The Boys Podcast Season 4 Episode 7

[00:00:00] This is The Boys Podcast on TV Podcast Industries and we're talking about Season 4 Episode 7, The Insider

[00:01:05] Welcome back fellow boys and girls to TV Podcast Industries and The Boys Podcast. We're here talking about Season 4 Episode 7, The Insider which of course is the penultimate episode for this season of The Boys. I am one of your hosts, John.

[00:01:48] I'm your other host, Derek. The Insider as an episode title for The Boys after last week's episode. Could have gone anywhere. Could have gone absolutely anywhere, couldn't it? Yeah, large intestine, small intestine, interim. We've seen a lot of insides. Nose cavity, eunanas. And lots of other calories too.

[00:02:07] Yeah, yeah. But it does refer to the member of the seven that's The Insider who they're looking for. Of course this is a spoiler filled podcast so if you don't know The Insider is just yet to make sure you've watched the episode before we go on.

[00:02:20] Well that is true because I'm about to spoil it because speaking of a train, I think he speaks for everyone when he says who prints out boarding passes anyway? What are you, 86 years old? I love that one.

[00:02:34] Absolutely. And I do agree with him, however coming from the era of paper and printing stuff out it was always to begin with from an electronic point of view have you back up in paper form.

[00:02:51] And there are many times when I'm like going, I hope my mobile phone doesn't have charge before I like manage to scan it.

[00:03:00] Yeah, the amount of times we've gone on late flights like when you leave your hotel at 10am and you're flying at 10pm and you're going, oh I hope my phone lasts 12 hours. I can't play my games for too long on my phone.

[00:03:10] So absolutely agree with A train but I do also have a soft spot for Mother's Mill. And what he's doing. Definitely get it. I get it.

[00:03:24] But before we get into this week's episode, let's have a chat about some of the feedback on last week's episode from our wonderful fellow boys and girls, John. Yes, let us get into our feedback section for episode six, last week's episode.

[00:03:37] Just a quick reminder for all you fellow boys and girls, you can send in your thoughts, theories, observations, comments. You name it to feedback at TVpodcastindustries.com.

[00:03:49] We are of course over on Facebook with our Facebook group and you can respond with your thoughts, theories, observations, comments and anything else to our spoiler filled posts. Over on Facebook.com forward slash groups forward slash TV podcast industries.

[00:04:09] You can also send us a postcard, write us a letter and of course we do have voicemail as well through our website over at TVpodcastindustries.com. Yes, one of those three things is true.

[00:04:23] You don't have our postal address so you can't send us any of the other things. But let's start out with John in Chicago and his email John. Yes, John in Chicago says, hi all.

[00:04:34] Has anyone pointed out that Jeffrey Dean Morgan also played an invisible character in Grey's Enosomy? He was Catherine Heigl's dead love interest in quite a few episodes. I believe it was the first place I noticed him because he's quite charming in that run.

[00:04:50] Anyway, that is what immediately jumped to mind when Chris suggested he may not actually be real to anyone outside of Butcher. I wonder if the casting choice was a nod to that character. John from Chicago.

[00:05:04] It very may well be but certainly Kripke has employed Jeffrey Dean Morgan quite substantially on Supernatural. Yes, in the past so there is previous collaborations there between the two. Absolutely. And I would say it's probably that but you never know.

[00:05:24] Kripke may have also spotted him on Grey's Enosomy at some point. I think he might have maybe written the character towards that from Grey's Anatomy. I've never seen that on Grey's Anatomy but I do remember when Jeffrey Dean Morgan came on as Negan in The Walking Dead.

[00:05:38] There were two schools of people that knew JDM and it was either you knew him from Grey's Anatomy as this lovely character who was really sweet and really charming

[00:05:47] or you knew him from Supernatural as the kind of gruff hunter who was the father to the two boys and they were searching for him or working with him throughout Supernatural.

[00:05:55] So, you either knew him from those two roles and wondering whether he'd be able to play this really evil character in Negan in The Walking Dead was where everybody came to it from. Absolutely.

[00:06:06] Especially after Grey's Anatomy if you only knew him from there and then you saw him with Negan in The Walking Dead. You probably weren't very prepared for where he went. I knew him from Supernatural really. Yeah, me too. Yeah, that's a great pick up though John.

[00:06:21] I didn't realise that he played an invisible character as well over there and we get the big reveal at the end of episode six that he isn't real, that he's inside the head of Billy Butcher as well. Definitely. Thanks John. Great name as well. Of course. Of course.

[00:06:36] Coffee and Vodka sends in his email. About last week's episode he said, As to the social commentary, the criminal justice system has an extension of the slavery it's always been and the banter of the one percenter attendees.

[00:07:13] Stopping now before this breaks out into a novel but just a couple of episodes to go and predicting the cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers this season. Five cinematic safe words, cake hold geniuses and Kamiko book hunts out of five peace and take care, coffee and vodka.

[00:07:29] I don't know if I mentioned last week the way Kamiko was communicating using all the book titles. No, I don't think we did yet. Using the first line of books that should go. It was quite hilarious actually.

[00:07:38] It was very good, yeah it was very good because she does tend to, if she wants to expedite a conversation she'll tend to type it into her phone but she didn't have access to the phone. But thank God he had a good library. Yes, massive library.

[00:07:47] Because otherwise it may have taken quite a bit longer. Exactly, it's for the children. Yes, so really, really, really good. And you're totally right, yeah Hughie's performance was really, really good. Kobe Minofi in this show.

[00:08:00] I remember we watched her for the first time back in season one of Jessica Jones and she was playing a really, really irritating character in that show.

[00:08:08] And I remember when we were commenting on the character it was like, oh God I wish she just wouldn't be on screen anymore. Ashley is a really annoying character but I absolutely love her on screen.

[00:08:18] There were point in that behind the scenes stuff that's available on the X-ray on Prime Video. They had a conversation where they were talking about her performance where when she's kicked out of the sevens room,

[00:08:29] when she's in there too long for a meeting and Homeland of Kicks are out, that she basically spent about five minutes dropping things on the ground and making a really awkward exit to the room

[00:08:39] to the point that they had to eventually edit it then but she just had this whole interplay of how awkward this character would be being kicked out of a room because she's supposed to be the CEO of the company but is terrified of her life at all times

[00:08:51] so she's like dropping a pen, dropping a book, picking it up, trying to make her way out there silently and easily but still annoying the hell out of Homeland. And they just said this is a performance that comes directly from Kobe Minofi,

[00:09:01] much like most of the other people in the show have brought their own personality to the character. She really has developed into someone that's so worth watching every episode now. Love her. Oh absolutely I think Kobe Minofi is absolutely superb. I love the character.

[00:09:16] I can just sense I would be exactly the same. That whole timid CEO with this powerful psycho in Homeland like that whole thing. Montana Shard necessary be sort of in the tech cave, not that side of her but I think she just plays it really, really well.

[00:09:39] But you kind of get the feeling that she was CEO of any other company that didn't involve Soops having the ability to cut her in half with their eyes that she'd probably be a very powerful character in those situations.

[00:09:49] She's not that timid but in comparison to what they're doing to people, she's very timid in comparison to them. Yeah exactly. Good stuff thanks Coffee and Vodka. Thanks Coffee Minofi. Loving the old out of fives as well. That always. Very good stuff.

[00:10:04] Also on email Merrill says another boys episode gone by a more trauma for old Huey. Firecracker may want to change her name to Mother's Milk after this episode. Very good. Good God that scene. Happy fourth in D's.

[00:10:19] I think Anthony Star's reaction was 100% his real reaction and the first so they kept it in. A Train's redemption is coming together really nicely and he's definitely not making it out of this season. Love the dynamic between Newman and Sage. The head nod scene was hilarious.

[00:10:40] And let's not forget the star of the episode Derek Wilson as Technite. He really captured this perfect balance of depravity, entitlement and sadism in a way that made you afraid of what he'll do.

