Why Sister Sage Was An Especially Difficult Character For The Boys' Showrunners

From its very beginning, "The Boys" has had some great villains. For starters, we have the monsters that are The Seven, as inspired by the Justice League, a blood-thirsty group that loves to abuse its power and, in Homelander's case especially, commit atrocities against mortals. Then there are the more human villains like the scientists at Vought, the executives at Vought, and ... well, basically everyone else at Vought.

Still, no matter how many villains the show threw at the audience, whether it was laser babies, Neuman with her brain-exploding powers, or Soldier Boy the racist Captain America stand-in, no one could match Homelander as the big heel of "The Boys" — at least until Susan Heyward's Sister Sage entered the picture. We first meet Jessica Bradley, also known as Sister Sage, early in season 4. She is the self-proclaimed smartest person on the planet, and when Homelander comes a-knocking after it's suggest he add some diversity to The Seven, she immediately sells him on her intelligence and quickly becomes his confidant and new manager.

Speaking with Variety, showrunner Eric Kripke revealed that Sage was conceived out of a conversation about one of Homelander's big weaknesses. "He's generally surrounded by idiots," Kripke said. "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!"

Unsurprisingly, the hard part about the character is that she is 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.

Unlike many other "smartest person in the world" characters, Sister Sage is not a high-profile supe and often finds herself being underestimated (assuming those around her even listen to her at all). As Kripke explained, a member of the show's creative team came up with the idea to "make her an African American woman who nobody listens to." That decision gives Sister Sage a complexity different from every other antagonistic character on "The Boys," as it makes her someone capable of either saving or destroying all of humanity, yet also someone that might as well be invisible to everyone else. "I thought was a super interesting social commentary on top of that character," Kripke continued. "And then Susan brings it to life, and is just so smart."

Indeed, Sister Sage may be the smartest person in the world, but having her working with Homerlander makes her the most dangerous one, too. That's because the moment she meets him, she immediately suggests that he lead a coup on the American government and install himself as a dictator. As if we had to spell it out for anyone, this would be terrible, no good, very bad news for everyone, including Sister Sage herself. After all, why wouldn't Homelander kill her once he takes control? She is the only person who could potentially find a way to take him down, just as she found a way to put him in power.

It's unlikely that Sister Sage doesn't know that's a possibility, so what else does she have up her sleeve? She must have alternate plans, right? So, if Sister Sage has a countermeasure for Homelander trying to kill her, it's possible she might already be planning his death, whether by teaming up with The Boys or with someone else to do her bidding.

New episodes of "The Boys" season 4 drop Thursdays on Prime Video.