The Boys showrunner reveals which Supe was hardest to write

New Supes have been introduced in The Boys Season 4, but one of them has been the hardest to write, says showrunner Eric Kripke.

The Boys Season 4 might have been distracting fans with famous octopus voices, Human Centipede references, and jump-scare buttholes, but it’s important to remember that we have a few new Supes to get to know.

One of them is Sister Sage, who’s already proving to be a fan favorite. Being the smartest person on the planet, she’s recruited by Homelander to join The Seven. But her greatest power was also a problem for showrunner Eric Kripke, who admitted that this characteristic makes her the hardest character to write.

“Sage came out of the conversation of one weakness that Homelander really has is he’s generally surrounded by idiots,” he told Variety. “And so if we gave him someone truly brilliant, that makes him much more formidable. It turns out that that’s a really hard character to write!

“It’s really hard to write the smartest person in the world. Because you have to write things that the smartest person in the world would think of and we’re not the smartest people in the world, so that’s really difficult,” Kripke added. “And then Sage became a really interesting character, because someone came up with the notion of, ‘Let’s make her an African American woman who nobody listens to.’

“So here she is, the ability to save all of mankind and everyone just kind of thinks she’s invisible, which I thought was a super interesting social commentary on top of that character. And then Susan brings it to life, and is just so smart.”

Sister Sage is one of the most unpredictable Supes by far. Not only do her powers put her intellectually above the rest of The Seven, but Season 4 Episode 3 revealed that she’d resorted to drastic measures to keep her brain quiet. Evidently, she’d lobotomized herself just to get some peace and quiet.

“The smartest person in the world” is a pretty high bar to reach. This decision not only made her a tricky character to write but has also caused a bit of a split among fans as to whether the superhero show has managed to convey this successfully.

“While I like her, I feel like the writers really oversold it by making her ‘the world’s smartest person,'” said one Reddit user. “It seems like they’ve set themselves an impossible bar, because there’s no way they can confidently portray the fictional ‘world’s smartest person.’

“Should’ve just gone for “superintelligence” or something like that, because it leaves more wriggle room for suspension of disbelief.”

“I hope they know what they’re doing with her. The smartest in the universe characters are always problematic. The audience will have to perceive her and her actions as smart, or the whole character kind of falls flat. It will also be hard to write a compelling downfall without losing too much of her perceived intelligence,” said another.

A third wrote: “I thought the smartest person in the world would be smarter. I mean she good at reading people but that’s been pretty much the extent of her powers. Maybe her intelligence will become more apparent in future episodes but right now if you didn’t tell me her powers I would never guess it.”

For more, check out all our The Boys Season 4 theories, as well as our Season 4 release schedule. There’s also a breakdown of the Gen V cast, so you can keep an eye out for cameos.