The Boys S03E08: The Instant White-Hot Wild

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The Boys ends a complicated season with a blowout and a lot of trouble to come.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The third season finale of The Boys is called “The Instant White-Hot Wild” which is a reference to a wholly unrelated issue of the comics, but who really cares about that? After all, isn’t everyone here to see who wins in the big Homelander versus Soldier Boy fight? Of course, the show is clever enough to subvert such expectations, but getting there is half the fun.

Things get set up further as Homelander retrieves Ryan and worryingly seems to reasonably connect with him -- telling him it’s not his fault he killed his mother, because people with their power sometimes have lethal accidents. This is also contrasted with Soldier Boy revealing his own traumatic backstory with his abusive father, a rich dude who never loved or respected his son -- yet all his “real man” talk sunk so far into Soldier Boy he never escaped it.

We also see a glimpse of the Homelander versus Starlight protests, and it’s pretty clear what real life situation this is meant to be mirroring. The final heist/battle is well set up, with everyone getting something to do one way or another, even if they aren’t all on the same page. Frenchie will be creating the neurotoxin to take down Soldier Boy, while Kimiko will keep him safe -- Maeve is able to escape using trickery and badassery, but she only wants Homelander to die at any cost.

Billy hides the truth of the Temp V stuff from Hughie and knocks him out to keep him safe, who finally realizes his own trauma when Annie tells him the truth -- that Billy saved him, just like his own father (who Hughie always looked down on as weak) was always there taking care of his son. “I didn’t know what strength was,” he says, and this is certainly made true later when Hughie doesn’t take the Temp V and instead powers up his girlfriend with a clever move.

We see The Deep killing the VP pick at Homelander’s command, which is clearly the quid pro quo he had with Victoria, who gets to become the next VP candidate and likely the first supe in office. Noir is sadly killed, just after getting a bit of characterization last episode, by Homelander who feels betrayed -- almost understandably.

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But the most horrifying part of the episode is the tension when Homelander introduces Ryan to Soldier Boy -- if they team up, it’s clearly a bad situation. But Soldier Boy passes down his own abuse and calls Homelander a disappointment, then attacks Ryan when the kid lasers him in retaliation. Suddenly Butcher is conflicted, as he wants to protect Ryan, while Maeve intercepts Homelander and actually gets his nose bloody (although she loses an eye).

The well structured fight ends with Maeve sacrificing herself (it seems at first) to protect the hundreds of innocent people in the building by pulling Soldier Boy out of the building when he tries to use his detonation power. So that just means we need know how everything goes for the gang.

Maeve becomes a normal human and goes into hiding with her girlfriend, and is called a martyr by the news. Butcher has only 12 to 18 months left to live, but he doesn’t tell the gang this, only that he’s gung ho to take out Victoria as the new VP candidate. Starlight can now fly, just as in the comics, and seems to be in a healthy relationship with Hughie. The Deep’s ex Cassandra puts out a memoir hilariously called “In 2 Deep: My Journey 2 Freedom” which is great. MM (who has been the most underserved this season and by the show in general) gets to hear his daughter call him her hero.

But in the great, fascinatingly creepy ending, Homelander greets his fan and introduces his son to applause. Then Ryan gets hit by something from a random pro-Starlight protester calling Homelander a “fascist” (hmm) and Homelander snaps, lasering the protester. But instead of turning on him, Homelander’s fans (perhaps started by stepdad Todd) begin to cheer, their own dark impulses made manifest.

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And we end the season with Homelander pleased that people (if awful people) love him and Ryan smiles too. So... that means two potential Homelander types to worry about in the future, while Soldier Boy is still alive and put back on ice this time by Mallory. At least Homelander isn’t deciding to rule by fear, right?

Ultimately this was a great way to end this season, which sometimes suffered from satirical confusion and underserved some of its huge cast of characters but stayed strong with the horrifying Homelander and Soldier Boy arc. Perhaps that makes it the best season so far, and a great way to look forward to the next season whenever that comes out.

