Hughie gets tied up in a Fifty Shades of Grey situation during The Boys Season 4, Episode 6, titled Dirty Business.
Already tormented by having to euthanize Hugh Sr. (Simon Pegg) after his Compound V infusion goes horrifically awry in Episode 5, Hughie (Jack Quaid) finds himself in a new twisted situation. He needs to go undercover to attend a Federalist Society gathering to honor Homelander (Antony Starr) at Tek Knight's Bruce Wayne-like estate.
Wearing the costume of The Boys' Supe informant Webweaver, Hughie goes to the function to find out about nefarious plans Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) and Tek (Derek Wilson) have in the works. Hoping to lure Tek away from the party so The Boys can interrogate him, Hughie is instead lured by Tek down to the "Tek Cave," which is his BDSM dungeon.
Suddenly, Hughie finds himself in a precarious situation that involves Tek's S&M partner Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie) -- and things get weird fast.
Note: The next section contains major spoilers from the episode.
Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) and Joe Kessler (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) are holding Vought scientist Sameer (Omid Abtahi) captive after immobilizing him by amputating one of his legs. Butcher orders Sameer to create more of the virus that will infect and kill Homelander.
Later, an ailing Butcher returns to The Boys' headquarters, where he's once again visited by the specter of Becca (Shantel VanSanten), who asks Butcher why he cut off an innocent man's leg in another act of "blood lust." Becca also questions Butcher's motivation for killing Homelander, which she says will only result in another Homelander-like Supe taking his place.
Returning to see Sameer, the scientist tells Butcher that the virus would kill all Supes, including his allies Annie (Erin Moriarty), Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) and Becca's son Ryan (Cameron Crovetti). Butcher realizes he would be committing global genocide but Joe pushes back. When Joe suddenly starts talking to the apparatition of Becca, Butcher has a startling revelation that's related to his terminal illness.
Hughie and Daphne (Rosemarie DeWitt) memorialize Hugh Sr. on the streets of New York City. Per Hugh Sr.'s wish, Hughie and Daphne spread his ashes during a walking tour of the filming location of the Jennifer Lopez movie Maid in Manhattan in New York City. Joining them on the tour are Annie, Kimiko, and Mother's Milk (Laz Alonso).
Kimiko tries to visit Frenchie (Tomer Capone) in jail after he admitted to committing the murders of his boyfriend Colin's (Elliot Knight) family years before, but Frenchie refuses visitors.
Firecracker (Valorie Curry) steps in as "interim anchor" of the Vought News Network after Cameron Coleman (Matthew Edison) goes on "sabbatical." Coleman isn't coming back, though, since he was executed at the hands of The Seven in Episode 5 when he was accused of leaking the video data from The Seven's Crime Analytics Division. The data, of course, exonerated two Starlighters charged with killing three Home Teamers.
Freaking out over Coleman's execution, A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) calls Mother's Milk and tells him of the Federalist Party gathering. Mother's Milk shares A-Train's intel about Homelander assembling an army of Supes.
Black Noir II (Nathan Mitchell) unmasks himself and gripes to The Deep (Chace Crawford) about not being invited to the Federalist Society gathering while downing a bottle of sake.
A-Train saves Mother's Milk from what is believed to be a heart attack while he's trying to rescue Hughie from the Tek Cave. While dropping off Mother's Milk at the hospital, a young boy standing outside looks at the Supe in wonder because he's seen a superhero in action, making A-Train smile knowing he's done something good with his powers.
Kimiko and Annie save Hughie from the Tek Cave and make Tek Knight pay both physically and monetarily by gaining access to his bank account making multi-million dollar donations to social justice organizations. Tek spills the plan and tells them that Homelander and Sister Sage have made a deal with him to put their "dissidents" into his private prisons all over the country.
Firecracker surprises Homelander by revealing she's been taking lactation pills. As such Firecracker becomes Homelander's new wet nurse -- a la Madelyn Stillwell (Elisabeth Shue) in previous seasons of The Boys -- and provides him with a new supply of breastmilk. The idea seemingly is for Firecracker to keep Homelander under control as the late Stillwell did or at the very least keep the Supe from killing her.
After a mostly political-free episode in Episode 5, The Boys creator Eric Kripke once again infuses politics into Episode 6, but mostly in a way that works within the context of the story and doesn't feel preachy.
As such, Kripke satirizes a right-wing conspiracy theory during Firecracker's VNN appearance, but the purpose of the Federalist Society gathering is to have Sister Sage convince the most powerful politicians in the room to commit high treason and invoke the 25th Amendment so Vice President-elect and secret Supe Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) can become president. From a narrative standpoint, it drives the storyline of Season 4 forward.
Kripke also inserts some hot-button political issues into the scenes at Tek Knight's estate by having Senator Calhoun (David Andrews) explain to Victoria Neuman why he backs a nationwide abortion ban, which makes Victoria's head literally explode (but in a fantasy sequence). Again, though, the scene works from a narrative standpoint since it convinces Victoria that she needs to go along with Sister Sage's plan to participate in the government coup.
While Episode 5 largely brought back the excessive gore in a laugh-out funny way (flying feral sheep -- what's not to love?), Kripke's BDSM scenes in Tek Knight's dungeon amplifies the bizarre sexual perversion of The Boys that puts The Human Centipede-like cringe scene in Episode 2 this season to shame. In short, the Tek Cave scenes are revolting and ultimately far more disgusting than the laugh-out stupid scenes in Fifty Shades of Grey.
And adding to the weirdness, of course, is the return of Homelander's obsession with breastmilk, which is one of the most bizarre ongoing storylines of the entire series.
While The Boys Season 4 continues to be uneven in tone from episode to episode, at least Episode 6 resulted in some interesting takeaways that raise the stakes for Season 4 as it drives toward its conclusion.
Weirdness aside, at least Kripke is displaying some great storytelling sensibilities with the Billy Butcher-Joe Kessler twist and revealing more details about Homelander's plans to turn the country upside down by installing Victoria Neuman as president. Dirty Business may not be the best episode of Season 4, but at least it's one of the most creative from a storytelling standpoint.
