r/TheBoys • u/LoretiTV • Jun 20 '24

The Boys - 4x04 "Wisdom of the Ages" - Episode Discussion Season 4

Season 4 Episode 4: Wisdom of the Ages

Aired: June 20, 2024

Synopsis: Vought News Network is proud to announce its new series #Truthbomb! Join host Firecracker and her celebrity guests for the live 6-hour premiere as they expose Starlight’s Adrenochrome Parties!

Directed by: Phil Sgriccia

Written by: Geoff Aull

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u/CryStrict5004 Jun 20 '24

It's really weird how I can excuse murder in a fictional character, but what frenchie did, sleeping with a guy whose family he killed is depraved. And then he tells him the truth, not because he wants him to know but for his own selfish sake, t o get the weight of his mind I suppose. If he had any care for Colin, he'd have just broken up with him and never spoken to him again

454

u/ineedmymompls Jun 20 '24

I think Frenchie kept going back to him because deep down he still seeks forgiveness for what he did. Being close to Colin made him feel like he was 'earning it', as illogical as that sounds.

222

u/cuntyrainbowunicorn Jun 20 '24

Frenchie has shown repeatedly that he's teetering on the verge of suicidely depressed. Even in the climax of that scene he says 'do it'. He wanted Colin to kill him, he wants to be punished for the things he's done.

117

u/Far-Fault-6243 Cunt Jun 20 '24

Frenchie ain’t stupid he knows there’s no forgiving what he did and that the truth would only set Colin down the path of relapsing.

86

u/ticklefarte Jun 20 '24

God I didn't even think about it. I hope the guy doesn't go on a bender. Fuck

59

u/Far-Fault-6243 Cunt Jun 21 '24

Bud I think that’s what’s going on. I mean just imagine the person who is the reason you got off of drugs and got a job is also the reason why you became a drug addict. Not only that he was your lover like shit.

61

u/mfedz You're The Real Heroes Jun 21 '24

There was literally nothing to be gained from telling Colin! It was purely selfish of Frenchie to start a relationship with him and even more so to tell him the truth.

31

u/22bebo Jun 21 '24

I think the only thing Frenchie "gained" is that he makes Colin leave him. Frenchie is an addict, and Colin was another drug for him. He tried to quit, and couldn't, so the only way Frenchie could "save" Colin from being with him was to force him to leave.

It wasn't a good thing to do, the actual selfless thing to do is 1) not hook up with Colin in the first place and 2) keep it to yourself and just break up. But Frenchie's an addict and he can't handle making choices for himself, so he must put the choice off onto Colin.

18

u/justpaintoverit Jun 21 '24

This this this this. He’s incapable of making the choice himself so he forces Colin to do it for him.

16

u/Equivalent_Yak8215 Jun 21 '24

He's an addict. He's not well. It's clearly mapped out when he just says "I'm gonna get high".

He doesn't want to feel. At all.

4

u/Far-Fault-6243 Cunt Jun 21 '24

But him doing that will also make Colin relapse Colin is also an addict it’s how they met.

30

u/Far-Fault-6243 Cunt Jun 21 '24

Yeah I really hate what they have done to frenchie. Like I get they wanted to make him complex but my lord this is not the same person at all from season 1 to 2 like he was complex but he was kind to those who were lost and hurt and I just can’t imagine the character that I well saw from those seasons do this horrid thing.

30

u/mfedz You're The Real Heroes Jun 21 '24

The same guy who kept the secret of how Mallory's grandchildren got killed from the Boys for years suddenly NEEDED to unburden himself to Colin even though he KNEW it would devastate him.

24

u/Far-Fault-6243 Cunt Jun 21 '24

Yup it’s like the writers don’t understand wtf to do with Kimiko and frenchie

15

u/Jern-Marstone Jun 21 '24

I feel like they were worried about the will they/won’t they cliche and decided to take them in a different direction but this has completely fizzled out that plot line and made Frenchie look like an insane person

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1

u/Equivalent_Yak8215 Jun 22 '24

Or...that all the boys suck at relationships. Frenchie can't stop being weird, MM got dropped for Todd, Butcher is on a whole 'nother plane, and Kimiko is wordlessy fucking a barista. And Hughie is just lying to Annies face always. 