The Boys S03E07: Here Comes a Candle to Light You to Bed

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The Boys delivers an epic twist that sets up a legendary season finale.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The latest episode of The Boys is called “Here Comes a Candle to Light You to Bed” after a nursery rhyme that ends like this:

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!
Chip chop chip chop the last man is dead.

So... you get it. The episode starts with Vought in full spin mode with their media calling things “A Nation Betrayed” and people referring to Hollywood Pedo Ring (which is not really an exaggeration of how people talk in a certain conspiracy circle). There’s a little jokey old school video with Soldier Boy singing the 1963 song “Never Make A Pretty Woman Your Wife”, just another moment of showing how out of the modern world he really is.

Hughie and Butcher interrogate the Legend to get more info about Soldier Boy, who is hiding out there and hooking up with the Legend’s older housekeepers. The running joke about the Legend nodding in “pretty cool, huh?” ways to Hughie every time he boasts about a celebrity sexual conquest continues to be hilarious, especially Hughie’s confusion and discomfort about it.

Their next target is the mindreading “Mindstorm”, a renamed version of “Mind-Droid” from the comics, who is an obvious parody of Vision from the Avengers. I’m not sure why they changed the name here, as the character in the comics only pretends to be an android, so maybe they thought that would be too “hat on hat”?

But the real trick is to avoid getting mind-blasted by the guy, who perhaps could even affect Soldier Boy with his little tricks. That storyline ends up quite powerfully in quite a few ways, but some of the other storylines are even more so. We discover that Maeve is still alive, and Homelander says menacingly it’s only so we can harvest her eggs in the future to make super-babies -- truly one of his more awful moments, which is a difficult list to top.

Kimiko decides that she wants the real compound V, and her written letter to Frenchie and Annie that this time it’s her choice is the convincing factor. So Annie sneaks into the Vought tower to find the compound stuff, but while there she discovers that temporary V will basically kill someone after taking it too many times. And then Homelander confronts her, but Annie was smart enough to start streaming on her Instagram Live feed to incriminate Homelander for real -- at least so you’d think. It’s enough to get her away.

It’s an emotional if sad moment when Kimiko heals again, wanting to be able to use her powers for good. In the exact opposite vibe, MM ends up knocking out stepdad Todd and terrifying his daughter after the dude keeps taking Janine to Homelander rallys (obviously analogues for Trump style ones).

As for our other supe folks, A-Train has been given the murdered Blue Hawk’s heart and can run again, but his brother Lamar doesn’t want to have anything do with him and his actions -- another family tragic moment in an episode about them. The Deep mentions that he’s actually going on Hannity -- so no satire, just a direct reference to the real world Fox News idealogue. He also convinces his girlfriend to branch out in their sex life by including an octopus, which is truly the silliest thing in this episode.

In one of the more traumatic moments though (which is saying something), we see Black Noir surrounded by figments of his imagination, cute cartoon animals that are there to support him -- and see a sort of flashback about Soldier Boy beating the hell out of him. This twist, that Soldier Boy was actually the one who permanently injured Noir -- well now, that’s quite a well set up one, and a fascinating one, because the episode also makes it a point to show how Soldier Boy also suffers from serious PTSD and is traumatized himself.

But we don’t know how badly things will go with the final twist of the episode. We see an extended, harrowing series of flashbacks of Butcher first protecting his brother from his father and then failing to do so, continuing with the episode’s themes of family trauma. It’s easy to see then, when the episode makes it clear, that Butcher sees Hughie as the younger brother he might still be able to save.

That final twist is a pretty good one though, and one that makes perfect sense -- it turns out that Homelander is actually the biological son of Soldier Boy, so of course they’d be the most powerful supes around. And apparently Homelander was born in 1981 meaning he’s supposed to be about 40 or so -- I can buy it. But we have to assume that Homelander didn’t know yet, so now that’s finding out his true backstory? It means that the season finale next week really could be anyone’s guess.

