The Boys - An Amazon Prime adaptation of the Ennis comic series

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Watch the latest episode, and the BLM apology scene left me a bitter taste.

I'm not sure if it's actual satire, or actual politisperging. Given the nature of this show, I believe this is satire, but I've seen Netflix shows do these kind of scenarios unironically. Like, it fails to actually address any concerns/issues from both sides, and instead plays off like Netflix-tier writing of a soyboy who gets his news off Twitter headlines.

But it doesn't bring up any of the actual concerns to meet in the middle; Why do all the black people care about the life of a random lowlife? Is he supposed to just watch if he sees a BIPOC commit a crime? Instead, it takes the side of BLM bullshit, where the Blue superhero is actual a racist and assaults people, starts shouting statistics out of all things, and a person actually says "Please stop patrolling black neighborhoods and arresting black criminals pretty please".

It doesn't come off as satire, and it comes off as Netflix-tier politisperging. Which if it's satire, it hits the point, but I think we're at that point in time where satire and politisperging are undistinguishable from each other.
 
I hate that fucking ginger coward bitch Ashley so much. I wish Starlight had put a gorillion volts direct current through her stupid frog face.

I thought that episode was shit outside of the scene with Maeve and Chudlander. Solider Boy was also pretty cool for all the screen time he got.
 
Why is it that woke shows I find the villains more enjoyable than the heroes. For instance The Boys, Lovecraft country and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and even Watchmen (i'm not talking about the white supremacist villains. The twist villain is who im referring too). I can't explain it. Is it because the heroes are trying too painfully to be woke so the villains became more likable?
 
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Oats12345 said:
Why is it that woke shows I find the villains more enjoyable than the heroes. For instance The Boys, Lovecraft country and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and even Watchmen (i'm not talking about the white supremacist villains. The twist villain is who im referring too). I can't explain it. Is it because the heroes are trying too painfully to be woke so the villains became more likable?
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It's because a story where you can feel the Author's hatred for the character bleed through will automatically make the character feel like more of an underdog because the setting itself is against them being presented in anything but the worst light.
 
TheAmbiguousLurker said:
It's because a story where you can feel the Author's hatred for the character bleed through will automatically make the character feel like more of an underdog because the setting itself is against them being presented in anything but the worst light.
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That make since. Because the villain in these type of shows are set up for failure from the start and you just know their going to get a nasty defeat because the writers can't hide their dislike for the character. And it's bad enough that the heroes are unlikable.

For instance Lovecraft country's villain had a mean spirited defeat by a unlikable protagonist. Which said protagonist after killing her than went "white people can't use magic anymore, only black people" which is just racist towards white people. Also the villain came off more sympathetic over the heroes in my opinion.

I mean hell look at Homelander everyone is just waiting for that guy to crack just because he doesn't want to be woke.
 
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Y'know you don't have to weigh up everything to decide whether there's a message that's secretly agreeing with you or not every single time. Blue Hawk or whatever is a dumb asshole, the crowd were dumb assholes, but the scene isn't about BLM; it was about speed guy being a fucking retard in putting them together in a room in his quest to tongue the company's ass.
You're gonna be disappointed if you're auditing the show for boring fucking correct opinion time since the only point they're making is that dumb assholes are getting jewed en masse by people who do not give a shit.

Oats12345 said:
Watchmen
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I mean, the heroes basically accept that he was right at the end. Watchmen is pretty much entirely about how history seems to repeat while morality isn't a constant. Rorschach is literally just absolutist-era batman with the comic book idea that everything is black and white, the law and righteousness are the same thing, so how could what's right change? I think he even puts it in those words. So he remained a faithful hero while the world around him became monstrous.
That makes him a great litmus test for whether people on social media understood what they just read. So yeah, liking the "villains" more can be a sign that the surface-level interpretation wasn't the real aim.

...But I just realised you were talking about the new show. Fuck it. There's related stuff going on there too but I'm not touching that one.
 
Here's hoping the next episode turns into a DBZ/Man of Steel gore-fest with the city getting blasted into ruin by Soldier Boy and Homelander going at it.

