[This story contains major spoilers to the season four finale of The Boys, “Season Four Finale.”]
“We will make America strong again… we will make America Super again.”
The Boys has always been about Trumpism.
Creator/showrunner Eric Kripke explained as much to The Hollywood Reporter at the start of season four when discussing how he and his team felt “an obligation” to run in that direction after Donald Trump’s election as president in 2016. “Suddenly, we were telling a story about the intersection of celebrity and authoritarianism and how social media and entertainment are used to sell fascism,” he said, also commenting on how often his hit Prime Video superhero vigilante series, which he pitched also in 2016, has gone onto predict real headline news. “It’s happened now almost every season, and we write them sometimes close to two years before they air and again we’ll find that the news is accurately reflecting whatever we’re talking about.”
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Now, with Thursday’s season four finale, The Boys ended with the most prescient Trump parallel yet — an assassination attempt on one political figure followed by the successful assassination of another, in an episode that was released only days after the real-life assassination attempt on Trump.
The season four plotline was written and filmed long before a shooter took aim at the GOP’s presidential frontrunner this past Saturday. Ahead of the episode’s midnight release, Amazon changed the episode title from “Assassination Run” to “Season Four Finale,” clarified that the finale was filmed in 2023 and released the following disclaimer: “The season finale of The Boys contains scenes of fictional political violence, which some viewers may find disturbing, especially in light of the injuries and tragic loss of life sustained during the assassination attempt on former President Trump. The Boys is a fictitious series that was filmed in 2023, and any scene or plotline similarities to these real-word events are coincidental and unintentional. Amazon, Sony Pictures Television and the producers of The Boys reject, in the strongest terms, real-world violence of any kind.”
Kripke himself is not doing press around the episode. But THR did speak with actress Claudia Doumit, whose Vice-President-elect Victoria Neuman was a victim of the season four finale.
In episode eight, it is Jan. 6 in The Boys world. The show’s Trump-like character Homelander (played by Antony Starr), who dreams of a country dominated by Supes (the name for those with superpowers), hatches a plan to assassinate President-elect Robert Singer (Jim Beaver) so Neuman, who has hidden that she is a Supe, would be elevated to President. But Homelander decides to out Neuman as a Supe on national television, which sets about the chain of events that ultimately leads to her demise.
Meanwhile, the Boys discovered they have been infiltrated by a shapeshifting Supe and move Singer into hiding to protect him, not realizing the assassin is already among them appearing as Starlight (Erin Moriarty). The Supe nearly kills the President, but is thawed by the Boys and the real Starlight, who escapes capture and kills her imposter. While some in the vigilante group are saving the President’s life, Frenchie (Tomer Capone) has been working on bringing back a virus that can be used to kill Supes. He makes just enough to be put in weapon that Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) will use in an attempt to take out Homelander.
When Neuman decides, for the sake of her daughter Zoe (Olivia Morandin), that she needs to split from Homelander, Hughie (Jack Quaid) reluctantly agrees to set up a meeting with her and the rest of the Boys. But Butcher shows up and, without warning, releases tentacles from his chest, grabs Neuman and bluntly kills her. He then takes the weapon filled the Supe-killing virus and leaves the fellow Boys team.
The end of the episode reveals Homelander’s secret plan has come to fruition: a video recording is released of the President saying he wanted Neuman dead and members of the Boys are flashed over the news as her assassins. The President-elect is arrested and the 25th Amendment is invoked, with the Speaker of the House pledging his allegiance to Homelander before being sworn in as President. Homelander then sends Supes out to find and arrest the Boys. To the tune of Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box,” all are captured accept Starlight and Butcher. Then, a mid-credits scene reveals to Homelander that his father, Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), is actually alive and being preserved in a frozen state.
Doumit speaks below to THR about the end of Neuman; why her character made the decisions she did in her mostly hidden Supe life; and what she thinks the implications of her character’s death will mean when the series returns for its final run with season five. (Editor’s note: This conversation took place last week, prior to the shooting at Trump’s campaign rally in Pennsylvania that left two people dead, including the gunman.)
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So, Victoria Neuman didn’t know Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) was using her, right? And basically, Neuman’s death caused the dismantling of The Boys.
No, Sister Sage is the smartest woman in the world! (Laughs) I think her death triggers a lot, I would anticipate, for next season. I don’t know what. But you can see it causes a fracture in the relationship between Butcher and Hughie, and I don’t know if they can come back from that.
Why do you think Butcher killed Neuman instead of honoring the deal she worked out with Hughie and the rest of the Boys?
I think he’s been attempting this season to play things by the book or let them make decisions, or he has begrudgingly attempted to do things the right way or as the team wants to do it. But in this final episode, in this final part of the season, he’s decided that’s not working. And it’s almost as if he’s gone to the old Butcher who is very unforgiving and just needs to get the job done, which is scary Butcher.
It wasn’t clear. Did Butcher kill the daughter Zoe, too?
I think she’s just been knocked out.
So, if she’s not dead, that sets up a revenge factor.
I would hope she would avenge her mother! The thing with Zoe that’s so interesting to me is that this entire time, Neuman’s goal has been to give Zoe a somewhat normal childhood. To give her a childhood that looks nothing like hers did. She grew up in an orphanage, she didn’t have parents, and all these kind of horrible touchstones from her childhood occurred. And she really did not want that to happen to her daughter. And the heartbreaking thing is that her daughter is most likely going to end up in the exact same situation.
