The Boys Season 4 has taken a long, wandering path through its storyline, but we’re getting down to the final run of episodes that will take us into the final season of the series.
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With Episode 7, “The Insider” there have been emotional if not life-or-death stakes raised for virtually every character on the show, and as the penultimate episode of the season, it was only natural that it would all begin to collide. And in the world of The Boys, any collision is sure to leave a violent, bloody, impact.
The Boys Season 4 Episode 7 “The Insider” Recap
A Vought Christmas – We open with a cheery throwback Christmas Special on a TV screen, sponsored by the “Vought Kids” brand. The scene opens with Ryan Butcher (Cameron Crovetti) sitting in a bare-bones lodge setting, with a puppet version of A-Train sitting in the chair next to him. The pair are discussing how America is plagued by a type of citizen who hates superheroes, the American way, and even the word Christmas. Puppet A-Train begins to sing a song about how kids should “See something, say something,” even if it’s your principal or parents. Ryan looks uncomfortable and stops the show, talking with the director (Tim Beresford) about whether or not they should be instructing children to report their parents. The director assures Ryan that Homelander personally approved the lyrics, and Ryan concedes before taking a break.
[Title Logo is Shown over an image of the A-Train puppet slumped over in its chair, lifeless]
Didn’t Get The Memo – Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) walks into The Seven meeting room to find Ashley (Colby Minifie) giving a briefing to Homelander (Antony Starr) and Firecracker (Valorie Curry). Sage comments that she thought the meeting was scheduled for 11:00 am, but Firecracker informs her that “they moved it up.” Ashley is trying to explain NFTs to Homelander, but he makes her leave. Homelander turns on Sage about who at Vought is leaking intel to The Boys. Sage starts to demur but Homelander reveals a bug from Tek Knight’s mansion that The Boys planted, exposing Homelander and Victoria Neuman’s plot to create a supe-controlled America. Sage defends her position saying she knows the moves The Boys will make and they won’t expose the recordings – but that Homelander shouldn’t slaughter them since Butcher is dying anyway and The Boys have the CIA backing them. Homelander is concerned that Sage’s intellect will fail them again, like when Mother Milk shot her in the head at Knight’s mansion. Homelander and Firecracker declare that they will find the leak, while Sage is preparing a “shooter” to carry out the next phase of their larger plan to destabilize the nation. Outside the meeting room, the real leak, A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) is listening closely to the threat headed his way.
Squid Games – The Deep (Chace Crawford) is reading to his Octopus lover Ambrosius (Tilda Swinton) in bed. Ambrosius is turned on by Deep’s reading, and also by the lovemaking they did earlier. Deep is interrupted by a text from Sage, asking him to lobotomize and sodomize her again. Deep dumps Ambrosius in the tank in his closet, firing off a barrage of excuses about when he’s going to honor her request to move into the tank above his bed. He promises tomorrow, before running out the door.
Gotta Make Moves – Annie (Erin Moriarity) calls her mom and tries to convince her to head for a safe destination with relatives, lest she be targeted by the extremists that Firecracker is stirring up against Starlight. Annie’s mom goes off on the fact that Annie had an abortion, and how much it embarrasses her. Annie defends herself, saying that she’s a human who went through something and none of the Starlight persona or brand symbolism matters above that. Her mom throws it in her face that if Starlight is so meaningless now, why did Hughie save her costume? Annie is shocked to learn that, but Hughie confirms it by showing her the suit. Annie is understandably pissed, but Hughie says he did in case she ever changed her mind – before he bags it up and tosses it aside. Annie and Hughie discuss their abortion and Annie talks about the world needing to be fixed before she has a kid – but where to start? Hughie says one step at a time. Meanwhile, Sage is seen arguing with a raggedy-looking man in the street, while A-Train films her from nearby before speeding off and delivering the footage to The Boys. Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) takes the footage and targets Sage’s contact; Butcher returns to The Boys HQ with his phantom demon Joe (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) over his shoulder. Butcher confesses to taking Dr. Sameer Shah (Omid Abtahi) hostage, even though Joe is ordering him not to. The Boys naturally respond to Butcher amputating and kidnapping Sameer like he’s a total psycho. Butcher goes on to add the small caveat that Sameer’s virus can become a pandemic that wipes out all supes, pleading that even he is not that psycho. Butcher says they need help to create a form of the virus that’s more targeted, and to do that they need an expert – so he had Mallory and the CIA spring Frenchie (Tomer Capone) from jail. Frenchie makes it clear he doesn’t want to leave his self-imposed incarceration, and it gets weird between him and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara). M.M. splits the team in two: Frenchie’s half working on the virus, while the other half does surveillance on the man Sage was meeting.