TheAmbiguousLurker said:
It's because a story where you can feel the Author's hatred for the character bleed through will automatically make the character feel like more of an underdog because the setting itself is against them being presented in anything but the worst light.
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It's not the first time. Heck, people falling in love with the villains is a common thing in fiction, especially if the author is too busy hitting you over in the head with "lessons" they want you to soak in.

With Star Wars, for instance, George Lucas wanted to portray the Empire as evil in the clearest terms, so they're a mix of Nazi Germany and the British/Spanish/Roman empires, complete with a large navy, soldiers that look like soulless automatons, and a bad guy leader with a mechanical skull for a face capped off with a kabuto helmet. They achieve great feats of engineering like Star Destroyers and Death Stars, and they use said feats of engineering to destroy worlds. But the more Lucas tries to portray them as evil, the cooler they become in the eyes of some fans, especially when they've got all the cool uniforms and warships, and their stated goal is to fight for order, while all the rebels have are warships that look like someone put them together in a junk shop, as well as the same green camo/ice gear/pilot gear BS that's getting old here in the real world, just like their whole platform of "freedom" which has gotten more tiresome in recent years. It's gotten up to the point where the fans even make up reasons why the Empire is doing what they're doing from a rational, reasonable viewpoint.

Warhammer 40K's Space Marines were also conceived of as assholes in space who just beat people up for the sake of marking their territory. They bomb entire worlds into glass balls and massacre people, even civilians, if they were ordered to. They're the very embodiment of state power abusing the lower class, and yet, their designs (mixing power armor with medieval knight designs) and their warships (essentially large cathedrals flying in space) basically exuded a "rule of cool" that caused many players of the tabletop to love them, which then caused Games Workshop to focus more on them and make them more heroic in the more recent iterations of the tabletop game.

With Homelander, you essentially have a version of Superman who looks even more American, with an American flag for a cape and eagle pauldrons on his shoulders. And unlike the original Superman, who lets bad guys off the hook one too many times, Homelander's first act in the show is to melt some bad guy's gun into his hand and fling the dude's partner into the air, landing fatally on some car a few blocks down. He doesn't give a shit about sparing the bad guys, and he has no problems putting his fist through some attacker's gut or lasering an entire room's worth of terrorists while spouting platitudes to the soldiers about how they're the real heroes. If Superman's the guy who acts like he has a stick up his ass the whole time, Homelander's the guy who pulled the stick out of his ass and is now beating people to death with it.

Couple that off with his "I don't give a shit" attitude and his "take no prisoners" stance towards his enemies, and of course, some people who are tired of the goody-goody Superman thing will take a liking to Homelander, especially when his negative aspects come from the fact that his team hates him and he was bred in a lab like some lab rat. The show writers want you to see in him everything that is wrong with modern America, but parts of the audience instead see a former lab rat who's broken free of his masters' control, who's finally had it with the corporate wrangling and the PR bullshit that he's been forced to follow in his whole adult life. As a villain, his presence and threat level practically holds up the entire show, just as how Tywin Lannister's presence held up Game of Thrones as a quality show; when that character died, the show's quality dropped severely, and some people fear that the same thing will happen to "The Boys" once Homelander croaks.
 
Oats12345 said:
I mean hell look at Homelander everyone is just waiting for that guy to crack just because he doesn't want to be woke.
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I'm waiting for Homelander to crack because this show has been blue balling me with Homelander going on a rampage since the end of Season 1 and I can't orgasm until we get a full on slaughterfest that isn't a dream.
 
TheAmbiguousLurker said:
I'm waiting for Homelander to crack because this show has been blue balling me with Homelander going on a rampage since the end of Season 1 and I can't orgasm until we get a full on slaughterfest that isn't a dream.
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Ok it is different when ashow is hinting at a character cracking for an entire season.
 
LORD IMPERATOR said:
As a villain, his presence and threat level practically holds up the entire show
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Every scene without Chudlander is a waste of time at this point. Anthony Starr deserves whatever gay trinkets they hand out these days even if he is a dickhead irl because that nigga can act.
 