The Boys S03E06: Herogasm

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The Boys goes for broke by breaking the barrier of bodies.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The latest episode of The Boys is called “Herogasm” which is naturally named after one of the chapters from the original comics. Of course there, the circumstances are so incredibly different it’s really pointless to connect the two except superficially. In the comics it’s a secret event created by Vought for the supes to let off steam in whatever debaucherous way they want (with paid sex workers that aren’t necesarily being treated safely) and here it’s a secret party for supes to hook up with each other and sometimes sex workers also not necessarily being treated safely. I did notice an Easter Egg where someone in the background shouts “Come on my hump” which is a pretty memorable and absurd moment in that chapter. They also brought back that “Love Sausage” character for a pure joke moment (which I didn’t really find that funny).

But although that’s the similar line and the title of the episode, it’s really not about that at all, other than we discovered that Soldier Boy started the thing in 1952. The plot throughline is really still just about image and truth. The episode starts off with another dated (if funny) joke about tone deaf celebrities singing “Imagine” in March of 2020 (which is already over two years ago if you want to feel the cold vacuum of time speed through you). I noted such luminaries as Patton Oswalt, Josh Gad, Ashton Kutcher & Mila Kunis, Elizabeth Banks, Kumail Nanjiani, Aisha Tyler and Rose Byrne, and none also sang in that actual video. It would’ve been funnier if they had been able to get one of those people.

Otherwise the show doesn’t really (as usual) really get that deeply into satire, the majority of the humor coming from Soldier Boy’s outdated references to supporting our Mujahideen brothers and how Bill Cosby is America’s dad. Easy jokes but they were funny. In the more tragic part of the episode, Kimiko ends up brutalizing people without any powers -- it’s badass considering that she could actually die, but it only serves to make her think of herself as a monster after all. Yet in a completely non-monstrous way, she refutes the horrible assertions Nina said about Frenchie.

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We do know that Compound V has already been said to make “you more you”, but that doesn’t mean Kimiko is a monster at all, as she has a particularly awful and traumatic backstory. In a similar “who am I?” sequence, A-Train actually sincerely apologizes to Hughie over his accidental killing of Robin from way back in the series premiere as he’s now seen how people can be cruel and hurt people he loves. It’s something even if he was one of those “he gets it now that he feels affected” things, and you do wonder if Hughie punching him will really change anything.

After that though, A-Train does actually run for the first time since his health diagnosis, scraping the racist Blue Hawk along the highway -- only of course for his heart to give out. Doesn’t mean he’s dead yet though, I never trust that until I see it confirmed. There’s still a bit with Victoria trying to ally in a way with Starlight, which is another “who am I?” thing.

The Soldier Boy versus Homelander storyline finally gets to the real action moment, as he confronts the TNT Twins (which are reported to be a parody of Northstar & Aurora from the X-Men comics), another set of toxic people. With the combination of our two taking temporary V along with Soldier Boy helping out, it seems that Homelander is nearly done for.

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But our Homelander identity moments are the more complex ones, as he literally questions himself in the mirror, his other self talking about protecting them in the “bad room” (which is shades of Dissociative Identity Disorder) while also admitting he still wants people to love him. Although his other self demands he remove the remnants of humanity, we can see in the final moments of the episode that he hasn’t done that yet -- being actually hurt in the fight and in real danger for the first time since he was a child may be making him feel more human than ever before.

And Starlight reveals the truth of it all to the world, for those who would still believe her -- it’s a great cliffhanger. Although I found the extreme over-the-top sex stuff to be pure shock value, if sometimes cleverly done, the actual content of the episode aside was really pretty good. The show is doing a great job of showing the bizarre problematic humanity of these supes, the balance being doing terrible things and still feeling human. As we go into the last episodes of the season, it’s hard to predict how things will go, which is always a good sign.

The Boys S03E05: The Last Time to Look on This World of Lies

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The Boys shakes things up as the gang considers a new deadly mission.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The latest episode of The Boys is called “The Last Time to Look on This World of Lies” but I’m for the first time unsure if the episode title is meant to have special meaning. The episode gets into a few interconnected storylines, some of which have relatively interesting satire instead of just the same old jokey parodies.

