Prime Video's The Boys has always served up plenty of sociopolitical commentary/satire with its outrageous violence and debauchery, but season 4 definitely seems to have leaned a little more into paralleling real-world events, and there is a perception that the show has become a more scathing take-down of the far right than it ever was before.
Showrunner Eric Kripke has always been very up-front about what - and who - the series is taking aim at, and the writing has proved to be almost prescient with its similarities to current events - especially during this latest season.
For example, season 4 finds Homelander on trial for publicly killing a protestor in the season 3 finale, and the show returned to our screens shortly after former President Donald Trump's numerous convictions. Then, in this week's episode, Homelander and Sister Sage unveil their plan to take control of the White House by killing newly-elected president Robert Singer and replacing him with his vice president, Victoria Neuman.
“This show has an increasingly disturbing track record of reflecting reality one way or another,” Kripke told TheWrap. “There’s some throwaway dialogue, for example, in that billionaires are talking about how they have to stack the Supreme Court to get the decisions that they need. I’m not happy being Satan’s writers room. I’m starting to get really troubled by it. But there does continue to be a certain eerie similarity between the show and the things that are happening in the real world.”
Episode 6, "Dirty Business," just so happened to land on July 4th.
“It was not necessarily built to land on the Fourth of July," Kripke adds. "We didn’t know what Amazon was going to do with air dates until really just a couple of months ago, right before they announced the premiere. I only know about a week or two before everybody else knows. And then we knew it would land on the Fourth of July.”
What do you make of Kripke's comments? Do you feel that season 4 of The Boys is the most satirical yet?
"The world is on the brink. Victoria Neuman is closer than ever to the Oval Office and under the muscly thumb of Homelander, who is consolidating his power," reads the official season 4 synopsis. "Butcher, with only months to live, has lost Becca’s son as well as his job as The Boys’ leader. The rest of the team are fed up with his lies. With the stakes higher than ever, they have to find a way to work together and save the world before it’s too late."
Returning cast members include Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Jessie T. Usher, Laz Alonso, Chace Crawford, Tomer Capone, Karen Fukuhara, Colby Minifie, Claudia Doumit, and Cameron Crovetti, along with new recruits Susan Heyward, Valorie Curry, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
The first three episodes of The Boys season 4 will be available to stream from June 13th, with new instalments dropping weekly through to the season finale on July 18.