I think Homelander was required to have a pathetic death given the god theme they've been working on the whole season. They just did it in the worst way possible. Have him try to fight Butcher and let him be knocked around like a bitch for a bit. Make it cruel. Show him that he is pathetic without his powers. Hell, tie it into one of the other themes of the season. Nobody in the room is scared of him now. Make him realize that as he is killed. The pleading they went with is just gross.
I would do that, I would have Homelander being reduced to a pathetic shell, but then I'd have it so that once Homelander realizes his pathetic situation, he shifts towards a spiteful tone while also utilizing his intellect. He would at least have the balls to spite Butcher, and the brains to realize that a quick and painful death is better than a slow, agonizing one, so I'd have Homelander taunt Butcher and remind him of Becca's death so that Butcher would kill Homelander in a fit of rage.
It's not like the US government can drop a tactical nuke on Vought HQ, or bribe Vought scientists like Vogelbaum to divulge the Compound V formula and the exact methods they used to create Homelander or something.
The moment the US government tries to drop a nuke, Vought immediately sends their supes to dismantle the entirety of said government so that's not gonna work. Bribing might be except if it were that easy, there would be hundreds of Vought rival corporations but there aren't. The implication in the comics and to a lesser extent in the show is that Vought is very zealous about keeping their trade secrets, well, secret and will know almost immediately if someone is fucking around with their formula. So it's not at all unrealistic that a company like Vought could exist and wield inordinate amounts of power in a world with conventional governments. Even in real life there are many examples of corporations holding national governments by the balls and they don't access to technology to create their own private army of demigods. Hell we even have similar situations right now with governments attempting to pressure companies at the forefront of AI development and being forced to play nice or get fuck-all.
Homelander got V1 and all it did was make him want to build a themepark.
He actually got weaker by the finale because he previously lazered Kimiko in half but for some reason he couldn't do that again and ended up in a fair fight that he lost.
He should of just caved in her and Butchers heads before he murdered his ungrateful broccoli headed cunt of a son,
Nobody would fear Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars if he shat himself when Mace Windu had him cornered, or when Vader lifted him up to be thrown into the reactor.
Palpatine and Homelander are two very different types of villains though. The former is a mastermind Sith Lord who orchestrated the downfall of an entire rival ancient order and galactic government while the latter is a mentally stunted manchild with a god complex and Superman powers.
I appreciate character scenes, but you could have cut the first 15 minutes. Particularly the unfunny anus jokes. And a lot post-45 minutes could have been cut. But I felt the interim half hour was actually fairly alright. In my person opinion, with regards to character endings, in rank order.
Ashley: That was a great storyline for her. Finally got her conscience and did something brave (for a moment). I did find it funny that the ball-gag she got for Oh Father turned out to be a Checkov's gun. Her insisting that she wouldn't resign and then immediately cutting to this:
was hilarious.
Kimiko: If only she hadn't regained the ability to speak to make more dumb crass jokes. Could have been a lot more condensed, and honestly if they'd cut Frenchie's deathbed speech last episode and the scenes at the start of the episode, that scene of him appearing to her would have been a great coda. Her actress is great and made me upset (even if "it's not rage, it's love" is hackneyed). I liked she got her bittersweet happy ending and sat with her dog, eating the madeleines Frenchie taught her to bake, in Marseilles at the end. If only they'd not fucked with that storyline so much.
Deep: Getting a dressing down from Homelander and having him break was the natural end to his character. I get from a narrative standpoint having the "final showdown" before the ocean being him and Starlight to go full circle to the first episode. The ocean death was mediocre. It would've been more impactful if we hadn't established in the last episode that all the fish were planning to kill him, and we'd just had that oil-slick fish the episode before blaming him. I'd have preferred if after the dressing down from Homelander he'd run away in tears, and he escaped to the ocean, only to have a more prolonged takedown from all the sealife that he tried to fight back from. Particularly if they'd managed to get Tilda Swinton octopus's sister (also voiced by Tilda Swinton) to take him down finally. The sudden tentacle death just felt rushed and cheap.