We see a few scenes of fallout of the last episodes, like Homelander struggling in a board meeting because he doesn’t really know any business things (the theme of being unsure of who you are), which is then later connected to Starlight wanting his help to track down and stop Soldier Boy. When she’s commiserating with Hughie about their messy situation in Russia, the show drops a few “subtle” advertisements to the delicious, cool, crisp cans of White Claw which I found amusing because the show is usually pretty subtle about in-show advertising.

There’s more of the problematic nature of Hughie taking the temporary V, loving the feeling of not being afraid. This comes to a head again in the final moments of the episode, when Starlight tries to get Hughie to come back from his and Butcher’s plan of helping Soldier Boy to murder his former teammates in exchange for the old supe’s help to take out Homelander. The “I don’t need you to save me, I need you” fights against Hughie’s self-esteem issues, and it’s clear that he’s heading down a path that ends in the self-destruction of Butcher -- if he can’t stop.

The big setup to where we end up is Maeve pushing forward the narrative again, actually hooking up with Butcher in a classic sort of hate-hookup situation, with a reiteration of that theme as Butcher points out that the V simply makes him more him -- doesn’t make him worse or better, just more. She only has one of the big cliffhangers of the episode as Homelander and Black Noir attack her, leading us to suspect she may be dead (although I never trust that sort of thing in this show without confirmation).

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The episode really plays on this identity issue through a lot of our villains and heroes alike, including with Kimiko in the hospital who is delighted to not have powers, giving us that classic Karen Fukuhara smile we rarely get in this show. She gets caught in another fantasy in her head and actually kisses Frenchie in an awkward moment -- but is it really what either of them want? After all, Nina is still coming for them.

The jam packed episode also follows up with A-Train as he gets into it with racist supe Blue Hawk, who non-ironically mocks about being “canceled”, says he doesn’t see color, only crime -- which just happens to be in black neighborhoods. This is the sort of satirical touch that feels extremely close to reality, just a step further than politicians would say out loud. Similarly, Homelander proclaiming things to be safe on the Fox News parody when they clearly aren’t doesn’t feel so far from reality either.

The episode drops a semi-major new character called “The Legend” (played by Paul Reiser), in what I call a lot more charitable portrayal than the comics. His shtick is pretty amusing, though, and he plays a pretty important role in the episode to grant knowledge to the heroes. The other cameo (of sorts) is Seth Rogen showing up paying for a fancam of Crimson Countess in a sort of Boys parody of OnlyFans. MM gets more drama at home when he gets infuriated by stepdad Todd taking Janine to a Homelander rally and making her a fan of the dude -- his triggering of the connection to Soldier Boy connects to Soldier Boy’s own PTSD triggering related to that Russian music. Clearly the dude isn’t over his horrific and tortured captivity.

It’s a pretty crowded episode, but I felt one that was a bit more coherent thematically than usual, which wasn’t as funny in general (Paul Reiser aside) but more dramatically entertaining than usual. One of the issues with a show like this is balancing all of the characters and their storylines, but so far this season has been handling that pretty well, and this episode is a good example of that.

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 S02E07: Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker

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'The Boys’ blows it all up in the penultimate episode of the season.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The latest episode of The Boys is called “Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker”, once again more from a graphic novel title that barely connects to the radically different story of the adapted work. Here we see mainly four through lines interconnected, one the Scientology parody barely connected to the rest, one with Queen Maeve slightly more connected, and the two main ones, setting up the big hearings and rescuing Starlight.

As per usual, the Scientology satire with The Deep and A-Train feels more of the same, now referencing toxic people and cutting people out of their lives, which is called in the real world a “suppressive person”. It feels like the most unsubtle part of this extremely unsubtle show, and it’s hard to really care about either A-Train or The Deep due to their unsavory pasts. And the comedy doesn’t really work either this episode with them, so it felt like “okay I get it, can we move on now?”

On the Maeve front, her storyline has been rushed all season, and so we get a lightning quick breakup, a breakdown where she hooks up with two dudes, and comes back at the end of the episode to save Starlight from Black Noir (and maybe kills him? It’s unclear). But she doesn’t go with the other supe, because she can’t, for reasons not fully explained, even if much can be inferred. I feel like Maeve is a character with a lot of potential, but not the potential we’ve seen enough of.

