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

[MrJokerRager]

0:17

 

[Maker's Mark]

Would Homelander even wanna live without his powers? I realize he's a Trump allegory so we can't give him agency, but I feel he'd rather die than be a regular old dude.

Having Homelander beg for death would have been more on brand. Furthermore, have Butcher seeing this make him realize death would be a gift and spares Homelander but then decide he still needs to genocide Supes because Vought will just make another Homelander.

Butcher did nothing wrong when it comes to the virus.

 

[SOLDIER OF WALES]

eh. not that good.

 

[TheHarbinger]

I just realized something, was the only person Homelander even killed in the finale the 10 second random Elon Musk stand-in character?

Dogknot, Sheline, Ryan, Deep, Noir 2.0, Oh Father, Butcher, MM, Kimiko, Soldier Boy, and probably a few others all killed more people than immortal V1 injected Homelander in the last season. Noir 2.0 wiped out an entire ocean of fish and did tens or even hundreds of billions in infrastructure damage (off screen due to budget issues). Homelander trashed one room in the White House.

Like I said, Dany Targaryen in Season 8 is what Homelander should've been. Burning down the capital of the world just to prove a point, to prove one's power. Then have the villain make a speech to his or her faithful followers, saying that they will bring "order" or "freedom" to the rest of the world. It's funny how despite the fact that the ending was rushed to hell, GoT Season 8 managed to be more substantial than Season 5 of the Boys did.

I don't see how anyone can argue that the finale of The Boys was better than Game of Thrones. At least Game of Thrones had a giant budget for its last two seasons. The scale of King's Landing burning down is bigger than almost any scene in any movie or television show ever made. The shots of the dragons circling over the city and just spewing fire onto the streets or into the tower structures looked like a professional production.

They both had poor writing and acting. But The Boys had a laughably low budget. Their big final fight was the same lazy choreography as every other fight. One guy punches someone into a concrete wall, guy gets up, he punches the first guy back into the opposite wall that crumbles. Every single scene in the last episode took place in a small room with no extras. Completely lifeless. Felt like a stage play.

 

[DSP for president 2032]

I still haven't gotten over Starlight looking like 50 different Jews took 50 different scalpels to her face. Might not make it to watching the finale.

 

[TyrasGuard]

The entire premise of the show is portraying an asshole you want to see lose. Homelander exists to be hated. He was always a fraud. Him dying as a pathetic bitch is just the logical conclusion to his entire story.

The problem is that it doesn't feel earned at all. The entire fight starts and ends in minutes and it's just them fighting in a room throwing punches, in a room Homelander can't escape for some reason even though we saw him go to space and back in 2 seconds to kill not-Elon Musk.

Reminder that he cut off Kimiko in half at the start of the season almost instantly but during that fight, she just gets "pushed back" by the same eye lasers. That whole fight scene in the oval office was dumb, he fought off worse with no problem.

 

[Internet War Criminal]

A lot of people are complaining to what they did to the best character in the show, but let’s not forget what they did to the second best character in the show: they completely fucked Soldier Boy over.

I assume that they literally put him on ice so they can bring him back in a spin-off, but holy shit, what a terrible send off.

 

[Gay Sex Enjoyer]

I sympathize with being tired of wokeshit, and TDS. But I don’t get the complaints that Homelander didn’t have an epic death, or that he wasn’t “respected”.

This is not like Invincible where they tried to redeem their evil Superman and wanted you to like him. Omni-Man has some genuine fans, and was written ultimately as badass. But be it the comics or this show, Homelander was supposed to be hateable. At his most sympathetic, he was written as a sad, pitiable figure.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s very normal to like him as a villain. I would argue Antony Starr did a lot to make him popular. He is fun to watch. The show mostly works only because of him.

While Omni-Man was made out of love, Homelander was made out of hate. Disliked by his creators, both fictional and real. Even fans of The Boys root against him in crossovers. And with everything he did, there was no way he would die with dignity.

Even if I myself do feel sorry for how alone and desperate he was for a father figure, the Boys, both show and comic, are too cynical universe for that to matte, let alone redeem him.

The entire premise of the show is portraying an asshole you want to see lose. Homelander exists to be hated. He was always a fraud. Him dying as a pathetic bitch is just the logical conclusion to this entire story.

