The Boys recap: The show unloads its most NSFW episode of the season

For an episode of The Boys airing on July 4, it’s curious that Vice President-elect Victoria Neumann (Claudia Doumit) rants about democracy being a sham. “The truth is America is not a democracy. The word just makes people feel safe,” she tells a bunch of superheroes and donors at a tight-knit right-wing fundraiser. She emphasizes that nations don’t exist and corporations run the country, name-dropping Apple, Exxon, and Berkshire Hathaway.

Victoria promises the billionaires in attendance they can basically operate without laws if they support her and help overthrow POTUS-elect Robert Singer (Jim Beaver). And so a dangerous coup is underway. Or as Homelander (Antony Starr) frames it, they’re replacing Singer and his woke mob before they let transgender liberals take over. (Yes, I had to take several deep breaths during these scenes.) They’re apparently playing a long game instead of Homelander or any Supe killing Singer and pretending he died of natural causes. Sure.

The bullshit spewed at this cocktail event is to tell rich people what they want to hear. Of course, democracy isn’t crap, and the masses aren’t idiots. The system is just fucked. Whether in actual life or The Boys, the culprit is an imbalance of power that benefits the one-percent while the people, or “the labor force,” as Victoria calls them, suffer. Real-world politics have forced us all to ponder the meaning of democracy though especially because the last election cycle ended with an insurrection and the upcoming one is already in shambles. Not to mention, the Supreme Court gave Trump some amount of immunity earlier this week, while Homelander casually mentions that the Justice Department appointees are in their pocket. (Kudos to Starr for making Homelander multifaceted in his villainy considering the actor expressed a desire to add more layers to his performance when asked about comparisons to Trump. But also: If the shoe fits…)

Perhaps this speaks more to the state of our governance, or that Prime Video’s drama has overstayed its welcome, or that it has forgotten to enjoy its actual superhero content. This has sucked the fun out of what the writing was great at satirizing. Homelander was always meant to be feared (even if we laughed at the implications of his growing power) because he is a powerful, evil, racist misogynist with a superiority complex—no law can stop him if he wears the flag and parades his false patriotism. So dubbing him as the “symbol of America” in this episode feels bleak. And if their coup occurs on January 6 (because when else will Vic take over Singer?), someone let Eric Kripke know being too on the nose doesn’t make for interesting storytelling.

While Victoria and Homelander are luring the elite, this fundraiser has plenty of other shit going down that no one, not even Homelander’s super hearing, is aware of. I hope you weren’t watching “Dirty Business” with much company because it is possibly one of The Boys’ most NSFW episodes. It’s on par with “Herogasm” and Termite (Brett Geddes) shrinking himself to enter his lover’s urethra in the season-three premiere. Is there a point to any of the madness besides the show trying to make our jaws drop? If there is, I don’t see it.

There’s a deeper understanding of how Tek Knight (Derek Wilson) operates. In case you needed a reminder: Robert Vernon, a.k.a. Tek Knight, is a shrewd detective superhero and Godolkin U alum who hosts various shows for Vought+. He even showed up in Gen V and has been a bigger presence in season four of The Boys, even if it’s related mostly to the movies he stars in. But “Dirty Business” allows us to know him better through the eyes of Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid). Still mourning his dad’s death, Hughie volunteers to go undercover at the fundraiser as Web Weaver, who scored an invite. He regrets his decision immediately because Tek and Ashley (Colby Minifie) pull a masked Hughie into their sex games. Hughie, a total trouper, goes through with it.

I don’t necessarily want to revisit every single thing Hughie experiences for their pleasure, and it’s impressive the cast made it through filming it all, but my eyebrows were already raised in fear when he was made to sit on the chocolate cake, rub his ass on it, and fart. No kink-shaming will be tolerated—to each their own—but the entire time I kept thinking of how Hughie is handling this emotionally. The man just sprinkled his dad’s ashes on Manhattan’s dirty sidewalks earlier that day. And it only gets worse for him after Ashley enters in her dom avatar, licking his feet and whatnot. So I’m glad “Dirty Business” closes with a relatively human moment of Hughie breaking down and telling Annie (Erin Moriarty) he’s not okay. How the hell can he be? Much has been said in these recaps about his contribution to the team, but I’m glad The Boys has leveled him up by revisiting how he’s caught up in this Supe world.

Hughie is saved when Annie and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) find Tek Knight’s batcave lair. They fight off Sage and Firecracker (Valorie Curry) to get there, but they make it in time to torture Tek to find out why he’s teaming up with the Seven. But how do you make a masochist Conservative talk? Starlight figures out no pain is worse for him than donating $100 million of his money to Black Lives Matter or $65 million to the Innocence Project. So that’s how they learn that Homelander and Sage are attempting to set up internment camps. Who knows what horrors they have in store?

Well, Homelander will have to carry on their plan by himself because Sage’s superpowered brain is currently in crisis mode. She gets shot in the head by MM (Laz Alonso) when she’s trying to stop the Boys from invading Tek Knight’s lair. It results in a seemingly long-term problem, not like the kind her lobotomy was causing. Does it mean she’s done forever as a Supe? If yes, that’s disappointing because The Boys could do so much with a hero who found the cure for cancer in three days. Anyway, she’s being replaced by Firecracker, who serves up her breastmilk to Homelander knowing it’s his weakness. That shot of him sucking it off of her tits was a classic reminder of Madelyn Stillwell (Elizabeth Shue) and of the fact that The Boys always goes boldly where no other TV show has gone before.

Stray observations

• I’m sorry I forgot to bring up Frenchie (Tomer Capone) last week, but he surrendered to the cops for his past crimes. He isn’t in this episode and has stopped Kimiko from visiting.
• To no one’s surprise except Butcher’s (Karl Urban), he’s been alone this whole time, and Joe Kessler (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is a figment of his tumor, much like Becca (Shantel VanSanten). The real Joe died on their mission together 11 years ago—Butcher never saved him. So I presume he’s carrying the guilt, hallucinating him as the voice of his bad side. At least they got to this obvious reveal instead of waiting for the finale in two weeks.
• A-Train speeds to Toronto to talk to MM on the phone without getting caught. Running to a different country to avoid Homelander and Sage is pretty funny. A-Train also suffers through hearing white conservatives joke about race, only to feel brief relief when he takes MM to the hospital. He did something good!
• We knew “Dirty Business” was going to be wild because to get Web Weaver’s invite, poor MM does some gross shit to him, like pulling the web material out of a hole above his butt. Truly, this episode of The Boys made me wish the show had some boundaries for once.
• The book that opens the secret door to Tek Knight’s sex lair is Marquis de Sade’s 100 Days Of Sodom. Talk about being on the nose. Anyway, Tek Knight is killed by the butler who raised him, for those keeping score.
• I thought the heart-to-heart between Deep (Chace Crawford) and faux Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) was interesting because Deep is convincing him to stay for some reason when Fake Noir wants to escape for the opportunity to act in a play. Is Deep just lonely or are his intentions more sinister?
• Props to director Karen Gaviola, along with the episode’s cinematographer and production design. I felt claustrophobic almost the entire time.