10

u/Any_Rutabaga2884 Jun 21 '24

everything that Frenchie has shown to be in the latter seasons is like a deconstruction of his persona in season 1.

yeah, in season 1 he was a functional addict, chemist, arms dealer, hedonist and murderer with a comedic abusive past, a strangely philosophical mindset and a soft heart. and it was amusing.

beneath the surface it’s less endearing. obviously.

11

u/Far-Fault-6243 Cunt Jun 21 '24

But we don’t see the decline enough through these seasons it feels like we missed a massive step in the show for frenchie to be turned into this. We don’t know why frenchie is with Colin in the first place other than maybe general attraction. He meets Colin off screen and boom they are in a relationship and just learns “oh I killed this guys whole family” because the plot demands it. It’s not shown well at all and to deconstruct a character and to show their descent or fall you need to take the small steps and they didn’t do that.

3

u/Any_Rutabaga2884 Jun 21 '24

no the story with Colin isn’t told well. I think there are many aspects to frenchie’s characterization that are interesting though and you can see what the writers were attempting to do.

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3

u/Equivalent_Yak8215 Jun 22 '24

I think they do it well. He's an addict. The backslide is real because there are no stairs or levels. If an addict goes back, it's a drop. He hit the ground and now the one person who desperately loves him is moving away. Unfortunately, he is gonna keep digging the hole on Kimiko leaves.

27

u/Equivalent_Yak8215 Jun 21 '24

He will. 

The show runners have a really keen eye to addiction. Maybe people don't see it, but Frenchie gets bent to punish people. He's a flavor of depression. Massive drug abuse, trouble sleeping, terrified of being together with anyone. 

Kimiko sees it. She wasn't lying. She loves him.

3

u/Any_Rutabaga2884 Jun 21 '24

bent? I don’t understand

3

u/Equivalent_Yak8215 Jun 21 '24

Bent = Fucked up on his choice of drugs 

7

u/PityOnlyFools Jun 21 '24

Frenchie ain't stupid, but he is high a lot. Drugs affect judgement.

9

u/channerflinn Jun 21 '24

Frenchy is what we in the business call “pity-sexual”

3

u/DystopiaXP Jun 21 '24

Sex therapy business?

8

u/channerflinn Jun 21 '24

No, he’s deeply attracted to the human equivalent of his own guilt and sadness. He dates three legged dogs

9

u/DystopiaXP Jun 21 '24

No, I was asking what business you were in lol

3

u/channerflinn Jun 22 '24

Ha, I’ll never tell

43

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '24

That's the thing. It's too much. The characters have done some terrible things, but this one is, like you said, depraved. There's really no excusing this.

7

u/justpaintoverit Jun 21 '24

I can’t speak for the writers, but I didn’t get the impression that his actions are supposed to be “acceptable” or “excusable”

16

u/CertainAlbatross7739 Jun 21 '24

I think they're speaking from a place of feeling like this is something for which Frenchie can never be forgiven. Sometimes writers have a character cross a line that even their fans can't move past.

Personally he's my least favourite Boy so I don't really care. But I can see people bringing this up over and over again because it truly was depraved.

7

u/shineurliteonme Jun 21 '24

The Boys are a terrorist cell. All of them are deeply fucked up and bad people. They're right about homelander and shit but that's a pretty low bar to clear.

1

u/CertainAlbatross7739 Jun 23 '24

It's the emotional violence that's getting to people. Yes, the Boys all do terrible shit, but every viewer has limits on what they'll forgive and/or forget.

Like how we're all prepared for a certain amount of gore, but then the lobotomy scene pops up and it's too much for some. 

8

u/[deleted] Jun 21 '24

Yes, this is exactly what I meant.

