Diksha Sundriyal
The fourth season of Prime Video’s ‘The Boys’ delivers some massive shockers, completely changing the game for the upcoming seasons. The episode begins with the highly anticipated Presidential race coming to an end. Still, the result is nothing as expected by anyone, including Homelander, who continues to lose his grasp on everything around him. In a desperate attempt to turn the tide, he outs Victoria Neuman for being a Supe and aims to use it to further his agenda, hoping she will at least stick to the plan. But he underestimates her, and what happens next is something that no one had expected. SPOILERS AHEAD
Victoria Neuman’s Death Makes a Strong Point for Butcher
Considered one of the strongest Supes alive, killing Neuman was at the top of the agenda for the Boys. Things got so desperate that they prioritized her even more than Homelander because they thought she was the one closest to the Presidential seat and could inflict more damage than most. Her ability to kill someone from a distance and to be almost unkillable even at point blank showed that she was just as, if not more than, difficult to kill as Homelander. But then Butcher comes into the equation.
In the last season, he loaded up on Temp V, which reduced his life span to a few months. He thought Compound V could fix things for him, but it only gave him a V-charged tumor in his brain, which would eventually kill him. ironically, it is also the only thing that can keep him alive. Moreover, it gives him the power to fight Supes and kill them. He’d killed Ezekiel before, but that was easy prey, even for someone not without powers. It isn’t until Butcher rips Neuman apart that the extent of his powers is truly established. This puts him close to Homelander in terms of strength because he is the only other Supe we’ve seen rip someone in two.
Neuman was always meant to die, but she’d been a complicated character from the beginning. She oscillates between being a villain and trying to do the right thing, and eventually, when she does seem to choose the right path, she is murdered. Had she not come to the Boys, she still would have died somewhere down the line, most likely at the hands of Homelander, who probably would have had to do exactly what Butcher did because his laser beam doesn’t even leave a scratch on her. Moreover, the true nature of Sage’s plan confirms that she always meant for Neuman to be removed from the playing field.
Sage Had Planned for Neuman’s Death All Along
Sage’s superpower is being smart, and she has repeatedly proven to best everyone. She factors everything, like Annie snapping in public or the Boys following her to find her plan. But these are her enemies. Sage’s true strength lies in knowing exactly how the people on her side will react to something. She successfully identified A-Train as the mole and used him to get the gears turning against the boy. She also factored in Homelander’s mood swings and ego taking center stage, even though he’d promised to keep it in check. Similarly, she counted on Victoria Neuman to go soft and try to sabotage their plan.
Neuman was an important part of the plan because she had to be made the President, or so everyone thought. Sage knew that it didn’t matter if a Supe or a normal person became the President. What mattered was for that person to be under her and Homelander’s thumb. So, while it would be easier with Neuman, they didn’t exactly need her. Moreover, Sage knew that Neuman wasn’t entirely evil despite her lust for power. She was full of her own ideas and wanted to become President not because she was a Supe. She probably would have gone down the same path if she were normal. Sage could handle someone who didn’t have their own ideas, but it would be more difficult to handle Neuman, who might not necessarily go along with their plan (which is why no one told her about the prisons), and what’s worse is that she was too powerful. She could kill Sage in the blink of an eye, and only Homelander could stop her.
All things considered, Sage preferred to keep her head and her power, so it made more sense for her to put a normal human on the President’s seat while she unfolded her plans. She even prepared for the possibility of Neuman’s death, though she mustn’t have been certain how it would come about. If Butcher hadn’t killed her, Sage would probably have made Homelander do it. In any case, Neuman was meant to die, and Sage meant to use her death as well.
The original plan was to invoke the 25th Amendment to get Singer out of office or to have him assassinated. But all that would have worked against them more than they’d prefer. What would work better if Singer was incriminated and taken off the office by humans? He needed to be washed out of all support, so Sage got her eyes on him and had him on video talking about Neuman’s assassination. Luckily, things worked out exactly as she had expected, if not better, and by the end, even with a few hitches, her plan worked perfectly.
