‘The Boys’ Recap: ‘Department of Dirty Tricks’

6/14/2024

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Erin Moriarty as Annie January/Starlight in Episode 401 of ‘The Boys’ – ‘Department of Dirty Tricks’. (Photo Courtesy of Jan Thijs/Prime Video.)

Caution: This article contains spoilers for the Season Four Premiere of ‘The Boys’. To revisit the Season Three Finale, click here.

It is definitely safe to say that in 2024, it is EXTREMELY difficult to fool a television audience. For the modern TV viewer, has immersed themselves within a bevy of stories and they do have a fine understanding of story structure and the tricks that writers use to surprise and subvert expectations. To the point where twists are indeed discovered now, and there are even groups online that work to crack the code of popular shows that do figure out how to stun us, just because they’re up to the challenge and want to confirm they’ve figured the whole thing out. But despite the fact that it is so hard now to shock an audience through and through… it can still be done… if the writing is truly flawless through and through and for proof… look no further than The Boys on Prime Video.

After all, for the past three years, audiences have harbored the belief that this series was nothing more the greatest send up ever of the superhero genre. Courtesy of characters and commentary that spoke to the tropes present in this genre, complete with characters that were unlike any other in the genre. Since the Seven have been host to some wild and twisted characters, the kind that basically reflected the age-old question, what if superheroes were more like the rest of us? Giving rise to some perverse heroes through and through. But as it turns out, this was not just a send up, that was to make us comfortable and immerse us in this world so that Showrunner Eric Kripke and his talented writing staff could shock us with quite the revelation.

In that, the show merely used superheroes to make us comfortable so that the show could take a deep dive into the problems of our modern world today. Specifically, the political landscape, the divide that we face in America, and of course… the problem that is Donald J. Trump. All of which was made clear in the season four premiere of the show. For ‘Department of Dirty Tricks’ wasted little time in having The Boys face some harsh realities about their world post-Homelander v Butcher. In that… Supes were now in the highest office possible since Victoria was now the Vice President Elect and to make matters worse, Homelander was in quite the place mentally, and not a good one at that. Mainly because fatherhood and the reality that he is not immortal left him wondering what his legacy was going to be as a superhero.

Antony Starr and Claudia Doumit as Homelander and Victoria Neuman in Episode 401 of ‘The Boys’ – ‘Department of Dirty Tricks’. (Photo Courtesy of Jan Thijs/Prime Video.)

Which in turn prompted him to believe that perhaps… he should shape the world as he saw fit and use his powers to leave a ‘perfect’ world for his son to inherit. That prompted him to work with Sage, a powerful Supe with an incredible brain to scheme how best, to bring down Democracy to begin to reform the world and that brought about chaos. The kind that resembled a chilly morning in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021, and made it clear… that Homelander is the allegory for Trump and that season four is going to focus heavily on the dangers we face surrounding him and his ilk. Since Homelander made it clear that people like Trumpy-dumpy, who wrap themselves in red, white and blue and make all kinds of claims about loving America and a desire to make it great again, are full of shit, plain and simple.

It's about them, their agenda and they could care less about the rest of us. Which brought about some powerful and refreshing commentary and truly set the stage for a powerhouse season four. One that is clearly going to examine how people are manipulated by these guys through their charms and the true dangers of giving people that think they are invincible from the law and public scrutiny, because they’re so out of touch with the world… all the power they don’t deserve and well, the show has simply been setting this up all along, and that’s amazing. Because we really did not have a clue that this was coming, nor did we really understand the endgame of the show and that’s what good writing can accomplish and that is why we should all be excited for what lies ahead.

For now, we are in the midst of a story with incredible depth, and incredible meaning, one that will stand as a complete arc about how we enable and hopefully dismantle, the Homelanders of the world. But while we wait to see how this commentary plays out and how poignant this series will become; we can also celebrate a premiere that harbored a lot of character development moments for our heroes. Since they came to realize there are bigger issues at hand their own problems and concerns, and that those need to be set aside in this moment to stop the madness. All of which will undoubtedly move them to new heights as the fight to save America begins via what is quickly becoming one the most brilliant superhero shows to ever hit the airwaves. Until next time.

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