This evaluation accommodates full spoilers for The Boys Season 4, Episode 6, “Soiled Enterprise”
Solely on a present like The Boys might make an episode about intercourse dungeon foreplay, lobotomies, and heroic gimps present welcome levity. “Soiled Enterprise” avoids feeling needlessly sophisticated or distracted, chasing a singular storyline that includes covertly infiltrating an alt-right cocktail soirée. It lifts our spirits after the downer that was final week’s teary-eyed conclusion, and even drops its personal bombshell of a parting reveal (that you just in all probability noticed coming for those who’ve been paying shut consideration). Unshackled from the a number of storytelling angles nonetheless caught in place after a multi-week lull, The Boys lastly seems like its rambunctious self once more.
The gravely voiced elephant within the room is lastly confirmed: Joe Kessler (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is an illness-induced hallucination like Becca (Shantel VanSanten). There had been clues sprinkled all through previous episodes, however nothing concrete till now. Billy Butcher (Karl City) isn’t round a lot in “Soiled Enterprise,” solely there lengthy sufficient to ascertain his twin imaginary mates — a now one-legged Dr. Sameer Shah (Omid Abtahi) earns the glory of calling out Butcher’s delirious state, full with a fast montage of Butcher speaking to empty rooms in previous scenes the place we thought Kessler was current. It’s not a groundbreaking twist, but having Kessler and Sameer react to Butcher’s whacked-out state helps the shock worth last more.
Elsewhere, and for the lion’s share of the episode’s length, we spend a night in Tek Knight’s (Derek Wilson) Bruce Wayne-like mansion — solely his Batcave is a Fifty Shades hideout. An invite-only, highfalutin affair brings The Seven’s A-list gamers along with United States authorities officers, full with all of the self-serving corruption we crave. The gathering’s objective is to collude and focus on an antinode to Robert Singer’s (Jim Beaver) presidency, which implies The Boys don’t have any selection however to ship Hughie (Jack Quaid) undercover as The Boys’ Spider-Man equal, a junkie named Webweaver (Dan Mousseau). Quaid performs tactically awkward and out-of-depths, which he’s already finished so effectively all through The Boys, till Hughie finds himself restrained, studying the arduous manner that Webweaver was solely invited as a pass-around pleasure boy.
Sticking harmless Hughie in a secret room with a horned-up Tek Knight and Ashely Barrett (Colby Minifie) is a recipe for comedy gold. It begins merely, with Hughie making an attempt to mimic Webweaver’s drugged-up stoner communicate — then panic units in when he notices Homelander (Antony Starr) on the occasion. Tek Knight later leads Hughie downstairs into his pervert lair, the place Ashley will get the primary crack at tickling “Webweaver” and herself till she climaxes. Hughie’s mortified regardless of laughing by means of the sticky-stanky ordeal, which Quaid sells with applicable undertones of excitable panic — however Colby Minifie is the key sauce. The best way she forcefully delivers vulgar strains as a sexually dominant alpha displays volcanic confidence, as Ashley beams her devilish smirk whereas degrading her companions in fetishistic shows of ball-crushing energy.
When Hughie’s outed by Tek Knight for forgetting Webweaver’s protected phrase, The Boys rush to his help – but it surely’s hardly a clear escape. Annie (Erin Moriarty) confronts Firecracker (Valorie Curry) in an upstairs hallway, the place she rightfully apologizes for being a correct monster in her pageant days earlier than incapacitating Vought’s racist, antisemitic mouthpiece. Mom’s Milk (Laz Alonso) suffers a panic assault after capturing Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) within the head, as he succumbs to pressures that by no means cracked Butcher. Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) and Annie finally attain Hughie proper earlier than Tek Knight carves a brand new gap in his physique to penetrate, and so they flip the tables on the fornicating freak, however not till after what’s left of The Boys make noteworthy character strides. Annie’s confession, MM’s well being scare, and Hughie’s skill to confess he’s removed from okay are all concisely packed into the primary storyline. That’s an enormous improve from prior Season 4 episodes that really feel torn in fifty totally different instructions.
A narrower scope lets performances shine, like how Sister Sage and Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) steal “Soiled Enterprise” towards the top. Sister Sage spends a lot of the episode enjoying thoughts video games together with her Vought-controlled pawns till MM’s bullet turns her into the Bloomin’ Onion craving Sister Sage at a hilarious second. She will’t assist Homelander win a crowd of constituents over along with his supe supremacy plan, so Victoria steals Homelander’s thunder and brings his monologue dwelling with bravado. Homelander, the tyrannical superhuman who retains insisting people are toys, shrinks to the scale of a pea when he fails to smile his solution to success. Worse, his masculine aura is shattered by Victoria’s actions and Sister Sage’s lack of ability to prop him upright. Homelander crumbles underneath strain like a Nature Valley granola bar, acknowledging his lack of ability to be Vought’s sole dictator.
“Soiled Enterprise” resuscitates The Boys’ satirical wits and bleak comedy past Hughie’s psycho-sexual episode. Victoria despises hobnobbing with wrinkly conservative ghouls to the purpose the place she imagines violently popping her personal head as some Roe v. Wade opposing official may be heard explaining inaccurate abortion information. A-Practice (Jessie T. Usher) has to hearken to Tek Knight’s despicably bigoted story about his household’s profitable legacy as slave catchers, remarking how he’d have given his great-great-grandaddy a run for his cash — A-Practice’s response is priceless. Self-proclaimed guardians Like Tek Knight say the quiet components right into a megaphone, and “Soiled Enterprise” follows villainy with simply deserts. After Tek Knight is reprimanded by Annie and Kimiko, they donate tons of of tens of millions from his financial institution accounts to charitable funds for Black Lives Matter or Elizabeth Warren’s Tremendous PAC as he protests in agony. He gained’t admit ache when taking part in essentially the most wicked carnal pleasures, however ship his filthy inheritance to worthy causes? His Muskian intolerance throws a tantrum.
Better of all, Tek Knight’s demise leaves The Seven in disarray. The Boys could also be in shambles, particularly with Frenchie (Tomer Capone) in jail, however their unintended actions are a intelligent dagger. Homelander realizes the mole remains to be alive — it was by no means Ashley’s sacrificial lamb Cameron Coleman (Matthew Edison) — and he’s one step nearer to the sting (and he’s about to interrupt). Enter Firecracker, who squirts him with medically-possible lactation as the last word olive department. Reduce to Homelander, draped in his cape, suckling on Firecracker’s teat, each sitting in entrance of an enormous American flag tapestry. It’s considered one of my favourite photographs in The Boys, as America’s best patriot is a man-baby behind closed doorways who’s nonetheless breastfeeding. That is the present that I do know and love; what an excessive amount of of Season 4 has been lacking till now.