[00:10:54] But also intrigue of what insane thing he'll do next and how many holes it will involve. And the Elijah situation definitely involved Technite family owning him from back in the day. He pretty said so in the scene with a train but just going through it as always,

[00:11:14] Homelander has finally achieved his dream. In an earlier episode, Frenchy had found some medication in Firecracker's trailer. So this must have been what that was about. What's hilarious is that Sage made this exact suggestion to Ashley to get in good with Homelander.

[00:11:32] 4 and a half rip off Spidey outfits with a safe word out of five. Excellent stuff, Meryl. Really completely agree with your lovely out of five really good stuff. I think Technite even in Gen V he was really kind of good.

[00:11:51] He came in just for that kind of main episodes really. And he really nailed it and I think you're right, did the same here. Just both a combination of depravity as you say but just like shock horror, the sadism, everything. Even having Ashley involved, so good.

[00:12:13] Anthony Starr's reaction really good as well. Apparently it was almond milk. So there we go, you're never drinking that again. Yeah, it'll be a big reminder of what happens in that scene definitely. I love the head nodding scene between Newman and Sage as well. So so good.

[00:12:33] Definitely, definitely. And Meryl, that's a really good pull of the Elijah situation developing from Technite's family eventually having his family as slaves way back in the day and keeping him on board there. And kind of again explains when Elijah finds out the truth of what's going to happen

[00:12:48] that that's why he takes out Technite. He probably thinks, oh well it's not too bad. He's just doing S&M with people that are into it so I can take care of that. But when he finds out how bad it's gone, I suppose.

[00:13:00] You can understand why Elijah would take it all in him. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, great stuff. Thanks Meryl. Over on our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash TV podcast industries. Heather Wallace said, I don't want to think about most of what happened in that episode

[00:13:14] so I'm just going to focus on Chris being right. The Kessler was the figment of Butcher's brain tumour. The Meryl Quandre of Will Butcher set genocide emotion and wanted to hug Kimiko for having nowhere else to go.

[00:13:26] Yes, at least there were other things to focus on in the episodes. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Good stuff. Thanks Heather. Dr Bob Phillips said, I've never thought about the pharmacognetics of rectal midazolum. The challenge of induced lactation or the problems of Laundryng's one skimp suit before this episode.

[00:13:48] Savage satire back and taking crowbar heavy swings at anything within reach almost. Not quite too hard to watch. Interesting. Good stuff. Thanks Dr Bob. I totally understand, you know, it's, I guess you either lean into the humour or it's just like what's going on here.

[00:14:13] And it is a fine balance that this show generally pulls off with a plomb. I think there are certain episodes such as Hero Galsum and this included that are not going to be to everyone's cup of tea or cup of milk. Absolutely. And Dr Bob, really well done.

[00:14:36] They say you go low we go high. In this case we normally go low when we're trying to explain something that we're not allowed to talk about on a PG-ish podcast like Gradoo.

[00:14:46] You always go high and bring in the excellent medical terminology for the things we're not able to talk about in depth. Let's say so. So well done. Thank you for that. Thanks Dr Bob.

[00:14:57] Joe Herber said most people guessed about Joe but it was still a pretty good revelation from Butcher's perspective. Not loving this season though, harder to watch than usual. I think it would benefit from shorter episodes. Interesting. That's not something that I generally say about the boys.

[00:15:11] But they do seem very long. They cram a lot into the episodes. You know, I would say looking at the timing of them. You probably could have 10 hour long episodes but we're getting 8 hour and 10 minute-ish episodes.

[00:15:24] I mean, I think earlier on I definitely thought there was a tonal shift in the show for this season. And I think that might still be there. I think for episode 6 it's almost back with hero-gazim.

[00:15:38] I think the lightness of the humour doesn't seem to go between the big points of humour. It used to. I think Ashley is one of the main carriers of that. Everything she does is humourous.

[00:15:54] Same way with Huey would have been in past seasons where I think his arc this season, same with A-Train, are quite heavy. And chemical and franchise, their relationship had generally had some of the funnier moments

[00:16:10] in the season, the things they have to deal with and the things they have to fight against. But here they've been much more serious. But I do think you're right, this season seems to be a kind of a cript-key and the team are going,

[00:16:20] listen, I know this is a superhero show but there's another possibility that this guy will get elected again this year. And this is the kind of thing you got to look forward to. Those opinions behind the scenes are coming back to the forefront again.

[00:16:32] So just listen to us. So I think there's a bit more aggression because it's the year of an election as well as everything else. Thanks Joe. Thanks Joe. David Mr. Ryder says Newman didn't use her powers at the farm because she's with the Secret Service

[00:16:44] and they don't know that she's a soup. She only uses an emergency to save Stan but there's so much chaos that no one notices. If she does it out in the open then she will be discovered as a soup

[00:16:54] and then has to go and kill every person from the Secret Service that's with her. And that's just a lot of paperwork on how all your Secret Service people died. That's a really good point, David Mr. Ryder.

[00:17:05] We were wondering about why she didn't use her soup powers just in case a reminder for those of you who may not have heard that the episode we're wondering why she didn't use her soup powers on the attacking sheep.

[00:17:14] We were saying, you know, she would probably be safe if everybody ran in all different directions because she could blow up their heads but if she's in front of the Secret Service people those that are left after a couple and got murdered by the sheep

[00:17:27] then yeah I guess she didn't want to out herself in the soup. I think a good call that David. Alright and on episode 6 David Mr. Ryder says, I enjoyed it. Also can we say that Kamiko has got to be the second best actor after Homelander

[00:18:07] that scene when she goes back to the prison she says so much without saying a single word she is a star man. I have to say it's so interesting Karen Fukahara playing Kamiko as a person that doesn't talk at all throughout these last three and half seasons

[00:18:25] and she does get across so much emotion. It's so weird to see her being interviewed and she has, she's very verbal, very eloquent when she speaks and talks and she just channels that through this character who hasn't had any voice at all throughout the seasons

[00:18:39] but is so good on screen. Yeah definitely. You know exactly as Heather says, you know there's moments in that episode where you're going I feel so bad for what she's had to go through and she's just getting across through her sign language.

[00:18:51] And same as yourself David, you know I kind of did gasp when Sage took the bullet to the head and then it was like immediately just remembering what had been kind of sort of laid out previously so I was like okay she might not die in the end.

[00:19:06] So I was even though the blood was pouring out I was like okay it became a bit more 50-50 but still I was like whatever about doing a controlled lobotomy that was a gunshot to the head. It was still something quite different.

[00:19:26] Yeah exactly, exactly so again interesting to see that she was able to get herself out of it but again it's a way against her powers I suppose the powers of knowledge and intelligence shoulder in the head and she becomes a gibbering mess for a while afterwards.

[00:19:43] Definitely thanks David Mr. Reiter. Eugene Basil Abbott says since I'm on a rewatch I wonder if the white pubes are so upsetting because his father soldier boy didn't age and neither did Stormfront another reason he feels like he's been done dirty. That is such a good idea.

[00:20:05] Yeah yeah I really like that Eugene because yeah it makes an awful lot of sense because he wants to be loved and always think about how he compares as well you know really really interesting stuff. Yeah that's really interesting so yeah it's entirely possible that he's thinking of

[00:20:23] of his dad soldier boy and why he never aged and he's getting white pubes. He really feels quite hard done by as you say you know if he starts to get wrinkled oh god the end of the world. That is true, that is true. Excellent stuff thanks Eugene

[00:20:39] and finally over on Facebook Scott McInaida says my question is did Mother's Milk know about Sage's regenerative brain or was that a kill shot? He doesn't seem the kind to kill rather than incapacitate but if he knows about her healing power then that essentially is

[00:20:58] incapacitating with possible memory loss. Also what was Sage doing in the library just reading or was she searching for something? I think she's really a good guy and is sabotaging homie and vort from the inside. Excellent stuff Scott, I don't know I felt it was more a reflex

[00:21:19] so whether he was actually purposefully aiming for the head I don't know he's a good shot, he's trained and can do all that so maybe he was absolutely but he was also taken by surprise so by the fact that she was in there.

