The Boys Season 4 Episode 5 Highlights and Analysis

Vought’s version of the San Diego Comic-Con, Hugh Sr.’s discovery of his Supe powers, and a bloody farm animal massacre are among the big highlights in The Boys Season 4, Episode 5.

The episode—titled Beware of the Jabberwocky, My Son—begins with a trip to Vought American’s V52 Expo, where faithful fans of The Seven gather in a convention hall to get hyped up over the upcoming movies and TV shows coming from Vought International.

Meanwhile, Hugh Sr. (Simon Pegg) wakes up in the hospital and has no memory of his stroke, telling his estranged wife, Daphne (Rosemarie DeWitt), and son, Hughie (Jack Quaid), that his recovery is a ‘true blue miracle.’

Little does Hugh Sr. know, however, that it was the blue serum known as Compound V that gave him life again when Daphne snuck a vial of it out of Hughie’s pocket and put it in her comatose husband’s IV.

Later in the episode, the show brings back a familiar face from Seasons 1 and 2 of The Boys who made a quick exit from the series in the middle of Season 3. Here are some of the highlights from Beware of the Jabberwocky, My Son.

Following the Firecracker‘s (Valorie Curry) public reveal that Annie January/Starlight (Erin Moriarty) had an abortion, Annie returns to Starlighter Headquarters to discover the office has been vandalized by Home Team supporters.

While assessing the damage at the headquarters, Annie catches Firecracker on her new Truth Bomb show on the Vought News Network, where the Supe continues her attacks on the former member of The Seven.

Later on in the episode, Firecracker confronts Sister Sage for setting up the beatdown she took from Annie during The Truth Bomb marathon show. Sister Sage, meanwhile, is still racking her brain over who is responsible for the video leak that exonerated two Starlighters of killing three Home Team supporters.

The ailing Billy Butcher meets once again with his old CIA buddy Joe Kessler as he continues to plot to save Becca‘s son, Ryan, from his increasingly unstable father (Antony Starr).

Part of Butcher’s plan is to kill Homelander by using the lethal Supe virus that was in development at Godolkin University in The Boys spin-off series Gen V. The virus, however, is now in the possession of secret Supe and Vice President-elect Victoria Neuman and Butcher needs to find out where it is located.

To find out where the Supe-killing virus may be hidden, Butcher asks Mother’s Milk to get a presidential pardon for Stan Edgar. The former Vought CEO is needed by The Boys to figure out where Victoria might have hidden the virus, so he brings them to a remote farm.

It turns out Stan’s suspicions were right, as the farm is the location of a secret lab where Compound V is being tested on farm animals. Victoria shows up just after Stan and The Boys discover the facility. Victoria, Stan, and The Boys find out, though, that her researcher Sameer’s experiments on rabbits, chickens, and sheep have escalated out of control.

After the group survives an attack by Compound V-infused chickens, Butcher calls it a ‘Kentucky fried f—ing massacre.’ But that’s only the beginning of a full-out assault by the farm creatures.

After Sameer demonstrates how the Supe-killing virus works, Butcher and Joe kidnap him to help carry out their plans to kill Homelander.

Baffled by his sudden Supe powers, Hugh Sr. has a manic episode in the hospital and accidentally kills another patient and some staffers. Hughie and Daphne need to find a way to control Hugh Sr. and with his blessing, they make the most difficult decision of their lives.

There’s more Gen V crossover in Beware of the Jabberwocky, My Son, as a pair of principal characters from the show appear at the V52 Expo. VNN anchor Cameron Coleman explains why he had to report on The Deep being fired from The Seven’s Crime Analytics Division because of the data leak that cleared the Starlighters in the murders of the Home Teamers. Coleman said that he needs to take shots at the Home Team once in a while in order to appear ‘fair and balanced,’ which in real life, of course, is the slogan of Fox News.

Ryan begins to take on Homelander’s characteristics by humiliating Vought film director Adam Bourke for his rogue behavior toward his production assistant, Bonnie.

Cameron tells former Vought CEO Ashley Barrett that she’s no longer his dominant in their BDSM relationship, which turns out to be a fatal mistake.

Frenchie is openly self-medicating himself because of the guilt over murdering the family of his boyfriend, Colin, years before. Eventually, Frenchie takes drastic measures to atone for the murders.

After a heavy emphasis on politics and Homelander’s fragile psyche in the first half of Season 4 of The Boys, showrunner Eric Kripke gives viewers a mental health break with Beware of the Jabberwocky, My Son.

As such, the episode is decidedly lighter and more irreverent in tone than the first four episodes of The Boys this season, as Jabberwocky focuses on the elements of what made it so fun to watch in the first place.

To set the stage, Kripke playfully takes a jab at the Marvel Cinematic Universe by unveiling its lineup of upcoming Supe movies, which, like the MCU, are presented in phases. Vought is way ahead of the MCU, though, as The Deep highlights Phases 7 through 19.

Also satirized at the V52 Expo are Hollywood‘s diversity initiatives at the expense of the racist and tone-deaf marketers at Vought International. In addition, Kripke takes a swipe at the faith-based film industry with the announcement of the new Vought Faith film Firecracker: Lord’s Soldier.

Among the more hilarious moments at the V52 Expo comes with the return of Will Ferrell as a running coach in a trailer for Training A-Train, which stars, of course, A-Train.

Still, the comedy is no match for the laugh-out-loud funny farm massacre scenes, where the action gets bat(bleep) crazy as chickens impale humans and feral sheep take flight and rip everything in sight to shreds.

Matching the high comedy—and body count—of the farm scenes is Hugh Sr.’s bloody rampage at the hospital as he desperately tries to figure out his superpowers. The scenes are tempered, however, by the sad consequences that come with Hugh Sr.’s actions.

All told, Beware of the Jabberwocky, My Son may be the goriest episode of The Boys this season and as such, the most entertaining. Of course, the gore is never done for the sake of having gore, though, as every bloody move has a purpose behind it.

Creating the fine balance between the action, gore, and sharp satirical storytelling has always been one of the biggest appeals for fans of The Boys, and it’s great to see the second half of Season 4 return back to the show’s original form. One can only hope that Kripke can maintain that balance for the remainder of the season.

New episodes of The Boys Season 4 debut every Thursday on Prime Video.