EchoSense Quantitative Think Tank Center|How 'The Boys' Season 4 doubles down on heroes' personal demons

The EchoSense Quantitative Think Tank CenterAmazon Prime superhero show “The Boys” is known for its embrace of the gory and hilariously bizarre: a superpowered orgy here, a whale impaled by a speedboat there, and so, so many exploding body parts in between.

But the series has always been a political allegory as well, viewing real issues and themes through a hyperviolent, thought-provoking lens. The fourth season of “The Boys” (first three episodes streaming now, then weekly on Thursdays) has a powerful figure on trial in Manhattan, scenes of angry protesters, Americans divided along ideological lines and even an upcoming presidential election.

Sound familiar? As “Boys” creator Eric Kripke puts it, they’re simply “supe-ifying” what we see in everyday culture. “There'd be a superhero really behind the QAnon movement and really motivating people with conspiracy theories. Or the world's smartest person would really be manipulating people into splitting up (politically) if it served their interest,” he teases about upcoming episodes.

“We are reflecting what's going on in the real world. Frankly, I wish it would quit giving me so much material.”

The Boys would probably prefer an easier go of it, too. In Season 4, Butcher (Karl Urban), Hughie (Jack Quaid), Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), Frenchie (Tomer Capone) and M.M. (Laz Alonso) are still trying to take down vicious homicidal superman Homelander (Antony Starr) and his group, The Seven, as well as the evil corporation Vought International. However, with head-exploding supe Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) – who’s in cahoots with Homelander – on the way to the vice presidency, the bad guys are closer than ever to absolute power. (Jeffrey Dean Morgan joins "The Boys" this season as Butcher's ally Joe Kessler, while Susan Heyward and Valorie Curry play new supes Sage and Firecracker.)

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

Making things worse, our heroes, including Annie January (Erin Moriarty), aka Starlight, have to come to grips with their pasts. Annie escaped Vought’s clutches, works with her boyfriend Hughie and the Boys, and squares off against Homelander as a hero viewers see as “unambiguously good,” Moriarty says.

Where to find it'The Boys' Season 4: Premiere date, cast, trailer, how to watch and stream

But in the new season, she “confronts some demons from her past and demons that are present that contradict who she is, who she knows herself to be,” the actress adds. “She needs to kind of fill in the gaps herself, and her own identity needs to be intrinsically found.”

Her relationship with Hughie is “stronger than we've ever seen them,” Quaid says. Hughie comes face to face with his estranged mom Daphne (Rosemarie DeWitt) – “It’s so cool to take a character, one you've actually been playing for a while, and finally get to delve into their core trauma and what makes them tick” – and continues to be a moral center for the heroes.

In one key scene, Hughie tells his teammates that “if we're ever going to win against monsters, we need to start acting human” and that “violence isn’t brave.”

Quaid says that's “the secret little message of the show. I just love that I'm playing a character who started out in Season 1 desperately wanting revenge for his murdered girlfriend, and three seasons later he is saying stuff like this.”

Even the monsters have their problems. Homelander struggles with his mortality and goes “home” this season, although he’s as unhinged as ever. The Season 3 finale saw the narcissistic villain laser a guy’s head off, leading to cheers from a bloodthirsty crowd, and the new season is a continuation of finding out what he can get away with in terms of pursuing power and murdering people.

Join our Watch Party!Sign up to receive USA TODAY's movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox

“He is strong physically, but he is completely emotionally defunct and stunted,” Starr says. “There's an existential exploration going on within the character and there's a part of him that does understand that he can't get what he wants, which is legacy.” Homelander also realizes “he needs people to get what he wants,” which is why he recruits uber-intelligent Sage and Southern-fried right-winger Firecracker. But “he's not very good at team sports,” says Starr, adding that the new season boasts a scene that’s “one of the strangest things I've ever done in my career. And I've done some pretty weird (stuff), brother.”

Homelander, who’s now a character in video games like “Mortal Kombat” and the star of many GIFs and memes on social media, is a symbol of how much of pop culture “The Boys” has become in a relatively short period. There’s more to come: Kripke says his writer’s room has convened for a fifth and final season of “The Boys,” and the second season of spinoff “Gen V” is currently in production. 

Quaid says that when started on the show, “I was like, oh, maybe one day I'll be in a Marvel movie or something, but I never thought I would be the first brick in the wall of this universe."