It's being portrayed as something bad, but it's genuinely too bad. This is a guy we are supposed to cheer on and he just did something that would make Homelander go "yikes".

11

u/CertainAlbatross7739 Jun 21 '24

I've been mentally checked out of this storyline, but when Colin described seeing Frenchie from under the bed I went 'Jesus Christ, please end this!'

The whole thing was fucked up beyond belief.

1

u/HermesTGS Jun 22 '24

It’s Season 4 and Frenchie has been a good guy for half a decade now.

2

u/wafflesareforever Jun 21 '24

Why did he kill that family in the first place?!

25

u/[deleted] Jun 21 '24

[deleted]

11

u/wafflesareforever Jun 21 '24

Ah that was Nina's gang. Got it.

Damn, Frenchie was one cold frog back in the day.

0

u/BiscoBiscuit Jul 28 '24

There’s so, so many depraved things that multiple characters have done, what Frenchy did is just one of them. 

54

u/FlashyClaim Jun 20 '24

Maybe Colin and Todd has something in common that Frenchie cant resist...

but yeah it was very selfish and stupid of him to treat Colin like that for a long time

3

u/kj468101 Jun 22 '24

I definitely think Frenchie has attachment issues and was worried that ghosting Colin would cause him to relapse, and Frenchie didn’t want to experience not being around to help someone he loved when they need you most like in his prior relationship. Telling Colin the truth was definitely selfish and messed up, but it did technically avoid repeating the past! Just in a much worse way. Rip Frenchie’s self-punishing habits.

24

u/StickyDitka21 Jun 21 '24

And also made Colin talk about it!!!! Fucking dirty by Frenchie but this episode definitely got me more into his story this season.

38

u/SilverOdin Jun 20 '24

Yeah Frenchie took a fat L this episode (and the previous ones when he slept with Colin)

16

u/SharknadosAreCool Jun 21 '24

i think it's just cuz murder is sometimes justified or at least morally gray. shit even the bad murders you can get away with "i was a different person" or "i redeemed myself" or whatever. but if you knowingly bang some dude you serial killed the family of then you're pretty much just extremely twisted and selfish. there's actually no line at ALL to defend yourself when you're asked wtf your deal is doing that shit, at least if you ask dude who murdered someone they'll say something like "they were a bad guy" or "they would have blown up a hospital" or "they were going to reveal my entire family as mobsters" and even in the last example you're like ahh ok i sorta see how you could do it even though it's a bad action. but how the fk are you supposed to justify emotional terrorism like that, you're either the most selfish person imaginable and actually didn't realize the consequences of such TERRIBLE, or you're a comically evil supervillain type guy. and both are pretty much indefensible

1

u/cheyenne_sky Jun 22 '24 edited Jun 22 '24

I don’t think he realized that Collin was a victim at first (thus the photo reveal scene) but yes it’s super selfish. He was just trying to avoid it mentally but he couldn’t and hurt Collin even more. 

41

u/Green-Enthusiasm-940 Jun 20 '24

My problem is they fucked how many times, and somehow very obvious scars on his ankles weren't noticed? Writers really pulled a dumb one there.

33

u/TonySimp Jun 21 '24

socks stay on during sex i guess.

2

u/might_be_alright Jul 04 '24

good to know my Heterosexual Frenchie headcanon remains unchallenged!

10

u/justpaintoverit Jun 21 '24

Not TOO crazy actually. I have scars on my ankles that most people don’t notice. The unrealistic thing is how visible his actually are. Scars are less visible or more visible in part depending on how much exposure to the sun they have. Anything on your ankle (including burns like that) aren’t going to be as pronounced because your ankles don’t get a lot of sunlight. Vs if they were on his forearm arm they would be impossible to miss because your forearms have a lot of exposure to sunlight.

(So basically if you want to minimize scarring, keep a new scar covered as long as you can tolerate. Six months to a year if you can.)

2

u/YoelsShitStain Jun 22 '24

It would’ve been a way better reveal if he found the scars while patching him up. The Frenchie plot was a huge let down from beginning to end.

