Sister Sage by Susan Heyward has become a welcome addition to Boys. Only the literally smartest person in the world could overcome the crushing egos of The Seven, and watching her go toe-to-toe with Homelander (Antony Starr) and The Deep (Chace Crawford) has certainly been a treat.
But geniuses need a break too. And The Deep certainly gives him one during this week’s episode when she performs a frontal lobotomy on him before having sex.
Just when you think Boys It couldn’t be more gruesome, the lobotomy foreplay surpassing every shocking bit of violence depicted in previous seasons. And yes, that includes the crushing human centipede in Episode 2 and the sneeze-induced penis explosion from Season 3.
The episode may have started with Sister Sage reprimanding The Deep’s rude advances, but then she invites him back to her room for mindless fun with fast food and trash TV. Whether she finds him “repulsive” or not, she needs him to do her a favor.
The favor in question? He performs a frontal lobotomy and “scrapes” her brain so she can take a break from her superpowers.
“It’s temporary, you give me a frontal lobotomy and I don’t have to be me for a couple of hours,” he tells her. While The Deep initially seems hesitant about it, the promise of anal sex is enough to get him on board.
Crawford approaches the scene with the hilarious levity that only a jerk like The Deep could muster. After Sage presents her with the orbitoclast (the spike she must insert into her eye socket), she says that it may be “the worst dildo” she has ever seen.
They then show the complete lobotomy from start to finish and, to the credit of Boys, it’s incredibly graphic and hard to watch. Although only a trickle of blood leaks from her eye afterwards, the sight and sounds of The Deep jabbing a pickaxe into her eye and then scraping away her brain matter at her behest will make even the biggest horror fans cringe.
“Take my fucking brains out,” he says. To his credit, The Deep at least has the grace to look like he’s not enjoying this bit of foreplay. Sage, however, seems to really enjoy it. As director Philip Sgriccia gives the viewer a front-seat view of Sage’s eye protruding from her socket, she moans loudly as The Deep scrapes her frontal lobe.
The scene proves that Deep is the perfect foil for Sage and their partnership, for better or worse, is a joy to watch on screen. For all her flaws, Boys The writers understand that The Deep’s oblivion gives him a sense of peace that Sage will never have. Ironically, his ego and casual misogyny make him perfect game for Sage; Not only is he dumb enough to perform a lobotomy on another person without medical training and without asking questions, but her superficiality also makes him the perfect candidate for a casual situation while she conspires with Homelander.
Showrunner and series creator Eric Kripke recently explained that the writers wanted Sage to have a way to break free from being the smartest person in the world. While they were thinking about painting her face, the lobotomy made more sense visually since “people get really weird with eye things.”
For Heyward, the lobotomy represented Sage’s desperate need for peace.
“Kripke and I talked a lot about Sage’s sense of isolation,” Heyward said. “How her brain is a blessing and a curse because she’s trapped between all this information all the time and she can never escape and just be.” and then I believe [the risk of losing her eye with a lobotomy] It’s worth it, for her sanity, because if she doesn’t get a break from her brain, she’ll go even crazier than she already is.”
He added that it was “really fun to shoot” with Crawford, who admitted it was definitely a “apprehensive” scene.
“It was a little technical challenge and we were shooting everything up to that point,” Crawford said. “Just doing it was very intense. Truly phenomenal, although a very strange perversion.”
It may be too early to call Sister Sage’s lobotomy the grossest scene on the show. With four episodes left in the season, there’s certainly still time to Boys to get over that one.
new episodes of Boys air on Thursdays main video.