I guess they're trying to set up the whole 'Butcher Kills Everyone' arc from the comic books but are offering a way out with Soldier Boy.

Also its kind of hard to see the point that M.M. and Starlight have by drawing a line. How in the fuck do you fight a living God who is one step away from cracking into pieces? Like, what are you going to do?

Homelander could just warp to you and bonk your head in with a singular punch. And what, you want to try to fight him as a normal person? Even other superheroes are terrified of him. Like, how do you fight him morally? I know they're presenting this as a choice in the show, but they're really not giving you an answer.

The problem with the whole dichotomy of Butcher's amoral methods vs. morality, is that Butcher's methods have a point. They might not always work, but they have a chance of working. The moral characters just have nothing. Hughie got it because he saw there was absolutely no way to counter this sort of shit with people and a corporation that powerful. Starlight just doesn't get how he feels trying to do the right thing for a year and it was just 'lol, you were helping out the evil people the whole time'.

Her plan is, well...naïve. Everyone in Vought is petrified of Homelander, with maybe the exception of Stan Edgar. They DON'T want to cross him and would rather betray people than do it. And why wouldn't they? Nearly all of them are selfish cunts.

M.M, Frenchie and Kamiko don't even fucking HAVE plans. They're just like, 'Lets go find them!" And then, what? Throw the cuffs on them? The only one able to consistently do ANYTHING about the problem is Butcher. And they hate him for it.

Its rather fucking obnoxious, that they get to keep being all high and mighty and moral with absolutely no plans or idea of their way working while at the same time shitting on Butcher for doing the only thing possible. I can't stand their self-righteousness when they'd long be splats on the pavement without him. Barring Kamiko, who really was the only other answer and then she got tired of doing it.

The problem the show is going to encounter is that Butcher's way is right nearly all of the time and the other characters just don't have any plans or answers. The solution to this problem will be Butcher doing something absolutely batshit insane, out of pocket and character so the audience can go 'yeah, his solutions aren't the way that things should be done'. Because the characters who have 'morality' don't have any answers or response to the threat these people face. Most of them just don't even want to be fucking bothered and then when they're on board all they fucking do is whine and complain and bitch without offering anything to the alternative.

What in the ever living fuck was M.M.'s plan when he found Soldier Boy ON HIS FUCKING OWN? Tell him, 'You killed my fa-' oh shit, too late, he's a walking atomic bomb and basically invulnerable to fucking 30 years of the Russians trying to kill him. You're dead. Its fucking insulting. He would have just encountered him and fucking died. Then he gets super pissy about Butcher's way. While offering NOTHING to the contrary except some corny fucking line from his dead dad who also couldn't fucking do a thing. Again, just bitches and whines and lets Butcher take the reigns because he has fucking. nothing.

I find it hilarious that fucking Hughie basically figured this out and its presented as a 'bad' thing. Ok show, tell me the moral way to beat Homelander when he's a fucking ticking clock and is ready to explode any minute and took out the second most powerful of the Seven. What's that? You don't have an answer? Yeah, didn't fucking think so.

I'm looking forward to the out of character bullshit they have Butcher pull to show his way is 'wrong' when they have no other alternatives to offer. I thought the show started off strong, but now I see where its going and its very predictable. You cannot have moral indignation if there is no real alternative. Butcher might not have looked for the moral choice, but Hughie did. And what did Hughie find? Fucking nothing.
 
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Oats12345 said:
I'm not shock SJWs would attack someone for thinking a villain is cool especially if said villain is against a woke hero.
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I remember when Disney Star Wars asked its fans whether they like the Resistance or the First Order.

It was obviously a poll made by a corporate staff member, asking the kids whether they liked the toys of the white-armored soldiers or the ones wearing camo. But when a sizeable chunk of the Sequel Trilogy fans picked the First Order, the leftists went nuts, decrying the "fascists" among the Star Wars fandom. Yes, even the ones that love the feminist, social justice Sequel Trilogy can be put under the microscope for "loving" the "fascist" bad guys.

