‘The Boys’ Season 4 Finale Took Everything From Us, Then Gave Us a Treat

The Boys, despite occasional awesome moments, had mostly left us wanting this season. But looks like it was saving it all for its finale. The Boys season 4 episode 8 “Assassination Run” packs so much punch that the anxiety bleeds through the screen and into your palms. And that ending!

You’ve got to stick with it till after the ending, because there’s a mid-credits scene and it is absolutely everything we’ve wanted from the show since season 4 began! Let’s break that diabolical The Boys season 4 ending down, shall we?

Oi Oi, spoilers ahead!

What happens in The Boys season 4 finale?

Oh, where do we start? The shifter supe tasked with assassinating President-elect Robert Singer (Jim Beaver) took Annie January (Erin Moriarty) hostage, and assumed her form. She manages to fool Hughie (Jack Quaid) and, posing as Annie, has sex with him multiple times—which, despite how the show handles it, is assault, since he is not consenting to have sex with her. But you’d wish that was the end of her abuse. Oh no, she goes ahead and proposes to him, and Hughie and Annie get engaged.

In another explosive moment, Homelander (Antony Starr)—angry after finding a photo of Butcher (Karl Urban) and Becca (Shantel VanSanten) in Ryan’s (Cameron Crovetti) backpack—loses his cool on Firecracker’s (Valorie Curry) show and outs Vice President-elect Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) as a supe. A scared Victoria calls Hughie, trying to make a deal with the CIA for a way out for her and her daughter, Zoe (Olivia Morandin). 

With Singer officially taking charge as President, The Boys are on the clock to thwart the assassination attempt planned by Sage (Susan Heyward). With Frenchie (Tomer Capone) working on the virus, MM (Laz Alonso), Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), Hughie, and shifter-Annie head over to a CIA bunker to protect the president, where Hughie finally figures out his fiancé is the shifter supe assassin. Luckily, they manage to save Singer because the real Annie frees herself and finds them, killing shifter-Annie.

Homelander holds an internal meeting with Firecracker, The Deep (Chace Crawford), and Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell), where he reveals to them the plan to assassinate Singer and have Neuman take over. He hands a list to Deep, compiled by Ashley (Colby Minifie), of people who have damning information on The Seven and asks his team to kill them. A terrified Ashley overhears them, runs to Homelander’s destroyed apartment, and injects herself with V.

Butcher, having collapsed at the end of episode 7, is in a hospital room, visited by Grace Mallory (Laila Robbins). It looks like he’s ready to say bye to The Boys after an emotional phone call to Hughie. When Ryan gets there, after his fight with his father, he’s sad to see Butcher close to death. After everything that has happened, Mallory decides to tell Ryan about all the bad things his father has done, including the fact that Homelander had raped his mother Becca. 

Ryan realizes this was a setup, that Mallory wants to use him as a weapon, and won’t let him leave. In a flash of frustration, he knocks her dead and leaves. The symbiote-Joe Kessler (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) struggling to gain control in Butcher’s head makes him realize that Ryan is just like his father, impulsive and out of control. 

The Boys bring Victoria and Zoe in for safety, but a spanking new-looking Butcher in his Venom era, crashes their meeting, and rips Neuman into two, killing her. He forces the virus out of Frenchie’s hands, and leaves, asking The Boys to disperse for their own safety.

The Deep and fake-Black Noir kill Vought employees on the list, while Firecracker is struggling to use her powers, and has been sick for a while due to the hormones she has been taking to produce breastmilk for Homelander. A sad Homelander finds his spirits lifted when Sage returns, telling him that her plan worked perfectly—Neuman is dead, she caught Singer on camera admitting he knew about her and wanted her dead and had him arrested, and now the Speaker of the House, Senator Calhoun (David Andrews), loyal to Homelander, is about to take oath as President. 

The Boys season 4 ending explained: A terrifying new world

By the end of season 4 episode 8, every theory we fans had, and every plan The Boys or the supes had (except, of course, Sage), has been thrown out the window. We have a terrifying new world order in place, with Homelander seeming at the top, but it actually being Sage. As per their plan, she gets the new President to declare Martial Law in America, calling every supe out there to take charge and report to Homelander directly. 

Homelander calls the supes to “protect the country from deep state Starlighters by weeding them out,” announcing the beginning of a “new age of superheroes.” As his voiceover trails, and Firecracker’s picks up (from her Vought show) Nueman’s daughter Zoe is seen walking into the same Red River home, from where her mother came. 

The Boys decide to disband and hide, but Godolkin descends upon them. MM is attacked by Love Sausage (Derek Johns) and arrested by commandos. Hughie and Annie are intercepted by commandos helped by Gen V‘s Cindy (Ess Hödlmoser), but Annie manages to escape with her powers back. Cate (Maddie Phillips) uses her mind control on Frenchie, compelling him to go with her, while Sam (Asa Germann) holds back Kimiko, who finally, FINALLY, screams out loudly! It’s painful to watch because just moments ago, she and Frenchie agreed to start forgiving themselves for all they’d done and finally kissed!

And finally, Butcher drives off with Joe Kessler/symbiote still in control of his mind, and the supe-killing virus in his hands, probably ready to kickstart a genocide-inducing pandemic.

But this isn’t the end. If this episode were watched in a theater, people would’ve screamed when they saw the mid-credit scene. The new president leads Homelander into a secure facility and tells him he has only just found out about this after a security briefing. And there he is, the one we have all been waiting for—SOLDIER BOY (Jensen Ackles)! Homelander gazes upon the gassed-up naked body of his daddy in a box, probably ruminating on some diabolical new plan to allay his daddy issues. 

A few people are still missing in action though. Despite that beautiful redemption arc, A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) is MIA from the entire season 4 finale. Good thing too, because this means he’s alive and safe for now, from Homelander’s wrath. But also, there’s Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott), who we know is alive and incognito. Even as the Godolkin bad guys are helping Homelander, the good guys are still around (hopefully).

Perhaps Annie will go “Avengers Assemble” on all the supes who can help because they’re going to need every single one of them to defeat what’s coming! 

With this being The Boys’ penultimate season, and the stakes raised so high, we’re truly in the fooking endgame now!