Week two of season four of The Boys has come and gone, and things are going so, so poorly for Hughie, Butcher, Annie, and pretty much everyone that doesn’t want to—inadvertently or otherwise—watch the world burn.
Indeed, for every lifeline that the ragtag posse of mercenaries happen upon (such as the recruitment of a reluctant A-Train as their inside man), a disaster or two is all too happy to accompany it. Their biggest one at the moment? Vought’s live broadcast of Annie beating Firecracker to a pulp after the alt-right Supe succeeded in agitating her with a piece of very personal info.
Speaking of Firecracker, she’s continuing The Boys’ brain trust’s long-running habit of being the least subtle you can possibly be, and this character just might be their best work yet, intelligently parsing the nuances of the alt-right while keeping her as watchable a character as ever.
That last bit, however, owes most of itself to the actress who stepped into the shoes of this explosive new member of the Seven.
Who plays Firecracker in The Boys?
Firecracker is played by none other than Valorie Curry, of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Down — Part 2, Blair Witch, and The Tick fame, and if you think Firecracker’s cartoonish behavior and Curry’s identity as a lesbian are just mere coincidences, you’d be wrong. The actress spoke to The Advocate, in a piece published the same day as the airing of episode four, about how lampooning behaviors and attitudes such as those harbored by Firecracker are best done by someone in the queer community (a frequent target of the alt-right).
As for The Boys, Firecracker still has a trick or two up her sleeve yet; we know that, at some point, she’s going to openly declare war on all supporters of Starlight, and there’s no prizes for guessing the most likely outcome of lighting that fuse.
Season four of The Boys is available to stream on Prime Video, with new episodes releasing every Thursday until the season finale on July 18. A fifth season, which will also be its last, has been confirmed.
