Streaming Wars is a weekly opinion column by IGN’s Streaming Editor, Amelia Emberwing. To read the last entry, check out The Legend of Vox Machina and My Unexpected Full Circle Moment At IGN Live.
Note: This column contains spoilers for The Boys Season 4.
Since its inception, The Boys has been known for featuring monsters trying to out-monster other monsters, but this week’s episode, “Wisdom of the Ages,” featured Homelander and Firecracker in an impressive battle for the title of biggest shitheel. Notably, somehow the winner ended up not being Homelander for once.
Sure, the walking Trump allegory returns to his childhood home (lab) and mows down the people who raised him. But, on the grand scheme of Homelander’s (Antony Starr) misdeeds, this one feels almost… understandable? Especially if you follow the vigilante logic of bad people deserving bad things to happen to them by your own hand. Mind you, Homelander’s actions are a concerted effort to sever his last ties to humanity rather than seeking justice for how he was treated as a boy. Still, these people tortured him! They may have carefully curated their psychological efforts to make him need them and their approval, but it feels pretty easy to argue that without their tests and abuse, Homelander may not have ended up as, y’know, Homelander.
Yet, Homelander he is. And even with the heavy implication that he mowed down the innocent bystanders working in the lab who weren’t involved in his lurid upbringing, the leader of The Seven’s discretions pale in comparison to Firecracker’s (Valorie Curry). At least for this week.
We know that Lil Miss Deep State is on a mission to destroy Starlight (Erin Moriarty) because Annie was a mean girl growing up and said some pretty nasty things about her. Point against the golden girl, sure. That sucks! It also sucks that Starlight accidentally blinded someone on her first save while she was still learning to control her powers. But at least she has a leg up on the rest of The Seven in that her first save was actually real and didn’t take place on a soundstage.
The Boys excels at highlighting that everyone is awful from time to time, including folks who are actually heroic like Annie and Hughie (Jack Quaid). It also excels at showcasing just how far its baddies are willing to go, depicting the absolute lowest of lows along the way.
After being outed as a pedophile charged with statutory rape prior to her career as Conspiracy Theorist Barbie, Firecracker delivers the final blow against Starlight — gift-wrapped for her by Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) — by telling all of her viewers that Annie had an abortion just months ago.
Ultimately everything panned out exactly the way Sage wanted it to: Starlight responded the way any human being would and gave Firecracker the ass-kicking of her life; Sage got to watch the aforementioned ass-kicking after being forced to tolerate Firecracker’s constant casual racism; and much of America responded the way it often does, with utter hypocrisy and utmost disdain against a woman’s right to do as she chooses with her body.
The thing about Firecracker and the all-too-real people she represents is that for them, hypocrisy is the point. The double standard is a tool, and so long as you claim to be “born again” after committing statutory rape, as Firecracker does, you can continue to chase after whoever you deem to be a pedophile, completely unfettered. The Boys showcased the consequences of that when a, well, let’s take it on good faith and call him a “good samaritan” walked into the Starlight House and pulled a gun because he believed they were trafficking children and committing sex crimes. It’s almost an exact 1:1 of 2016’s Pizzagate — albeit a slapdash one — which ended in some dude firing three shots into the pizzeria and insisting to his arresting officers that he was there to “self-investigate” and act as a “rescuer of children.”
By manipulating people who, in Firecracker’s words, need “purpose,” she and folks like her are able to cause real harm without getting their hands dirty while simultaneously showcasing just how far their followers are willing to go for them. And, while outing Starlight’s abortion did end up coming with very immediate consequences for Firecracker, the damage to Starlight and her movement was already done.
When President Singer (Jim Butcher) calls Annie to tell her that he can’t be associated with her anymore, it’s not because she beat the shit out of Firecracker on live television. It’s because of the “Republican votes in the toilet.” In Singer’s mind, Annie’s “indiscretion” isn’t the assault. It’s having the audacity to make decisions about her own body.
Abortion is healthcare and women are not a monolith. Some of us are perfectly comfortable with the idea of and/or having an abortion. Others agonize over the decision, a fact that is particularly true for women of Christian faith. Annie January fell into that second category when she made her choice, and she most certainly still falls into that category when her medical records are put on display for the world.
“When people look at me, whether they’re supporting or judging or angry, I have to relive it over and over and over,” she says.
Starlight — and any woman — has the right to get an abortion, regardless of reasoning. Given that the decision is solely between her, her doctor, and Hughie, she also has the right to handle her decision privately. Those rights were stripped from Starlight this week, and we’re yet to see how much this violation of her privacy impacts the work she does with The Boys, her movement of Starlighters, and The Starlight house.
What’s so nefarious here isn’t the emotional and social destruction of a single woman, even if the show does make us care about that woman a whole lot. Sage highlights the broader impact when she notes the outing of Starlight as the “first pebble down the mountain.” Firecracker is too stupid to understand what she’s done beyond hurting someone she hates, but that is exactly the point.
It’s that stupidity and previously proven utter lack of belief in the lies that she’s spouting that makes Firecracker so dangerous. Sister Sage might be the one moving the chess pieces this season, but she knows first-hand how deep racism runs in the country. The folks who won’t listen to Sage because of the color of her skin will eat up Firecracker’s every word. The latter might not be strong or smart, but she’s one hell of a saleswoman — a fact Sage knew from the moment she recruited her.
On the small scale, it is devastating to see a character like Starlight emotionally destroyed over a perfectly normal, reasonable, and, most of all, private choice. On the larger, Firecracker just proved that sparklers can start one hell of a fire if you don’t put them out fast enough.
Amelia is the entertainment Streaming Editor here at IGN. She's also a film and television critic who spends too much time talking about dinosaurs, superheroes, and folk horror. You can usually find her with her dog, Rogers. There may be cheeseburgers involved. Follow her across social @ThatWitchMia
source https://www.ign.com/articles/firecracker-just-replaced-homelander-as-the-boys-biggest-monster-for-now