‘The Boys’ Season 4, Episode 6 Recap: Dirty Business

It is no secret that The boysThe political commentary and satire of have become increasingly obvious over the years. The show has never been subtle, but Season 4 in particular has leaned into real-world parallels, particularly when it comes to Homelander and Donald Trump. In “Dirty Business,” the all-powerful white supremacist at the top persuaded some of the richest and most evil people in America to participate in a coup on January 6th — perhaps with help on the ground from some of the most radical far-right Fox News (sorry, Vought News) viewers in America.

Depending on your tolerance for blatant imitations of real life, this sort of thing can be annoying in its obviousness — but it’s also, unfortunately, more relevant than ever, especially in light of the Supreme Court’s decision this week on presidential immunity from criminal prosecution. (“In every exercise of official power, the president is now a king above the law,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said. “Out of fear for our democracy, I disagree.”)

Leaving aside our own declining nation, “Dirty Business” is another fairly entertaining episode of The boys. The season’s upward trajectory continues after being a little too fragmented and too mired in misery at the beginning. Sure, the torture sequence continues here in both main stories – and personally, I could have used a little less of Tek Knight and Ashley traumatizing Hughie – but at least all the characters feel like they’re part of the same story now.

Hughie has been somewhat sidelined lately, especially compared to the first two seasons, so it’s nice to see him take center stage in this episode. An undercover mission at Tek Knight’s estate during a Federalist Society party provides the perfect opportunity for Hughie to focus on a mission and take his mind off the loss of his father; he’ll be going undercover as a go-to informant for Webweaver, Butcher, and Mother’s Milk, who has been invited as a new candidate to be Tek’s sidekick. This leads to probably the most disgusting scene in a pretty disgusting episode, with MM giving Webweaver a rectal injection of drugs and getting squirted with white goo from his “web hole” as a result. (I hated writing that.)

There’s a good dose of comedy in Hughie adopting Webweaver’s slang to mimic him at the party, croaking unconvincing “dog” and “no cap” from inside his stinking suit. As MM informs the Boys (and viewers who haven’t watched Generation V), Tek Knight has extremely heightened senses, making him a brilliant lie detector. But Hughie manages to pull off his stunt and plant a few bugs at the party, even after a near-disastrous encounter with Victoria Neuman and the Seven.

It’s when Hughie loses the signal in the hidden “Tek Cave” that everything slowly goes to hell. Hughie never signed up to sit his naked ass on a German chocolate cake while a billionaire chokes and strokes himself, and he certainly didn’t sign up to be tickled or pissed on. These scenes contain a few effective comedy, like when Hughie starts shouting random words — like tarantula — as he tries to guess the safe word set by Webweaver. But the overriding feeling is horror, especially as time goes on. It’s almost a relief when Tek finally unmasks Hughie and discovers the truth, though it doesn’t diminish the threat of sexual violence.

Luckily, Kimiko and Annie manage to sneak into the mansion, locate the secret entrance to Tek’s cave, and save Hughie in time, sparing us the sight of Tek drilling new holes in Hughie’s body to stick his dick in. And with the help of Tek’s former “sidekick,” a man in a red suit, they gain access to Tek’s bank accounts, allowing them to finally get the truth out of him: he and Sage made a deal to use his private prisons to lock up dissidents once she and Homelander carry out their plan.

After the shit we’ve seen, it would be hard to see Tek Knight make it out of this episode alive, so it’s satisfying to see his butler (and supposed father figure), Elijah, strangle him to death after hearing about the camps. But this story ends on a refreshingly emotional note when Hughie begins to process his feelings and open up to Annie about what he’s just been through. “I’m not okay” may be a predictable line, but Jack Quaid’s strangled pronunciation of “I miss my dad” is downright heartbreaking.

But the most surprising and touching moment of the episode, for me, involves A-Train, who risks leaving the party to drop MM off at the hospital after he shoots Sage in the head and has a heart attack. (It turns out to be a panic attack, which makes sense; MM has been trying to practice mindfulness, but it’s impossible with all the responsibilities on his shoulders.) Noticing a wide-eyed kid who witnessed the rescue, A-Train is touched by the smile of wonder on the kid’s face. Just a few episodes ago, we saw this guy bragging to his nephews about people he didn’t actually save; now he’s actually helping people, and it feels good.

