A-Train Is Going Off The Rails

A-Train is revealed as the source of the Vought data leak and Homelander is not happy about it in The Insider, the seventh episode of The Boys Season 4.

During the episode, A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) essentially gives himself up as the guilty party when he zips into The Boys’ headquarters to save Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), Annie (Erin Moriarty) and Hughie (Jack Quaid). The trio is under siege from The Deep (Chace Crawford) and Black Noir II (Nathan Mitchell), who are there to carry out kill orders from Homelander (Antony Starr).

Once The Deep and Black Noir II realize that A-Train is not there to aid them, the Supe’s cover as an insider for The Boys is blown. As such, A-Train races back to Vought Tower, where his only Vought ally, Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie), tells the Supe to remove his tracking chip and flee to a place where Homelander can’t find him.

There’s a lot more going on, though, in The Boys Season 4, Episode 7, The Insider. Here’s a recap.

Note: The rest of this article includes spoilers from the episode.

Recap: How ‘The Insider’ Gets Inside Your Head

Vought Studios creates a family-friendly holiday program for Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) called The Avenue V Christmas Special—an Avenue Q-like musical presentation featuring puppet versions of The Seven. Ryan stops the live broadcast of the special and stares directly into the television camera as he shames his father, Homelander, with some cold, hard truths.

Homelander puts Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) on the hot seat during a meeting at The Seven headquarters since he discovered a bug planted at Tek Knight’s Federalist Society gathering. Firecracker (Valorie Curry) is also at the meeting and demonstrates her influence over Homelander since she’s become his new supplier of breast milk.

Homelander is angry with Sister Sage since he knows Vought News Network anchor Cameron Coleman (Matthew Edison) did not leak The Seven’s crime analytics data. Firecracker convinces Homelander that Webweaver (Dan Mousseau) is connected to the leak, so he executes the hapless Supe in a grisly manner. Firecracker is shocked by Homelander’s sadistic use of his power.

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Stressed over the meeting with Homelander and Firecracker, Sister Sage texts The Deep (Chace Crawford) to meet up for another brainless sexual encounter. Later, The Deep’s octopus lover, Ambrosius (voice of Tilda Swinton), says she knows of the affair and in a fit of anger, Deep smashes her aquarium and lets her suffocate to death.

Billy Butcher admits to Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), Annie and Hughie during a meeting at The Boys headquarters that he’s forcing Vought scientist Sameer (Omid Abtahi) to create a virus that will kill Homelander. Butcher also admits that if the virus spreads it will create a global pandemic, meaning all Supes on the planet—including Annie, Kimiko and Ryan—will die, too.

Refusing to commit Supe genocide, Butcher and The Boys need to find a way for the virus to only kill Homelander and Vice President-elect and secret Supe Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit). Hughie visits Victoria and tries to convince her to back out of Homelander’s plans to seize the White House, but to no avail.

Mother’s Milk, concerned about his family after his panic attack in Episode 6, decides to step back from his leadership role in The Boys and asks Billy to head the group again. A-Train calls out Mother’s Milk for backing out of the fight.

After the big reveal at the end of Episode 6, Joe Kessler (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) continues to be a figment of Butcher’s imagination. For the first time, time, though, Butcher talks to “Joe” in front of The Boys—leading to baffling looks from the team.

Butcher pulls some strings to get Frenchie (Tomer Capone) out of jail after he confessed to murdering his boyfriend Colin’s (Elliot Knight) family in the past. Kimiko and Frenchie go to where Butcher is holding Sameer captive so Frenchie can aid the scientist as he creates the virus. While at the location, Kimiko reveals to Frenchie she doesn’t speak as a tragic memory from her past replays in her mind.

Sameer escapes after he infects Kimiko with the virus while Frenchie saves the self-healing Supe by cutting off her leg.

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Learning of Homelander’s plans to kill President Robert Singer (Jim Beaver), Butcher, Hughie and Annie break into the hired assassin’s apartment to discover blueprints to a plan for for an insurrection. While in the apartment, the trio encounters a Supe only identified as the “Woman” (Naomi Frenette), who has the power to shapeshift into different people—but only by tearing off her own skin first.

The Woman later shapeshifts into Annie in a plot to steal Hughie’s laptop, which contains the information about the presidential coup that was secretly recorded by The Boys during the Federalist Society gathering. Even though “Annie” is behaving in a particularly strange manner around Hughie, he doesn’t catch on to the ruse. Meanwhile, the real Annie is being held in a secret location and chained to a floor to prevent her escape.

Review: It’s Back To Serious Business For ‘The Boys’

Unlike the over-the-top gore and sexual perversity of Episode 6 of The Boys—where Hughie finds himself ensnared in a Fifty Shades of Grey-type nightmare in Tek Knight’s BDSM man cave—Episode 7 gets back to serious business.

As such, there’s not nearly as much gore in Episode 7, aka The Insider, but when there is, showrunner Eric Kripke pulls out all the stops. The bloodshed happens in a vomit-inducing manner in three particular instances: When Homelander executes Webweaver, when the shapeshifter rips off her skin and when Frenchie saws off Kimiko’s leg. It’s not the sort of over-the-top gore to make you laugh out loud, though, like the crazy, flying sheep scenes in Episode 5.

While The Boys has been heavy-handed in its political messaging this season, Episode 7 doesn’t come off as preachy as the series has been in earlier Season 4 episodes. Sure, there are MAGA jabs here and there, but the biggest political messaging comes in the form of the right-wing-skewering tune When You See Something, Say Something, which The Seven puppets sing in The Avenue V Christmas Special.

There’s no question that it’s a catchy tune, and for good measure the song plays again during the episode’s end credits. The problem is, When You See Something, Say Something is so catchy that will likely turn into an earworm that will bore into your mind and play on repeat for at least a day.

The Boys Season 4 comes to a conclusion with Episode 8 on Thursday, July 18, on Prime Video.

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