It sort of depends on the finale, but for now these two storylines have left me a bit disappointed. On the better side, I did like Hughie’s adventure to save Starlight, even though it was pretty straightforward, and I also did not really care about Lamplighter immolating himself. We barely got anything from him, good or bad, just a mild amount of grey, so it’s hard to care that he’s dead, any more than Hughie or Butcher seemed to.

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Butcher though has far more of an interesting episode, confronting his terminally ill father (a perfectly cast bastard of John Noble) and we get more insight into his troubled past. That’s the sort of context I like to see, and that connects easily into Billy threatening Dr. Vogelbaum’s family in a way that we believe him completely.

That storyline is connected back through the radicalization done by Stormfront, who is now leading Homelander down the same path. The opening montage, of a man driven by fear to kill an innocent immigrant, feels quite relevant, as does the dog whistling and pretense of caring about innocent victims by Stormfront and Homelander.

Where it gets truly terrifying is the way they manage to subvert his son, by revealing the safe lie by his mother -- another parenting mishap. Homelander even reveals what feels like truth to Becca, that when he found the real world, it was overwhelming and panic inducing. We get even more terror from Vogelbaum himself (classic character actor John Doman) who reveals to Billy that he 100% mistreated and alienated Homelander as a child.

But that doesn’t mean it’s satisfying to see him die in the final moments of chaos of the episode, where we seem to be just as confused as everyone else. Was it Stormfront? The exploding head lady from the Vought secret asylum? If it is her, why did she do it? And was Billy involved? These are the sorts of questions that are good to set up the finale, which I certainly feel invested in -- honestly I expected things to go wrong at the hearing, I just wasn’t sure how.

The Boys really tries to shock and surprise, and although as someone who read the pretty exploitative source material I’m kinda desensitized to it, I do appreciate when the show delves into real world issues when they get it right. And of course Aya Cash deserves accolades for this, as she did for You’re the Worst, so get on it next year’s Emmys!

The Boys S02E06: The Bloody Doors Off

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‘The Boys’ ramps up the action in a more focused episode than usual.
by Jeremy Fogelman


The latest episode of The Boys is called ‘The Bloody Doors Off’, once again a reference to a particular issue of the comics and vaguely connected to this episode (I mean doors do get blown off hinges and there is often blood on them, although the title initially was a double meaning between literally bloody and figuratively, like the British slang). Here we see almost all the characters again, but at least some things are combined and others ignored.

There’s more still of The Deep and his fairly broad storyline of Scientology satire, this time working on bringing A-Train into the fold. A-Train has legitimate concerns too, real problems, and he’s noticed Stormfront’s microaggressions. Of course, the leader Alastair (Goran Visnjic) seems well spoken and charismatic enough, but that’s sort of the point of it -- poking fun at Scientology is all well and good, Bowfinger did it years ago, but I don’t yet see a real salient idea more than surface level with this subplot.

Maeve’s tiny subplot has a little going on, just enough to create drama for the next episode, I suppose, but for now it feels like it wasn’t really necessary to keep in this one. The main storyline, connected in part to Homelander, which is the discovery of the Vought “asylum” for inmates gone wrong, is more interesting in general, even if there are aspects which feel a bit melodramatic.

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The storyline finally brings the oft mentioned character of the Lamplighter (Shawn Ashmore) into the fray, who is a vaguely Green Lantern sort of ripoff, except that here his power is simply being able to spread fire (I guess not create it offhand, making him less powerful than the firebenders from Avatar: The Last Airbender). Delving into it is an interesting tale, having Mallory’s kids be an inadvertent murder from the Lamplighter who was targeting the lady herself (basically similar to the comics in some ways), but now feels hollow and broken about it.

We finally, finally get some more from Frenchie here, as his own backstory reveals a messy guilt and a desire to “save” Kimiko, who is great in this episode. Frenchie’s explicit explanation of his hangup is a little obvious and overly “therapy speak”, but at least it’s adding more depth to his character. Kimiko though, she was fun, from the shared realization with Butcher that Homelander and Stormfront were hooking up, to her “Bossy” golden knuckles that we see when she punches the “Love Sausage” in the face.

