In Season 4, The Boys went too far with Hughie’s story, playing it for laughs despite presenting a fundamentally flawed viewpoint. The Boys becomes increasingly frantic and chaotic as Eric Kripke devises new ways to traumatize the audience with each passing season. Jack Quaid’s path suffers a tremendous injustice in Season 4, as his cyclical pain is used for laughs in one of the season’s central storylines. Erin Moriarty’s Annie/Starlight may have a lot on her plate as a Supe facing The Seven, but it doesn’t justify her Season 4 actions toward Hughie.

Garth Ennis’ dark satire comic, The Boys, has never held back on its explosive topics, often holding a microscopic lens over society and emphasizing the degeneration of human culture as it evolved into something grander and far more powerful.

Amazon’s adaptation of the same does little to tone down on its subject, instead taking a far more relevant and relatable approach with its hint-hint-wink-wink directed at Marvel, DC, and the American socio-political atmosphere of today.

Antony Starr plays Homelander in Gen V. [Credit: Prime Video].

Despite being regarded as one of the most explicit, violent, and outlandish television series of all time, The Boys only gets better with each season. Eric Kripke and his boys are constantly focused on how to shock spectators with trauma-inducing scenes in new and unique ways compared to the previous season.

In its latest run, it seems that Kripke finally found his answer. And it was anything but good for Jack Quiad’s pétit Hughie.

The Boys Does Something Unforgivable to Wee Hughie

Hughie Campbell, portrayed as the most rational and balanced member of the gang, has been at the heart of a superpowered shitstorm from the series’ inception, when his girlfriend stepped one foot off the effing curb. The entrance of Billy Butcher in Hughie’s life has broadened his perspective on the world and all of its ongoing injustices.

The Boys [Credit: Prime Video]

Butcher and the Boys brought with them a never-ending stream of nightmares, disasters, and spiteful misfortunes. In the live-action adaptation of The Boys, Hughie faces similar challenges as in the comic book. However, Season 4 raises the character’s trauma level to 8 on a scale of 1–10.

After witnessing brutal bloodbaths and violent 𝓈ℯ𝓍ually charged scenes during the previous three seasons, the latest installment focuses on Jack Quaid’s character, including him significantly more in the plot. In The Boys, Hughie experiences a terrifying chapter of nightmares, which could otherwise be a positive aspect of the story.

Starlight is the Villain in Hughie’s Story

Season 4 of The Boys focuses on Jack Quaid’s character Hughie, as if the previous three seasons of trauma weren’t enough. Hughie becomes personally embroiled in the drama during Season 4, as viewers watch his father’s gory and unjust death.

The tragedy nearly drove him to cross a line by having A-Train steal V before forcing himself to let his father go, only for his long-absent mother to stir things up, forcing him to live through the trauma of witnessing his father transform into an uncontrollable 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁er, and eventually injecting him with a lethal cocktail of drugs, thus perpetuating his father’s death at his own hands.

Jack Quaid and Erin Moriarty as Hughie and Annie in The Boys Season 4 [Credit: Prime Video]

If that in itself wasn’t enough, Annie January gets her identity stolen by a shapeshifting supe who kidnaps the real Annie, poses as Hughie’s girlfriend for 10 days, uses her borrowed memories to trick Hughie, and even engineers a marriage proposal out of the deal. It was not enough for Jack Quaid’s character to become the victim of r*pe in this one incident as The Boys Season 4 went on to make him a victim of s*xual assault as well merely a day after the death of his father in a full-blown creepy 𝓈ℯ𝓍-dungeon scene.

However, the problematic arc is focused around Annie playing the blame game with Hughie, questioning his judgment for not doubting who the shapeshifter was, all while ruling out even the most fundamental consideration of Hughie being the victim of a crime just as much as Annie. As mentioned in the video:

“Why would he hold a magnifying glass over every move you make, especially considering how much crap y’all have gone through this season? It isn’t outrageous to think that Hughie was trying to find some comfort in who he thought was his partner. 

The last thing he needs after losing his dad is to feel like he is to blame for not noticing that some lunatic supe took your identity. I understand why you’re upset, you’re just directing it at the wrong person.”

The Boys Season 4 Colors Hughie’s narrative is in shades of grey and black, taking the character through an agonizing series of disasters just to see him lose it all in the cliffhanger ending.