Amazon/Dynamite's The Boys: Season 4 has ended, with the world still on the brink and situations far more antithetical than foreseen, even with the big (but sure, it was gonna happen), Soldier Boy cameo.
Anyhoo, here we get Firecracker, who's designed in such a way that she shouldn't be an anti-Semite, and yet for whatever wacko cause, she is. Then there's Sister Sage, the evident, most intelligent person in the whole, wide world, who cites global warming as (ahem) legitimate. Plus, we get all that mean-for-the-sake-of-mean, anti-pro-Christmas derision; and what's the deal with VP Victoria Neuman: good, bad or neither? On the other hand, why bother considering the impetuous outcome?
Okay, the overlapping contradictions and subsequent (on-purpose?) confusion is the series' novelty (I guess), but the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink excess (and intermittent means to deride one and all) blurs clarity, and I do believe that even the most irreverent sagas need clarity (case in point, all those swell, John Waters movies).
Maybe the hatching of clarity rests with Butcher, Mother's Milk, Hughie, Kimiko and Frenchie (i.e. their anti-Vought, Supe-eradicating mission), and depending on the day, the new, hot-headed Starlight, ambivalent Homelander Jr. and the "redemptive" A-Train, who, after all, did get that much needed, Vought juice for Hughie's dying dad and even intervened when the Deep and Noir II attacked; and yet we all know the age-old saying about good deeds. All the same, when it comes to just the founding Boys, it's as topsy-turvy in its open-endedness, though I must admit, that revelation on Monkey was a clever (SPOILER), Beautiful Mind twist.
Too bad such clever twists are few and far between, and that's because The Boys' "bathroom" humor has taken precedence over the saga's Brightburn context. That Webweaver, loft segment was downright repugnant, and holy smokes, the bit with Hughie disguised as Webweaver and forced by Tek Knight to fart on a chocolate cake was, well, I don't know what the hell it was, but I could have done without it. Even more troubling was Homelander's "One More Pallbearer" roundup: identifiable at the vengeful outset, but then dear, effing Lord! (For certain and from this point on, I'll never trust anyone who offers me a piece of Fudgie the Whale.)
The bottom line: For a show that's supposed to be all-inclusive in its comeuppances and (even more so) carnal preferences, I often feel left out. I'd be pleased as Punch if (before or after whatever superfluous shenanigans might be dealt) there came a Starlight, full frontal. I mean, I appreciate that imposter, rearview shot in Season 4's near-finale, but a flipside glimpse (whether it be the genuine Annie January or an amazing, Who Goes There? doppelganger) would be way nicer. Ah, that's probably too much to ask considering the saga's hip-and-cool, pro-"woke" parameters, and yet for any old, forgotten, Playboy/Penthouse fan, it sure would hit the spot.