[00:21:35] And she was really driving him to it as well by what she was saying to him. Now I don't know though, I would say I know Mother's Milk as a character is not going to go out and kill someone innocent

[00:21:46] but the mission of the boy as a team and he's the leader of this team, the mission of the boy as a team is to take down and kill as many soups as possible. Sage isn't innocent here, she's effectively the one that's been giving

[00:21:57] Homeland or his brand new plan so given the opportunity I think Mother's Milk would take a kill shot on Sage, I don't think he knows about the Healing Paras because that's something that would be very unusual for anybody outside to know

[00:22:09] so I think he is trying to take a kill shot or I think he takes a kill shot after being pushed over the edge and then his reaction to it is the panic attack. So again we kind of know about it from this episode

[00:22:20] which we'll talk about later on that the safety of his family is of paramount importance to him and she's pushing that with him, she's telling him we're going to kill your kids or how disappointed they're going to be if you do what you do

[00:22:32] so he's being driven to a pretty dark point but the whole mission of the boys has always been take down the soups and kill them. Absolutely, do you think that Sister Sage has the potential to become a good guy?

[00:22:46] Whether she's been there as a plant sabotaging all the way through I'm not entirely sure but I think she's always got her out plan and that includes to blow everything up in the face of Vought and Homan as well.

[00:23:03] I do think that conversation she had with Newman was true when she talked to Beige people stopping her from curing cancer because it wasn't right for them and she was like they're just humans I've got the abilities that I have and they wouldn't trust me

[00:23:19] so I think she does look down on people just like Homan does. Agreed. And I think in terms of what was she doing in the library and no they were wondering where the likes of Ashley and Technite had gone so maybe she was just searching for that

[00:23:35] or maybe she was just wandering around the house because otherwise she was having to be in the presence of those one percenters I'm not entirely sure but I feel she was just kind of in the wrong place at the wrong time because she was searching for Technite

[00:23:53] with the whole thing going on. I think that might have been it. Brilliant stuff thanks everybody for your feedback remember you can email us to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com with your thoughts about episode 7 and about episode 8 courts we'll talk about episode 7 thoughts on next week's episode

[00:24:09] and of course we will be doing our usual wrap up of the boys where we give you the answers to all the pumpkin questions and our final feedback on episode 8 that you will be sending into us hopefully but it's been great to hear all your thoughts on episode 6

[00:24:20] it was a wild old episode doesn't it? Absolutely. Good stuff. Thanks fellow boys and girls and to all the feedback from you. Good stuff. Let us get into our spoiler filled discussion for this week's episode, episode 7 The Insider. Happy Christmas John. Absolutely.

[00:24:40] This seems to come at an earlier than I expected. Every year it gets earlier doesn't it? Yes. The disturbing Avenue Q. Absolutely. Avenue V. Avenue V as they said here. And the Christmas special where you snitch on your parents,

[00:24:55] your relatives, your friends, even Santa if he's going against Vought. Yes. Tifa could be anyone even your mum and dad as they say. Yeah. And the best Christmas Carol ever of course report that groomer. Just awful, awful stuff. But yes, let's get into the episode.

[00:25:14] Yes. Derek what are some of the episode details for episode 7 The Insider? Well of course showrunner for the show is Eric Kripke. This was based on the comic book series by Garth Annas and Derek Robertson. The executive producers for the show are Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.

[00:25:28] This episode was written by Paul Grillong. He also wrote the penultimate episode of season 3. Here comes the candle to light you to bed. So he's doing the penultimate episode of two seasons in a row. Very good. I guess he knows how to pull everything together I guess.

[00:25:39] He is a producer on the show of course and one of the members of the writer's room for the boys. But I guess he's the person that they like to set up the pins to knock them down in episode 8 usually.

[00:25:49] He's the one that came up with that point and everyone else has spread it out. Must be something like that. Unpict it for the rest of the episodes. Could be that way around as well. Could be, could be. The episode was directed by Katrina McKenzie.

[00:26:03] This is her first episode of the boys but she did previously direct on Supernatural with Eric Kripke. And we did discuss her earlier on this year when we discussed Echo.

[00:26:11] She directed episode 3 of Echo, Tootlo, which was that excellent episode that went back into the far distant past of the ancestors of Echo. Very cool episode and then we had the big battle scene in the bowling alley to keep the bowling metaphor going. But it's really good actually.

[00:26:28] Echo just seems like a real echo now. It does. It seems like ages ago. Yeah. She seems to have flown and maybe because of the lack of Marvel shows this year. It's just, it feels like I haven't been reminded of Echo as much. Yeah, like it's mid-July.

[00:26:48] We usually have done probably three Marvel shows and two movies and all we're doing, we've did Echo earlier on this year, which all come out in a day and we'll be covering Daredevil versus Wolverine, which comes out, or Daredevil and Wolverine, sorry, which comes out later this month.

[00:27:01] And that's all our Marvel content until Agatha all along. Let's go to that in September. So not much content this year, but great to have Trina Mackenzie over here directing an episode of the Boys after directing Echo. So it's quite cool.

[00:27:13] John, do you want to tell us what they gave us with the Synopsis 4? Season 4, episode 7, The Insider. Sure. It's the Avenue V Christmas Special. Join host Ryan and the Puppet 7 as they teach the kids at home how to spot traitors to America and report them to the authorities.

[00:27:32] Elsewhere in Vort Tower, Homelander is frustrated with Sager's apparent lack of progress in finding whoever is leaking information to the boys. So he and Firecracker decide to hunt down the leak themselves.

[00:27:45] Meanwhile, Frenchie and Kimiko struggle with how to live with themselves after all the horrible things they've done in their pasts. Mother's Milk has to make an impossible decision, stay with his family or help save the world.

[00:28:00] And Butcher, Huey and Annie uncover the final plan to kill Bob Singer. Yes, another facet to the plan. There's always a little more to go, isn't there? Yeah. And these plans, yeah. And, you know, writ large in this episode, they're still talking about Trump.

[00:28:16] In case you didn't know, the shooting is going to happen on an inauguration day, January 6th, of course, like the riots that happened back in January 6th, which is now a date in infamy.

[00:28:26] And not only that, we also have Homelander being told to sell NFTs, standing in a lot of poses that were in the Trump NFTs that he sold as well. So yeah, the show is really just going, hello, hello. You know we're talking about Trump. Are you clear now?

[00:28:43] We'll pop the analogies here, yes, exactly. But yes, enough of the politics, even though it is imbued throughout these episodes. I'm sure we'll even talk more about it in here. Exactly. And let us get on to our most interesting moments of episode 7 of The Boys.

[00:29:01] First up is our boys moment, all the protagonist moment. Huey Huey. What's your protagonist moment for the episode?

[00:29:10] Well, I'm going to be controversial here because it's actually introducing a new protagonist really here that I don't think we've ever spoken about as the main protagonist or The Boys moment, which is A-Train. Yes. A-Train is the insider here.

[00:29:27] He has been on quite a speedy journey throughout The Boys from snotting Huey's girlfriend to seemingly being kind of fairly blasé about it and gradually sort of, I guess, becoming conscious of what the 7 does, what his position in the 7 is.

[00:29:51] The loss of his brother and the injury to his brother. So all these different things culminating in seeing A-Train as the insider.

[00:30:03] And really, I'm bringing that to the big fight scene in The Boys headquarters in The Flatiron and having both Black Noir and the Deep realize that he is at least a traitor and they do make the leap that you're the leaker. Yes. Exactly.

[00:30:27] First of all, I thought the actual fight was really, really good. Oh yeah. Again, you know, having these characters Deep and Black Noir being dispatched to take out The Boys, you're kind of going, someone's going to die here, aren't they? Someone's going to die in the scene. Yeah.

[00:30:44] And it's interesting seeing Supon-Supaction just like how indestructible they are really. I mean, even after a fair amount of beating. But I do kind of like how this plays out. A-Train's really, I've never liked you to the deep. Absolutely. Always kind of rubbing me up the wrong way.

