An Overview of All the Events in The Boys Thus far
Before Season 4, there is an absurd amount of information to keep in mind. We have everything covered.
The Boys on Prime Video has been a crucial counterbalance to the Marvel Industrial Complex for the past three seasons, during which both Marvel and DC have gone through growing pains with their film and television releases. The Boys is based on the comic book series of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. It centres around a motley crew of the same name that opposes superheroes who frequently misuse their talents in a clandestine (and sometimes not so clandestine) manner. Through Vought International—the company that manages The Seven, the main superhero organisation based on DC’s Justice League—and advertises superheroes across media, The Boys has effectively ridiculed the idea of superhero-powered material.
The programme has done more than merely examine our tendency to idolise individuals in positions of authority. Showrunner Eric Kripke has so far taken a critical look at contemporary American politics over the course of three seasons (plus a spinoff, Gen V), focusing on characters ranging from the Trumpian figure of Homelander (Antony Starr) to cunning politician Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit). Furthermore, the ridiculous humour, cartoonish hyperviolence, and, to be honest, very queer relationships that contribute to the show’s core are unaffected by all of that cultural criticism.
It’s a good idea to catch up on past episodes of The Boys as Season 4 is currently airing and Kripke has revealed that Season 5 will be the final season. If you haven’t watched the collegiate superhero spin-off yet, here’s a recap of The Boys and what you need to know from Gen V.
First Season
It seems logical that Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid) is where it all starts (and maybe will)—the everyday guy who joins The Boys, a vigilante gang, after his girlfriend is unintentionally killed by A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), one of the Seven. Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), a foul-mouthed free cannon with a cockney accent and a tonne of charisma, brings him into the fold, and that’s only the start of their tense relationship.
Regarding the other members of the group, Butcher and Hughie abducted Translucent, a bothersome member of The Seven possessing the ability to disappear, and Frenchie (Tomer Capone) was brought on board after Butcher and Frenchie had parted ways years prior. Frenchie chooses to stay after Translucent dies (Hughie kills him by shoving an explosive up his butt, the only way to break through his impenetrable skin), despite Butcher’s desire to bring on their other former associate, Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), with whom he is not friendly. However, they work together to trace A-Train’s devices and resolve their disputes. And then there’s Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), who has probably changed the most since her debut in Season 1. Found in a Triad hangout, she is initially referred to as simply “The Female.” She murders her captors and flees once Frenchie free her. M.M. discovers proof that she is being tested. Frenchie and M.M. endeavour to discover her past, discovering that she goes by Kimiko and that the Shining Light Liberation Army abducted and experimented on her, bestowing upon her superhuman strength and Deadpool-like regeneration.
Compound V, a medication they find A-Train is taking while eavesdropping on him, is one of the most significant findings made during all of this. Compound V is essentially a medication that has the power to transform regular people into superheroes. However, A-Train utilises it effectively as a steroid, and later in Season 1, it causes him to suffer a heart attack and go into cardiac arrest since he feels his performance is declining and he doesn’t want to risk losing his title as the fastest man alive with important races approaching. Since that is simply not possible. What if The Flash was defeated by a guy?
Remember that Compound V plays a pivotal role throughout the entire series. Season 1 discloses that the chemical has been administered to expectant mothers to induce spontaneous abortions since the 1970s.
Annie January (Erin Moriarty), who portrays Starlight, a new superhero brought into the Vought Industries organisation following Lamplighter’s retirement (another character we eventually meet in Season 2), provides us with an understanding of the inner workings of The Seven in Season 1. Her first encounter with the Vought world is not good; she is sexually assaulted by fellow supe The Deep (Chace Crawford), and she threatens to murder him if he tries to have another relationship with her. She prevents a rape from occurring and wins support for it, but she finds it difficult to push the Vought agenda. By coincidence, she meets Hughie, and the two quickly get emotionally attached, which eventually develops into a romantic connection.
The Deep’s attack on Annie is eventually taken seriously, and he is forced to issue a public apology. After that, he is sent on sabbatical to Ohio, where he is later raped by a fan. He loses it and isn’t permitted to return to The Seven after that. When it comes to losing it, Homelander could have already done so by the time we first meet him in Season 1. Throughout the season, he causes not one, not two, but three plane disasters; the second involves Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott), which he later exploits as a political ploy to support militarised Supes.
