The Boys S03E04: Glorious Five Year Plan

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The Boys now is less a satire than an extended horror movie, but does it realize that?
by Jeremy Fogelman

The latest episode of The Boys is called “Glorious Five Year Plan” which is a reference to a classic USSR economic plan and also a team in the comics of Russian superheroes, continuing the tactic of loosely connecting the story in the comics to the highly divergent TV show. Here we don’t meet any such team, nor even any Russian supes for that matter, but we do get a few intriguing and harrowing scenes in Russia.

The episode does contain laughs, like always, like the terrible Soldier Boy commercial or the might-as-well-be-real parody of the tone deaf Pepsi BLM commercial starring Kendall Jenner. Considering the commercial actually happened in real life, it’s not really much a satire at all, and SNL already had a hilarious sketch about it back in 2017. So not exactly covering new ground here.

I think the funniest little continuing gag was the Russian state media videos emasculating Hughie about Starlight, but I don’t know if that’s based on reality -- just felt more organically funny instead of super in your face “satire” like Ashley saying that her Instagram feed is nothing but black squares. It feels like a legitimate parody in some ways of Hollywood corporate culture, but the problem is that The Boys also spends most of its time dedicated to showing the parallels of power between Homelander and Butcher in a more realistic, painful way.

And honestly that’s where the show really shines, not so much the half-baked parody pieces, as much as I often find them funny. They just aren’t really integrated well anymore, as the show has proceeded too far into a dark territory (which isn’t a criticism inherently, just the direction it’s gone).

Here we see Supersonic foolishly trusting A-Train with their mysterious plan to take out Homelander -- with good intentions, but poorly thought out. If he had asked Starlight if they could trust him, I doubt she’d have agreed. Maeve is shown practicing her sword fighting while planting fake news stories about going to seed, which does present an interesting direction for her character with the plan that she really started to kill Homelander.

We also get a “fall” of Stan Edgar as Victoria actually turns on her father figure to keep with Homelander and her fellow supes (if only Homelander actually knows about it). The meeting with him and Stan is an interestingly tense one, connecting to a few scenes in the comics, although Stan calling him “bad product” is an interesting choice, as it was a particularly emotional moment in the often emotionless comics that’s here used as a needle drop.

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But as for our team of heroes, the episode is concerned with setting up the failure of Butcher from the start. He convinces MM that he needs him to be there as a stabilizing element, is not careful with keeping his backup Compound V dose from Hughie, and flat out tells Kimiko she’s his gun. The action scene with her killing people with vibrators and dildos was pretty gratuitous, but that’s The Boys for you, the concept isn’t inherently funny to me -- and besides, Everything Everywhere All At Once did it better.

When they actually break into the lab, Butcher breaks open a mysterious container without (again) being careful about it, letting out a long-haired Soldier Boy, a direct allusion to the Winter Soldier character from Marvel. Somewhat oddly out of character, they all just stand around in shock, letting the dude blast at Hughie (although he seemed to be aiming just at the wall?) and Kimiko takes the energy blow instead -- and for some reason she’s not healing her wounds.

Obviously there’s a potential twist there that could impact their plan to hurt Homelander, but who knows how they might go? The episode ends with MM and Frenchie desperately trying to keep Kimiko alive while Butcher keeps his mind on the Soldier Boy mystery and Hughie, worryingly, is smiling happily about his new temporary powers. If there’s anything The Boys likes to tell us, it’s that giving a weak person powers is destined for trouble.

Overall, I did like the episode, even if my general feeling about the show is still that it doesn’t entirely know what it wants to be. I suppose part of it will have to be a “wait and see” about the season’s potential payoffs.

The Boys Three Episode Season 3 Premiere: 'Payback'/'The Only Man in the Sky'/'Barbary Coast'

The Boys Season 3 starts off bloody and brazen in a world headed for horror.
by Jeremy Fogelman

As we head into Season 3 of The Boys, things start off in “Payback” in a place that seems almost okay. The show immediately shows a clip of a new movie with the Seven fighting against Stormfront, here played in a cameo by Charlize Theron with obviously worse special effects -- this is called the “Vought Cut” in a direct reference to the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League. Although it’s also a way to rewrite history, by showing Homelander also fighting against Stormfront instead of supporting her.

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The episode’s title is a reference to a team of supes in this universe, one that’s a parody of the “Avengers” in name and composition. Soldier Boy is a direct parody of Captain America, Crimson Countess of Scarlet Witch, Mindstorm of Vision, Swatto of Wasp or similar flying characters, and Gunpowder of such gun-based characters like Deadshot. The TNT Twins I’m not sure about, but they don’t have much of a presence so far.