[00:31:05] There is the realization that Black Noir is not the Black Noir that they know because A, he can fly and B, he's speaking. Did he just speak there? Also because he has narcolepsy as he falls asleep right in front of Billy Butcher.

[00:31:19] But yet they go straight after Starlight and Billy Butcher who are in the headquarters of The Boys. And I kind of like initially the deep going, you know, Butcher's giving it all to the deep and he's like, I can't even understand what you're saying.

[00:31:35] And then, you know, the deep is I don't understand or respect your truth to Starlight. I mean, they've really got beef these two. So absolutely. You know, Homelander sent his dogs in to do his dirty work here. But ultimately they are rescued by A-Train.

[00:31:56] But he is outed as that leak. And I kind of like the previous setup to sort of, in a sense, foreshadowing his arrival here. And it is where A-Train's telling Mother's Milk actually to stay in the fight. Yes.

[00:32:15] Because Mother's Milk is thinking of taking that flight with his family to go to safety, you know, and he's there, you think Fort or Homelander aren't coming for you. Where are you going to go? On the planet, yeah.

[00:32:31] You know, you're gonna have to just keep moving and moving around. Exactly. They're always gonna find you and so on. And I kind of like the fact that, in a sense, this foreshadows the decision he's made to become a hero. Yeah. In the true sense of the word.

[00:32:48] Dare I say it? You know, an undercover member of the boys here. Yeah. I agree with you. And I kind of really liked that. And I liked the after part of it where he goes to Ashley to really just, in a sense, plead with her.

[00:33:02] And I think he respects and is grateful to the fact that she has kept this secret, a secret, even though it was on a trade-off. Yeah. You know, but he goes to Ashley to say, you know, this is our chance to escape, to get out.

[00:33:19] And she just can't, which is an interesting, that psychological element to... You know, it's like you were saying before about... Well, she's so nervous about possibly being killed, but given her involvement with Tech Night in the Tech Cave, maybe she quite likes that. Well, yeah.

[00:33:42] You know, even though her has previously fallen out, maybe she's learned to enjoy that fear, in a sense, because of what she does in the Tech Cave. Yeah. Or what she did in the Tech Cave. I don't know. I'm postulating. I don't know because I don't know psychology.

[00:33:57] I don't know if that would even be a thing, but I find it interesting that her choices, she can't, but she does tell a train to effectively go and to cut out his location ship. Yes.

[00:34:11] Yeah, but I do think the fear makes her waver and that's the problem. And she knows being in front of Homeland, as often as she is wavering in front of him is the biggest problem. That's usually what gets you killed, right? Yeah.

[00:34:24] So initially, she's the one that said to A-Train, A-Train, we can run out of here. You can take me wherever we need to go. You don't even need a passport. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go kind of thing.

[00:34:32] And it's only after this attack at the Flat Iron when his identity effectively is found out that he goes back to Ashley and says, right now it's time to go. I've done everything I can.

[00:34:42] I tried to be the hero, but now we're all going to die and you're going to be one of them. So she wavered then and says, I have to stay. But it's interesting.

[00:34:50] We also learned that she fired her PA effectively who was the best PA she'd ever had. She fired him because she didn't want him killed because again, everything in this building is unstable. So you never know what might happen.

[00:35:05] Might bring the wrong coffee order and you get sliced in half by a homeowner. So to protect him, Ashley does a heroic job by firing him effectively. So it's really interesting as you say, John, the scene where they train an M.M.

[00:35:19] Feeding in from last week's episode where A-Train finally had the feeling of what it's like to be a superhero when he saved M.M.'s life and the kids saw him there. No cameras around, nothing else.

[00:35:29] A-Train's going, this is the best I've ever felt since I got my superpowers. Everything else was set up for me. And then as you say, this is why I'm sure this is why you showed them as the for the protagonist moment.

[00:35:40] He has joined the boys effectively at this point. He has joined their side of things at this point. Yeah. Well, I mean, he did it under Jores beforehand, but we had a few neat little moments between him and Huey.

[00:35:54] In previous episodes, I think this with Ashley with the kid and rescuing Mothers Milk. I think going back to Mothers Milk, he's got the form now. Yeah. Where it's actually a consistent part of him. Exactly.

[00:36:09] And actually, you can see how well he's hidden it as well because, you know, I think Homelander when he finds out is truly sort of taken aback and upset by it. And as I say, whether A-Train ultimately survives the season, who knows. Yeah. I kind of hope so.

[00:36:30] Well, you got to remember when we saw season one, A-Train was there side by side with Homelander, Black Noir, The Deep. Starlight had just joined and Queen Maeve. Those were the five members of the seven, right? They'd lost Lamplighter and they'd lost Translucent that season.

[00:36:45] So of everybody that was standing beside Homelander at the beginning, The Deep is just a bootlicker. He's not a friend of Homelander by any means. Black Noir is dead. Maeve turned on him and now A-Train's turning on him. Yeah, exactly.

[00:36:59] So like there's nobody left that stands beside Homelander for very long. He thought he had A-Train on his side now, they'd gone through their bad time and he thought he had A-Train on his side. So he looks genuinely hurt that A-Train has turned on him.

[00:37:12] That he didn't even suspect that it could be A-Train at this stage. So that's pretty interesting. I do want to quickly just talk about the fight. You mentioned the fight in the Flatiron but I just want to mention one other thing.

[00:37:23] I absolutely thought this is where The Deep's going to die. The Deep has gone through so much over the last couple of seasons. All the things that he's done, this is the point when Annie is really battering him. She's told by Butcher she has to leave him there.

[00:37:39] They have to get out of there before Black Noir comes back and they know what the insider is. They need to get out of there but I felt like this was The Deep's final moment with Annie. I thought so too.

[00:37:50] To death with the top of the bin wasn't it? No, it was a... Some Flatiron basically. Yeah, it was a dumbbell weight. See how often I'm in the gym. A dustbin lid. Yes, you know.

[00:38:07] But I did really feel that's when we were going to lose Kevin, that's when we were going to lose The Deep. But I know he's a big fan favourite character. I love him. I love him to bits. I love what The Atcher does as The Deep.

[00:38:19] I think he's really, really fun in the show and you couldn't... You can't lose everybody. No. I think it's because people will lose by the end of next season I'm sure but... But I thought this was his farewell.

[00:38:30] Mistakenly going to take on The Boys and being such an a-hole as well about it. My God, that moment where he says, Me too is over and you lost. I don't care about your personal beliefs and nobody else does to Annie. It's just...

[00:38:45] You just can't come back from that. He is the bad guy, right? In the show. He is another one of the bad guys in the show. A big time. But from a place of pure ignorance. Exactly. Yes, that's The Deep. Right there. You know? Yeah.

[00:38:59] But that's my protagonist moment. He is... A-Train effectively really set in his stall out here. Great fight as well in the Flass Iron. Really enjoyed that and I just liked how A-Train bookended this fight as well with Ashley afterwards and with Mother's Milk beforehand. Yeah.

[00:39:19] So I thought that was really good. Derek, what's your boys' moment? My boys' moment for the episode is Kumiko and Frenchie. Their conversation where we finally learn why it is that Kumiko doesn't speak that she learned in her training for the terrorist organization The Kidnappeder, The Shining Light.

[00:39:40] They made her fight on her first night there and told her she had to keep silent as she stayed silent throughout the fight killing the girl that she was up against and then never spoke again. That is, she became the silent killer from that point onwards.

[00:39:53] Words just didn't come out anymore afterwards. And the reason she's telling this story to Frenchie makes total sense because of the arc that he's gone on to. He's accepting the murders that he's done over the years. He tried to turn himself into the cops for the murders.

[00:40:06] Weirdly Billy got them off from all those murders once again because they have the connections to do that. But he doesn't know how to accept all the things he's done. And Kumiko is saying, well, I've done things just as bad as you.