Secret Asshole said:
Also its kind of hard to see the point that M.M. and Starlight have by drawing a line. How in the fuck do you fight a living God who is one step away from cracking into pieces? Like, what are you going to do?

Homelander could just warp to you and bonk your head in with a singular punch. And what, you want to try to fight him as a normal person? Even other superheroes are terrified of him. Like, how do you fight him morally? I know they're presenting this as a choice in the show, but they're really not giving you an answer.

The problem with the whole dichotomy of Butcher's amoral methods vs. morality, is that Butcher's methods have a point. They might not always work, but they have a chance of working. The moral characters just have nothing. Hughie got it because he saw there was absolutely no way to counter this sort of shit with people and a corporation that powerful. Starlight just doesn't get how he feels trying to do the right thing for a year and it was just 'lol, you were helping out the evil people the whole time'.

I find it hilarious that fucking Hughie basically figured this out and its presented as a 'bad' thing. Ok show, tell me the moral way to beat Homelander when he's a fucking ticking clock and is ready to explode any minute and took out the second most powerful of the Seven. What's that? You don't have an answer? Yeah, didn't fucking think so.

I'm looking forward to the out of character bullshit they have Butcher pull to show his way is 'wrong' when they have no other alternatives to offer.
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I suppose the "right" way to defeat Homelander was to have Congresswoman Neuman and Stan Edgar work together to have Vought and the American government keep their jackboots pressed-down on the supes' neck, to keep them in control. But Neuman betrayed Edgar for Homelander, and Edgar resigned in disgrace. So the "right" way to defeat Homelander is gone. Now, you have to do whatever it takes.

The biggest dilemma I'd have written is to decide whether or not to lure out Homelander to some bumfuck nowhere spot where he can fight Soldier Boy and no one else can get hurt, or to charge into Vought Tower guns-blazing, with Soldier Boy at the lead, which would obviously lead to Man of Steel levels of civilian casualties once Homelander and Soldier Boy have a swing at each other, DBZ-style. Energy blasts and laser eyes demolishing entire buildings, whole city blocks depopulated or even vaporized as the two herculean figures fight each other.

At least then, you can have some moral hand-wringing when Homelander does something smart and chooses NOT to come out to an obvious ambush. The Boys then start debating whether or not to assault Vought Tower and start a superhero fight in a densely-populated city. Now THAT would be a moral dilemma; Homelander has to die, but he's using the city and its people as his shield against Soldier Boy. You can either try to come up with another plan to lure Homelander out, which gives him the time to formulate his own plan, or you can attack now, and sacrifice a couple thousand lives to eradicate Homelander for good.
 
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LORD IMPERATOR said:
I remember when Disney Star Wars asked its fans whether they like the Resistance or the First Order.

It was obviously a poll made by a corporate staff, asking the kids whether they liked the toys of the white-armored soldiers or the ones wearing camo. But when a sizeable chunk of the Sequel Trilogy fans picked the First Order, the leftists went nuts, decrying the "fascists" among the Star Wars fandom. Yes, even the ones that love the feminist, social justice Sequel Trilogy can be put under the microscope for "loving" the "fascist" bad guys.


I suppose the "right" way to defeat Homelander was to have Congresswoman Neuman and Stan Edgar work together to have Vought and the American government keep their jackboots pressed-down on the supes' neck, to keep them in control. But Neuman betrayed Edgar for Homelander, and Edgar resigned in disgrace. So the "right" way to defeat Homelander is gone. Now, you have to do whatever it takes.

The biggest dilemma I'd have written is to decide whether or not to lure out Homelander to some bumfuck nowhere spot where he can fight Soldier Boy and no one else can get hurt, or to charge into Vought Tower guns-blazing, with Soldier Boy at the lead, which would obviously lead to Man of Steel levels of civilian casualties once Homelander and Soldier Boy have a swing at each other, DBZ-style. Energy blasts and laser eyes demolishing entire buildings, whole city blocks depopulated or even vaporized as the two herculean figures fight each other.

