuff they’ve been struggling with all season I guess.  While they struggle with themselves, the world is burning.  Things are about to get worse, so hold on.  Overall grade, an A-.