[00:40:19] We could have come together and talked about this. We could have helped each other. And I think genuinely telling that story to him does help him and does help the two of them accept the things they've done. It's not they're going to move on and forget about them,

[00:40:33] but they're part of who they are. Well, it's almost a realization that what she is trying to do for him and help him is what he has been doing for her. Very much. I love how she just lays that out and he says,

[00:40:47] well, you knew you could always come and talk to me and it's like a go. Exactly. You know? Because you can come and talk to me. Yeah. And that's what I was trying to do where you were refusing to see me

[00:40:58] each of the times at the correctional institute. I do like how that's kind of, it seems to have just leveled off their relationship a bit and brought it back. Because I know when they're there watching Sameer sort of working on the virus,

[00:41:17] it feels as a bit of the normal banter coming back between the two even though it's very dark and very twisted, they're kind of having some lightness between one another. Yes. It's a little bit, Frenchie trying to apologize with the stuffed teddy that he gets her from

[00:41:37] which she says it's really cheap, wraps it in some newspaper and gives it to her as a kind of a peace offering but it's only when they have this conversation that they're able to set themselves back up and be side by side again

[00:41:49] and kind of make amends in some way. But that does lead into what happens with Sameer. So he is trying to progress at the virus, trying not to make sure that it causes some kind of genocide, killing every soup on the planet.

[00:42:02] Everybody that has any type of Campain V in their blood it's even more, it's even bigger than just any soup that's out there, everybody would be dead. He thinks he has cracked it a little bit or he lies and says he has cracked it

[00:42:17] and stabs Kimiko in the leg with the syringe full of the virus that he's been working on. Almost killing her if it isn't for Frenchie soaring off the leg off to the tune of Steel My Sunshine, the terrible 90 song which I was very impressed with

[00:42:39] it felt like something out of an Edgar Wright movie where he's sewing back and forth in time to the song really felt like something from Shot of the Dead. That felt really visceral, that soaring. And the reason I mentioned the stuffed toy that Frenchie gave to Kimiko

[00:42:54] because she's holding that to try and focus on something else and it's just getting more and more covered in blood as he's sewing through the leg. But he does manage to save her, I mean it's the classic zombie bite. It's walking down, yeah.

[00:43:08] He does manage to saw the leg off before the virus has travelled and spread the leg. I was wondering whether later on we were almost going to get kind of a dead pool moment with a little stubby sort of sort of feeble, kind of semi-withered

[00:43:26] sort of growing back leg. Yeah, I wonder because they did it with her arm growing back earlier on in the season doing it twice in the season, I guess we could have I think it would have worked. In my head I knew that's what was going to happen

[00:43:39] that she'd be walking around with a crutch for a few hours or days while her leg grew back. Maybe we'll get a next episode actually, I'm not too sure about that. But the thing is with Samir escaping as Butcher says it's now for Frenchies to extract

[00:43:51] and incubate this virus from Kameko's infected leg now. And he should be able to do it if Samir was able to get it from a sheep's head. That's true, yeah. Yeah, doesn't Billy say it's from Kameko's infected gam and it took me a second even knowing British slang

[00:44:11] it took me a second to go, oh gam has a leg. Yes, yes that's it. But we do get it helpfully presented in an ice bucket the virus laden leg of Kameko as well. But again, just one tiny other thing that I wanted to mention about this

[00:44:27] it's interesting that Samir went through all of these motions turned on Kameko and Frenchies stabbed Kameko with the syringe and actually they'd had a conversation a couple of minutes beforehand where they're going we have to let him go right?

[00:44:38] We can't do what Billy would probably do and kill him. We have to let him go. But I think the twist on that was he asked Frenchie this is only going to be used on Homelander, not on Victoria. And Frenchie hesitated for a second

[00:44:51] and went yeah of course it's only Homelander. Yeah he hesitated too long. So when in fact it's most likely that the virus won't be able to kill Homelander it's most likely going to be used on Newman and Newman only. Well Butcher does say to them

[00:45:04] that it is going to be on Homelander and Newman. Yes. So he was probably right to Samir to sort of read the room correctly. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That's it. That's my protagonist moment for the episode. Good stuff. Well let us move on to our seven moments

[00:45:22] or our antagonist moments. Dearly, it's a real hero. I'm the real hero. So Derek what's your seven moment? I want to talk about the farewell to Sage. Is she lucky that she kept her head in the episode? She's challenging from the minute she walks into that room

[00:45:46] with Firecracker and Homelander. Firecracker and Homelander now created this special bond over the breast milk from last week's episode and now Firecracker is Homelander's new second in command effectively. And the only reason this has all happened is because of that bullet that went into Sage's brain last week

[00:46:05] taking away her powers. So Firecracker has had a chance to kind of weasel inside Homelander and potentially, you know, Sage didn't have the opportunity to tell her plan to the 1% which was supposed to be all of this all leading up

[00:46:20] to their big reveal of what the actual plan was. So it fell to Homelander, it fell back on his shoulders to try and explain it for a human but he wouldn't have gotten out of it so he can't trust Sage now because he has this worry

[00:46:32] that she could lose her powers in any stage so if he puts too much trust in her and is left on his own again, things could go bad. Well that's it but the trust has lost even more after A-Train is revealed as the leak.

[00:46:47] Yeah because Sage knew it the whole time and we had speculated that earlier on this season that there's no way that Sage wouldn't be able to work out that the insider was A-Train. You know he was there the whole time, he was there every time something happened

[00:46:59] throughout the season so every time a piece of information leaked and what we find out is this was part of Sage's plan she knew that somebody was going to leak the information but he only leaked to the information that she needed leaked to cover up the plan.

[00:47:11] Yeah I love that he was the best misinformation to live through a device and you've gotten rid of him. Exactly, yeah. You know Coleman so what, Clash all down. Small bit of a road. Exactly so even I guess Tech Knight

[00:47:24] like in a sense his penitentiaries are still there they're not gonna go away so the need for them you know is still there. He wasn't integral to that plan and he's already given his blessing. He's probably already signed over it yeah.

[00:47:40] So it's like you know she's kind of fairly objective about it but this is the thing with the big brain element you've got Firecracker who runs on fumes of emotion same with Homelander in terms of petty ones about how big he feels about himself and so on

[00:47:57] Sage is this clinical objective brain box and so she is that means justify the end and in this case Coleman fine justified you know and is allowable here. I think again it's interesting that I do feel she's got some kind of backup plan

[00:48:22] or a way to sort of blow up the plan that Homelander has. Which is kind of interesting. I think the other side of it is that she has been playing a game anyway even just socially because of that great moment

[00:48:39] in the corridor as she's leaving with Black Noir and the Deep who are coming back after the big A train fight where you know she says I've been fired you know I'm going and Black Noir is kind of slightly distraught because they were at it as well

[00:49:00] and it's just without the lobotomy action that made me laugh so much. It was so funny. Just the idea that she had to lobotomise herself to have sex with the Deep who she again thinks is a total idiot but didn't have to do her from Black Noir. Exactly.