At least then, you can have some moral hand-wringing when Homelander does something smart and chooses NOT to come out to an obvious ambush. The Boys then start debating whether or not to assault Vought Tower and start a superhero fight in a densely-populated city. Now THAT would be a moral dilemma; Homelander has to die, but he's using the city and its people as his shield against Soldier Boy. You can either try to come up with another plan, which gives Homelander time to formulate his own plan, or you can attack now, and sacrifice a couple thousand lives to eradicate Homelander for good.
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I mean in the end its probably going to be something like that, but honestly its fine. The problem is I don't know if this Butcher is desperate enough to obliterate thousands and have a slug out in the middle of a city. He might be, he might not be.

My main issue is that only Hughie presents a moral choice, any choice. The others have absolutely nothing. In the comics, it was the reverse, they all realized this except Hughie, and now its Hughie who realizes it. Its ok when you have one character who is morally high and mighty and has others do the dirty work so he can keep his conscious clean, but the fucking entire team?

Any scene with Kamiko and Frenchie is just fucking obnoxious. Whine, whine, whine. M.M. is....goddamn. I cannot stand his self-righteousness. None of them have got anything else, and would mostly just like to completely fucking ignore the problem. They sort of just go along with it because Butcher has something on them or they're (somewhat) friends.

None of them recognize Butcher is taking on every fucking sin they don't have to do so they can have the moral high ground. I get that Butcher likes the amoral option and never really looks for any other, but they've sort of pushed this onto him, even when they don't need to. And he's fucking ruined because of it. They take on no weight and mostly just want to run (which is why every season they just split up). They leave it to Butcher while he carries more and more and more sin until he has no more limits and then act like 'that's how he always was, we couldn't do anything' and just absolve themselves of any responsibility.

While Butcher actually cares about them and puts up with them and takes on all of the dirty things they don't want to do. He drags M.M. into the thing with Soldier Boy and knows he's going to just get himself killed if he doesn't. Then he roofies him for his own fucking sake, because at this point, there's no weapon. There never was one, he was sold out to the Russians by his team. They're learning Homelander is becoming more and more reckless by the day and is killing anyone who opposes him.

Like Butcher may be an asshole, but at no point does it seem like he isn't looking out for the good of everyone. He basically doesn't care that they have no plans or ideas to support their moral foundation because 1) He enjoys what he does anyway and 2) He doesn't mind keeping his friend's hands clean so they can sleep at night.

If you think about it, Butcher sacrifices everything so more people don't have to die. He can't have a relationship to his adopted son because Homelander would find him. He can't just slip off into the night. The others just want to do what the fuck ever and don't really give a shit Butcher sacrificed for them. Kamiko and Frenchie could run away and have no consequences. M.M. could just go back to being a dad with no consequences. Butcher can't do any of that. Because he would have to live with the fact that Homelander would show up on his front porch one day, kidnap/kill his adopted son and everything he cared about.

To me, the entire team is a bunch of cunts with the exception of Hughie. At least he fucking had something and he tried. And when it failed, he looked for something different instead of trying the same shit.

Its kind of hilarious that they all call Butcher a cunt when he's doing the dirty work for them and basically not even lording over it. The only thing he does is a witty insult or two while doing it anyway. While its taking a massive mental toll on him. And they do nothing about it because its convenient.

And now they push the greatest sin onto him because there's no other choice: making him have super powers, pushing a massive amount of self-loathing onto him. And literally everyone abandons him except for Hughie. The person who has known him for the shortest amount of time. He saves all of them in Russia and what do they do? Excoriate him for it. And he only throws it back in M.M. when the self-righteousness is off the charts. Fucking hypocrite.

Needless to say, fuck the other members of The Boys. I never really thought I'd completely dislike the rest of the team and like Hughie and Butcher the best, but jesus.

I don't care about the woke shit at all, its this fake morality and selfishness of everyone else letting a man self destruct so they can feel good about themselves that is really fucking garbage. And the show treats them as being right. I can tell from the camera work, the shooting scenes, the cinematography, the way they're shooting scenes and the dialogue that they view what Hughie is doing as bad. The show has already decided Butcher's methods are bad and the others are right.