Family Matters – Ryan walks into his apartment in Vought Tower to find a bunch of Christmas presents under the tree. Ryan notices one present in drab, paper bag wrapping and opens it to find a picture of himself, Butcher, and his mom together and happy. The picture stirs something in Ryan. At The Boys HQ M.M. splits off from Butcher, Hughie, and Annie, re-anointing Butcher as leader, after M.M.’s panic attack/fainting episode. Joe smiles at the change in fortune. M.M. goes to meet his ex-wife Monique (Frances Turner) and leaves her with all the necessary preparations for them to get safely out of the line of fire. Monique unexpectedly kisses M.M. after hearing his passion for protecting them and asks him to come with them. M.M. can’t break rank, but Monique begs him to take the panic attack as a warning and meet her and their daughter Janine at the airport, later. In Vought Tower, Ashley is crying over losing her best BDSM buddy Cameron Coleman when A-Train barges in. Ashley doesn’t want to hear any of A-Train’s traitor troubles, as she’s traumatized by getting Cameron killed to cover for A-Train as the leak. Ashley is getting erratic, firing her assistant as a means of ‘saving’ him from Vought, getting drunk in the middle of the day, and ranting. She begs A-Train to consider running away, but he commands her to pull it together.
Operation: Sage Snitch – Butcher and The Boys arrive at the apartment building of the man Sage was seen talking to, with A-Train watching on from an alleyway. Joe starts laying into Butcher about when and how he developed empathy for supes – possibly while screwing Queen Maeve. Joe calls out that Butcher doesn’t really care about Starlight or Kimiko, and Ryan isn’t his – nor did Butcher ever truly respect Becca like a saint when she was alive. Joe threatens to truly step in and take control, but Butcher is unbothered by the threat and heads into the apartment complex. Inside the apartment, The Boys discover the man had intel on Secret Service deployments and plans for the January 6th attack. As they are looking over the plans they hear a loud noise coming from a back room and find a bloody woman trapped in closet. She claims to have been abducted and tortured for days, but then she suddenly attacks, slashing Hughie’s hand open with a knife. The woman runs away and The Boys give pursuit; as the attacker is running she bumps into an elderly cleaning lady; while running down the stairwell, the attacker pulls off her entire skin to reveal she’s shape-shifted into the elderly cleaning lady underneath. The attacker reaches the street and vanishes into the crowd of civilians; The Boys realize that Sage has hired a shape-shifting assassin to target President-elect Robert Singer on January 6th. Hughie has to go for medical treatment, while The Boys all head back inside to search the assassin’s apartment.
Be Brave – A-Train runs up on M.M., who is packing his bags to leave. A-Train confronts M.M. about running away, sharing the story about how he saw pride in the eyes of a kid when he dropped M.M. off at the emergency room during his panic attack. M.M. counters with the story of how his father and grandfather died battling supes, and he’s dying from it too. M.M. is resolved to save his family, but A-Train makes him consider that Homelander’s plan for Vought is a worldwide takeover, leaving nowhere safe to run to. Meanwhile, poor Dr. Sameer is still maimed and disheveled, chained up in the safehouse where Butcher dumped him. Kimiko and Frenchie enter, with Frenchie bringing the doctor much-needed food. Sameer once again tries to explain that the safehouse can’t be a lab that produces the virus Butcher wants; Frenchie counters by saying his whole life has been cooking up things in basement labs using dumpster-dive parts, and that the end goal is mutual: killing Homelander. Frenchie gives Sameer musical inspiration in the form of Crazy Town’s “Butterfly” (RIP), and gives the doctor a silent promise that they will not wipe out Victoria Neuman (his wife) as well. Meanwhile, Firecracker takes Homelander to confront Webweaver (Dan Mousseau) who is being detained by Vought, and webbing all over himself with anxiety. Webweaver confesses to helping The Boys infiltrate Tek Knight’s party by giving them his suit as a disguise. When Homelander wants to know more about the leaked intel, Webweaver gets confused and starts trying to backtrack – only for Homelander to tear him in half. Homelander thanks Firecracker, who is traumatized by the reality of how psychotic he truly is.
