The finale ofThe BoysSeason 4 sets up an explosive final season.Homelander has come out on topwhen his plan to bend the government to his will succeeds, but he and Sister Sage are far from done. He plans to create a supe supremacist society and eliminate any threat to his power, and Sage, who harbors a grudge against non-powered humans, lends her exceptional mind to his cause. Sage has worked closely with The Seven and has even gotten intimate with several members, but fans can’t help but wonder why the smartest character in the show is helping the villain.
Sister Sage has possessed abnormally high intelligence since she was a little girl. Her brain grows rapidly and endlessly, requiring frontal lobotomies to keep it under control. She doesn’t necessarily believe that supes are better than humans like Homelander, but they both have endured unfair prejudice from them and desire retribution. At the end of the final episode, Sage tells Homelander to “buckle up for Phase 2.” Is this alluding to her unwavering allegiance to expanding Homelander’s influence? Or is she plotting something bigger, something that could end his scheme entirely?
Sister Sage’s Plans So Far in The Boys
To garner public support for Homelander’s campaign, Sage stirred up controversy against Starlight and her people. The Seven murdered three of Homelander’s loyal followers, so Sage made it appear as though they were killed in a riot by devotees of Starlight. From there, the public had a reason to detest Starlight and feel sympathy for Homelander. She takes this further by fueling the animosity between Starlight and Firecracker.
In a conspiratorial move, Firecracker spills a secret about Starlight on live TV, causing Starlight to attack her in full view of the public. Sage’s strategy to portray Firecracker as a victim of Starlight’s wrath drew even more sympathy to her side. This shows us just how smart she is: using the media to influence a large range of people is a common tactic of fascist groups attempting to rise to power.
10 Times The Boys Went Too Far
These shocking moments in The Boys prove why the subversive, darkly comedic reinvention of the superhero genre continues to excite and unsettle fans.
The Boys, in an attempt to thwart The Seven, use A-Train as a double agent to poke into their plans. For a while, it appeared that Sage was unable to uncover the spy. In reality, she was fully aware of A-Train’s deception and kept him around so she could control what he learned, and by extension, what The Boys learned. She purposefully kept Homelander in the dark because she knew he would kill A-Train immediately, not seeing the possibility of monitoring the enemy’s knowledge. This move is particularly significant because it means that Sage has no problem using Homelander himself as a pawn in her strategies. He believes he is the leader of The Seven, in charge of everyone else, but if Sage can manipulate him just as easily as the others, it’s verypossible thatshe could orchestrate his downfallin Season 5.
What the Future May Hold in The Boys Season 5
The mysterious “Phase 2” is theorized to be one of two possible outcomes. One of them is that Sister Sage plans to aid Homelander in spreading his supe supremacist ideals outside the U.S. to the rest of the world. Power-hungry as he and The Seven are, they want to indoctrinate as many supes as they can into their ideology and make it harder for those who oppose it to escape them. The Vought sympathizers that he plans to eliminate will likely be forced to flee the country now thatVictoria Neuman is dead, and the President works for Homelander.
Sage could be plotting how to turn foreign governments into his puppets the way she did for the U.S., potentially by designating their enemies as international criminals. If other countries treat the anti-supe refugees just as badly as the U.S. did, it allows The Seven’s supremacist ideals to spread across the globe.
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Nathan Mitchell has been playing Black Noir in The Boys from the beginning, but originally, he was eyeing another Supe role that went to someone else.
The other possible route of “Phase 2” could be the reveal that Sister Sage was using Homelander and The Seven in her own master plan. Her influence on the team has made them stronger than they ever were without her. Who’s to say she can’t take it all away just as quickly?
Everything she did in Season 4 was solely to see if she could get away with it. This suggests that she had been playing a game bigger than Homelander or anyone else knew. The business with A-Train and Singer supports this as well, showing us how blasé she is about hiding her motives and using her teammates as pawns. Season 5 ofThe Boysmight reveal Sage as an even worse villain than Homelander and have her use his own plan against him.