And it pisses me off because it could have been a great exploration of what happens when you run out of options that are morally good. What do you do? Sadly, they don't really explore this angle because all the other characters aren't really fleshed out enough and just don't even debate. Its a loss with non-participation.

Sorry I'm writing these long screeds, but the show could be an excellent exploration when the good options aren't realistic, what is considered morally good? What is considered a limit? How do they fight without abilities when their best lead was a dead end? There's no super weapon. There's no more lab grown clones. There's no deus ex machina that will shoot homelander and make everyone get high fives.

So, how do you do this without getting dirty? And I'm talking about not taking compound V or teaming up with Soldier Boy. The government route has failed. Organizing other heroes has failed. What is left? The characters and the show do not have an answer for this, nor do they even try. Their only answer is 'run'.
 
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Secret Asshole said:
What is left? The characters and the show do not have an answer for this, nor do they even try. Their only answer is 'run'.
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Their other option is to hold the airplane tape over Homelander’s head and hope that fear of the public backlash and hatred is enough to keep him in line. But they already established a couple of episodes ago that it’s meaningless, that if they ever released the video he would simply switch from ruling though love to ruling through fear. That millions would die, and any other super that tries to stand up would be melted into goo.

The problem is that now both sides are aware that it’s just a bluff, and they haven’t come up with any other plan. But they still occasionally mention the now completely impotent video as if it’s a true problem solver.
 
Los Pollos Hermanos said:
Their other option is to hold the airplane tape over Homelander’s head and hope that fear of the public backlash and hatred is enough to keep him in line. But they already established a couple of episodes ago that it’s meaningless, that if they ever released the video he would simply switch from ruling though love to ruling through fear. That millions would die, and any other super that tries to stand up would be melted into goo.

The problem is that now both sides are aware that it’s just a bluff, and they haven’t come up with any other plan. But they still occasionally mention the now completely impotent video as if it’s a true problem solver.
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Yeah, his real goal is he wants to be loved. But if they ruin him, he's literally got nothing left so he'll just go full kill mode and destroy the country. The tape isn't an option, like you said. And yeah lol. That's the funny part to me.

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I guess the real option, now that I think about it, is to go to Stan Edgar. He's really the only one who doesn't fear Homelander. The problem is, again, this is too amoral for the morality police (and besides, one of their goals is to bring down Vaught). Which for the moment, doesn't really matter. M.M, Frenchie or the others could have suggested this. But they don't because again, they view this as too amoral for them. And Butcher would view it as a half-measure rather than a whole measure. But at least its fucking something.

Also Stan Edgar is fucking awesome and survives in the comics because he is fucking cold as ice. And this is basically what happens anyway.
 
Secret Asshole said:
And the show treats them as being right. I can tell from the camera work, the shooting scenes, the cinematography, the way they're shooting scenes and the dialogue that they view what Hughie is doing as bad. The show has already decided Butcher's methods are bad and the others are right.
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I'm not sure. The show delivers a lot of things backhanded, and really good comic books are great at fucking with you in exactly this way. Stuff like cinematography can be great clues about what the people running things really think most of the time so I'd normally be right there with you, but comics have a tradition of being hyper-conscious of things like composition and negative narrative space and I'm getting enough of a super nerd vibe from it to give them the benefit of the doubt.
My guess (and hope, since admittedly I tend to err on the side of the generously optimistic option for shit I want to enjoy) is that the past season pattern you're observing is something they're repeating mid-season in miniature intentionally so that something fucking awful will happen that'll shock the characters into alignment.

I only kinda half-remember the books since I was reading them before the run concluded, ran out, and haven't gotten around to picking em up again so I don't know how it ended. But I know how they started and the show is only just starting to feel like it's approaching the point where 'the boys' might have the attitude they're meant to as a gang. I know the show deviates a lot but it'd be weird to never realise that element fully, and I can totally see why they might build up to that point on-screen (plus some of this stuff they're drawing out I recall specifically thinking felt a bit rushed originally) rather than entering into it as the status quo, or give us a glimpse then take a second bite at the apple. And it's 2022 niggaaa, if you're feeling shit-hopeless about things maybe they just nailed it
 
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