[Editor’s note: The following contains major spoilers for Episode 4 of Season 4 of The Boys.]

The Big Picture

In Episode 4 of Season 4 of ‘The Boys,’ Homelander’s past and insecurities drive his revenge, shaping his actions and interactions.
Homelander’s vulnerability and madness in seeking approval reveal deeper layers to his character.
Visual effects elevate disturbing scenes, like Sister Sage’s attraction to pain, creating intense moments.

We’re at the halfway point with Season 4 of The Boys, but the Prime Video series definitely isn’t doing anything halfway, especially when it comes to digging deeper into the tortured past that certainly has played a role in shaping Homelander (Antony Starr). Confronted with the fact that his super-powered teenage son Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) could very well steal the spotlight from him, brining deep-seated insecurities to the forefront, sent Homelander into a tailspin that led him to return to the place where he grew up. With no idea what was in store for them, he showed the Vought lab workers exactly what he’s capable of while seeking satisfaction from vengeance.

During this one-on-one interview with Collider about episode 404, entitled “Wisdom of the Ages,” showrunner Eric Kripke talked about sending Homelander home and exploring why he’s so driven by revenge, the process for how Homelander’s reactions and actions evolved, the approach Starr wanted to take with it all, and why an Emmy Award is long overdue for his performance. Kripke also discussed Sister Sage’s (Susan Heyward) disturbing idea of relaxation, giving props to the visual effects department, and that duet between Firecracker (Valorie Curry) and The Deep (Chace Crawford), for which they recorded a full version.

The Boys A group of vigilantes set out to take down corrupt superheroes who abuse their superpowers.Release Date July 26, 2019 Creator Eric Kripke Seasons 4 Studio Amazon Studios

Homelander’s Tortured Past Drove Him to His Season 4 Revenge in ‘The Boys’
Image via Prime Video

Collider: Did you always have a plan to do an episode exploring Homelander’s past this season?

ERIC KRIPKE: When we were really starting Season 4, we spent a month or two really breaking down the season-wide stories and the character arcs. We try to dig a little deeper every year with the characters and, after four seasons, you really get to be like, “Okay, now we’ve dug into the core existential trauma of who they are,” and that is true for a lot of them. It’s true for Hughie and Kimiko and Frenchie and Annie and Homelander. And so, it made a lot of sense to finally send him home and really dig in, for the first time, with all the stuff that we’ve hinted at up to now, which is this horrific way in which he was raised and which he gets equally horrific revenge for.

The “Get in the oven moment” is horrifying on so many levels, with everything that represents. No matter what he might have been put through, you can’t really have any sympathy for him.

KRIPKE: No, and I don’t think we’re proposing that you should. I don’t think anyone’s saying that you should be sympathetic towards Homelander. It’s more that I want the audience to understand who he is. I’m not endorsing any of that. That’s all bad behavior, let me be clear.

Related The Best Part of ‘The Boys’ Is All Around You The fourth season of the Prime Video series reminds audiences why Vought’s presence is so terrifying.

Does he really forgive Frank while he’s cooking him, or is it more a feeling of being satisfied by vengeance?

KRIPKE: It came from really long conversations between me and Ant [Starr]. The first draft of the script was that Homelander came down there and was just cruel, from start to finish, and he just wanted revenge. It was Ant who said, “Yeah, but I don’t know if that’s right. It’s like when you go home and you turn into who you were when you were there. He’s just being like that kid again, so I think he would be vulnerable and insecure and wanting their approval. But then, he’s also really mad at them. He just wouldn’t know how he’d be feeling, from one moment to the next.” We really worked on the scene together and were playing it like he feels he’s getting closer with this guy. Again, it’s not sane behavior, but you’re putting him in, for him, the most psychologically explosive environment, and you just can’t expect him to behave rationally.

Which Homelander Moment Does ‘The Boys’ Showrunner Think Was Antony Starr’s Scariest?
Image via Prime Video

The whole sequence following that, between Homelander and Marty, is not about what he makes him do, but it’s more about how it makes him feel and how uncomfortable it is for really everyone else in the room. What was it like to see that scene play out, the first time? How did you get to that moment?

KRIPKE: To be clear, what Ant is doing in that scene is not scripted. The dialogue is scripted. What Marty does is scripted. But Ant, with that laughter and glee and how much he’s enjoying it, all came from him on the day. When I first saw it, I’ve cut hundreds of hours of Homelander film and I’ve seen countless scenes with him, but that could be the title for the scariest I’ve ever seen him, which is saying something. Ant’s instincts in that scene are just so intense. It’s so long overdue, just give that guy an Emmy already.

Related ‘The Boys’ Will Come to an End Sooner Rather Than Later Eric Kripke’s promises “a gory, epic, moist climax.”

In this episode, we learn that Sister Sage likes some pretty invasively violent things. What was all that like to figure out, with that moment between her and The Deep, and how it would look to have her get stabbed through the eyeball? How did those two actors feel about the moment?

KRIPKE: To be clear, he’s never really had to stab her with an ice pick. It was all just visual effects. We knew we wanted Sage, as the world’s smartest person, to just be miserable by her brain and almost at war against her own brain. For a long time, what was in the story was that she was gonna be huffing spray paint in a bag. For a while, I’ve actually been really interested in the notion that was really prevalent in the fifties and sixties of these frontal lobotomies. That’s a real thing that people did to thousands and thousands of victims. Rose Kennedy got one. And people have such a weird fucking thing about eyes. It’s just funny that eyes are a thing for people. So, I was like, “You should give her a frontal lobotomy. We should do that. She relaxes by giving herself a lobotomy because that is gonna be brutal to watch.” Sure enough, the fact that it’s so brutal is completely due to the vfx department. On the day, it was just those two actors staring at each other, with nothing close to her face. That is a feather in Stephan Fleet’s, our vfx supervisor’s, cap.

Yes, Chace Crawford and Valorie Curry Really Sang Their ‘The Boys’ Duet

To end on a lighter note, how did you end up with a duet with Firecracker and The Deep, and how did you pick the perfect song for them?

KRIPKE: We needed to understand what this six- or eight-hour marathon of Truth Bomb would be that’s going on. It couldn’t all be news and rants. There had to be entertainment, and we thought it would just be so funny for them to sing a duet. If I remember correctly, the original song idea was, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” but we couldn’t get the rights. Whoever had the rights probably wisely didn’t give them to us. So, that’s how we got to “Love Lift Us Up (Where We Belong).” We just wanted this big, huge, epic duet, like it was Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers up there. And they both actually sang. We brought them into Chris Lennertz’s studio and they sang the song for real, and then they lip-synced it on the day.

Related Chace Crawford Asks “The Deep” Questions in New ‘The Boys’ Season 4 Promo ‘The Boys’ fourth season premieres Thursday, June 13.

I was like, “No, don’t cut away! I need more of this!”

KRIPKE: For the record, somewhere, maybe on X-Ray, we’ll release it. The entire song exists on film and will be released.

The Boys is available to stream on Prime Video. Check out the Season 4 trailer:

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