(Spoilers for The Boys will be found below.)
The Boys began with Hughie’s trauma. The show has kept that (A-)Train going with every season (even when Hughie made some peace with A-Train himself), but the fourth season arguably put Hughie through too much trauma. He lost his father and was tricked into having sex with the Shifter. The episode that hit viewers hardest on Hughie, however, showed him masquerading as Webweaver and being sexually assaulted by Tek Knight (in his sex dungeon) and Ashley without even a safe word to rescue him.
The episode did include Hughie admitting to Starlight that he “was not okay,” and thankfully, that moment did exist, but the discourse on this episode was, well, seriously messy. Part of that had to do with showrunner Eric Kripke’s summary (while speaking to Variety) of “the situation” (and that term was part of Variety‘s question) as not “dark” but “hilarious.” Viewers were not thrilled with that commentary, but now, we’re receiving insight on Hughie’s extra-bad season from Jack Quaid, who spoke with Extra while attending SDCC to promote My Adventures With Superman.
It must be noted that Quaid did not comment at all on the controversy of the sex-dungeon episode, but he does see a light at the end of the tunnel for Hughie (coming in Season 5) and a purpose for his overall hell:
“Hughie goes through a ton every season, and what I think is really happening is that he has to go through such a crucible this season so that next season — look I haven’t seen the scripts, but I do know story structures — I would hope that next season, that’s just teeing him up for a ton of wins. Like, the night is always darkest before the dawn, and I think you’re gonna see some cool stuff from Hughie next season.”
And there you go. Fingers crossed that Quaid’s hunch is correct.
(Via Extra)