[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers through the Season 4 finale of The Boys.]
Susan Heyward knows that the fourth season of Prime Video’s The Boys is much more “on the nose.” As Sage, the smartest person in the world (don’t just say “woman”) her character is the mastermind orchestrating the political chaos that comes to a head in the Season 4 finale — giving her a front-row seat to the mayhem in place.
“It’s really intense — other seasons were a little more subtle,” she tells Consequence. But with Season 4 being much more direct with its themes, for her “it raised the stakes. It left no room for questions. I think it’s very confrontational to the audience, in ways that might not necessarily be as entertaining or as enjoyable, because it’s a bit less of an escape.”
However, she continues, “At the end of the day, I also think it presents an opportunity for us to be culpable, for us to say ‘It’s fun and games, we can laugh about it, but these things are actually happening.’ And after we finish watching, after we turn the computer off, what are we going to do about it? I think it kind of leaves that question in the lap of the audience, more than it has before.”
Heyward and I speak weeks before the season finale premieres on Prime Video, which means neither of us have any idea that the episode will premiere just days after a real-life political assassination attempt. In the aftermath, Prime Video chooses to retitle the episode (originally known as “Assassination Run”) and add a disclaimer to the beginning of the episode about the plotline similarities being “completely coincidental and unintentional.”
Still, the episode now entitled “Season 4 Finale” directly invokes the events of January 6th, 2021, with Sage’s plan coming to fruition with a newly-selected President who will happily kowtow directly to Homelander (Antony Starr).