‘The Boys’ Season 4 Episode 1 Recap & Review: Butcher Dances With Victoria

Warning: Spoilers ahead for The Boys Season 4, Episode 1 “Department of Dirty Tricks.”

The wait is finally over and the three-part premiere of Prime Video‘s hit superhero series is now streaming everywhere. The Boys Season 4, Episode 1 is an instant hit that feels quintessentially like The Boys, but also brings a fresh new flair in the form of new characters and new challenges.

Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) and The Boys aren’t up against anything they haven’t seen before, but they handle the task in front of them with all the dysfunction you’d expect. The first episode relies on several details from past seasons and the spin-off Gen V while laying the groundwork for episodes to come; be sure you didn’t miss any details with our recap of The Boys Season 4, Episode 1 “Department of Dirty Tricks.”

Billy Butcher Is in Bad Shape in ‘The Boys’ Season 4, Episode 1

After a long recap of Season 3, The Boys Season 4, Episode 1 opens to Vice President-elect Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) taking the stage to announce Colorado and Nevada just went to Robert Singer (Jim Beaver). Meanwhile, Kimiko (Karen Fukahara) pushes a tray with food to a van where Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) is sitting, and she and Frenchie (Tomer Capone) tell him he needs to eat.

Inside the building, Hughie (Jack Quaid) and Annie (Erin Moriarty) get The Boys into the security system, but Butcher isn’t on comms. The camera cuts to him throwing up in an alley, and Frenchie and Kimiko give him a suit to wear, but he throws it in the trash. The guard at the door lets them in and they go to take the elevator up to Neuman’s room, but Kimiko won’t let Butcher in the elevator.

The camera cuts to Homelander (Antony Starr) in the bathroom plucking a gray pubic hair. He then walks into the lobby to talk to his son Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) and Homelander tells him he has nothing to be nervous about. He tells his son, “They’re only humans and toys for our amusement.” In the van, MM (Mother’s Milk) notices Homelander is in the building but tells them not to engage.

Homelander and Victoria Neuman Take the Stage Together

Victoria and her daughter Zoe (Olivia Morandin) approach Homelander, who tells them they look beautiful before Victoria sends the kids to go get ice cream. Victoria asks what he’s doing here and says she doesn’t want his support because he’s on trial for murder. He replies that people cheered when he killed him, but she argues his shareholders didn’t. She says any transaction they had in the past is ancient history, and he introduces her to the crowd.

Butcher confronts Ryan in the hotel kitchen and asks him to leave with him and go to Grace Mallory (Laila Robins), but Homelander comes in and interjects. The leader of The Seven uses his X-Ray vision to see the tumor on Butcher’s brain and chides that it’s too bad they won’t have that last dance. Ryan leaves with Homelander while Kimiko and Frenchie break into Victoria’s hotel room until her daughter Zoe walks in.

Zoe unleashes tentacles out of her face and takes out the guards, while Kimiko grabs Frenchie, and they jump out of the building from several stories up. Annie catches Frenchie, but Kimiko falls flat on her face and quickly regenerates her limbs. Meanwhile, Victoria opens the door of the van on Hughie, and he tries to kill her with the acid Frenchie made earlier in the episode, but it doesn’t work. Butcher then shows up and shoots her in the head, but nothing happens so she goes inside to change.

Victoria Neuman and Robert Singer Are Using Each Other in ‘The Boys’

The Boys Season 4, Episode 1 continues when MM meets with Grace and Singer, but they don’t let Butcher into the meeting because he screwed up with Ryan. The President-elect says the top priority is to eliminate Victoria and MM gets a phone call from his ex-wife Monique (Frances Turner). Outside the office, Joe Kessler (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) visits Butcher and they share a cup of coffee. Butcher says he’s still focused on Homelander after he killed the innocent man in broad daylight.

Kessler asks if his eye is on the ball and reminds him what they did back in the day. He tells Butcher they could use someone like him, and the camera cuts to Monique visiting MM. She drops the news that their daughter Janine (Liyou Abere) got into a fight at school and knocked out a boy, and has also been slamming doors and cursing at her mother. She asks MM to find Todd (Matthew Gorman) for his daughter, and he reluctantly agrees.

We then cut to Homelander who is flashing back through everything he’s done in past seasons. He wakes up and it cuts to him in a courtroom listening to Ashley (Colby Minifie), and other members of The Seven. Ashley asks The Deep (Chace Crawford) if the octopus is taken care of, and he says yes. She pulls up a new list of candidates to potentially join The Seven, and Homelander gets tired of everyone just agreeing with him because they’re scared of him.

