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We find ourselves with Pam at the beginning of the episode attempting to halt Tara’s suicide attempt in the tanning bed. Pam can only get her to stop when she commands Tara to never try something like this again. And let me say, Tara ain’t looking too amazing after all that – bubbly oozing skin and all.

Sookie confesses to Jason that she murdered Debbie. Jason wants to help her make it go away, not put her in prison. Jessica happens to be at Jason’s and hears Sookie’s confession as well.

Sookie and Lafayette argue about Sookie’s openness and inability to keep her mouth closed. Lafayette gets heated and calls her the “Angel of Death.” Sookie is torn up over it. Later on, Lafayette is outside and sees Sookie’s car. His demon rears its head and curses her car. When Sookie drives home that evening, the car drives itself on full speed and will not let Sookie use the brakes. She jumps from her vehicle narrowly missing a nasty collision.

Bill and Eric are dropped off at Fangtasia with their iStakes strapped around their chests. It seems that only four people knew what happened with Russell, so the pair are trying to figure out who broke Russell Edgington out. Eric and Pam have an emotional fight when he accuses her of being the rat. Pam isn’t the rat, but Eric ends up releasing her from his maker bonds as he doesn’t want her to die if he dies trying to fight Russell and the Authority.

Back at the Authority, Salome and Roman finally get Nora to give them the name of the other traitor in their midst who is a Sanguinista. It turns out to be the kid, who has a video of himself saved feeding on a human saying that humans are just food. Wow, what a bad thing for the Authority to find while searching your room. Roman stakes the kid and that is that.

Sam’s friends stop by Merlotte’s and get him to agree to go running with them again, no matter what happened with Luna. He agrees, but when he gets to their place that night he finds both of them with bullets in their heads.

The judge stops by the police station and thanks Andy for getting his son’s ticket cleared. He invites Andy and Jason to a party. They travel to the party in a limo with three women who blindfold them to take them where they are going. We quickly see that these women are fairies and take the judge, Jason, and Andy to fairyland. Jason sees Hadley and pieces together where they are after speaking with her. Andy runs into Morella again.

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Jason begins to cause a scene and Jason and Andy are both kicked out of the party via portal. The last shot we see of these two are two fairies back on Earth about to blast light at Jason and Andy lying in the grass.

Alcide drops by to speak to Debbie’s parents. He confesses that he knows what happened to Debbie and that she is dead. He tells them that Marcus killed her and bragged about it, but that he killed Marcus with his bare hands and that anyone would back that up. The Pelts find sufficient answers in what Alcide tells them and leave town, returning home.

Terry and Patrick travel to South Dakota to find Eller. We see flashbacks of combat in Iraq and about how Eller shot a civilian for no reason. Terry and Patrick find his lair in the woods that has an underground bunker with drawings and scribbles of fires. The two turn around to see Eller with a gun in their faces.

Sookie goes home after her accident and begins drinking heavily. Lafayette calls when he comes upon her smashed car. Sookie explains what happened and Lafayette seems to piece together that this is his fault. Sookie asks Lafayette to get her car towed if he wants to help and hangs up because Alcide shows up at her door.

Sookie offers Alcide a drink and the two begin making out, just as Bill and Eric come to Sookie’s house. They can see her through the window. Bill and Eric seem to think that Sookie will be useful in their search for Russell Edgington and decide to bring her with them, even against her will.

Sarah Moon is a stone-cold sorceress from Tennessee whose interests include serial killers, horror fiction, and the newest dystopian blockbuster. Sarah holds an M.A. in English Literature and an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing. She works as an English professor as well as a cemeterian. Sarah is most likely to cover horror in print including prose, poetry, and graphic forms. You can find her on Instagram @crystalsnovelnook.

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Movies n TV

The Boys, Season Four Finale

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We have come now to the finale of season four of The Boys. And while it didn’t have the literal blood fireworks I wanted, someone did get ripped in half in the air. So, that’s pretty close.

As a note, I will try to avoid spoilers as much as possible. This ending was a hell of a gut punch that should be experienced as blindly as possible. That being said, I will not be able to avoid spoilers and still give a full legitimate review. Proceed at your own risk.

The story

The main storyline for this episode is the attempted assassination of President-Elect Robert Singer. The Boys join forces with the Secret Service to protect him. But, as we learned last episode, Annie has been replaced with a shapeshifter. A shapeshifter that was welcome not just into Hughie’s anus, but into the protective bunker in which the President-Elect is hiding.

What worked

The first thing I want to discuss about this episode is the ending. But we need to do this carefully.