[00:49:18] And the Deep finds out which I know is one of your points from the other outstanding moments but you know where the Deep finds this out there's a really bad moment for his relationship with Ambrosius. He does yes. So you know I like that whole thing

[00:49:35] because the bromance between Black Noir and the Deep as they're coming back from the fight and then he looks at him and goes bro and she's found out so good. You say bromance but literally the conversation all the way up the corridor as the Deep is holding

[00:49:52] his now broken arm in his hand and Noir has got blood wounds all over him and all they say to each other the whole way up the corridor is bro, bro, bro. And then finally when he learns about it yes

[00:50:04] it's the intonation on the bro that he says what he hears about Black Noir and Sage but there's one other thing I suppose that I thought was really good about the conversation on the firing I suppose of Sage again Homelander does kill her

[00:50:17] and she's very intelligent and knows all about the plan so maybe she didn't have a plan in the bag I'm not sure whether she did I think her whole plan was to do the best thing she felt

[00:50:28] that could be done if you want to put soups in power and then maybe take Homelander out afterwards because she's smart enough to do so but what is important about the conversation is she's using her massive intellect to create this incredible plan and get Homelander what he wants

[00:50:46] but Homelander tells her one of those things that I think is really interesting it's not just about intellect it's also about wisdom I have a wisdom I was going that's actually really good from Homelander's side he's telling her while your intellect will get us to a point

[00:51:02] my wisdom will take us to a much further point than just intellect It's whether he is wise though I don't think he is I don't I think in a sense he was I think he was saying in another way we don't just need hard skills

[00:51:20] we also need soft skills to bring the people along which he can certainly do like Firecracker, he can appeal to the base emotion of people or indeed the heroic if he chooses to do it like that I think there's a big mistake in Sage

[00:51:37] not telling him about her plan with A-Train that's a big problem with the Insider if she wanted to stay on Homelander's good side never keep anything from her and she was lucky to have her head still on her shoulders he does say your brain box

[00:51:52] and your brains are no use if they're in a bucket I kind of liked that isn't it interesting that his statement of you may have brains but I have wisdom isn't as far as it went in real life which in real life the statement was

[00:52:08] we don't need scientists anymore why do we need people trained in science to tell us this information you can basically make it all up ourselves how interesting the crypt he actually didn't go over that ledge of we don't need science and we don't need intelligence

[00:52:22] and experts, we need people that have wisdom and of course that came through Covid from Trump they also got picked up in the UK as well actually as I said we don't need experts like what a nightmare really really crazy

[00:52:39] but yeah I thought this was all really good and for my point on the 7th I think there's a possibly a little theory developing around where Sister Sage may have gone because again I feel like she may have a plan even if she doesn't

[00:53:02] she's adaptable and flexible enough to create one quickly in a given circumstance and probably more that she realises to herself that she might have to do that not that she necessarily has one she's clued in enough to know that she's got to stay on the ball

[00:53:25] to read the situation because she might need to do that I think she's factored it in as an option I get you So why is your antagonist moment from the episode your 7th moment? Well weirdly it's an unnamed antagonist

[00:53:40] it's a member of the 7th by very deep cover and non-association and it is the unnamed shapeshifter it is the Lee Harvey for January the 6th that is being discussed on which the boys are tracking down so I mean early on in the episode

[00:54:01] we find out there is a shapeshifter It's really well done but I mean I like the fact that true to the boys form the shapeshifter has to tear off the skin after getting almost the data of the person they're turning into by touching them

[00:54:21] so there's all these bloody parts down the stairs from the apartment as Huey and Starlight are chasing after the shapeshifter was trying to kind of blag it by saying they've killed my husband and so on and then just sort of run away

[00:54:36] Yeah but I suppose thinking back on that moment as well I thought that was really smart of them to do it a really well written scene they break into the apartment they're searching this apartment for the shooter and for the information They find the documents

[00:54:50] Find the documents but they find I think A-Train had seen Sage hand over That's right he sent the photograph to the boys but they find a woman covered in blood blood around the apartment she's locked up in a wardrobe effectively or in a wardrobe

[00:55:06] They find her in there and she says that this person broke into her house killed her husband and has been beating on her and that's why they think she isn't involved but it turns out the blood that's been everywhere is what happens with the shapeshifter

[00:55:20] when they change shape into whoever they're changing shape into so I thought that was really smart of them to use a woman covered in blood them thinking it's a person that's been mistreated by the shooter but it's actually the shooter taking on a shape but you're totally right

[00:55:36] this is the boys if you're going to have a shapeshifter in the show you're going to have body parts falling off so they can turn into something else I just put it actually it made an awful lot of sense to me that the shapeshifter

[00:55:47] it's almost a bit like werewolves you know having to have that sort of excruciating kind of pain like a metamorphosis rather than it being almost like a fluid move I felt it was taking inspiration from David Cronenberg and the fly and those types of body horror

[00:56:08] kind of movies if you have your shapeshifter they got to be falling apart turning into something else and it's true to the boys' forms I really liked that I liked they find these secret service files they show sort of the security detail for SINGA on the sixth

[00:56:24] and again now I'm starting to sort of second guess, triple guess and so on because we know that Sage knew about A-Train with holding information from Homelander was using him to deliver misinformation so I'm guessing this is still part of that misinformation because

[00:56:53] this was all done while she hadn't been found out to be withholding that information from Homelander or is it in train effectively because ultimately what we find not in A-Train, just in general train John Sawler, look how I'm doing a bit like it is

[00:57:12] Starlight who is the Lee Harvey because of we see that by the end she has been taken touched the shapeshifter has come in and locked her up is impersonating her to the point where she's flirting and doing Huey in the bedroom she's taken laptop

[00:57:41] and stuff out of the safe at Starlight's apartment so I'm there going is this in order to ultimately if the boys don't find out that this is to have Starlight as the Lee Harvey on the day Yeah, because the season has been very much

[00:58:02] the Starlighters versus Homelander's followers so potentially yeah And that's the big coup for Sage who has the moral high ground as the one that ends off shooting the president-elect in Bob Singer And isn't it interesting like if you take that

[00:58:21] as the potential of what's happening in the last episode Huey is the one that said when they learned it's shaped her, shifter he was going how could you possibly catch this person at the inauguration ceremony if it could be absolutely anybody well even being absolutely anybody

[00:58:36] the one person he will not suspect is going to be Starlight right so because as well the shape shifters here do seem to take on the knowledge and the memories of the person I was thinking that, yeah

[00:58:50] how would they be able to get into the safe without the pass key but they have the pass keys knew about the Starlighter outfit that we'd seen and then using that as a sexy kinky Starlighter to have a bit of how she files with Huey

[00:59:08] Huey probably should have known that that's not what Annie would have done possibly but but he suspected that's why he kept the uniform since she took it off, he suspected she might at some stage come back to it but then the final bit is that when you see

[00:59:25] Starlight chained up in the basements there is a door opening or it sounds like there's a door opening and I just wonder if that's Sage because she knows that this plan has gone down she has misinformed them she knows that the plan has gone down

[00:59:43] and I'm just there then going she's now been fired is this her moment to sort of spoil the plan maybe, maybe who knows I guess the conversation she may have had with the shooter was here's the documents put those in your apartment

[01:00:01] the boys will come looking for you because we have an insider what your real plan is to go and get Starlight we wouldn't need to document that effectively you can remember that so that could be something we'll see the other side of that conversation

[01:00:14] or the audio of that conversation the next time in the next episode very good it's a fantastic idea again the boys coming up with something really interesting for this episode we've seen shape-shifters before though in the show we've seen a main character in the shape-shifter

[01:00:31] we've seen shape-shifters kill people it almost fits into the whole idea of the manturing candidates as well I know that's not shape-shifter but it's that someone has been so brainwashed and processed and turned that even though they are loyal the trigger switch to change that person it feels

[01:00:56] in that sort of tradition which is really quite good I think but shall we move on to our other outstanding moment let's do it there was lots of explosions and blood everywhere this episode, wasn't there Jop, do you want to give us your other outstanding moment

[01:01:19] because it features some of that Webweaver is split in two but not how you think or shall I say Webweaver is the leak but not how you think because I do think the way this was drawn out I think it's two things

[01:01:39] I think it's just the absolute glee on Firecracker's face that she's got it right and she's going to be in Homeland as good books and all this kind of stuff they've got Webweaver incarcerated he must be the leak because he knew about the party he wasn't there

[01:01:59] and I love the fact that he's so, so nervous because of Homelander being there that he just keeps leaking his web fluid all the way through the cell that noise was almost disturbing I'm going to say it to our boys and girls John's question for this episode

[01:02:18] was how many times that happened to Webweaver and I told him no because I don't think it's fair to have anybody watch that scene multiple time and count the sploosh noises because I'd have to watch it and count the sploosh noises to work out how many it happened

[01:02:33] so sometimes we ban questions from our poke quiz that's one of them I think as well I know what other outstanding moment you've got coming up and it felt roughly in the same vein as to how it was drawn out and I really kind of liked that

[01:02:49] I like the fact that they went with his nervous leaking again and you thought okay it's going to stop now oh and again and I really, really enjoyed it I thought it was intrinsically grim and I think Webweaver is an intrinsically grim person