Homelander Is Sick of The Deep in ‘The Boys’ Season 4

Homelander remarks how he’s surrounded by imbeciles and he asks Deep to blow A-Train (Jessie T. Usher). Deep is about to do it out of pure fear and Homelander tells him to get off his knees. He asserts that none of them have the stomach to challenge anything he says, and the camera cuts to Butcher looking at an old photo of him and his wife Becca (Shantel VanSanten). Meanwhile, Annie tests her power of flight inside The Boys’ HQ.

Hughie gets a call from his dad Hugh (Simon Pegg) and ignores it while Frenchie is upset about the acid not working. Annie and MM try to convince Hughie to cut Butcher loose, but he won’t hear of it. Meanwhile, Butcher meets with Victoria inside Vought Video. He asks for her help to get rid of Homelander and says he knows about the virus from Gen V, but he also knows it isn’t strong enough to kill Homelander, yet.

Victoria asks Butcher for a show of good faith and asks him to delete the dirt Hughie has on her. Back at HQ, Hughie gets a call from the hospital letting him know his father was admitted so he runs to visit him. The camera then cuts to someone watching Firecracker’s (Valorie Curry) live show inside the Starlight House. Annie’s employees say if they want to make a difference they need her to be Starlight, not Annie, but she refuses.

Homelander Pays Sister Sage a Visit in “Department of Dirty Tricks”

After Annie introduced Frenchie to Colin (Elliot Knight), the two share a nice moment and Kimiko notices them talking. Homelander gets dressed and notices another gray pube which he puts in a jar of similar items in his drawer. He looks through potential candidates for The Seven and zeroes in on Sister Sage (Susan Heyward). He then pays a visit to her apartment and asks her to show him her intelligence, so she spits out all the current details about his life.

Homelander is irritated yet impressed and asks her for life advice. He retorts that it’s all meaningless, and he’s pissed off that humans are toys, but they control everything. She argues he needs to let the people tear themselves apart and then swoop in to save the day. He asks her to join The Seven, but when she says no, he offers her the chance to put her theories into practice on a global scale, and she can’t refuse.

Hughie goes back to The Boys’ office to find Butcher, and he tells him about his dad. He feels guilty he didn’t answer his phone earlier, but Butcher reminds him it isn’t his fault. Hughie notices Butcher shaking and Butcher says he hopes his old man pulls through and hugs him. Hughie leaves with Annie but Butcher secretly swipes the flash drive from him before he goes. MM, Frenchie, and Kimiko tail Todd until he reaches a meeting with other Homelander fans and Sister Sage.

Homelander Is Found Innocent in ‘The Boys’ Season 4, Episode 1

Sister Sage brings Todd and the other Homelander fans inside to meet him, and A-Train, Deep, and Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) are all there too. Homelander comes in and thanks his fans and then asks the members of The Seven to kill them. They laugh and ask if it’s a test, but when he reveals it isn’t, they kill Todd and his two friends. Sister Sage then tells them to stay there and await further instruction. Homelander leaves and goes to the courthouse where he’s found innocent, and Sister Sage starts a fight outside.

She slithers back into the crowd after starting the fight and watches the chaos unfold. Annie is with Hughie when they see what’s happening on TV, and he tells her to go. The Boys help the Starlight fans and when Frenchie saves Colin, they kiss. A-Train, Deep, and Noir sit with the bodies until A-Train gets a text and carries one of them out. Homelander exits the courthouse and vaguely tries to calm everyone down, and Annie shows up and asks them to stop fighting.

Annie saves one of her friends then calls for medical attention and the camera pans to the three men Homelander had killed earlier lying on the sidewalk. After the fight, Homelander sits in his room with Ryan drinking Milk, but Ryan doesn’t want any when Homelander asks him. Meanwhile, The Deep sits in his room scrubbing blood off his gloves and talking to his octopus girlfriend Ambrosius (Tilda Swinton), who says they should leave Vought Tower and venture into the sea.

Butcher Has a Vision in ‘The Boys’ Season 4 Premiere

Colin and Frenchie lay in bed together, and when Frenchie gets up to get water, he notices a picture of Colin’s family and realizes he killed them long ago. Hughie sits in the hospital with his dad listening to old voicemails when Hughie’s mom (Rosemarie DeWitt) walks in, and the camera cuts to Butcher deleting Hughie’s file on Victoria.

Billy then has another vision of his wife Becca, and she reminds him he promised her he’d take care of Ryan. He argues that he’s trying and turns around to keep talking to her, but she’s gone. He texts Victoria that he has the files, and she opens the text to see a picture of his ass and the camera cuts back to him drinking in the office as the episode fades to black.

The first part in the three-episode premiere of The Boys Season 4 is a powerful return to form. Billy Butcher and his gang are up to all their normal hijinxs, while The Seven and Vought are even more unhinged than in seasons past. There’s a lot of story left to tell in Chapter 4, but The Boys are undoubtedly off to a hot start.

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