Homelander: It was satisfying to see him get his comeuppance. I appreciated him begging and utterly degrading himself while obviously not understanding anyone (e.g. suggesting to Butcher he could get a shapeshifter to be Becca, without appreciating how that wouldn't work). Being unable to say "I am your father" due to well established Daddy-issues was at least signposted. In some ways it was a bit anticlimactic but I do understand they wanted the final showdown to be broadcast in the Oval Office. I think there was supposed to be an resonant element with seeing the Oval Office all torn up and damaged like that with paintings of the founding fathers ripped up and destroyed (didn't land).
Huey: Glad he remembered he was a tech nerd finally re: the fire extinguisher and used his wherewithal to fake out with Butcher's terrible "Cockney" accent. It's nice he got to open his own electronics shop and have a happy ending with Annie, but it felt a bit forced.
Butcher: Oh fuck off, I don't care about his little brother or his dog or "I'm going to kill all the supes", his repeated character arc got boring seasons ago. I enjoyed him taking down Homelander, although I felt like "this is for Frenchie" was misplaced as he only mentioned Becca at the end. I think Ryan rejecting him was a refreshing change. Not sure how I would have wrapped up that character but I didn't need any of his last scenes. Maybe he could have just died not long after the final fight from the brain tumor that was no longer super powered.
Sage: Meh. The smile is supposed to show us she was pretending to dumb and merely lost her brain regeneration powers and not her "super intelligence", no doubt as a potential sequel hook.
MM: I stopped caring about this character a while ago, but it's sweet he remarried his ex-wife. I got the impression he was adopting Ryan into his family as well, which would have been sweet, but at this point Ryan's character is too old.
I don't think I really cared about anything else. If the whole season had been like the one half hour of this episode and the episode where they split it into multiple characters, I think it could have been pretty decent (if not the lightning in a bottle the first seasons were). I don't regret seeing it through to the end, but I wish we'd gotten here sooner and had better writers and no Seth Rogan.
Homelander death was so underwhelming nothing was at stake and all the posters were bullshit no real threat was present and he died with ease not blowing up half the planet the comic while also shit was better also oh father death was stupid too and really easy they just blocked his mouth and he exploded not even a 1 minute fight no one will remmeber or speak about the serie anymore
The moment the US government tries to drop a nuke, Vought immediately sends their supes to dismantle the entirety of said government so that's not gonna work. Bribing might be except if it were that easy, there would be hundreds of Vought rival corporations but there aren't. The implication in the comics and to a lesser extent in the show is that Vought is very zealous about keeping their trade secrets, well, secret and will know almost immediately if someone is fucking around with their formula. So it's not at all unrealistic that a company like Vought could exist and wield inordinate amounts of power in a world with conventional governments. Even in real life there are many examples of corporations holding national governments by the balls and they don't access to technology to create their own private army of demigods. Hell we even have similar situations right now with governments attempting to pressure companies at the forefront of AI development and being forced to play nice or get fuck-all.
That makes zero sense. Especially since in the show, Frederick Vought defected to the Allies, so the US government would have the V formula, since it was through his father's friends in the war department that Soldier Boy became a superhero. In the comics, the CIA was able to steal Compound V, enough that Butcher literally injects a goober like Hughie with it and laughs at him for protesting. If they were able to steal a vial, they sure as hell can steal the formula itself.
The Feds letting Vought grow to the power it had makes zero fucking sense, especially since they were a tool of the government in the earlier days. The Feds allowing a private corporation grow to such monumental levels of power makes for poor worldbuilding.
As for modern AI companies, they're getting away with a lot because the current administration lets them. The moment a more hostile administration threatens legal action, or closes down their datacenters, they're fucked.
If the Yankee government which is way more wealthier and more powerful than Vought couldn't keep nuclear secrets to itself despite executing any would-be leakers, then Vought similarly wouldn't be able to keep Compound V and its formula under wraps.
