The battle between The Boys and Patriot is taking on the classic bloody twists that Prime Video viewers love so much. Since its debut on the platform, we’re now halfway through the fifth and final season of The Boys: the fourth episode brings the Super leader’s madness into sharper focus.
What happens in “King of Hell”?
After being devastated by Hughie’s near-death experience, Starlight decides to seek comfort. She is the most wanted woman in the United States, but her father’s front door is always open. Her distance from the Boys has always kept her safe from the inevitable clash between the Boys and the duo of Soldier Boy and Patriot. Both teams, in fact, are combing Fort Harmony, and unfortunately, there’s no trace of Compound V1… but there’s something else.
The spores present in the building affect all members of the Boys, with the exception of Frenchie: this sparks a slow but grueling civil war that leads the group to declare their mutual hatred for one another. The substances in the former laboratory, in fact, drive the team to madness. And in all this, things aren’t going any better for Patriot and Soldier either. The father-son duo is certainly not experiencing the long-awaited reunion: Patriot is trapped inside the uranium containment chamber because Soldier Boy’s true intent was to seize Compound V1 and destroy it forever… the idea that Patriot could become immortal didn’t intrigue him at all.
But Fort Harmony is full of surprises: the episode takes a body horror turn when Quinn emerges, an old superhero whose body has mutated into a fungal structure, the result of Dr. Vought’s experiments. Soldier manages to eliminate him in time, and, strange but true, this is enough to reunite the group once again. A bit shaken, the Boys return to headquarters, where Starlight also returns and is reunited with Hughie.
Patriot and Soldier return together to Vought Tower because the time has come to solidify, in concrete terms, Anthony Starr’s villain’s slow and inexorable descent into madness. At the beginning of the episode, Patriot summons Firecracker with precise instructions: the grotesque vision we saw in episode 3 was enough to convince Patriot that what he deserves is immortality. And to become the new, sole God.
To do so, he needs religious leader Oh-Father to formalize his ascension as the new prophet. With an explosive mass, the Super hails a new peak of religious extremism. Now that Patriot is the new prophet, what can stop him? His instability makes him one of the most dangerous characters in The Boys 5. Except that someone finds Compound V1 before he does. After the failed expedition to Fort Harmony, the task becomes even more daunting.
