The Season 4 trailer for The Boys,  which premiered at the CCXP fan convention in Brazil, teases a season filled with political chaos as our dysfunctional anti-hero team is on the brink. 

With foreboding narration about turning the world’s masses against each other, this season is bound to be the most far-reaching and universally consequential. As society collapses into disarray — with two sides at each other’s throats in a vision all too similar to today’s political climate — Homelander looks on with a joyful, menacing smirk. (Rather than liberals and conservatives, we’ve got those who support superhuman intervention and those who do not.) Homelander’s plan: swoop in and be the hero once catastrophe has left society begging for an answer beyond themselves. Like “Caesar,” he says to the woman narrating, whose motivations remain unclear. Yet, if she’s helping Homelander, she’s a baddie. Her name is Sister Sage, and she is played by Susan Heyward; she will likely be a magic user, falling into a more sorcery-esque category than her Vought contemporaries. 

The trailer also shows more superhumans joining the soiree; Firecracker (Valorie Curry of The Tick, The Lost Symbol) appears to be a Fox News fever dream as a woman in a tight, red, white, and blue spandex suit with bullets wrapped around her torso. There’s also a young girl with snakes where her tongue should be — a more grotesque take on Medusa. And, we see Mother’s Milk come up against a man who can replicate his body by splitting at the seams (in a stomach-flipping visual). And, of course, the trailer provides that customary splash of sexual deviancy we have come to expect.

Unfortunately, Victoria Neuman appears one step closer to becoming the United States Commander in Chief, as she will be America’s VP. Homelander’s impressionable son Ryan seems to be following in his biological father’s footsteps, throwing a man hundreds of feet through the air and into a towering building. Thanks, Homelander. What a great influence you’re shaping up to be. Finally, Jeffrey Dean Morgan enters the fray as someone who appears to be from Homelander’s past, mocking the nickname “The Boys.”  

While the trailer gives us a decent bit of info to chew on, the official plot description reads as follows: 

“The world is on the brink. Victoria Neuman is closer than ever to the Oval Office and under the muscly thumb of Homelander, who is consolidating his power. Butcher, with only months to live, has lost Becca’s son as well as his job as The Boys’ leader. The rest of the team are fed up with his lies. With the stakes higher than ever, they have to find a way to work together and save the world before it’s too late.”

With the team at odds, what will reunify them? Will Butcher’s team come together to save Ryan? According to showrunner Eric Kripke, season 4 will delve into the fight for fatherhood between Butcher and Homelander, Kripke told Collider: 

“Both Butcher and Homelander have very good reasons to fight over Ryan, because the stakes could not be higher. If Ryan goes Homelander’s way and then there’s two Homelanders in the world, then that’s a nightmare for the planet. If Butcher can get Ryan into the light, then that’s probably actually the best weapon they have against Homelander. It’s always been a show about family, and so much of Season 3 was about fathers, so I think it makes sense that Season 4 is about sons.” 

In line with the parent-child focus, Simon Pegg will return as Hughie’s father and Rosemarie Dewitt (Rachel Getting Married, The Estate, The Professor) will join the ensemble as Hughie’s mom. 

With Homelander and Butcher fighting over Ryan and a morally gray Victoria Neuman rising to power, The Boys season 4 will be a violent, action-packed, emotionally destabilizing, political dark superhero thriller with unexpected twists and turns…and Vic is bound to blow up some heads (literally and metaphorically). 

A release date has yet to be announced, but you can stream spinoffs Gen V and The Boys Presents: Diabolical on Amazon Prime as you wait for season 4.