The Boys Season 4, Episode 4 saw Homelander at his absolute worst, but fans agreed out of all he tortured, it was the scientists nobody got to know who suffered the most.
The fourth episode of The Boys Season 4, Wisdom of the Ages, saw Homelander return to the Vought facility where he was raised. There he finds a number of long-time Vought employees who were responsible for conducting the torturous tests on the young John.
There are a lot of grim murders in the episode, with one man being cooked alive and another having his skull crushed by Homelander after he uses laser vision to blow a hole through his genitals.
But members of The Boys’ subreddit seem to agree the ones who had it worst were the other scientists who worked in the lab, many of whom don’t appear to have even worked at the facility when Homelander was there as a child.
“The other scientists had it pretty bad as well.” one fan said. “The fear of knowing you’re next, and in such a gruesome way…Theirs were presumably the quickest, at least”
Another fan had a different take, focusing on how those scientists had to watch everything unfold.
“I feel like everybody looks over the slow drawn out deaths of all the other scientists that were down there,” they said. said. “They had to watch Homelander run the carnival of horrors before he slaughtered all of them and put their guts over the walls of the room where he locked the lady.”
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The scientists in question are Vought black site employees and a fairly minor part of the episode. They’re largely watching in the background as Homelander burns Frank alive, crushes Marty’s skull, and taunts Barbara.
But Barbara’s torture sees Homelander kill those scientists in the “Bad Room” where he was kept when he misbehaved as a child. Barbara is then sealed in with the corpses of the other scientists, and the door seemingly welded shut. It’s implied there’s no one to find or save Barbara.
Another fan noticed a gruesome detail about their deaths, too, pointing out, “Homelander obviously pulled the other scientists apart right? No laser markings or burns on any of the bodies, just brutal.”
As others have pointed out, too, the most tragic part is most of them appear to be newer employees. Even Homelander acknowledges he sees a lot of “new faces” when he arrives, meaning that while they may not be innocent, they certainly didn’t torture Homelander himself.
The Boys Season 4 Episodes 1-4 are available to stream on Prime Video now. While you wait for the next episode, check out how the Gen V timeline ties in and the Season 4 theories. You can also find more TV shows streaming this month, as well as the best TV shows of 2024 so far.