Dark Pasts – Frenchie offers Kimiko food as an olive branch, and they have it out about why he surrendered himself to the police and wouldn’t let her visit. Kimiko chastises Frenchie for always being a brooding loner, and that she pieced together what he had done to Colin’s family, and the kind of violent life he lived, in general. Frenchie tells her she can’t understand what guilt he’s feeling; Kimiko drops a big reveal of her own, about how she was inducted into the Shining Light group as a little girl by killing another little girl in forced combat, with the rule that whoever made the first sound during the fight lost and would be killed. Kimiko killed her opponent without uttering a sound. By the time her captors allowed her to speak again, she could not. Kimiko confesses that she killed many other little girls while held by Shining Light, and sees herself as the same kind of monster that Frenchie is. Frenchie tries to alleviate her guilt but realizes he must also forgive himself – but also realizes neither of them knows how to. Frenchie looks at Sameer and pledges that they set him free when the mission to make the virus is done. Kimiko says Butcher won’t like it, but Frenchie says that’s what makes it the right thing to do.
Domestic Dispute – Deep comes back to his apartment and is immediately confronted by Ambrosius when he won’t feed her a favorite snack of some fish he’s friends with. Ambrosius reveals that she’s known about Deep’s affair with Sister Sage, as her tentacles can sense the other woman on him, and that she’s willing to fight for her lover. The Deep goes off, reciting Sage’s propaganda about him being a superior being, but Ambrosius tries to make him see that Sage is using him. Deep loses it and smashes Ambrosius’s tank, spilling her out into the closet where she begins to suffocate. Deep shuts the closet door and sits against it, Ambrosius takes a ridiculously long time to die, finally whispering that she loves him. Deep is…. deeply shaken by the act, to the point that he doesn’t even hear the speech Homelander is giving him the next day. Deep responds to Homelander by effusing that he’ll kill anyone and anything that Homelander wants him to. Homelander is confused but accepts the enthusiasm.
Talk It Out? – Victoria Neuman is packing up for a move to the White House when she gets an unexpected visit from Hughie. Hughie tries to appeal to Neuman’s humanity, informing her about Homelander’s true plan to open internment camps and crush America under his boot. Neuman can’t be swayed but tells Hughie she’s sorry about his dad dying. Back at The Boys HQ, Butcher and Annie are ambushed by The Deep and Black Noir II (Nathan Mitchell). Deep makes a big speech about Homelander being done with the games, and his own need for masculine bro justice, before the fight breaks out. Butcher takes on Noir with a shotgun while Annie fights The Deep, but they both get beaten down. Butcher calls on Joe to tap into his secret superpower that killed Ezekiel again, with no luck; Deep is about to skull-crush Annie when A-Train bursts in and hits Deep, revealing himself as the leak (which causes Noir II to break character and talk). A-Train tells Deep how much he’s always hated him before they go at it; M.M. comes in behind A-Train and uses Butcher’s minigun against a flying Noir II. Noir gets blown out the window, while A-Train and Annie put a beatdown on Deep. Butcher wants to finish Deep, but M.M. points out that they don’t know how to, and that both supes will soon recover while The Boys won’t survive round 2 of fighting. The squad makes a hasty getaway. A-Train speeds over to Ashley’s apartment, and tries to take her up on the offer to make a run for it, but Ashley can’t leave her gilded prison. She reminds him to cut out his tracking chip before making a run for it.
