The following story contains spoilers for The Boys Season 4, through the first three episodes.
IT’S VERY CLEAR, almost from the get-go, that there’s going to be a lot of soul-searching happening in Season 4 of The Boys. Prime Video’s superhero satire extravaganza is known for its bloody violence and balls-to-the-walls takes on political satire and people in power, but it’s also always been a great home for characters who are more than just two-dimensional stereotypes. Even villains like Homelander (Antony Starr)—a psychopathic murder—get a chance at building out a little humanity.
It looks like a couple key reclamation projects in Season 4 may just be A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) and The Deep (Chace Crawford)—although their paths to “redemption,” (if you feel like calling it that) are looking very different. But both seemingly have the same inciting incident: in the Season 4 premiere, when Homelander makes them violently murder three of his die-hard fans as a part of Sister Sage’s (Susan Heyward) new plan to help him get back into the public’s good graces.
The Deep and A-Train do the murdering without much hesitation. But afterwards, it’s clear that they’re both going through it. A-Train can hardly keep his mind straight when filming a movie with Will Ferrell (!!!), and even does a couple nice things for Hughie and Starlight; so nice, in fact, that Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) starts to winder if they could get him to turn to the side of the good guys.
But that’s not what we’re here to talk about right now. What we’re here to talk about is the way that The Deep, despite being a pathetic, sad, self-absorbed loser for the entire duration of The Boys, is being set up to finally do what he believes in, thanks to two relatively new people (and sea animals) in his life. Sister Sage helps him stand up to Ashley (Colby Minifie) after she’s rude to him for the 1,000th time, and for the first time in three seasons, we see The Deep starting to have the tiniest bit of self-confidence.
But it’s his life at home that marks the real standout. Last season, during Herogasm, The Deep met Ambrosius, a large Octopus that the TNT Twins had living in a tank in their home. There’s no easy way to put this: The Deep and Ambrosius had sex and gained a real connection. In fact, The Deep asked his wife, Cassandra, if Amrbosius could enter their relationship as a third party, a request that she quickly denied and walked out on him over.
In Season 4, things have gone even further down this road, as Ambrosius is hidden away in a tank in The Deep’s home. Not only is Ambrosius hidden away, though, but she’s his primary confidante and supporter. She gives him words of affirmation, calls him “Kevin,” which is his real name and not his superhero name, and suggests that maybe they should stop caring what anyone thinks, and run away together.
As all of this suggests, now, just like the The Deep—who can speak to creatures of the sea—always has, we can hear her voice. And it’s a wonderful, recognizable, Academy Award-winning British voice.
Academy Award-winning actress Tilda Swinton provides the voice of Ambrosius the Octopus
That’s right. Tilda Swinton, she of We Need To Talk About Kevin, Constantine, numerous Wes Anderson films,and Michael Clayton (for which she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar) fame, is the voice of Ambrosius the Octopus in The Boys Season 4. You’re probably saying ‘Wow’ right about now, and, yeah, ‘Wow’ is right.
As it turns out, The Boys team didn’t know Swinton at all—they just reached out to her on a whim. “Once we realized that Ambrosius was going to be a character this year, we in the writers’ room all said, ‘We need the classiest, Oscar-winningest, British actress we can get our hands on.'” The Boys creator Eric Kripke said in an interview with Variety. “And that’s a really short list. And Dame Judi Dench was unavailable.”
So, as it turns out, they got very lucky that she, seemingly, was both very receptive, and has very good taste. “To her everlasting credit, she didn’t know any of us, but she was like, ‘That sounds hilarious, I’m in,’ and she did it,” Kripke said. “To hear the highest-caliber actor of her level reading the dumbest lines, it just makes me so happy.”
