Season 4 of The Boys sees the eponymous team attempt to keep the country out of the hands of the corrupt supes. The series is streaming on Prime Video.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary:
The Boys are working with the CIA to eliminate Vic Neuman under Dakota Bob’s orders because he doesn’t want a supe as his VP.
M.M. is now the team leader because Billy proved to be too much of a wild card. Billy is also suffering from supercharged cancer from all the V that he took.
He meets Joe Kessler at the CIA and Joe suggests working together to take down the supes once and for all.
Homelander notices that he’s aging, giving him a huge chip on his shoulder. He wants new blood in the Seven so he recruits Sister Sage to the team.
Sage is considered the smartest being on the planet, and she is interested in Homelander’s idea about taking control.
There is tension in the streets of the country as supporters of Homelander and supporters of Starlight protest against each other’s heroes.
Sage tries to use this situation to cause more discord in the public and sow seeds of discontent that would facilitate their eventual rise.
Butcher hallucinates Rebecca pleading with him to ensure Ryan is safe away from Homelander. Kessler tells Butcher that they need to turn Ryan into an asset that can kill Homelander.
Hughie’s father gets a stroke and this gives him a chance to make peace with his estranged mother.
Kimiko goes after the Shining Light Liberation Army for what they did to her growing up, and Frenchie struggles with his drug addiction and the actions of his past.
A-Train begins to doubt Homelander’s mission and M.M. believes this is the perfect time to flip the supe and get him on their side.
Homelander battles for Ryan’s admiration, while dealing through issues of his upbringing that led to his constant need for approval.
Under Sage’s advice, Homelander brings in Firecracker to join The Seven because she is the perfect vessel to spread disinformation and tilt the public perception.
They expose Annie’s medical records and the fact that she had an abortion to eviscerate her image.
Homelander and Sage work with a reluctant Neuman to put the pieces in place for them to stage a coup as soon as Dakota Bob is elected president of the country.
Butcher reveals the existence of the supe-killing virus and they use Stan Edgar’s help to locate it.
Vic’s partner, Dr. Sameer Shah, has been working on it at one of Edgar’s farmhouses and they all converge there to find that things have spiraled.
While they all escape safely, Butcher has Sameer hidden away so that he can work on the virus in secret and make it strong enough to kill Homelander.
Hughie and The Boys sneak into a party hosted by Tek Knight and learn the true essence of Homelander’s plan.
It was almost derailed when Sage was shot in the head and couldn’t lay the plan out in front of the senators, only for Vic and Homelander to rescue their idea.
Homelander kicks Sage out for her failure even though everything is still going according to the plan she formulated.
A-Train continues to leak information to The Boys but the others weren’t able to figure it out. Sage knew but used it to her advantage, something Homelander wasn’t happy about.
Butcher discovers that Kessler is just another one of his hallucinations and takes the others to the lab where Sameer is working on the virus.
He says that to make the virus strong enough to kill Homelander would mean that it would be strong enough to cause a supe genocide through a global pandemic.
The Boys discover that the supes plan to use a shapeshifter to kill the president, and the shifter takes Annie’s place so that Starlight takes the fall.
Ryan still shows some morals within him and Butcher has hope, but Kessler keeps telling Butcher that he can take over Butcher’s body and do what needs to be done.
A-Train realizes that he’s at the end of his rope and disappears as soon it comes out that he’s the mole.
Ending explained:
Letting go of the wheel
Butcher collapses at a bar and is taken to the hospital. Grace visits him and tells him that there is something he needs to do.
Homelander is mad at Ryan for keeping a picture of Butcher and Becca with him, and Ryan runs away.
He visits Butcher at the medical facility and they talk to each other about leaving Homelander and going somewhere safe.
Butcher wants to ease into it, but Grace gets impatient and tells Ryan the truth about everything that Homelander has done.
She says that they want to train Ryan to kill Homelander but he refuses. He accidentally kills Grace and leaves.
Butcher finally lets Kessler take control and do what’s needed
Pulling the trigger
Frenchie is working on the virus while the rest of the Boys protect Bob from the shapeshifter.
Hughie realizes that Annie is the shifter and a fight breaks out. They try to get Bob out of there and the real Annie arrives to help.
She kills the shifter and news of the failed assassination reaches Homelander. Earlier, Homelander had exposed Vic as a supe on live television.
He has Deep and Black Noir kill everyone in Vought who might have dirt against them, and Ashley injects herself with V to defend herself.
She reaches out to Hughie to make a deal because she’s tired of being on the wrong side. They plan a meeting to figure out the specifics.
No more Mr. Nice Guy
They are about to broker a deal with Vic when Butcher walks in and says that no deal is being made.
He uses his powers, the cancerous tumor within him, to kill Vic and then takes the virus from Frenchie so that he can use it as he pleases.
Sage visits Homelander to tell him that everything worked according to the plan, despite it looking like a failure.
They use Vic’s death to frame Bob and get him arrested. The new president is the speaker of the House, Calhoun, who is loyal to Homelander.
He declared Martial Law and deputized all the supes to follow Homelander’s orders and defend the country.
The Boys try to go into hiding and plan their fight back but they are all captured by Vought soldiers and supes as Homelander announces that it’s going to the dawn of a new age of superheroes.