19

u/ElMatasiete7 Jun 21 '24

I understand how this season kinda revolves around forgiveness, but bro is literally worse than some members of the Seven at this point. Have no clue why they thought this was a good direction for the character.

6

u/DystopiaXP Jun 21 '24

Butcher nearly killed a baby on purpose. I think the show holds back too much when it comes to vilifying The Boys vs everyone else.

9

u/TheLiberalLover Jun 21 '24

I think him telling Colin was some kind of suicide attempt honestly

63

u/ConnerBartle Jun 20 '24

For real. Im liking the season overall but this fucked up fenchie storyline somehow both retreads old ground and assassinates his character in new ways.

122

u/booboorogers44 Black Noir Jun 20 '24

He’s always been a shitty dude this isn’t character assassination. Shedding new light on how these characters aren’t very good people or heroes isn’t a new thing for this show.

18

u/[deleted] Jun 21 '24

I think the whole point of The Boys franchise is that people - ALL of them - suck beyond quote-on-quote “redemption”, and that’s why the only positive way to live is to extend radical empathy and forgiveness. This is the only way that a negative cycle is ever broken in the show. Of course this message is lost on almost everyone who discusses the show online, because the on the Internet acting superior and judgmental are badges of honor.

3

u/DystopiaXP Jun 21 '24

I had to take note of what you said about radical empathy. I think you nailed the theme.

3

u/meldooy32 Jun 22 '24

Perfect take. I’ll add this to my daily thoughts. Thanks!

4

u/GetEquipped Jun 21 '24

Everyone is going through old wounds.

Starlight with her slutshaming and dismissing it as "I was just competitive!"

Hughie with his mom, Kimiko with her Kumite, Homelander with B6

Now we see Frenchie and his past with Nina

I bet we're gonna find out some fucked up shit about MM next episode, like "Mother's Milk" is because he stole money from his mom's purse to buy milk

Better than that asshole, Motherfucker Jones!!

26

u/ConnerBartle Jun 20 '24

The whole point of his character is redemption. Coming back from the dark things he did when he was forced to/when he was high. Reverting his character back by making him commit some sort of weird psychological torture is not moving his character forward.

41

u/GatoradeNipples Jun 20 '24

I... really don't think that's how we're supposed to be reading the Frenchie/Colin thing.

I don't like the subplot, because Colin is about as interesting as wet cardboard, but I get what they're trying to do with Frenchie; he's trying to atone for his past sins and he's really, really bad at it.

13

u/GeneralJones420-2 Jun 21 '24

No it isn't. Frenchie has in all of the three seasons before never done anything to redeem himself. He never stopped using drugs without relapsing, he never made up for his past crimes, the only season where he showed development in that regard was season 2 and he only accepted his role in the death of Mallory's grandchildren (and cleared up the one stumbling block to reconciling fully with MM). He didn't do anything to redeem himself for it though. Last season his arc was about freeing himself from the control of others and no longer doing whatever fucked up shit Little Nina or Butcher wanted from him no questions asked, and he succeeded. This season's development ties directly back to it because then the question comes up: if he could do it now, why not before? Frenchie pretty much even says it himself in the conversation with Annie and Kimiko, he cannot blame Nina for all his actions, he has to live with the fact he could have resisted her at any point but didn't until after he had murdered dozens of people.

Also, that's the theme for multiple characters this season: taking accountability. Frenchie is realizing that he cannot blame his actions on his handlers, Kimiko is hinted at having recruited Shining Light members herself at some point and she doesn't yet know how to live with that, MM is accepting that despite how much he despises Butcher by now, he himself isn't any better as a leader when he cannot put the blame on him anymore, Annie is confronted with the fact that she too has done mistakes in the past but refuses to take responsibility and A-Train, pretty much the worst person out of everyone mentioned above when we first met him, has fully accepted that he has done terrible things and is genuinely trying to make up for them as well as he can.

