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‘The Boys’ Suffers Growing Pains in Its Darkest Season Yet: TV Review


In its long-awaited Season 4, Amazon satire 'The Boys' shows some growing pains in its darkest season yet.

But Season 4 marks the most central this parallel version of American government has ever been to the core story, with all eight episodes unfolding between the election of anti-“supe” presidential candidate Robert Singer (Jim Beaver) and the vote’s certification on — brace yourself — January 6th. Figures like Elizabeth Warren and AOC canonically exist on “The Boys,” and in lieu of inventing outrageous positions for its fictional conservatives, the writers simply insert familiar ones like “Jewish space lasers” and “legitimate rape.” The tactic is quite effective, showing how seamlessly the circus in Washington blends into a landscape where the Aquaman analog has sex with an octopus. Amazon itself gets a nudge when a bloody fight spills over into a “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”-themed bat mitzvah; a push to promote diversity in the Seven is dubbed “Black At It.” But while the show began primarily as a parody of oppressively dominant superhero franchised, it’s become an indictment of an overlapping series of systems and the noxious ideology that underlies them.

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