Palpatine and Homelander are two very different types of villains though. The former is a mastermind Sith Lord who orchestrated the downfall of an entire rival ancient order and galactic government while the latter is a mentally stunted manchild with a god complex and Superman powers.
Both of them have God complexes, it's just that Lucas wanted people to respect his villain while Kripke wanted his villain to be a pathetic piece of shit who will offer free blow jobs just to save his skin.
Holy shit, they actually just did nothing with the Gen V kids except show them babysitting normies at that same fucking house over and over. I was honestly expecting them to at least bring one of them to the big fight at the white house as some sort of token rep to make that whole spinoff matter. That and having SB finish the show in his goddamn stasis pod is fucking unbelievable. I think that must confirm that Vought Rising is going to have a time skip, there's no way they're not going to resolve him somehow.
I can't say I had high expectations for this series after the first season or two but seeing any work get skullfucked by blatant executive meddling the way this show ended up being is always sickening. Nothing deserves that. The retards in charge of this certainly didnt help either by spending the entire season on poop jokes and filler just to speedrun an entire season's worth of plot in a single episode.
Homelander's death was a bit too heavy on the wish fulfillment. Whining about the MAGA parallels in this show has become trite but you can clearly tell that whole bit was written one-handed. I will say a dude who spent half the show drooling over breastfeeding wasnt deserving of any more dignity in death than he had in life, but a little too far of a pendulum swing from, say, Lalo Salamanca who the writers weren't willing to give even an inch to show that he'd really finally lost one. Surely there's a middle ground.
Dude, it wasn’t “executive meddling” that made this show shit, it was a showrunner who decided that “the wrong people” enjoyed the show and then spent three whole seasons insulting what he perceived to be their politics and world view, quality of the show be damned.
Youtube comments are dickriding the finale so hard. I don't understand it. If you look anywhere else this finale is universally hated.
I refuse to watch this shit. I watched the fight scene between Homelander and Butcher/Kimiko and thought it was so retarded. I don't have the words for how disappointed I am. And I don't even wanna type up another diatribe of how I feel. I don't care anymore.
I saw this a few days ago. Somehow a 1 minute fan video is better than the entirety of the last two seasons. I feel like Amazon should blackball Kripke and whoever worked on this shit pile of a show.
How come "muh trauma" and "me fookin wife's trauma" and "me fookin wife's boyfriends son's trauma" justifies all the atrocities Butcher commits but Homelander isn't allowed to use it as an excuse?
Dude, it wasn’t “executive meddling” that made this show shit, it was a showrunner who decided that “the wrong people” enjoyed the show and then spent three whole seasons insulting what he perceived to be their politics and world view, quality of the show be damned.
I fucking wish the suits jumped in and forced Kripke to change things, like say, forcing him to put Soldier Boy in the finale or having a more epic final clash with Homelander and the Supes versus the army and the Boys. Because for all the flaws of the comic, at least it ended with a bang.
Youtube comments are dickriding the finale so hard. I don't understand it. If you look anywhere else this finale is universally hated.
I refuse to watch this shit. I watched the fight scene between Homelander and Butcher/Kimiko and thought it was so retarded. I don't have the words for how disappointed I am. And I don't even wanna type up another diatribe of how I feel. I don't care anymore.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=SPnN8bABA7o
I saw this a few days ago. Somehow a 1 minute fan video is better than the entirety of the last two seasons. I feel like Amazon should blackball Kripke and whoever worked on this shit pile of a show.
I lost hope at episode 7 and rather than feel disappointed watching the finale, just read the last 5 pages of this thread. I'm just going to pretend it ended with homelander lasering everyone in half. It became obvious many episodes ago the show was about Trump = bad
How come "muh trauma" and "me fookin wife's trauma" and "me fookin wife's boyfriends son's trauma" justifies all the atrocities Butcher commits but Homelander isn't allowed to use it as an excuse?
