The Boys season 4 (TV series review).
I seem to be a little behind in getting season four of The Boys on Blu-ray. Googling tells me it was filmed in 2023, completed in post-production during 2024 and released on DVD and Blu-ray in 2025.
Buying the Chinese release keeps it in line with my earlier seasons, and turning off the subtitles is simple enough. Each disc also comes in its own protective sleeve, which should mean fewer cleaning problems.
Almost everything about this series is a spoiler. There is a great deal of violence and swearing, occasionally touched with humour and often grossly so. It is also one of the most attention-grabbing series I’ve watched, showing superheroes behaving badly on both sides of the fence.
The supes were created by the Vought company, and this is the latest generation of them. They are promoted, and promote themselves, through films, television appearances and anything else that might make money.
The Seven is led by Homelander (actor Antony Starr), with its membership remaining rather fluid because replacements are regularly needed when someone is killed, often by Homelander himself for disloyalty.
Did I mention that Homelander is a little unstable? That’s putting it mildly. He regards ordinary humans as fragile and now has few qualms about killing anyone in public who disagrees with him. Who is going to argue?
He has also taken control of Vought and is carrying out some internal cleansing, particularly among those who raised him. Objectively, they were testing the limits of his powers, but they made no allowance for affection or any other human emotion getting in the way. If you raise a psychopath, you have to expect retribution sooner or later.
The Boys are a small CIA-affiliated group run largely by Billy Butcher (actor Karl Urban). Their members include both ordinary humans and supes, while they also have access to a temporary version of Vought’s super-drug. Unfortunately, repeated use is fatal.
Butcher has already taken too much of it and knows that he has only months to live. He also believes that he is hallucinating people he thought were dead.
The group is searching for a drug capable of killing Homelander, although it appears that it might also kill every other supe. Oddly, this seems to be the first season in which they are regularly referred to as ‘The Boys’, unless I missed something earlier.
That is the brief outline. The acting from the entire cast is intense. The number of deaths, and the identities of those involved, are both integral to the plot and impossible to discuss without spoilers.
When I’ve finally caught up, I intend to pick up the graphic novels. No doubt some of the minor characters will make more sense from that perspective.
If you want the hard realities of super-powered beings living among fragile humanity, then The Boys will reaffirm your worst nightmares.
I do have to wonder whether any real octopuses were harmed during the production of this season.
GF Willmetts
August 2026
(pub: 2024 production, released 2025. 2 Blu-ray discs. 464 minutes. 8 58-minute episodes. Price: varies. ASIN: LG-M4082)