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The important thing here is that the ending breaks your heart on so many levels. So many terrible things are happening to characters that it’s almost hard to keep track. And each moment is significant to each character.

I cannot give a specific example. But no matter who your favorite character is, you’re going to weep for them.

Jack Quaid in The Boys.

Unless your favorite character is Sage. And this is the next thing that made this episode so fantastic.

I don’t think I’m spoiling anything to say that Sage’s plans worked out exactly as she wanted them to. And she got exactly what she wanted.

What she wanted wasn’t power. It wasn’t money or fame or vengeance. It wasn’t to win the love of anyone. She just wanted to see if she could do it.

That is a terrific, terrifying motivation! Because all she wants is to play a massive game of chess with people as pieces. She doesn’t care about anyone. She just wants to see how many people she can manipulate. She just wants to set things on fire to see if she can.

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Fantastic. A plus villain work.

The next thing I want to discuss is a cornerstone of the whole series.

The morality of The Boys shifts through the series. While it’s very much a battle to save the world from overpowered super monsters, it’s also a battle for the souls of our real heroes. And in that battle, there are two warring factors. We have Hughie, always trying to bring everyone up to a better level. And we have Butcher, who has no problem at all hitting rock bottom with a shovel in hand to do some more digging.

In this episode, we saw almost every member of The Boys challenged. Will they rise to their higher angels, or sink with their demons?

On a similar note, I am so glad that the writers kind of addressed my issues with Annie. They did this by having the shapeshifter get right into her face and accuse her of thinking that she’s better than everyone.

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Erin Moriarty in The Boys.

While that was devastating for the character, it was a little cathartic for those of us who felt like Annie was a little too good of a good guy.

What didn’t work

This is a small matter, but it is an issue that I want to address. After Annie finds out that Hughie slept with her doppelganger, she is furious at him.

In addition to this being unfair, it’s also a very cliche element to add. In almost every instance of a lookalike in fiction, there’s a moment where the love interest of the victim is fooled. Or almost fooled. And it’s always the same fight. It’s just played out and predictable. I’m just glad that it didn’t last very long.

Now that we’ve come to the end of the season, I can officially say that it was amazing. The story was deep and rich. The special effects were a stomach-turning good time. The character development was spot-on and satisfying. And, of course, it left me just about gagging to see what happens next. Unfortunately, it looks like we’ll have a bit of a wait. Because as of right now, the fifth season isn’t expected until 2026.

5 out of 5 stars (5 / 5)

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The Boys, The Insider

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We’ve reached the second to last episode of The Boys, season four. And, as is appropriate for the penultimate episode of any show, things have to get a lot worse before they can get better.

Let’s discuss.

The story

Christmas is coming, and the whole world is getting ready. Ryan, despite being very clear that he didn’t want to appear on any TV shows or movies, has been strong-armed into participating in a Vought puppet Christmas special. He draws the line, though, when asked to sing about turning one’s parents in if they start talking about woke things.

Cameron Crovetti in The Boys.

Meanwhile, The Boys are trying to keep each other together. Butcher decides to take Sameer to the rest of the team. He also gets Frenchie out of prison, hoping they can make the Sup virus necessary to finally take down Homelander. Instead, this decision means disaster for one member of the team.

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What worked

I first want to talk about Ryan’s speech near the end of the episode. Because it was exactly the moral of this whole story.

Ryan’s dad is a monster. His stepdad is also kind of a monster. But Ryan is a good kid. He cares about people, about family. And while he loves Homelander and Butcher, he doesn’t want to be like them.

Even better, this speech sounded like something a kid would say. Ryan didn’t open his mouth and start sounding like a college student all of a sudden. He sounds like a kid who misses his mom and wants to live up to the good standards she set for him. And I think that’s terrific.

Speaking of Homelander, he shot himself in the foot in this episode. I said earlier in the season that his hubris was going to be his downfall, and I was right. Without Sage, he just has the same weaknesses he’s always had. He’s going to fail because he just isn’t clever enough or patient enough to succeed.

Without Sage, I think a win is in the bag for The Boys. This isn’t to say that Homelander by himself isn’t dangerous. It’s just that he’s more like a wildfire than a controlled burn. He’s going to cause a lot of damage, but not get anything he wants out of it.

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More’s the pity for him and everyone else who has to share his world.

Finally, I am thrilled with A-Train’s redemption story. I love that he wants to be a good person not to save himself, but to be a good person. His honest, pure and warm reaction to that little kid smiling at him in the last episode was heartwarming. It changed him in a moment, bringing to light a goodness that he’s been keeping under wraps for a long time.

