The Boys (Diabolical, Season 3 etc.)

[up_the_hampipe]

Fantastic season so far, let's hope they stick the landing.

Well, I'm not sure they did. The last half of the finale made little sense, especially with regards to the fighting and decision making. The major direction of the season seemed to just float away. Obviously it's complicated because they have season 4 coming, but there were more significant ways this could have gone.

[C_Larence]

Well I thought it was great. Felt gutted* for

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black noir

[close]

*

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excuse the pun

[close]

[Gulftastic]

Impressed with

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thr kid who plays Ryan. He nailed that last scene, managing to convey the underlying madness a la Homelander.

Glad Maeve survived, even if that's the last we'll see of her.

The Deep really is a little bitch.

[close]

[druss]

Yeah I enjoyed that a lot. Landing stuck for me.

[phantom_power]

Yeah it seemed to be serving up what everyone expected and then swerved at the last minute, but it felt natural rather than just bolted on

[Mobius]

I enjoyed it. Looking forward to the next season!

[up_the_hampipe]

Surprised to see no one had issues with it. I was baffled by the decision to

Spoiler alert

switch priorities from the most dangerous man in the world to Soldier Boy, who they rushed to try and make as cunty as possible at the last minute, when we've had 3 seasons of Homelander terrorising people, followed by a fight scene full of power inconsistencies and logical holes. It made a lot of the characters look stupid.. As I said, I get that we need to keep HL for season 4 but this felt clumsy.

[close]

There was definitely stuff I really enjoyed in the episode, but that whole sequence was just frustrating to me.

[BeardFaceMan]

No, you're not alone, I disliked more about it than I liked about it. Colour me disappointed. The set pieces this season have been great, the story not so much.

[Poobum]

I liked Hughie

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refusing the V. I thought Maeve's escape was very contrived, it was just something the writers needed to happen. It all felt too much like a fake out. Maeve's not actually dead; Soldier Boy back in his box (understand the temptation to have him there to bring back). The fight was quite boring and confusing, because the logic of the powers, well there was none

[close]

Still enjoyed it though, thought it was mostly surprising and clever.

[dissolute ocelot]

I liked it overall: not the best fight scenes of the series, but pretty satisfying, and some nice twists.

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It was obvious they couldn't kill Homelander but they could still have motivated it a bit better for them to help him against Soldier Boy. Butcher had good reason to switch, but the rest of the Boys just turned up to save the poor Vought employees from an explosion which it turned out wasn't going to destroy the building anyway (it happened right outside with just broken windows).

I thought we were going to get Vice President Homelander, which I'm a bit disappointed didn't happen. But he's got other paths to power.

Annie was way too nice on Hughie, taking him back after all his shittery this season. He did help her rather than taking the V, which was nice, but she didn't see him making that decision.

Also, while I'm nitpicking, fairly sure you can't be that cavalier with Novichok, as the smallest trace can kill somebody; but they were clamping a mask on someone with fumes leaking round the side. Still, action movie logic. EDIT: Or perhaps the point was that Frenchie's Novichok was shit.

Homelander's son is excellent. There's been too much focus on angst about parents and children, let's have some fun with it.

[close]

[colacentral]

All the season finales have been disappointing. It's more or less another reversion to status quo. I'd have liked to see a bit more of a paradigm shift there.

Also not sure on the logic of how the power draining explosion works after

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Kimiko gets blasted and instantly loses her powers, but Maeve explodes in the sky and walks away relatively unscathed. Surely she should have lost her powers and burned to death or died hitting the ground.

[close]

It's always been the same though. The show is entertaining enough and often laugh out loud funny but the drama of it leaves a bit to be desired. I still enjoyed it for what it was.

[BritishHobo]

Hated that. Absolute damp squib. All season it felt like they were really gearing up to fuck things up in the finale, but we're in exactly the place we were at the start of the season, except

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the kid is on team Homelander

[close]

which, meh.

All the build-up with Soldier Boy just to

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contrive a reason for them to decide to kill him instead. And then Homelander just walking out.