Meanwhile, there’s now a Federal Bureau of Superhuman Affairs led by now Senator Victoria Neuman with her chief of staff, still out of the dark on her supe powers Hughie. Now Butcher isn’t permitted to simply kill criminal supes, here the Ant-Man or Atom parody “Termite”, who fights with Frenchie in a pretty ridiculous fight scene. Instead Butcher simply captures the little accidental murderer, who then gets off easy in exchange for other supes instead -- all part of the scheme by Stan and Vought, who are still pulling the strings behind Victoria.

The shoe drops after not much of a tease, as Hughie catches her in the act of using her powers to kill her childhood friend and we get a callback to Billy Joel when the episode is wrapped around with “Uptown Girl”, here given with multiple meanings for the two superpowered women in Hughie’s life.

The episode also introduces new political candidate “Dakota” Bob, a character adapted from the comic now in a different but similar way, a hardline military man who may be corruptible after all. Hughie and Starlight are doing pretty well as a couple, but things get shaken up when Stan offers her the co-captain position in the Seven for optics reasons, which means obviously Homelander is furious -- Antony Starr is unmatched in showing crazy behind in the eyes.

The other plot threads set up to drop are the worrisome group the “Stormchasers” supporting the now hospitalized Stormfornt still, Kimiko sadly considering her inability to do anything beautiful (thus the lovely and sad scene where Karen Fukuhara shows off her pipes but it’s all a dream), and MM with his mysterious vendetta against the supposedly dead Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles). And of course, Homelander and Butcher coming to an accord that yes, things will only end when one of them is dead.

It’s a pretty entertaining episode, getting into the half-baked comic book movie satire directly (which is not really the point of the show, just the varnish on it), an immediately overly bloody opening death and ridiculous fight, and a whole bunch of plot threads setup.

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Episode 2 is called “The Only Man in the Sky” which is a terrifying quote from Homelander about being the only true power in the world. It also starts off with a direct parody, a fake “television for women” movie with Billy Zane doing an intentionally terrible version of Goran Visnjic’s accent for the now-dead leader of the Church of the Collective. This movie is given the terrible title “Not Without My Dolphin”, another joke making fun of the 1991 movie title Not Without My Daughter, but the movie title has already been parodied a lot.

There’s more here of the fake “Hero Idol” show with Starlight’s ex, Supersonic (originally Drummer Boy), and his character is certainly softened from the comic, as here he’s actually a decent dude. We also see the (entirely believable) backstory behind Victoria working for Stan, as he became a new father figure for her, in another example of the messed up parent-child relationships on this show.

Probably the funniest throughline is A-Train’s attempt at cynically winning back people by using so-called “African” colors in his new costume, referencing a “tasteful” take on the slave trade. The sort of tone deaf thing that actually feels close to reality. There are also a few different investigations going on, Hughie heading to a home for supe kids that’s mostly played for laughs, and Kimiko and Frenchie trying to get info out of the Crimson Countess, which is played for laughs and horror when she accidentally kills a “Homelander” mascot.

The show also finally introduces the temporary Compound V concept and Butcher actually takes it, but not exactly handling it well -- this does lead to a fun little fight between him and Gunpowder, who does reveal a connection to Soldier Boy’s death and a mysterious weapon that might have the power to kill Homelander. This is also tied into MM trying to track down more info about racially motivated murders by Soldier Boy to MM’s family.

The big plot line though is Homelander’s birthday party, which ends with him giving an impassioned speech about being sick of kowtowing to corporate interests and says instead that he’s the only real hero. It’s terrifying but it also clearly strikes a chord with a certain percentage of the population.

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The last dropped episode, which is Episode 3, “Barbary Coast”, another mixed up reference to a storyline in the comics. The satire here is about that Hero Idol show parody, where one of the contestants is called “Body positive but not too body positive” -- another line that feels like it’s actually been said. The over-the-top nonsense brutality here is primarily when Homelander forces The Deep to eat his octopus friend to get back into the Seven in a classically funny but horrifying scene.

But the big reveals this episode come from Mallory giving a flashback to the utter failure of how the supes came to “help” in the fight with the Contras during the Reagan era, in a different (if similar) take to the WW2 version of this scene in the comics. The actress playing young Grace (Sarah Swire) looks a lot like Laila Robins and really does a great job in the scene alongside Justin Davis channeling Giancarlo Esposito for young Stan Edgar.

The situation goes as badly as to be expected, but the mysterious part comes in with a weird energy shooting out and both killing Soldier Boy and severely injuring Black Noir, who is revealed to simply be a superpowered black dude who originally was actually able to talk (a pretty big divergence from the comics).

This is all tied into Frenchie being approached by Russian mafia types calling him “Sergei” which he corrects to “Serge” instead, as we see him meet up with the sinister “Little Nina” played by Katia Winter (in a portrayal that’s a lot less problematic than the version in the comics) who wants him back working with her.