If you're going to make a character's death nothing but a humiliation ritual, don't give them any degree of sympathetic explanation for why they are they way they are. Do not make them human.

The reason the ending of 13 Assassins works is because the villain had zero redeeming qualities or sympathetic edge, he was designed to be NOTHING but a hatable psycho that enjoyed hurting others for the lols, so watching him crawl around in the mud weeping before finally lopping his head off was cathartic. Homelander was given like a dozen different scenes over the various seasons to explain exactly why he is the way he is, and show that he's ultimately just a broken sick person that was abused his entire life and developed insanely unhealthy coping mechanisms to protect himself and lashes out because of it.

But in the end none of that explination mattered, he regressed into a completely static character and you could cut all of the scenes of him tweaking out and just make him a shallow cartoon character with no rhyme or reason for why he does what he does and the end of his character would be more satisfying. "I'LL SUCK YO DICK MAN" is only satisfying if you only see Homelander as an abstract emotional target to hate and not as an actual character, but they wasted a bunch of fucking time making him an actual character anyway.

Comic "Homelander" literally ate a baby and had no tragic backstory whatsoever, he was evil for the sake of it, and he was still allowed some degree of spectacle when he went out, he didn't just shit his pants and go down in one hit. That's just silly and lame.

Not to mention the entire fight scene looks low budget as fuck, it's just them flailing around in a single tiny setroom.

 

[Gay Sex Enjoyer]

Like let me be clear, I don't think Homelander should've been some epic badass and went out in the coolest way possible like being ripped apart ala the comic ending, but the execution here was simply poor.

Having Homelander beg Butcher to kill him because he can't stand the idea of being completely powerless again would've worked far better at showing how pathetic and cowardly he is as a person while also keeping true to what was established about his motivations.

 

[Cleverbot]

Comic "Homelander" literally ate a baby and had no tragic backstory whatsoever, he was evil for the sake of it, and he was still allowed some degree of spectacle when he went out, he didn't just shit his pants and go down in one hit. That's just silly and lame.

I thought he didn't and that it was actually Black Noir, who was a clone of Homelander.

 

[ConsentAccidentVictimNo98]

The Gen-V kids (except for Kate and Sam) were vanished to Canada.

Which is funny, because Cate probably should have been used in some way in relation to Soldier Boy given that in Season 1 of Gen V Soldier Boy is her first actual crush. Back before Soldier Boy didn't get the Jon Snow treatment. Having Soldier Boy interact with Cate could have been interesting in that light, their powers too would be sort of interesting to go side by side. Hell, turn Soldier Boy into being really paranoid.

I love pinpointing the flaws of this creation and internal missed opportunities. Gen V is hilariously bad for this. Case in point, Godolkin. There are a million different things and the most boring thing was chosen to make him in a mushroom twirling video. He wants to control Supes, cool? Why? Does he want to use Supes for good, does he want to exterminate supes? Case in point, his entire Jesus thing with Marie or whatever she's called would work if the point of Project eastern european city was done to heal him, and others. Throw in some character flaws, and he's interesting.

I may one day get bad and go full autist disecting everything within the larger Boys stuff. But, I'd be more likely to do that with House of the Dragon because that dumpster fire is something else. Which hey, is being released in a month's time.

 

[Gay Sex Enjoyer]

I thought he didn't and that it was actually Black Noir, who was a clone of Homelander.

Hence the quotes.

The show just kinda merges the two of them together and makes actual Homelander also do what "Homelander" in the comic did, like fuck Butchers wife and get her pregnant.

 

[Zenos Yae Viator]

They didn't have the balls to have Butcher kill his entire team+ support network like in the comics

At least, as bad as they were, the comics were ultimately about taking the piss on comics, this show is laughably topical and ended exactly like I expected.

No catharsis for anyone or any plot threads anyone cared about.

 

[Mystery Spy]

If you're going to make a character's death nothing but a humiliation ritual, don't give them any degree of sympathetic explanation for why they are they way they are. Do not make them human

The problem is that it doesn't feel earned at all. The entire fight starts and ends in minutes and it's just them fighting in a room throwing punches, in a room Homelander can't escape for some reason even though we saw him go to space and back in 2 seconds to kill not-Elon Musk.