As A-Train changes and becomes a better person, very few others on this show seem interested in following the same path. I’ve been curious about Sage’s true belief system and motivations for a while, so it was rewarding to hear her open up to Neuman about the moment she became radicalized: She discovered a cure for her own grandmother’s leukemia at age 11, but she was ignored and mocked and her grandmother died. If she wanted to, she could single-handedly solve all the world’s problems, but she has no respect for humanity. So even though she has nothing in common with all these bigwigs, she’s happy to empty their wallets and throw them away when she no longer needs them.

It once seemed possible that Sage had a deeper hidden agenda, one that might even involve getting rid of the Protector eventually. (I suppose she still might.) But this monologue helps us understand her superiority complex, which is rooted in a completely different place than the Protector. Both view humans as animals that should be controlled and subjugated, but the Protector has an innate sadism and disregard for human life, while Sage has learned to view humans that way over the years, outdoing everyone she meets without ever managing to earn their respect.

Unfortunately for Homelander, Sage’s bullet in the head temporarily prevents her from thinking about anything other than her Taco Bell order and the TLC show she’s watching later, so she’s no help at the exclusive meeting where Homelander gleefully announces his plans for insurrection. But Neuman takes matters into her own hands, combining her political savvy (she can handle the Justice Department, the military response, and OPEC, among other practical matters) with a persuasive emotional appeal (“The masses are stupid,” and billionaires shouldn’t be regulated or limited in any way).

Neuman has been overreaching for a while now, and last week’s unlikely team-up didn’t really change that. But Butcher has been somewhere in the middle, morally speaking, throughout the series. At any given moment, he has an angel on one shoulder and the Devil on the other. Since the beginning of this season, his wife, Becca, has played the role of the angel, appearing to him in hallucinations. But in “Dirty Business,” the truth finally comes out: Joe Kessler is the Devil, and he’s just as imaginary as Becca. He was summoned by Butcher’s brain tumor as a manifestation of Butcher’s dark, violent side that always does what needs to be done, no matter the cost. When Butcher blacked out and violently tore into Ezekiel, it was Kessler who took the wheel.

Viewers have been speculating about Kessler for weeks, and the reveal here is pretty well done, with Kessler unmasking himself by turning around and barking at Becca to shut up. It’s a reaction to Sameer’s dizzying information about the virus, which leaves Butcher with an interesting conundrum in these final two episodes: Is it worth risking the lives of superheroes like Kimiko, Annie, and (most importantly) Ryan just to take down Homelander? According to Kessler—who speaks to a good half of Butcher’s psyche—a superhero pandemic isn’t necessarily an unfortunate side effect. It could be exactly what the world needs. And once you start justifying genocide, it’s hard to go back.

• No sign of Frenchie, who refuses to let Kimiko visit him in prison.

• “You didn’t take all the santorum out of the gallows cage!” Wow, I can’t say I’ve heard that word in a while, but that line reading reminded me of one of Glenn Howerton’s deliveries in The weather is always good.

• The Speaker of the House directly echoing Todd Akin’s infamous comments about “legitimate rape” is a real-world reference that strikes me as a little more lazy than intelligent.

• “Firecracker, this is a bit of a private conversation, but I’m sure the bar has SunnyD and Everclear.”

• Of course, the book that opens the entrance to Tek’s lair is The 120 Days of Sodom.

• I love the moment where Annie owns up to her mean girl behavior on the pageant circuit and apologizes to Firecracker, only to calm her down. A pretty satisfying twist, and it doesn’t take away from the sincerity of her reflection.

• Hughie, Annie, and Kimiko transfer $40 million from Tek’s account to Elizabeth Warren’s super-PAC, as well as $65 million to the Innocence Project and $100 million to Black Lives Matter. It would have been fun to see him explain these donations on Vought News the following week, but he’s dead now.

• Apparently Stan Edgar hasn’t been seen since his release, and Homelander definitely seems suspicious of Neuman’s involvement.

• Firecracker is on medication to produce breast milk to please Homelander. It works!

• It’s pretty funny to see the new Black Noir without his mask, admitting that he “doesn’t really like violence” and ranting about how he’s not allowed to use his flying abilities as a black man. And the scene also takes Deep to the next phase of his Homelanderification, as he insists that “violence is power.” The motivation for the violence, in his case, is to force people to stop making fun of him and take him seriously.