It’s Christmas in The Boys Season 4 Episode 7, ‘The Insider’, but the mood is anything but merry, as The Deep faces off against Starlight, Butcher and co. fall apart, and we see the arrival of a terrifying new Shape Shifter supe.
Following The Boys’ unexpected team-up with Victoria Neuman and Stan Edgar to hunt down the Gen V supe virus in the fifth episode, Episode 6 gave us Season 4’s answer to Herogasm thanks to the alt-right party at Tek Knight’s.
As depravity unfolded down in the Tek Cave, giving us our first proper look at Webweaver, aka The Boys’ messed up equivalent of Spider-Man, Homelander unveiled his plans to stage a coup and invoke the 25th Amendment.
It’s all looking very scary for The Boys right now, and the same goes for A-Train. So you can keep up, here’s a recap of everything that went down in The Boys Season 4 Episode 7. Warning: spoilers ahead!
Sister Sage gets a demotion
No, it’s not the return of Sam’s Gen V muppet visions – it’s Ryan, starring in Vought Kids’ latest propaganda machine in the form of a Christmas special. Alongside Ryan is a muppet version of A-Train, who bursts into song about “woke” America and tells kids to report on anyone (even their own parents) if they’re caught spurting any anti-Supe sentiments.
Homelander – who Ryan learns approved the lyrics – is in a meeting at Vought Tower with the rest of The Seven. Sister Sage turns up, learning that the meeting got moved forward, much to her surprise – Firecracker’s clearly loving it, knowing that she’s moving up the ranks after becoming Homelander’s new “mommy.”
Homelander is pissed Sage hasn’t figured out who the Vought leak is yet – especially since he found The Boys’ bug that was planted at Tek Knight’s soirée. Sage reassures him that The Boys won’t leak what they know as it would jeopardize what she thinks they want: to take out Neuman.
Although the smart new supe assures Homelander that Butcher’s going to die soon anyway, and her plan is all running accordingly, he’s not convinced and proposes a few changes. “Firecracker and I will find the leak,” he tells her. “You just focus on the shooter – make sure he’s ready to go on the 6th.”
Too many dumpster fires
The Deep’s reading to his octopus lover Ambrosius (voiced by Tilda Swinton, FYI). Although they’re back on track, Deep receives an offer from Sage he can’t refuse: “Tough day. Stab my brain and stab my a** later?” He rushes out, putting Ambrosius back in the cupboard.
Back at Starlight and Hughie’s place, they’re preparing for the worst after finding out that Tek made a deal with Homelander and Sage to let them turn his prisons into internment camps – presumably this is where they’re planning to put any Starlighters following their coup.
Starlight tells her mom to head to Sedona, assuming she’ll be safer away from the city. They get into an argument, with her mom making some insensitive comments about Annie’s abortion. Annie tells her “none of the Starlight sh*t matters” right now, but her mother claps back, asking why Hughie kept her suit.
The scene cuts to them in the bedroom, where Hughie explains that he retrieved her supe suit from the trash in case she regretted it down the line. Annie goes on to explain why she chose to have an abortion, saying, “I didn’t want to bring a baby into a world that’s ending.”
She’s overwhelmed with how many “dumpster fires” they’ve got to put out, but Hughie reassures her, “We’ll just take it step by step.”
Frenchie’s back
A-Train secretly snaps photos of Sage meeting a mystery man, who she hands some files to. Mother’s Milk tells The Boys he reckons he could be The Seven’s “Lee Harvey” – aka their fall guy for assassinating the President (in this case, Robert Singer).
Butcher, who’s not looking too hot, rocks up and reveals to the gang his secret from Episode 5: he kidnapped Dr Sameer Shah (after cutting off his leg) and has been holding him hostage, forcing him to concoct a version of the supe virus strong enough to take out Homelander.
Although visions of Joe Kessler are telling him to stop, Butcher continues spilling the beans, saying that Sameer’s run into a bit of a problem: a strain strong enough to kill Homelander also runs the risk of becoming airborne, meaning it would wipe out anyone with Compound V in their blood.
They’re understandably annoyed with Butcher for, well, all of it, but he says he’s devised a new plan: after pulling some strings, he’s got Frenchie out of prison, bringing him in to help Sameer with the finer details.
With his expertise, the hope is to make a supe virus that can take out Homelander and Neuman, but “no one else.” MM’s on board, telling Frenchie and Kimiko to join Sameer, while the rest of them are on the mystery man’s case.