The character the Love Sausage is also in the comics but he’s so completely different and more fleshed out, here he’s probably only a one-off joke. We even get a bit more from MM’s backstory, although again I feel like it’s barely scratching the surface. The injury storyline with Hughie is a lot more interesting, as it’s forcing Butcher and Starlight to bond over their shared affection for the hapless Hughie.

Those two storylines feel pretty well connected, and it’s fine to lightly touch on the Homelander/Stormfront stuff, as it’s clearly vital to the plot of the season. When Stormfront reveals the truth to Homelander, that she was literally married to Vought in Nazi Germany and spits out an ugly racist screed, it’s hard to know what Homelander thinks, except that he craves love and all out worship -- so whether or not he’ll really be along for the racist part of the ride is still an open question, but for now it’s easy to understand (as we already know of his demented personality) why he’s still willing to be with Stormfront.

Homeland may be more of an anti-human bigot than any race in particular, but he considers himself “more than” -- it’s a chilling way to set up danger for the future. Overall, a mixed episode in parts, but the focused parts tended to work more than otherwise.

The Boys S02E05: We Gotta Go Now

 

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'The Boys’ shows us the next steps of many storylines at once.
by Jeremy Fogelman


The latest episode of The Boys is called “We Gotta Go Now”, both a reference to the song title and also yet another irrelevant note at one of the graphic novel names. How many storylines did we see in this episode? Let me count them all. One is the Queen Maeve lesbian storyline, another is Homelander trying to fix his image, another is Stormfront messing with Starlight as the latter is trying to figure the former out, another is Kimiko taking hit jobs, another is Black Noir coming after a few of them, another is Hughie being concerned about Butcher, A-Train is concerned about getting kicked out of the Seven and finally, The Deep is married to his fake wife.

That’s probably way too many storylines for one episode. None of the storylines were bad, exactly, but some certainly felt anticlimactic or more setup for later. Some things are interesting, like Stormfront effectively revealing herself to be a racist in front of A-Train with her obviously coded language, which ties more into A-Train’s final moments of “quitting”. The whole movie conceit almost feels like too much of an idea, something that could be more drawn out and focused on.

There are plenty of funny jabs at superhero movies, like the reference to Joss Whedon punching up the script or the Women Power moment which feels perhaps a reference to Endgame’s pandering moment of lady superheroes in the same frame for no reason. But there seems to be this Game of Thrones level of feeling they simply must tell us what everyone’s up to each episode. Especially with the non-binging release nature of this season’s schedule, it feels slower than usual.

Kimiko’s storyline is one I’m interested in, because she has such a powerful motivation -- yet we only get a bit. Contrast that with The Deep, which serves as simply more Scientology jabs and maybe, just maybe, something with Maeve, although that remains to be seen. Maeve’s storyline of fear about her girlfriend is a good motivation too, meaning she certainly is painted as the most “good” of the superhero group.

Starlight and her little tête-à-tête with Stormfront feels a bit simple, and you wonder if there was really a point to bringing Starlight’s terrible mother into things. Stormfront and her connection to Homelander, that’s the most interesting and most terrifying part of it all. Stormfront has been into Homelander for a while, as the blond, blue-eyed, white guy ubermensch, but she also has a very effective grasp of Facebook memery and how to make people “soldiers” in favor of Homelander.

So when we see Homelander hurt Stormfront without killing her (similar to the comics, in which the racist supe was also one of the most powerful) right before they bang in a destructive way, it’s more chilling than fun. We already have seen Homelander fantasize about killing people wantonly, and this episode is just another example -- pushing him further there is one of those truly worrying ideas of the show.

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As for the Butcher/Hughie/MM storyline with Black Noir, it’s... fine. I never really felt like they were in danger, despite the show’s best efforts. At least the final moment reveal that Butcher was bluffing about his photos to Vought feels a bit more fun, a bit more like getting one over on the bad guys.

There’s a lot going on this last episode -- too much really. Maybe it’d feel better on a rewatch of the season in pure binge mode, but I have to take it as a I see it, and in that context it’s a weaker entry in the run.

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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