The following article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for The Boys season 4.
Summary
- Season 4 of
The Boys
features a shapeshifter replacing Starlight, but Director Catriona McKenzie reveals how to spot the real one. - The upcoming episode,
Assassination Run,
will show Starlight separated from the Boys and facing challenges alongside a shapeshifting Supe. - McKenzie offers clues on identifying the real Starlight based on her physicality, emotional intelligence, and performance subtleties in the episode.
The director of season 4, episode 7 of The Boys has discussed that nerve-wracking twist in which a shapeshifter has replaced the real Starlight. But worry not, as the episode’s director, Catriona McKenzie, has revealed how viewers can spot the real one. In the episode’s final scene, we saw Annie, aka Starlight, wearing her Supe costume…much to Hughie’s satisfaction. After this steamy moment, she takes the computer from the safe they share, and her eyes flicker, confirming, like Hughie, we too were fooled. The real Annie wakes up chained to the floor in a cabin, and remembers the woman who asked her for a selfie early on in the episode drugged her… before seeing her dead skin is on the ground next to her.
In the next episode, Assassination Run, the Boys’ journey will end as they try to stop Homelander and Vought’s rampage and rise to the top. Starlight is now separated from Hughie and the rest of the gang, and judging from this last sequence, she won’t just be able to break the chain that binds her. Or will she? While Starlight’s character has tried to leave her Supe typecasting behind and avoided using her powers, the season finale will surely see her defending Hughie and the Boys. In the meantime, the shapeshifting Supe is just one of several problems they have to solve, but thankfully McKenzie has shared how we can see who’s who…
In an interview with Screen Rant, the director provided some clues that’ll help viewers identify the real Starlight. According to the director, it has to do with how the character moves:
”
Erin’s so amazing. We talked about her physicality, we talked about her eyes, and we talked about a stillness because the Shifter doesn’t have the same kind of emotional, intuitive, emotional intelligence that Annie does. And we’ve seen that in the episode; there was just a stillness that she brought to her performance where she’s just a bit more robotic. It was fun working that up with her.Basically, everything’s the opposite of what she’s developed, and she just moved away from her instincts. I think, as a director, it’s more and more about the subtleties of working with actors and working on characters that I find brings such pleasure. The minutia of performative detail is where I think is the goal is, and I love that moment when she gets out of bed and walks past Huey. She walks over to the safe, and you just know we’re in for a ride.”
The Boys Season Finale is Coming: Will an Important Character Die?
The end of season 4 is coming, and like the endings of the previous seasons, it promises to be gripping. Things are chaotic for the Boys as they have been divided in season 4, but now the addition of a new villain puts them at even bigger risk as their most powerful member is now locked up, and the mysterious shapeshifter can turn into any of them at will. The “good” thing is that on the opposite side, the side ruled over by Homelander, the situation is equally as turbulent.
However, the most important question is: Who will die? Season 4 has had only one or two important deaths, and writers are seemingly holding until the end to kill a major character. The bets include A-Train and Butcher, but at this point, it could be anyone. Perhaps Frenchie, with his expanded storyline this season, will see his demise in the next episode? What we’re now sure of is that shapeshifting doesn’t “replace” à la Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Homelander isn’t aware of this other Supe’s manipulative machinations.
![An edited image of Karen Fukuhara as Kimiko with blood on her face in The Boys](https://static1.moviewebimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/the-boys-finally-explains-why-kimiko-doesn-t-speak.jpg)
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The season finale of
The Boys
will be released next Thursday exclusively on Prime Video.