Posted in: Amazon Studios, TV | Tagged: gen v, opinion, prime video, the boys

The Boys: Making The Right People Angry For All The Right Reasons

Showrunner Eric Kripke's The Boys shared a new Season 4 "promo" showing how the Prime Video series makes all of the right people angry.

There are many ways to measure success. In terms of television, it's usually the combination of strong positive reactions from both critics and viewers and righteously strong viewing numbers to back all of that up. Showrunner Eric Kripke's The Boys has both of those and then some, with the Prime Video series scoring some big numbers through its fourth season finale.

In August, Nielsen revealed its viewing stats for the week of July 15 to 21 – with The Boys locking down more than 1.3 billion minutes viewed – not only its highest weekly total but a total that was more than enough for the series to take the top spot for that week (a first for the series). That would be the eighth time that the streaming series had blown past the 1 billion minutes mark (a Prime Video record) – with The Boys hitting the Top 10 every week since the fourth season premiered (and hitting Nielsen's Top 10 a total of 20 times over the course of its run – another Prime Video record).

But it's also safe to say that Kripke and his team also judge their success by being able to piss off the right people for the right reasons – as was especially the case during the fourth season. Viewers who spent three seasons viewing Homelander (Antony Starr) as some kind of hero or role model saw their fantasy come crashing down around them (a topic we addressed over the summer, which we're sharing again below). Of course, the trolls took to social media to lob their "woke" claims at the series while predicting its downfall. Well, the numbers proved that they had no clue what they were talking about – and a new Season 4 "promo" proved that the folks behind The Boys wear that kind of hatred as a badge of honor.

Here's a look at what Kripke and the Prime Video series' social media accounts had to share – followed by a look back at an opinion piece we wrote back on July 17, 2024, about how the fourth season finally became an eye-opener for Homelander fans (and how they were not happy with it):

The Boys: Homelander Fans Finally Get The Point & They're Not Happy

I was originally going to write a review of the first three episodes of Prime Video and Showrunner Eric Kripke's fourth season of The Boys. It was going to include how directors Phil Sgriccia, Karen Gaviola & Fred Toye, and writers David Reed, Jessica Chou & Ellie Monahan offered us a dark and twisted start to the streaming series' penultimate season that raised the stakes in some pretty surprising ways. I was going to address how the series continues to expertly balance the insane with the heartfelt – balancing the absurdity with some truly hard realities. From there, I would've touched upon what amazing additions to the cast Susan Heyward's Sister Sage, Valorie Curry's Firecracker, Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Joe Kessler, and Rosemarie DeWitt's Daphne Campbell (Hughie's mother) are – especially Curry, who holds her own on the screen in ways that have us forgetting that she hasn't been with the series from the start.

We would've continued by praising the ensemble cast for the way each of them has found a way to evolve their characters in ways that connect with viewers – from Butcher's (Karl Urban) & A-Train's (Jessie T. Usher) respective attempts at a redemption arc and Kimiko's (Karen Fukuhara) efforts to literally kill her past to Hughie's (Jack Quaid) efforts to reconnect with his mother and Annie/Starlight (Erin Moriarty) being forced to confront the sins of her past. I would note that Laz Alonso, Chace Crawford, Tomer Capone, Nathan Mitchell, Colby Minifie, Claudia Doumit, and Cameron Crovetti all deserve to be noted for their efforts – and how Antony Starr continues flicking lit matches at Emmy voters, reminding them through his work that his Homelander might just be the best thing going in terms of what Starr brings to the character and how that continues to show in some truly unique ways.

Instead, I'm going to take a moment to address those out there who've been review-bombing the streaming series. With The Boys Season 4 currently sitting at 95% with critics and 52% with the "audience" on Rotten Tomatoes, there's clearly a serious disconnect – one that can be easily explained if you check out the comments in the "audience section." Just so there's no confusion? Review-bombing a series because it's "too woke" or "too left-leaning" or nonsense like that simply because it doesn't speak to your narrow-minded "sensibilities" is bad enough. But there's something especially sad and pathetic when it takes them four seasons to finally figure out that they – much like Homelander, who they worship as some kind of role model – aren't the "heroes" of this story. Never have been, never will be. And yes, Kripke has made it crystal clear that there are a ton of horrific metaphors connecting to ex-reality shows & POTUS and now-convicted felon Donald Trump – and none of them are good.

Is it fair that the show's fourth season has to suffer because Homelander/Trump lovers can't take a ten-ton hint? No – but unfortunately, all we can do is report on efforts like review-bombing so folks know how haters try to manipulate the system to peddle their steaming piles of nonsense. That said, I do think I figured out why it took so long for them to realize that they weren't in on the joke but were, in fact, the joke – aside from the obvious. Over the past three seasons, it was easy for them to write off what Homelander did because they either felt the same way or because it never really hit them personally.

But  "Department of Dirty Tricks" changed the game for them – and they didn't like it. Of course, you know the scene I'm talking about – when Homelander orders The Deep (Crawford), A-Train (Usher), and Black Noir II (Mitchell) to brutally kill three of his biggest supporters as a way of setting up Annie's/Starlight's followers. Homelander can barely fake interest in his speech to them about their "important sacrifices" before having someone else do his dirty work – because the leader of The Seven sees them as beneath him and not worthy of his personal handling. It looks like that ended up being the final straw for them – a truth bomb that blew up a little too close to home this time. But you can't blame The Boys for being "The Boys" – they didn't know it would take some folks so long to finally catch on…

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