One of Vought’s executives, Madelyn Stillwell (Elisabeth Shue), is also killed by him after he becomes enraged that she has concealed information from him. This is a crucial turning point in his sociopathy because Homelander’s entire All-American backstory—that he was created and raised in a lab and that Stillwell was the closest thing he had to a mother—was a lie, making their occasionally romantic (?) relationship even stranger. That information sets up a major revelation between Homelander and Butcher, which explains a lot of Butcher’s ongoing efforts to neutralise superheroes: Becca, Butcher’s wife, was raped by Homelander; she vanished and is thought to have died. But it turns out that she was sent away because she was expecting Homelander’s child, which is why she vanished.
Second Season
As Season 2 approaches, Butcher’s admission that Becca has been imprisoned by Vought to raise Homelander’s child only serves to stoke the flames of animosity between The Boys and the Supes. Following her ordeal with Vought, Annie is currently employed as a double spy, providing The Boys with intelligence. The group has a planned and coordinated attempt to take down Vought this season, therefore they are no longer the motley crew they were in previous seasons. They eventually find out that the assassin on the run is Kimiko’s brother, but Stormfront, a recent addition to The Seven, kills him. (Aya Cash). Later, more on her.
Compound V is still a major problem because Annie told the media that it gave Supes his powers. But The Boys discover captive Compound V victims when they break into a mental health facility, and they find out that Vought is attempting to stabilise the drug in adults. Hughie tries a rescue operation after learning that Annie disclosed information about Compound V, but Maeve saves Annie in the end. Congresswoman Victoria Neuman schedules a hearing against Vought as a result of this revelation. Hughie ends up working for Neuman towards the conclusion of the season because he believes she’s a wonderful person. However, as it turns out, she has been a covert assassin all along, capable of blowing people’s heads off.
After the plane disaster, Maeve goes into full “bring down Homelander” mode. She tells her ex-girlfriend about him and devises a plan to bring him down. Butcher, who is prepared to stop at nothing to locate Becca and her son Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), is another person attempting to bring Homelander down. When he does, he won’t acknowledge Ryan as her son, so Becca won’t go with him. Conversely, Homelander has been pressuring Ryan to use his abilities and imposing himself on their life in an aggressive attempt to become a father figure.
In addition to attempting to “parent” Ryan, Homelander is working extremely hard to maintain his position in The Seven as a result of Stormfront’s recent surge in popularity. A video showing a Homelander killing two people surfaces, and Stormfront helps him deal with it as Butcher and Maeve try to bring him down. The two then start dating. The Boys learn that Stormfront was a part of a racially motivated murder and has a Nazi background. She also reveals to Homelander that she is the founder of Vought’s widow and the first Compound V subject to succeed. Together, they convince Ryan to break away from his mother, and Butcher tries to get Becca and Ryan out of Stormfront. Ryan uses his skills to cripple his mother after Stormfront assaults, but he unintentionally kills Becca in the process. Using the video from the plane, Maeve threatens Homelander into letting them leave.
The other members of The Seven, including The Deep, are drugged and forced into an arranged marriage after joining a church in an attempt to garner favour. However, this swiftly turns into a cult that recruits members using Fresca, of all things. He has still not been added back into The Seven after all of that. After emerging from a coma, Homelander removes A-Train from the group. After briefly joining the Deep at the church, he immediately starts to doubt their motives. He returns to The Seven, unlike The Deep.
Third Season
A year has passed since the events of Season 2, and The Boys are now employed by Victoria Neuman’s Bureau of Superhero Affairs, which seeks to apprehend troublesome superheroes. In order to clean the soiled reputation of The Seven, Annie is now co-captain together with Homelander. Along with Butcher, Maeve is helping to bring Homelander down permanently. She has instructed him to look into the death of Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), a superhero similar to Captain America, and locate someone who could destroy Homelander. She also bestows to him the Compound V variation V24, which grants temporary superpowers to its bearer.