[01:03:08] I think Eric Kripke must hate Spiderman or the rush because somebody in the writer's room really just likes the Paragon of Virtue that is Spiderman in Marvel Comics in the same way that somebody that came up with Homelander hates Superman being the Paragon of Virtue

[01:03:26] in the DC Universe so they created Homelander to be that complete opposite and you kind of think Technite and Batman they could actually be the same well maybe who knows what goes on in that cave I think again Technite being that different version of Batman where

[01:03:45] he created his whole family is involved in Slidery that's not something that Batman would be involved in but interestingly as we said you have got Spiderman vs Batman last episode with Huey taking on the Spiderman role if you want to say that and then this episode

[01:03:58] we do have Superman vs Spiderman and it doesn't go well for Spiderman It really doesn't I mean you knew with all the nervous leaking that something was going to happen and I just really didn't think he was effectively going to be split in two like like Captain America

[01:04:20] doing his log chopping it really was that and I mean just seeing the horror you think of the that is group meme when Captain America is splitting the logs exactly but also seeing Firecrackers abjacked horror as what was transpiring here and again

[01:04:40] a bit like when he sort of lasered one of Ashley's colleagues well he didn't actually tell them anything absolutely he just killed him and they just assumed that the leak has now been plugged Grant will kill him and off we go and they were so self-satisfied

[01:04:57] when Sage walked in and we're telling her we killed the leak, we killed Webweaver and she just kind of looks them going you killed Webweaver like I know who the leak is it's A-Train why did you kill Webweaver it's like this moment of them looking at it going

[01:05:12] that we didn't do the right thing so again it's that lack of intelligence and Homelander just instantly jumping off the cliff when every thinks someone has wronged him absolutely yeah but you're right I wonder where the Firecracker thought he would be putting Webweaver in prison

[01:05:28] did she think that Webweaver was the leak? because she kind of said you know he will tell the anything just to get a fix you know does she think actually Webweaver isn't the leak but we can give him something to rotate him for the moment

[01:05:41] I think she knew he was the person that leaked the event yes of course yeah because he's then trying to explain or try to explain but he's fumbling over his words why it wasn't him at the event because he had effectively gotten a rehypnal suppository you know

[01:06:03] yeah it was knocked him out for two days effectively and I think he was also trying like this is just going to make it worse for me so like he was just tripping over his explanation and in the end Homanda just seemed to have had enough

[01:06:16] yeah you know Rips him half very well Rips him a new one Spider-Man of the new of the boys universe yeah Dick what's your outstanding moment I didn't think about it but you are right there is a similarity in the scene that I chose for my other scene

[01:06:33] from the episode which is Ambrosius' Final Moments played by the awesome Oscar-winning Tilda Swinton yeah as we've said throughout the scene her voice being lent to it is fantastic but we did see a scene of Kevin the deep reading poetry to Ambrosius early on which I thought was

[01:06:52] brilliantly played by Tilda Swinton and then later as he realizes he gets the text message from Sage to come and lobotomize her once more and then decides that it's time to say goodbye to Ambrosius so they have a bit of a fight when he comes back from

[01:07:09] Sex with Sage it looked also positive for the two of them and then Sage needed another sort of head F basically and then it's also the fact that it goes south for the deep because he's now killed his formal love of his life because he thought

[01:07:31] Sage is the one you know she's the one that makes me feel real I mean he's completely misread the situation exactly and she's now gone yeah and he realizes that she needed to be lobotomized for that pleasure with him yeah it wasn't real the deep

[01:07:49] it wasn't at all real and yeah you're right Kevin has just fallen for another woman who's mistreating him and doesn't understand him and he could have had Ambrosius who understands him perfectly well and was willing he's an actor to us and was willing to go with it

[01:08:06] I mean she as she said her suckers could taste Sister Sage on she knew she did know she was a clever octopus with all Ambrosius but she Ambrosia or Ambrosium Ambrosius I knew it wasn't Ambrosia because that is a tinned cream rice

[01:08:24] yes the grace the grace her koumi rice yeah but yes it's really the final moments of Ambrosius is my real point because Kevin smashes her her tank in anger when she's when she's giving out a base to the relationship with Sage and then closes her in the closet

[01:08:40] listening to her dying gasps and I have to say again Till this went must have had so much fun in the recording booth of this because it feels like I'm trying to think is there another good example of this Paul Rubens

[01:08:54] who very well known as P.B. Herman was in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie when he gets hit by a steak he takes about 25 minutes to die and they even have it in the post-credits scene and I'm still dying these moments of oh I'm dead

[01:09:07] I'm not I'm dying over and over again and that's exactly what Till this went and does here there are moments when she pushes it a little too far but still maintains the comedy and yeah definitely definitely it was superb it was actually perfectly timed for me yeah

[01:09:23] this as I just wrote down slow death drawn out slowly slower more slow well asked guys it was done really well I mean given this you know is an octopus and you love Ambrosius because there's this kind of pureness to Till this went in his voice yet actually

[01:09:46] what is being portrayed between the two is B.C. Owlers when you're like okay I will kind of just like drop that out of my memory as I kind of watched this and just enjoy the performance of it you know yep I'm not going to think about that

[01:10:02] maybe LeBotta might have myself later had taken that part of my brain out and because Ambrosius has been there for a while now it was also like oh no he is going to kill her yeah I mean I was half hoping that you would think she's dead

[01:10:18] and she will come back to extract her revenge she managed to get out yeah I don't think so because I think an octopus is able to squeeze out a quite narrow sort of like a mouse you know where they can squeeze through quite small spaces so

[01:10:35] I just wonder whether we actually did hear her last gas I think we did I do as well but I'm hoping she's there to extract revenge on the deep because he deserves it he does deserve us definitely as I said

[01:10:49] I thought he was going to get at this episode as well but that was my my outstanding moment my other outstanding moment anything else we need to talk about anything else we haven't mentioned John from the episode at all the only other thing is we had Avenue V

[01:11:02] at the start but I think we have Avenue F-U-C-K-E-D I think we do because of Ryan effectively sort of stopping the broadcast or Avenue V like Sesame Street brought to you this week by the letters F and U and it stands up

[01:11:20] and says the song is not cool and we have this this flash to Billy Butcher realising you know why he had faith in Ryan to do the good thing despite being in the bar with his devil Joe Kessler on his case but he and we see then

[01:11:38] as he leaves kind of quite pleased that Ryan stood up to vault stood up to the the system of vaults and he's got a a lot of a lot of stood up to the the system of vaults and in fact stood up to his father

[01:11:51] and he passes out in the bar and I say pass out to do with the black going around his brain rather than the drink and maybe a better column A better column B yeah, better column A column B but you know reflecting that is Homelander seeing his son

[01:12:11] that he's really trying to sort of bring to his side stand up to him as well yeah, yeah because from the start to this point the A train puppet has been replaced with a Homelander puppet very good I didn't notice that very good and

[01:12:29] one of the things mentioned about the scene of Butcher collapsing in the in the bar is that Kessler as you say was talking to him this this version of Kessler is talking to him and as Billy passes out there's a bit of a smile on Kessler's face

[01:12:41] it's almost like Billy hasn't passed out Kessler's taken over now that's what it almost feels like I don't know whether that's what they were aiming for in the episode but it feels like Kessler is now taken over and he's going to be in the lead of

[01:12:55] Billy, you know interestingly last episode the last few episodes every time we've seen Kessler we've also most of the time let's say we've seen Becca Billy's former wife the other vision that he's had the angel on his shoulder to Joe Kessler's devil

[01:13:11] we've seen her quite a lot this season none of her in this episode only Joe Kessler beside him trying to push him into the genocide of everybody with Camp Envy in their blood so I wonder was that moment at the end of the episode Joe Kessler's taking over

[01:13:26] Billy's body that personality of Billy that he wants to know you know following on from Ryan turning on Homelander maybe he wants to now just go take out the guy yeah, you know is that the way it is but yeah well done to Ryan for standing up absolutely

