The Boys Season 4 Suffers From the Same Mistakes That Killed Supernatural

The first three episodes of the new season of The Boys have been released on Amazon Prime. In them, Butcher and his team do not give up their attempts to kill the most corrupted Supe on Earth – Homelander.

Showrunner Eric Kripke has already stated that the fifth season will be the last. This means that the stakes for The Boys are higher than ever. The problem is that it does not feel that way.

Season 4 Falls to Season 1 Level of Conflict

On the one hand, we are once again treated to cunning intrigues that make the show more cynical. We are reminded of how the media manipulates the public and uses ordinary people as pawns to further its own interests.

The Seven even gets a local propagandist, Firecracker: in her broadcasts, she talks about how Starlight's followers are corrupting children in basements.

After the third season, however, the conflict between the Supes and the Boys becomes simpler. Previously, we were shown the goodness in the faces of Butcher, Hughie, and others from an unusual angle: people who fight for a just cause often turn out to be no better than those they fight.

Now the protagonists are back to square one – they are complex, but sincere in their commitment to building a better world through honest methods.

Season 4 Suffers from a Lack of Fresh Ideas

In addition, the series continues to draw old dramatic lines. After taking the Compound V, Butcher has a few months to live: he does everything he can to get in touch with Ryan and win him over to the good side.

Kimiko remembers her childhood in the biolabs and wants to punish the guilty. And Frenchie falls in love with someone from his criminal past. In the third season, these characters already helped each other overcome their traumas. But in the absence of fresh conflicts, the creators artificially complicate the old ones.

Worst of all, the writers are trying to link even some of the new characters to the familiar ones. For example, it's not for nothing that Firecracker attacks Starlight in her broadcasts. It turns out that Starlight slandered her in a talent show when she was a child. Now the girl from Homelander's squad wants revenge on the perpetrator, and that is literally her only motivation.

The Boys Season 4 Seems to Lose Its Grip

Hughie's mother, who left the family years ago, also appears in the plot. She delivers an excruciatingly long dialogue about why she left the child with his father. It begins to seem like we are watching a soap opera rather than a cynical and ironic satire – another Kripke project, Supernatural, suffered from the same problem.

It is not clear why the authors put so much emphasis on the drama. But in the end, from an adrenaline story, The Boys turns into a show of sad people, where everyone competes with each other to see who has it worse.

Viewers have always watched The Boys for the frenetic dynamics that made the show so popular. But it is already known that the fifth season will be the last. So we would like to believe that Eric Kripke's another show will not meet the fate of Supernatural and the ending will be impressive.