Mother’s Milk has a change of heart
At The Boys’ HQ, MM tells Butcher to go on without him, saying he’s got a few things to sort out with Monique. When they all protest, MM reveals he’s putting Butcher back in charge of The Boys after the incident at Tek’s, which saw him nearly killed.
The old gang are back together with the addition of fake Kessler, who’s happy with the arrangement as it means Butcher will have more power.
MM heads to Monique’s, where he gives her a wad of cash and two one-way tickets to Belize – he wants his ex and his daughter to be as far away as possible when the supe war kicks off.
Out of the blue, Monique kisses him and asks him to go with them, saying, “Let’s be a family again.” MM’s hesitant, but all he’s ever wanted is to be with Monique and Janine – that’ll be one hard offer to turn down.
Ashley and A-Train meet
Back at Vought Tower, Ashley’s drinking alone, crying to an in memoriam segment for Cameron Coleman, which claims that rather than being murdered by The Seven (after he was falsely accused of being the leaker), he died as a “direct result of the flu vaccine.”
A-Train turns up, telling her they know Coleman’s not the leak. She’s a little tipsy, and starts freaking out about the guilt she feels over getting Coleman killed and how “easy it is to become a monster” when you’re surrounded by them.
Ashley suggests they run away together, but A-Train tells her to pull it together, saying she has both their lives in her hands. “Button it up,” he says.
Butcher, Annie, and Hughie are on a mission to find the shooter. As the couple head off, Butcher takes a breather, only to be harrassed by the devil on his shoulder, Kessler. This facet of his brain reminds him of a rather shocking revelation: Butcher “creampied” Queen Maeve – could he have gotten her pregnant?
Imaginary Kessler doesn’t stop there – he’s hellbent on trying to convince Butcher to embrace his dark side and commit supe genocide, asking why Ryan’s so special when he’s not even his own son.
Butcher says he promised Becca, but Kessler says he can’t have cared about her that much, given he cheated on her with a waitress. Kessler continues to taunt him, before Butcher finally tells him, “F*ck off c*nt.” Charming as always.
Shape Shifter is here
Butcher, Annie, and Hughie head into the busted apartment of the mystery man, where they find the Secret Service files Sage handed to him. They contain assignment details for January 6, with a map of the DC fairgrounds where President-elect Robert Singer is having a rally. MM was right – The Seven are planning an assassination.
Their search is interrupted when they hear banging coming from the bedroom. They open a cupboard to find a woman, badly beaten and being held captive. She’s relieved they’re here, saying, “He killed my husband. He held me for days.”
Out of the blue, she pushes Annie and slashes Hughie’s hand before making a run for it. As The Boys chase her down, they notice she’s leaving a trail of blood behind her. Here’s where things get hairy – turns out, they’re actually chasing Shape Shifter, a supe who can alter their form.
After scanning a neighbor along the way, the supe starts ripping their outer layer off in gory fashion, revealing their new form underneath. Before the gang catches up with them, Shape Shifter is gone. Butcher explains that he “hates” shapeshifter supes but admits that they’re the perfect choice for the assassination.
Webweaver faces Homelander’s wrath
A-Train turns up to Mother’s Milk’s place, discovering that he’s planning on leaving with Monique and Janine. A-Train tries to convince him out of it, saying, “You think Homelander and Vought and all this sh*t ain’t coming to Belize? This whole f*cking world? Where’s your family going to go then?”
Back at their makeshift lab, Sameer’s still working on the new virus formulation, with Frenchie as his assistant. Sameer asks him earnestly that the strain he’s working on is just for Homelander and not Neuman – Frenchie nods his head, despite knowing it’s a lie.
We cut to a secret building where Firecracker and Homelander are standing outside of a cell. She claims she’s got the Vought leak, saying, “He confessed to everything.” When they enter the high-security room, we find out it’s Webweaver who’s been framed.
He lets out a nervous fart from his spinneret, alongside a string of wet webbing. “I’m sorry, happens when I’m nervous,” he says. Although we know A-Train’s the real leak, Webweaver confesses to the whole thing, saying he promises to make it up to them (while continuing to spurt a viscous liquid out of his web-hole).
But this is Homelander we’re talking about. Rather than giving Webweaver a second chance, he literally rips him in half with his bare hands before dropping his carcass in the pool of web juice. Even Firecracker looks horrified (no doubt worried he’ll eventually turn on her).