So it makes perfect sense that Butcher sees the obvious connections, because it was pretty obvious, and now we have a take on the gang heading off to Moscow for a new adventure. This is also a fallout from Butcher forcing little Ryan away by doing the “Get out of here!” classic trick, but Karl Urban does a great job of showing how he’s conflicted in those moments.

The show wraps around Starlight faking it to make it, both in awful to watch ways, with the ode to oversexualizing young girls “Hit Me Baby One More Time” playing as the episode starts and ends. Homelander calls Starlight’s bluff, explaining that he prefers to be loved over feared, but he’ll take the latter if it comes down to it. And he pushes a new bluff on Starlight, announcing publicly that they’re actually a couple -- but this is just the natural progression of the “Q” rating of the two being so high as a couple.

These episodes work pretty well as a crazy way to back into the world of The Boys, with the usually pretty consistent comedy and over the top violence we’ve come to expect. I appreciate the changes the show has made in adapting the comic, which never could have been directly adapted as is -- even if sometimes I feel that show isn’t quite sure how much it wants to tilt in the parody versus drama angle. It’s still as engaging a tale as ever.

The Boys S02E08: What I Know

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‘The Boys’ finishes its second season with some surprises and some of the same-old same-old.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The season finale of The Boys is called “What I Know”, which is of course, a pointless reference to the graphic novel titles as I’ve said ad infinitum by now. What will they do when they run out of titles that bear no real relevance to the episode at hand? I suppose they’ll have to come up with their own, which I think I would prefer.

The second season of The Boys was a bit all over the place, with some pretty decent social commentary and satire, along with some storylines that weren’t as interesting and some characters underwritten. Speaking of that part, as of the finale MM still never gets anything truly interesting to do or say -- real misstep on the show’s part. Now, the storyline in the graphic novel is quite problematic, offensive, and bizarre even for this show so I don’t think they should have simply used that. But giving MM essentially no memorable backstory isn’t a great tactic either.

Frenchie (or Serge as was said a few times) had just a little more, with the only really successful moments his up and down relationship with Kimiko, leading to a fairly nice ending with the two of them using sign language against Stormfront and going off dancing. Kimiko was always compelling, with Karen Fukuhara capable of really giving pretty crazy range without saying anything. If you’ve seen her on her YouTube channel or interviews, her actual personality is so different from Kimiko making it pretty stark and impressive.

I actually started the episode with a touch of apprehension and uncertainty, a good sign in general because I had no idea what was going to happen. Ultimately, the twists and turns and deaths felt a bit normal. Becca dies at the hands of Stormfront, who is killed by Ryan in a callback to “hating” someone in the same episode -- that’s not much of a callback, it was pretty easy to predict.

 Aya Cash was obviously great the entire season, but I’ve been a “stan” of hers since You’re the Worst so nothing new from me there. The actual downfall though was so insanely fast, especially compared to the inconsistent pacing of the rest of the season, I’m not sure how well it worked. The finale was super fast paced, but sometimes the rest of the season suffered from not being paced that well.

I think I would’ve felt it worse if she managed to survive somehow into the next season the way they had set up the Nazi revelations -- and without her, the worst person is back to being Homelander, who did seem to be valuing Ryan over Stormfront throughout the episode, so the way it ended felt pretty reasonable. We’ve seen for a while that Homelander is obsessed with being loved and appreciated, so that was the only way for Maeve to get him to back off -- even if in his final speech we see the emptiness behind his eyes (Anthony Starr as always pulling off the sociopathic turn).

The entire Scientology storyline was, I suppose, merely a way to do two things: Reveal the new supe in disguise to us and return other things to the status quo. So A-Train’s back to the Seven because he happened to be listening in on Edgar and Alastair talking about him and Stormfront, which directly led to the Nazi leak and Stormfront getting beaten up by the lady supes in an explicitly called out reference to the “girls get it down” from earlier in the season. It would've been more satisfying to me if they had shown Stormfront with visible damage, otherwise I couldn’t tell if she was really getting hurt.

Now as for our new supe, Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) who has been coded to seem like AOC or similar young progressive politicians, turning out to be a Vought plant the whole time? As Fry from Futurama said: "I’m shocked! Well, not that shocked." “Vic” Neuman was a character in the comics, a very stupid, clearly developmentally challenged man that becomes the vice president and is Vought’s puppet.

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So when I realized that Victoria Neuman was a gender swapped person, I wondered why she was on the side against Vought. So it’s a good twist, because it makes sense, and actually uses the ignored storylines of the comics to help you figure it out if you read them. I appreciated that, and I feel that it’s a good setup for future seasons -- a smart puppet of Vought is more interesting than the GWB parody they had in the comics (which was really more the comics creators getting out their anger at GWB in the first place).