I am not defending the writing or the episode. I agree it was poorly written, it had a laughably low budget, and he was ultimately underwhelming. There's a reason I dropped it after season 2.

I am just critiquing the people that were expecting him to get the Omniman treatment of cool badass.

While many of us may like him as a villain, some might even like his accidentally based moments, but ultimately Homelander was created to be hated, and disliked, pitied at best.
While I grant you it could have, and should have been better written, there was little chance he would have a dignified death that elevated him even in an ideal show.

 

[Disastrously Dumb]

Didnt people say that the director for The Boys is that jewish guy who made Supernatural Season 1-4
I dont know why he'd shit on Trump or allow his writers to go with the "Hurr durr Trump gay"
when... isn't Trump assisting Israel, the thing they all wanted?

Jews man.
its like chaos is the only thing they thrive upon
and they always try to destroy everything anyone enjoys with their stupid politics.

 

[Cleverbot]

- Wait, so all supes are weak to high-pitched noises? Why didn't Annie and the rest also cover their ears when they first rescued Ryan in season 2? Did Homelander not hear the alarm?
- Did they forget Hughie still had a vial of temp V?
- Of course Frenchie's funeral was going to have long-winded unfunny sexpest humor
- Goodbye, Sage. You were a smart character written by midwits
No, I will not blur these spoilers. Fuck you.

Hence the quotes.

oops

 

[Buckaroo]

I sympathize with being tired of wokeshit, and TDS. But I don’t get the complaints that Homelander didn’t have an epic death, or that he wasn’t “respected”.

This is not like Invincible where they tried to redeem their evil Superman and wanted you to like him. Omni-Man has some genuine fans, and was written ultimately as badass. But be it the comics or this show, Homelander was supposed to be hateable. At his most sympathetic, he was written as a sad, pitiable figure.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s very normal to like him as a villain. I would argue Antony Starr did a lot to make him popular. He is fun to watch. The show mostly works only because of him.

While Omni-Man was made out of love, Homelander was made out of hate. Disliked by his creators, both fictional and real. Even fans of The Boys root against him in crossovers. And with everything he did, there was no way he would die with dignity.

Even if I myself do feel sorry for how alone and desperate he was for a father figure, the Boys, both show and comic, are too cynical universe for that to matte, let alone redeem him.

The entire premise of the show is portraying an asshole you want to see lose. Homelander exists to be hated. He was always a fraud. Him dying as a pathetic bitch is just the logical conclusion to this entire story.

I disagree, he wasn't just some pathetic manchild still trying to deal with what happened to him during his childhood in this season. His issues escalated to the point where he was seeing an angel tell him he was God and that he would punish the people that didn't believe in him. Those delusions should not have just vanished, he should have been doubling down on them. He should have been an incoherent mess screaming about how he was going to bring his divine vengeance down upon Butcher for even thinking he could be depowered.

 

[Commander X]

I see some defenders take the stance of "oh, did you expect this to end with a big, flashy showdown with lots of CGI special effects?" because, you see, with The Boys "unlike other mecha showssuperhero media, this one is about the characters" and I watched bits and pieces, Butcher busts into the Oval Office while what sounds like low budget knockoff MCU theme music playing and the Asian chick uses the Power of Love (stopping just short of having her summon a cartoon unicorn or something to shoot rainbow colored magic energy from it's horn) and the Butcher says "This is for Frenchie!"

I mean, I was not a fan of Avengers: Endgame but that whole sequence was like watching Avengers: Endgame but as the final episode of an obscure, low-budget genre TV series you'd stumble across on Tubi or Amazon Prime that originally aired a few years before on some equally obscure cable channel.

 

[Gay Sex Enjoyer]

I mean I think there's a gradient to these kinds of things, it doesn't need to be either super dignified or cartoonishly pathetic.

There is a middle ground between "Homelander is redeemed and goes out like a badass" and "Homelander shits his pants, slips in the shit, hits his head on a dildo and then dies".

Just have a little bit of restraint and don't make it abundantly clear that it's just the writers barely disguised fetish.

 

[God of Nothing]

the correct opinion is that caring about this show is pointless and a waste of time