Frenchie and Kimiko make up
The scene cuts to the makeshift lab, where Frenchie and Kimiko have a heart-to-heart. She’s understandably angry at him for admitting himself into prison without speaking with her, and tells him she knows that he felt bad for killing Colin’s family.
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During their chat, Kimiko reveals the real reason she can’t speak. As a captive of the Shining Light Liberation Army, she was made to fight other girls to the death, with the rule being that the first one to scream loses. After Kimiko killed her opponent, when she was allowed to speak again, she couldn’t.
Frenchie tries to reassure her that she “didn’t have a choice,” but she still struggles with the guilt about her past. It’s yet another insight into why their bond is so strong – they truly understand each other. “You shouldn’t hate yourself,” says Frenchie, to which Kimiko replies, “Then neither should you.”
Their friendship is fixed, and as they ponder how to move on from their mistakes, they find their answer in Sameer. Frenchie suggests setting him free once the supe virus is sorted – maybe they can make amends by doing the right thing from now on.
The Deep is done with Ambrosius
Over at The Deep’s place, he heads home from his get together with Sage, but Ambrosius is no fool. She confronts him, saying her suckers can smell Sage on him, and they get into an angry back-and-forth.
“There’s no way Sage cares about you the way I do,” she says, but Deep insists he’s happier with Sage as she tells him he’s a superior being – plus, she has four limbs. As their argument escalates, Deep snaps and smashes her tank before closing the cupboard door, leaving her to slowly suffocate to death.
We cut to Vought Tower, where Deep’s clearly determined to follow the same path as Homelander: shaking off any humanity he once had. “I’ll kill whoever you want me to kill whenever you want me to kill them,” he tells Homelander. “I’ll kill every damn fish in the ocean if you say so.”
Meanwhile, Neuman gets an unexpected visit from Hughie, but she’s preparing to flee New York before things kick off. He wants to level with her, confronting her about working with Homelander and plotting to kill Singer. She insists it’s how politics works – “strange bedfellows” and all that.
Hughie raises the issue of the internment camps. Neuman didn’t know about this part of the plan, but she’s choosing to bury her head in the sand and run. As he leaves, she says she’s sorry to hear about what happened to his dad.
The Boys vs The Seven
Butcher and Annie arrive back at The Boys’ HQ, only to find The Deep there. “Homelander is sick of your sh*t, bro,” he says. “Said to put you out of your misery.” Butcher retorts (once again winning the best line of the episode), “And he sent you. Sure you ain’t too busy tongue-lashing your octopussy?”
Although it clearly gets under his skin, Deep delivers another shocking blow – he’s brought Black Noir 2.0 with him. Deep says he’s “going to enjoy this,” giving a heinous speech about how he’s not sorry for sexually assaulting Annie. “MeToo’s over, sweetheart, it didn’t work,” he tells her.
Chaos ensues, with Annie and The Deep duking it out while Butcher manages to keep Black Noir at bay with his weapons. He runs out of bullets, but just as it looks like Noir’s going to take him out, the supe falls asleep (the new Noir’s narcoleptic, FYI).
Butcher tries to will on the Temp V tumor, hoping to awaken whatever it is in him that killed Ezekiel. Although it doesn’t work, A-Train swoops in and saves Annie. The Deep and Black Noir are shocked to discover their fellow Seven member is the leak.
As A-Train and Deep start brawling, Noir levitates above Butcher, but he’s saved at the last minute again – this time by MM, who starts shooting at Noir with a heavy machine gun. The bullets create enough force to push the supe out the window, leaving A-Train and Annie to double team Deep.
She beats him just enough to knock him out, before Butcher, MM, Annie, and A-Train make a run for it, knowing Noir could return to finish the job at any moment.
A-Train heads over to Ashley’s office, telling her it’s only a matter of time before Homelander finds out he’s the leak and that they should go on the run together. Although it was her idea, she’s too scared to leave. As he heads out the door, she reminds him to cut his tracking chip out.
Meanwhile, MM, Butcher, and Annie drown their sorrows at a dive bar. MM heads off to make a phone call to Monique, who’s at the airport with Janine. He says the “rum punches are going to have to wait” – he’s going to stay and fight.