The final moments between Starlight and Hughie are fine enough, but their romance is a bit wonky too -- I didn’t mind it, but I never felt it was that interesting this season. And as for Billy, now that Becca is gone and Ryan is off under CIA protection, what’s his next move? Hard to say, but it seems like it must be something to do with Homelander and Ryan.

So overall, decent season, very watchable and with some real high points. A lot better than that Preacher adaptation, so as long as they can improve over time here, I think The Boys has a real shot at being lasting satire.

The Boys starts off its second season as bloody and over the top as ever

‘The Boys’ drops three episodes for a third season of bloody explosions and attempts at subversive commentary.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The first season of The Boys was decent enough, as I reviewed at the time, spiraling off significantly from the comics storyline enough that I was completely unsure of where it was going. The second season so far continues that trend, killing off characters like Raynor (Jennifer Esposito), who certainly lasted far longer in the original comics. In fairness, she was a pointless character in the adaptation, so the impact of her death doesn’t feel particularly significant.

 

All of the original ensemble has returned, continuing the story with varying degrees of success. Hughie continues to suffer PTSD from his misadventures, and it’s only been touched on a little since then. Frenchie and Mother’s Milk still have almost nothing to do, but they at least give Karen Fukuhara more to do with the now named “Kimiko” (she also was finally utilized well in the She-Ra Netflix animated show).

 

Kimiko’s arc with her brother (played by Abraham Lim) was pretty good in these first three episodes, setting up a mystery about who this mysterious new “super terrorist” was, getting Butcher almost killing him, Kimiko reconnecting, and them fighting over his terrorist ways (that he justifies by American imperialism and wanton destruction and murder in his home village). It all connects with the final moments of not-so-secret white supremacist Stormfront (Aya Cash, always welcome -- she was great in You’re the Worst) murdering her brother and tossing off some racism casually.

 

Of course, Stormfront in the comics was a literal Hitler Youth superpowered child extracted from Germany who grew up to be a monstrous “Thor” styled rip off because Garth Ennis thought it would be clever to combine Norse mythology with racism, like the Nazis did (both the original and modern day Nazis co-opted Nordic imagery). Here Stormfront is American, from Portland, and female, allowing a bit more rug pulling later on.

 

Now, when I read the comics in the first place, I recognized that the name Stormfront was itself a reference to the white supremacist website, even though that too is an appropriation. So I was not exactly surprised when the character turned out to be racist. Here she’s shown softer at first, quirky and rude, making fun quasi-feminist jabs against Vought and systemic patriarchy, but she’s only (hardly a coincidence) really interacting with the white superheroes of the Seven -- Homeland and Starlight.

 

I was wondering when the other shoe would drop, and it does in the third, brutal episode where Stormfront, on the tail of Kimiko’s brother, casually kills many black civilians for no reason except her hatred and racism. Her savvy nature presents an interesting new sort of antagonist, both against the already monstrous Homelander (who simply thinks all humanity to be worthless compared to him, but he’s not racist about it -- small help) and the Boys.

 

The final shot of episode three, the Boys surrounding Kimiko as she stares hatefully at Stormfront’s press conference, that’s a good setup and really getting us finally invested in her story -- we want to see her take revenge on the racist monster that killed so many people. That storyline works so far.

 

Less successful is the Starlight business in general -- her theoretical spywork feels a bit scattershot, with only a few interesting moments, and the romance angle doesn’t feel that interesting yet. A-Train has little to do yet, other than moments of dizziness, and Maeve just has a little backstory with her secret girlfriend to explain why it must be a secret.

 

Homelander continues to be a fascinating sociopath of a character, trying to push his son with Billy Butcher’s wife to display superpowers, and although eventually the kid does display some, it feels like Homelander still won. Antony Starr is still really great in the role of this odd, terrible person, who suffers and causes suffering in turn.

 

Least successful of all is everything with the Deep’s attempts at recovery, which parody Scientology pointlessly and have an extended hallucination montage where Patton Oswalt plays the Deep’s gills (he’s funny but...) and ultimately tries to push the idea that the Deep’s issues comes from self-hatred. Sure, I can buy that, but he’s still someone that sexually assaulted and killed people. He hasn’t done nearly enough to be forgiven, and I was glad to see that Starlight immediately rejected the attempt.

 

But the show continues to be gory and profane, and Giancarlo Esposito gets another role where he exudes confident sociopathy so that’s fun. I feel like there’s some good setup here for the rest of the season, which will be released weekly going forward, and I’ll continue to be amused at how they use titles from the graphic novels completely differently for the episode titles.

New episodes of The Boys stream weekly on Amazon Prime.

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