[01:13:43] there is that moment as you say in the rehearsal early on when he's hearing the song for the first time and he's going hang on a second you can't tell people to call in just call into the police about their mom to call into the boss

[01:13:56] basically about their mom and dad and his the reveal at the end effectively is that his mom loved Christmas that this was a special time for her and nobody has thought of Ryan and him which he must be missing his mother at these times a year

[01:14:08] that's a big moment for you know someone who's lost their parents and him picking out Billy's present that he's managed to get sent to Vault Tower and put under the Christmas tree absolutely in Homelander's apartment and it's that recognition of you know Christmas being important

[01:14:26] that's what Billy remembers Homelander so far is obsessed with the killing of the present not his son because we see the mist you know he comes back to and Ryan by answer phone effectively just suck it up and say the lines as I wrote them basically yeah

[01:14:45] so you're right that's a really important moment from the episode one other quick thing I want to mention is the follow on from M.M.'s Panic Attack last week where he's now reconciled with his wife they kiss they want to go and run away together

[01:14:58] bring money with them and go away and become a family again which is something that M.M. has wanted all the way throughout these four seasons so far that he wants to he wanted to reunite and work it out with his wife and neither were going to go

[01:15:13] in the run but he chose to stay with the boys these are always bad choices always wondering what's going to happen because he had a way out he had a moment out I was two days away from retirement but as A.Jane said he said you haven't yeah

[01:15:29] that was the deciding factor for me is that he realized if he runs with his family it's not just him they get it's him and his family yeah and no matter where they go if they succeed he's not there trying to stop them

[01:15:48] and he's one of the few people that knows what's about to come so I kind of liked that I do but it puts a target on him quite significantly when he's had that moment that he could have gotten out and same with A.Train

[01:16:04] they've all got targets on them at this stage A.Train does leave though by the end of the episode A.Train has left the city he's gone into hiding effectively we don't even know if we'll see him next week in the final episode

[01:16:17] but overall John what's your final thoughts on the boys season 4 episode 7 The Insider I really enjoyed this as sort of penultimate lead up to the final one lots of spinning plates just the introduction of the shape shifter and the form of the person that they've taken in Starlight

[01:16:38] for me I'd give this 4.5 milts of invention out of 5 I just really enjoy this to me the boys is in its swing it's got its momentum it's got its mojo it just moves through it's really clean it's funny great points in it and some really

[01:17:01] sort of subtle and not so subtle references to what they're parodying effectively I really like my favourite moment is the deep and black noir in the corridor realising that they've both been with sister sage I thought the death of Ambrosius on point dark comedy along with webweaver

[01:17:26] really dark comedy I'm glad Kameko and Frenchie's relationship is kind of coming back to normal I feel as though something's been dropped there a little bit I was really surprised that Frenchie was so easily brought out of prison after giving himself up two episodes ago

[01:17:45] that felt like a big arc moment where he's accepting that he's murdered his current about his boyfriend's family he's accepted that this is something that he's done he's turned himself in and then it was like Billy turned up went I broke Frenchie out and I was going

[01:17:58] hang on a second that seems really quick to do that to bring Frenchie back but I don't know maybe there's too much in the arc to get there but I think by the end of the episode it's Frenchie realising that in Kameko he has the ability to do

[01:18:15] what he thought prison would do to him in terms of him facing up to what he did to Colin's family so it probably was never about his arc in the prison but it still just felt like something it just felt like he came back so quickly

[01:18:34] but again we've only got one episode left of the season and he is the chemist he has to be working on the virus biochemist maybe sorry, yes or just biologist or just explosives expert I think he started general handyman I think on this so yeah, 4.5

[01:18:57] milfs of invention out of 5 very good Derek what about yourself? really enjoyed this episode I thought it was a great penultimate episode I do think we mentioned earlier on the season we mentioned earlier on the podcast here I do think this has gone

[01:19:11] a bit more of a serious route this season it feels like there's a shadow of darkness over everything I guess in some ways and I do think sometimes in the writing room it's, God this is coming up there's an election coming up this year

[01:19:27] this is the kind of person you could be voting in I think there's an anger there behind the writing this season but I think this is where they excel as a writing room because it's not just about that that is part of it it's in the background but

[01:19:41] some of the storylines that are happening here with Sage the intelligence that she brought to this team how her guidance could have led them to an incredible outcome exactly what Homelander wanted but he still fired her because she kept a little piece of information from her

[01:19:57] she had her own that's a plan in the background to feed this information to A-Train but also an A-Train that storyline of his turn I think it makes loads of sense that he is now turning over to a new leaf and becoming someone that

[01:20:13] can work with the boys by the end of the season I think Ashley's story has been interesting there's one other great moment with Annie where she calls her mom to try and save her in the same way that M-M tries to save his wife and daughter

[01:20:29] and her mom's reaction is did you know I was kicked out of prayer group because you had an abortion she doesn't answer Annie's calls for weeks when she's trying to warn her about the incoming danger that's happening she is more concerned about what the neighbors think

[01:20:41] and that's what Annie always had to put up with when she was growing up going through the pageant circuit going through the soup pageant circuit I guess and I think that was a great moment for Annie's character of keeping that pressure that's on her to be this unattainable

[01:20:57] idol I guess for the world I thought that was a really good point to have and now we have Annie at the end of the episode trapped and captured while a shapeshifter is taking their place so yeah I think this is a class episode

[01:21:11] really good fantastic work again from the boys so cannot wait to see how season 4 ends I do agree with whatever piece of feedback which said this is going to be a massive cliffhanger at the end of season 4 we know season 5 at the last season so I think

[01:21:25] there's going to be a very dark cliffhanger where a couple of our major characters could be on the precipice of death that I don't think it's going to end with a bullet in someone's brain and everything is all happy clappy at the end of the season

[01:21:35] and things are going to be a big bad moment at the end of the season which will close out the penultimate season of the show excellent stuff I think with that round up let us get on to our boys pub quiz I think we need some run punch

[01:21:51] I think we do a bit of run punch as we run away from Fort and the 7th let's get down to the pub before our 7th question welcome to the pub quiz fellow boys and girls and fellow quizzes it is episode 7 so it is question 7 it is

[01:22:13] what's the question John? which country was mother's milk sending his family to for safety away from the 7th very good where was Marvin sending them there's two different countries that I talked about in the episode as well so yeah if you want to give the question

[01:22:29] one more time make sure we're highlighting the right person in this one John sure which country was mother's milk sending his family to for safety away from the 7th very good 7th question Obvious collect all the correct answers and email us at the end of the season

[01:22:45] to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com and you'll be in with a chance of getting your hands on some boys goodies at the end of the season when we do our final wrap up hopefully you've been getting all the questions throughout the season but if you need any of them

[01:22:57] they're over on our website at tvpodcastindustries.com thanks so much for joining us we will be back with you next week yes we certainly will fellow boys and girls we'll be back to chat about the boys season 4 finale episode 8 assassination run yes and of course

[01:23:15] there will be the final question in our season 4 pub quiz as well so keep your ears eyes and skin peeled for that absolutely and we'll also have Chris back for the final podcast I know I don't know what he's been doing well he's been away work

[01:23:35] and he's been away with family holiday so we weren't going to get him to record while he was away this time interestingly I was listening back in some of our old episodes of the boys and Chris recorded from New York at one point

[01:23:47] I know he could have done that again this time could have, I think his work was a little busier this time and having a baby on holiday it always takes up a lot of time you just can't get the staff these days

[01:23:57] but he will be back next week so I'm going to go over to here and his thoughts about the boys version of Spider-Man that we've seen in the last couple of episodes his favourite character being ripped and weaving a horny web I guess

[01:24:13] around the city of New York exactly but yes looking forward to that and we will speak to you next week yes fellow boys and girls thank you so much as always for joining us on this episode of the podcast we will of course

[01:24:27] be back again to look at Assassination Run and probably with a mega mega podcast given Chris will be just verbally releasing himself but until next time of course keep watching, keep listening and of course slow slowly slower more slow bye