The truth comes out
Back at Vought Tower, Firecracker comforts Homelander, who’s just found out about A-Train. He’s devastated, wondering how such a close friend could do that to him, while Firecracker’s… well, she’s her usual racist self, saying, “Some folks are just born uppity.”
Sage rocks up, and she’s not happy they sent Deep and Noir after Butcher. Homelander points out that she’s the smartest person in the world, and yet she didn’t know A-Train was the leak. But, in a shocking twist, she reveals, “I knew.”
Firecracker wants to know why she didn’t tell them, having just wrongly killed Webweaver. In a proverbial facepalm, Sage replies, “He was a junkie who would confess to nailing Christ on the cross if it got him home for his next fix.”
Homelander reiterates that he wanted “no more secrets,” but Sage says it was all part of her plan: she was one step ahead of The Boys, making sure that A-Train only leaked the information she wanted Butcher and co. to know. “He was the perfect misinformation delivery system.”
However, Homelander’s had enough – he fires Sage from The Seven. “Fine, surround yourself with people like her,” Sage says. “But there’s one person you’ll never, ever beat.” As she storms out, she leaves her Queen Maeve notebook on the desk.
Firecracker says they “don’t need her” and tries to comfort Homelander by offering to open up her own personal (breast) milk bar, but he tells her to get out. She’s not fired, but it’s glaringly obvious she’s getting on his nerves.
Kimiko loses a leg
A badly beaten Deep and Noir are back at Vought Tower. When Sage storms past them, revealing she got fired, Noir says she can’t leave as he’s in love with her. “Wait, is she lobotomizing herself to f*ck you too?” asks Deep, to which Noir replies, “What do you mean lobotomizing herself?” Ouch.
We cut to the lab, where Sameer has made a working batch of the new supe virus. But the scientist has secretly broken free from his shackles, plunging it into Kimiko’s leg before making a run for it.
As the virus makes its way up Kimiko’s leg, Frenchie has no choice but to chop it off in a scene that wouldn’t be out of place in a Saw movie. After saving her, he puts the infected leg on ice.
The rest of the gang shows up, with Butcher saying all they need to do is extract the virus. Frenchie’s not sure it’ll be strong enough, but MM gives them a pep talk and they get to work.
Ryan gets real
On the set of Vought Kids’ puppet show, Ryan gets a message from his dad, who literally tells him to “suck it up.” The live show proceeds but as the muppets continue to sing their pro-supe song, Ryan tells them to cut.
Butcher’s watching events unfold from the bar (alongside imaginary Kessler), as is Homelander from Vought Tower. Ryan demands for the cameras to continue rolling, saying, “Your family isn’t your enemy. Your family’s all you’ve got.
“I’ve been thinking about my mom a lot lately. She died. But she loved Christmas, and smores with Reese’s and Terms of Endearment. And she loved her husband dearly. But she wouldn’t love this. She wouldn’t want me doing it. My mom always wanted me to tell the truth, which is why…”
Before he finishes his speech, he apologizes and storms off. Butcher turns to Kessler, telling him, “And that is why I’ve got faith in the kid.” But before he can walk away, Butcher starts coughing before passing out.
Shape Shifter causes more trouble
At their home, Hughie confesses to Annie that he went to see Neuman. “I thought maybe I could talk her out of it,” he says, but he gets distracted when Annie walks in wearing her Starlight costume.
After telling him he was right and they’ll take on their problems “one dumpster fire at a time,” things get a little steamy – hey, who doesn’t love a bit of roleplay? One thing leads to another and they have sex, Starlight style.
Once Hughie’s asleep, Annie sneaks over to their safe and gets Hughie’s laptop and harddrive out. And here’s the twist: it’s not Annie at all; it’s the Shape Shifter. The scene cuts to the real Annie, who wakes up chained in a dingy basement.
A flashback scene reveals that a Starlighter who accosted her at the dive bar earlier that day crept up behind her when she went to the toilets and gassed her. While kidnapping Annie, Shape Shifter took on her form before infiltrating her life.
Annie tries to break free but it’s no use – her super strength doesn’t seem to be working and the chains are thick. As for what’s in store for her next, we’ll have to wait for the eighth and final episode of The Boys Season 4 to drop.
You can find out when to tune in with our guide to The Boys Season 4 release schedule. We’ve also got guides on whether Soldier Boy will return, how the supe virus has changed since Gen V, and what a Jabberwock is. For other content, check out the best superhero TV shows, as well as the new series coming to streaming this month.