Jessie T. Usher in The Boys.

This, along with Ryan’s courageous speech, proves once again what The Boys does so well. Yes, it’s gruesome. Yes, there’s blood and balls and batshit events. Yes, someone occasionally gets ripped in half. But there is a true human goodness in the story. One that we catch glimpses of. There are good people among the monsters. There is hope for redemption.

What didn’t work

Of course, so few things in this life are perfect, and this episode was no exception. For instance, I was irritated by the insinuation that Butcher cheated on his wife.

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That just doesn’t make any sense. We’ve seen flashbacks of Billy and Becca. They were happy. He was happy. He was head over heels for her. And I don’t think it’s realistic or necessary for the character to throw in that he cheated. It does nothing to add to the story, it’s just a weird and offputting moment.

Doesn’t Butcher have enough to hate about himself? Can’t we just give him that at least he was a good husband?

Finally, I kind of hate that we ended up with Annie being caught. It’s just cliche, which is something I don’t normally say about this show. It feels lazy unless they do something very clever with it in the last episode. Which, I suppose, they might.

Next up is the season finale. And with this season being as insane as it has been, I’m expecting nothing short of bloody fireworks. And I mean literal fireworks of blood. At this point, would it surprise anyone?

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4 out of 5 stars (4 / 5)

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The Boys, Dirty Business

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Episode six of The Boys was one of the most surprising episodes of the series so far. And that is certainly saying something. Because this season has so far been bonkers.

The story

Our episode today revolves around a party at Tek Knight’s lovely mansion. Yes, it does look just like Wayne Manor.

The Boys know that Tek Knight is working with Homelander on something, but they don’t know the details. So they decide to send Hughie in to bug the mansion.

Because that’s worked so well the other two times he’s tried to hide a bug!

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It should surprise no one that this time goes no better. Hughie finds himself in Tek Knight’s basement. And by that I mean his BDSM dungeon.

Meanwhile, the party upstairs is no less disturbing. Homelander and Sage are trying to convince some well-off political donors to support a cue after the election. When pressed for details on his plan, Homelander freezes. He looks to Sage for help, but she wasn’t recently shot in the head and still in the junk food stage of her healing.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your point of view, Neuman jumps in and saves the day.

Claudia Doumit in The Boys.

What works

If I’m going to say one thing about this episode, it didn’t hold back at all. I didn’t expect them to show a character masturbating, sitting their bare behind on a cake, or spraying breastmilk into someone’s face. But every time I thought they’d cut the scene and let something be left to our imagination, they did not do that.

Derek Wilson in The Boys.

This is a dangerous move. Whenever you show the monster, you run the risk of them not being scary enough, or gross enough. As Stephen King says in Danse Macabre, to leave this sort of thing to the imagination if the reader makes things so much worse. So when they finally experience the monster, they might say that this isn’t so bad. It could have been so much worse.

But in this case, they managed to avoid that by making the scenes, especially the ones in Tek Knight’s dungeon, so much worse than I imagined it would be.

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What doesn’t work

While this was a deeply disturbing episode in many ways, there was one really innocent and sweet moment.

And yes, I did have a problem with it.

Confronted by Firecracker, Annie decides to apologize for spreading rumors about her when they were kids. She tells her that she is genuinely sorry.

And I believe her. I don’t think Firecracker did, but I did.

So why is this an issue? Because I’m starting to think that Annie is maybe too nice. She is too good.

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I know that Annie is our good guy. But every one of the other good guys has flaws. Hughie let his pride get in the way and took Temp V. MM hid himself from his daughter instead of teaching her to work through her emotions. Kimiko is far too closed off and has a hard time trusting others. Frenchie numbs himself with drugs. And well, what hasn’t Butcher done?

It is unrealistic that Annie is just so kind and so flawless. We all have shadows in our personalities. We all have weaknesses, we all mess up. We all do things we wish we could take back. The fact that Annie doesn’t seem to have anything like that is not just unrealistic. It’s infantilizing.

Give her some deep dark secrets. Give her something real to regret.

This was a shocking episode, even for someone fairly jaded like me. I wasn’t expecting the sort of weird sexual depravity, though I guess maybe I should have seen it coming. It was dark, upsetting, tense, and funny as hell. And with just two episodes left in the season, I can imagine the stakes are only going to get higher.

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4 out of 5 stars (4 / 5)

By the way, if you like my writing you can get my short story, Man In The Woods, on Smashwords and Amazon.

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