A major component of Season 3 is V24. Hughie and Butcher start using it, and they are both able to defend themselves in ways they were not able to before. Annie learns that three to five doses of V24 have the potential to be fatal for users. Rather than telling Butcher straight away, Annie chooses to leave Hughie, sparing him from taking the medication to the point of death. It is revealed at the end of the season that Butcher is terminally ill as a result of the V24.
In relation to superpowers, Hughie learns that Neuman, his boss, is a Supe and not who she claims to be. When he looks into her more, he discovers that Stan Edgar, the CEO of Vought (Giancarlo Esposito), is actually her adopted father. Later, she rebels against him, forcing him to leave Vought and leaving Homelander as the only executive in the corporation. She administers Compound V to her daughter by injection after obtaining it from Homelander. After Homelander kills the politician who was on the ticket, Neuman is announced as Robert Singer’s running mate for the presidential election at the conclusion of the season.
The search for Soldier Boy takes our crew to Herogasm, an annual “supe orgy” in Russia that has some of the strangest things you’ll ever see on TV. To learn more about Soldier Boy, they track down his wife and former acquaintances. They discover he passed away in Nicaragua while on a C.I.A. operation. Mother’s Milk returns to the group because everyone is motivated to find Soldier Boy because he killed his family. They discover Soldier Boy in a Russian lab, still alive. He constantly lets out bursts of energy that explode all around him, accidentally hurting Kimiko and making her appear to lose her abilities. Butcher and Hughie send him on a murderous rampage, demanding the death of Homelander in return for him discovering his old comrades. It is revealed that he is Homelander’s father, even though his plans to assassinate Homelander ultimately fail. Later, as they depart to kill Homelander with The Boys, Annie, and Maeve, he is placed into federal custody. Ryan is being accompanied by Homelander during this, and when he tries to defend him, Soldier Boy assaults Ryan, setting off an attack by everyone else on Soldier Boy. By keeping Soldier Boy apart from the others, Maeve wins one for the group. She eventually loses her powers as a result, but at last she is able to live a normal life in secret with her girlfriend.
In typical Homelander form, Homelander loses his mind upon discovering that Soldier Boy is his father. Noir (Nathan Mitchell) is killed by him because, despite what we discover about Noir’s personal history with Soldier Boy, he never informed him who his father is. Even though the execs aren’t entirely convinced of Homelander’s potential, he is already on the verge of breaking earlier in the season. He puts pressure on Starlight to act as though they are dating. A-Train warns Homelander about Starlight’s intended takeover and threatens to harm Hughie if she disobeys. Annie, who has had enough of Vought, leaves The Seven live and criticises them. When Homelander confronts her, Annie tapes him admitting to his wrongdoing and uploads it to the internet. He and Ryan make their way out of the Soldier Boy incident, and at a Neuman rally he kills a Starlight supporter who threw a soda bottle at Ryan.
For the rest of them, Kimiko and Frenchie carry on with their game of will-they-won’t-they while they both struggle with their pasts (Kimiko eventually regains her powers). A-Train is attempting to reinvent himself, and one of his attempts is a ridiculous energy drink commercial that cleverly parodies a notorious Pepsi commercial. He also wavers between siding with Homelander and Starlight. When he finally meets the Supe Blue Hawk, he demands that he publicly retract his bigoted actions. After a struggle in which A-Train’s brother is rendered paraplegic, Blue Hawk is killed by A-Train in a fit of rage known as Herogasm.
A-Train receives Blue Hawk’s heart transplant after having yet another heart attack. And the Deep finally gets his goal, returning to The Seven thanks to his book about breaking free from the Fresca cult and his new bride. But after their consenting sex, he sees an octopus during Herogasm and attempts to get his wife to open up about their relationship; she refuses (and goes on to write her own tell-all book). Furthermore, he still stays loyal to Homelander.
Gen. V
Season 4 of The Boys doesn’t require you to see Gen V if you haven’t already. But you should, if you have the opportunity. The drama, which takes place at a superhero college, is a great way to expand on The Boys’ universe. It has a lighthearted plot and amazing performances that make it seem like a hybrid of our favourite The Boys and the X-Men. The one thing about Gen V that is worth knowing is that their school, Godolkin University, has been testing (illegally, of course) a virus that is particular to Supes and can only kill them. You won’t be shocked to hear that Vought is involved, along with some of our favourite Vought executives (Ashley!).