6

u/Any_Rutabaga2884 Jun 21 '24

finally someone gets it

21

u/booboorogers44 Black Noir Jun 20 '24

Or it’s the writers telling us that he hasn’t really changed. As much as he wants to be a good guy forced into a life of crime he might just be a terrible guy

0

u/ConnerBartle Jun 20 '24

That sounds like a great character arc 🙄 it’s telling us all his progress was for naught?

No. Clearly they are continuing his redemption arc. They are just dragging it out and making it feel like we are spinning wheels. My only complaint about the season so far.

7

u/coyoteTale Jun 21 '24

So the thing with character arcs about redemption is they usually get worse before they get better. Look at the show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, she spends three seasons getting progressively worse before hitting absolute rock bottom. We’ve been uncovering more and more about how awful his past was, and this is some pretty rock bottom shit. 

Though that being said, even if the arc ends with him being unable to improve, even if he fully gives up and succumbs to his shadow, that’s still a good story arc. Stories about failing at redemption are just as interesting as stories about succeeding. Sometimes everything being for naught is the point 

5

u/ConnerBartle Jun 21 '24

I understand. I just feel that the s4 portion of frenchies story isn’t as effective as it was in the past.

-5

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/ConnerBartle Jun 20 '24

It wasn’t intentional but it shows a lack of awareness of the effect his actions have on people. And being aware of that was always a big part of his character. I was believing his struggle when he was having feelings and struggling to keep them at bay. But after he repeatedly slept with him and had a happy little mini relationship, it became fucked up. Seems like something s1 Frenchie would do. Not a post s3 frenchie.

But I am shocked how upset you got from a Reddit comment about a show. 😂

11

u/Skeith253 Jun 20 '24

Its not weird its straight up evil.

0

u/iDontLikeChimneys Jun 21 '24

What about Bucky. He was redeemed

3

u/DystopiaXP Jun 21 '24

WINTER SOLDIER??

12

u/Toxem_ Jun 20 '24

Frenchi isnt a good person. He is really selfish and just seeks way to escape his own pain and suffering. Be it with fast love full of risk. He tried to seduce a feral sup and now was smashin a person, which familie he killed.

And after all coming crashing down on him. He wanted to die, but wanted to let Colin kill him, he even says to him, if i listen right. "Do it" .

3

u/Magic_SnakE_ Jun 21 '24

There's going to be some specific reason as to why he killed this guys family that exonerates him. They're not gonna let this relationship end lol.

3

u/figbiscotti Jun 21 '24

I could see this if Frenchie were a teenager in love, but as a mature adult one should realize the kindest most loving thing to do would be to stay away. What Frenchie did was based on pure selfishness.

1

u/Ninjasquirtle4 Jun 22 '24

I think I missed it, why did Frenchie kill Colin's family?

3

u/Doright36 Jun 23 '24

It was when he was working for that female mobster. Colin's Mother was a judge that was about to drop the hammer on the gang so she sent Frenchie to take her out and send a message.

People forget that woman had Frenchie on a leash for a long time and he did things for her that he is now ashamed of. Not excusing his sleeping with the son since that is really screwed up but it was heavily implied he wasn't exactly operating as a free man when he worked for that lady and that includes when he did the hit to begin with.

1

u/CryStrict5004 Jun 22 '24

I have no idea. I don't even remember Colin. I think he's a new charachter

1

u/beefaujuswithjuice Aug 22 '24

Yeah the way he told him was so stupid.

That on top of starlight freaking out and falling into Sage’s plan perfectly, it was super frustrating.

Could easily see how Starlight could have gotten in front of it

1

u/Orome2 Jun 21 '24

They really ruined Frenchie's character this season.

-6

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '24

Yeah with that and starlight beating a woman almost to death on live TV. Everyone would be rooting for the 'republicans' in this universe. The lefts are being portrayed as horrible people by vot because they actually are lol

9

u/coyoteTale Jun 21 '24

If someone beat up Hannity on live tv, everyone I know would stand up and cheer.