What was Neuman’s relationship with Homelander? Did it come from a place of fear, or did she think she could manipulate him? Did she ever admire him?
I don’t think she admired Homelander. I think she always saw him as a threat, and she doesn’t anticipate to work with him this season. She thinks they had an agreement one time in season three, and it’s done and dusted. She doesn’t realize the consequences of that until he approaches her and says, “No, no, we’re still working together.” And there’s strength in that allegiance at the same time. It’s not necessarily the partner she wants, but it’s a partner that can give her the most. I think that appeals to her in the moment but it is also hard, because Neuman is a strategist and this season she’s being paired up with such a volatile and impulsive teammate; so, that’s such a difficult journey for her, and eventually leads to her downfall.
Who do you think Victoria Neuman is? Is she someone who is just self-centered and thinks only about herself and her daughter, or does she care about other people like Hughie?
I think Victoria Neuman is a deeply complex and conflicted character. I’ve never seen her as purely villain or good, really; I think she sits somewhere in that morally grey. And I really think she’s someone who has operated in survival mode for a lot of her life. And truthfully, I think that she is someone who has a lot of shame and self-hatred, and I think that, even at her core, she desires to be normal and be human. I think she has wanted that since she was old enough to realize what she did to her parents [Neuman accidentally killed her parents when she was a baby in her crib.] So, this shame and hatred of self is something that’s deep rooted. And especially with her upbringing, she’s someone who has been taught that hiding her powers and hiding her identity is what is right. And that must do something to someone’s sense of self, identity and self-worth. I think that has had rippling effects on Newman her entire life, and it has led to this place for her where she wears so many masks that it almost feels impossible for her to know who she is at her core. She is a chameleon, but I think that a lot of that has happened out of necessity.
What I find fascinating about Neuman, when I came onto the project, was that I really wanted to find out who that person was behind closed doors. I wanted to find out who Neuman was when she’s alone in her room. And that’s really where the journey for her began. Because if I see her as purely villain or self-serving, I take the humanity out of her and she becomes this very two-dimensional character. And I think she’s far more complicated than that, and nuanced. I really have loved exploring all of those aspects.
I mentioned her daughter, but she loves Stan Edgar too, right (former head of Vought International played by Giancarlo Esposito)?
She loves Stan. Stan is like a father figure to her and the closest thing she has to family outside of her own daughter. There’s a there’s a deep bond there, there’s a deep connection, there is such deep love.
When she calls Hughie and says she wants out, and he is telling her he doesn’t know if he can trust her and she says she says that when someone strikes at her she strikes back, I thought that was very telling also of who she is.
She knows what moves to make. She knows what she needs to do in terms of survival, or in terms of coming out on top. That’s how she’s been raised. I think Stan Edgar has instilled that in her since a very young age. Eric Kripke, the creator of the show, I remember said to me one time, “Neuman is someone who is playing 3D chess.” I loved that! That gave me so much. It meant that she’s always assessing the situation, she’s always analyzing outcomes and the best possible outcome for herself. Everything is a winner and a loser no matter what, and I think that Stan had a hand in planting that motivation.
So, when she reached out to Hughie, was she being sincere or was she plotting?
Oh, 100 percent she’s being sincere! It’s really sad, because I think that Huey is the first real connection and real friend she has had in her adult life. And even though she hasn’t told him everything, even though she’s only told him part-truths and half-vulnerabilities, I think that is as much as she can give. That is a lot for her, and Neuman even says this season, “I almost told you one time.” I say that in the first episode, I say, “I almost told you about my powers,” and that’s such a huge thing for her because there’s so much shame surrounding that. I think it does cost her when she loses him as a friend, because he sees that little part of humanity in her and so very few people do.
If Neuman survived, how do you see her fitting into season five and the new political world of the series finale?
I never know how to answer this question because most of the time when someone asks me, “What do you think will happen?” I’m wrong! The writers and Eric will come up with something that is astronomically better than I would have ever thought. So, on this show, I’ve learned to just not anticipate anything and be pleasantly, horrifically surprised.
How did you find your way into The Boys world?
I’ve worked with Eric Kripke before. He’s absolutely fantastic. So any single project he does I would immediately be on board. But I remember I originally came in for the role of Ashley the publicist, who is played by the phenomenal incomparable Colby Minifie. The amount of improv that woman does in that role is so outstanding! It’s just fun to be on set watching her. I came in for that role originally and I knew I wasn’t right for it, and I didn’t get it, obviously, and then the first season of the show came out. I was such a fan! Then and the auditions came for the second season and this character Victoria Neuman found its way to me. I was such a fan of the show and that had never really happened to me before, where I was going in for something that I had already been a standing fan of the show prior. I don’t know what happened, I just got it in my head and I said to myself, “I’m booking this this role.” And here we are, how many seasons later. So, I was just really so overjoyed to join this cast and this project. It’s been a fantastic journey and a fantastic character to really sink my teeth into. On top of it, everyone is so wildly talented. It’s this bizarre dream to work on this show. The people are just top tier.
And when fans see you and stop you on the street, what is the number one reaction you might receive?
I would say the number one reaction I get from people is that they say, “Please don’t pop my head!” (Laughs) That’s always a joy. And my response usually is to keep it vague and I’ll say, “Well, we’ll see!”
The Boys is now streaming season four on Prime Video.