Need A Drink – Annie, M.M., and Butcher hide out in a bar having drinks. Butcher challenges M.M. on whether he’s staying in the fight or running away – and M.M. leaves to make the call. Annie presses Butcher about who Joe is and why he was yelling about Ezekiel, but Butcher dodges the question and gets a save when a Starlight fan corners Annie for a selfie. M.M. calls Monique and says he’s not running away with her – even though it’s his dream. He needs to protect his family by ending the threat of Homelander. M.M. hangs up before Monique can talk him out of it. Meanwhile, in Vought Tower Homelander can only hear the high-pitched sound of his own psychosis as he learns A-Train was the traitor. Homelander is genuinely hurt by the betrayal; Firecracker consoles him, claiming some people are just “born uppity.” Sage enters, upset that Homelander sent assassins after Butcher despite her saying it was pointless; she’s confronted with A-Train being the leak and confesses she knew. Firecracker is mad that Sage let Webweaver die needlessly but Sage doesn’t even know about that and finds it idiotic that anyone would think that junkie was a spy. Sage confesses that she was using A-Train to keep The Boys occupied and distracted with misinformation but that Homelander ruined that play. Homelander doesn’t buy it and banishes Sage back to her civilian life. He also makes Firecracker leave – despite her offer of more breast milk games. Out in the hallway, Deep and Noir are bruised and battered and having a ‘bro to bro’ conversation using just the word “bro.” When they see Sage come storming past, Deep tries to hit on her, causing Sage to confess that she’s been fired by Homelander. Noir II has an unexpected emotional outburst, professing his love for Sage and calling what they have special. Deep is shocked and asks if Noir is also getting used for a lobotomy/sodomy booty-call combo, but Noir has no idea about that freakiness. BRO…
Viral Outbreak – Sameer calls Kimiko and Frenchie over to see the results of his work, claiming that Frenchie’s ideas made the difference. When Kimiko and Frenchie approach, Sameer reveals that he’s broken out of his handcuffs and stabs Kimiko with a syringe. Sameer hobbles away, while Frenchie must grab a tourniquet and saw and sever Kimiko’s leg before the virus can infect and kill her whole body. The Boys get Kimiko’s severed leg (with the virus sample) on ice and hold court. They know the virus won’t take out Homelander but see Neuman as a possible viable target. M.M. rallies the troops with a speech about how they are used to doing so much with so little – and they won’t let the president get taken out. Butcher nods in approval of M.M.’s leadership.
Family. Holidays. Amirite? – Ryan finally gets a response from Homelander telling him to suck it up and do the puppet show. He complies, as Butcher (and Joe) watch the Vought Christmas Special from a bar, and Homelander watches from Vought Tower. Ryan suddenly stops the show and prevents Ashley from cutting to commercials. Ryan gives a speech to the world about how turning on your family isn’t the way, and how he loved his mom, who loved Christmas and loved spending it with him and Butcher. Ryan starts to say he has a truth to tell but stops short of confessing, only saying he’s sorry and running off the stage. Butcher turns to Joe and says Ryan’s moment of standing up is why he hasn’t lost faith in the kid – or all supes. Butcher gloats until he suddenly passes out on the floor, with bystanders running over to help, while Joe smiles.
Yankee Swap! – Hughie is at home with Annie and confesses to trying to see Victoria Neuman instead of going to Urgent Care. Annie surprises him by entering the bedroom in her Starlight costume, confessing he was right to have her re-embrace her identity. Hughie gets the reward of having Annie make love to him in the Starlight costume. However, when Hughie is good and passed out, “Annie” gets up from the bed and breaks into the safe to steal all the intel Hughie and The Boys have on Neuman, Sage, Homelander, and the insurrection plot, revealing herself to be the shapeshifter assassin Sage hired. The real Annie wakes up chained up in some shack, with a flashback revealing that the Starlight fan taking selfies in the bar was the shapeshifter, who knocked Annie out in the bathroom and took her place. Annie finds she can’t break her restraints and hears a door creaking open…
[End Credits Play to the Tune of Homelander’s ‘See Something, Say Something’ Christmas Song]