[close]

Even down to stuff like the Senator, who was forgotten about for most of the season and is now just dredged up again as a bit of a half-arsed cliffhanger because nothing else has happened. I wouldn't have minded the situation if, say, Vought had been destroyed. Blow up the whole building, kill Ashley, set up a different climate for season 4. But nothing has really changed. And

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Maeve AND Soldier Boy not dying

[close]

was the nadir. Even the stuff that happened IN the finale had no consequences.

Not for me.

[jobotic]

What did Homelander's son do that was bad? Completely forgotten

[BritishHobo]

I think it was mainly just showing he likes Homelander and has chosen to be on his side. Which feels really tacked on.

[AngryGazelle]

Spoiler tags not on before edit

[AngryGazelle]

Spoiler alert

Disappointedin Black Noirs death and the action scenes in general. Good season but a weak finale in my opinion. I'll watch season four of course but really don't know what ground it can cover that we haven't already seen.

[close]

[Zero Gravitas]

I know it's not technically true with so many characters out and situations changed, but it felt like a reset to me, probably a side effect of invulnerable superhumans being main characters.

We could quite comfortably have gotten here with from the S2 ending with only a small dance to set it up.

Head popper still hanging, Super boy under Superman's wing, the boys without the chance for super powers, Captain America in and then out, backstories set up and then everyone with relevance to them reduced to mist - didn't really move as many pieces as S2.

They could surprise me, it's leaked that McElligott isn't back for S4, perhaps they'll pop Ackles out of his tank in EP1


As an aside, I watched the opening scene from S1 to remind myself about how invulnerable Maeve was portrayed:

The tone and the charm of that seems completely changed now, that's much more cinematic in style yet at the same time more natural, subtler and darkly funny with the violence rather than just gore and cocks. I wish that show had continued.

Plenty of extended shots of Antony Starr twitching his lips but nothing matches the terrifying mix of façade and psychopathy from S1

[phantom_power]

I think it was mainly just showing he likes Homelander and has chosen to be on his side. Which feels really tacked on.

Not really. Butcher pushed him away earlier in the season so Homelander is the only one to really show him love, and saying that killing his mum wasn't his fault seemed to help as well

I think the biggest change to the show was right at the end. Now HL has seen that he will be supported despite blowing someone's head off he will be even more brutal and unforgiving, with the support of his MAGA-ish fans

[BeardFaceMan]

What did Homelander's son do that was bad? Completely forgotten

He killed his mum.

Can't say I'm excited much for season 4 now. Very, very disappointed with how the Black Noir stuff went down, totally wasted the character (unless he's not dead and appears in season 4, which wouldn't suprise me at all). Now that its been determined that temp V kills you are we *finally* getting to the stage where The Boys are V'd up permanently and can kick some arse? Is the government agency aspect of this even in play any more, do they have a remit or anything? Why do The Boys even exist at this point?

[13 schoolyards]

Considering the original comic was in large part about Bush-era corruption and subversion of the military in a money-driven forever war, it thematically makes sense that two decades on the series would swerve towards making Homelander a Trump-style figure who's loved for saying and doing whatever the hell he likes. But ditching the whole "he's a puppet, Edgar is the real evil and the only one who can control him because he's Corporate America" angle doesn't really leave them with any kind of obvious end point.

If Homelander can do whatever he likes and be loved for it, the only way to stop him is some super-powered conflict, which after four seasons (and counting) is only ever going to feel like more of the same. Just having him fuck up and his supporters turn on him isn't going to work because we know in real life it doesn't work like that.

So yeah, more fight scenes ahead.

[Zero Gravitas]

Not really. Butcher pushed him away earlier in the season so Homelander is the only one to really show him love, and saying that killing his mum wasn't his fault seemed to help as well

I had no problem with that turn, if anything it was a little too much of a point-for-point echo of Butcher's pushing him away, but they only had 60 seconds to get that surprise piece of the finale lined up so can't blame them for wanting to go broad.

[AsparagusTrevor]

Hmm, damp squib (or squid for The Deep) is a fair comment. Lest we forget, this season has been a very good one full of twists and shocks, some great character work and some very well done set-pieces. However, I agree with all who have said we're not in much of a different place to where we started this season.

The only real advancements to the plot are

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Ryan, Noir and Maeve.

I'm sure nobody wanted to see the back of Homelander yet because he's the best part of the show, and I'm hoping the next season will see him become braver in showing his true self to the world. He's not really got anything to lose now, and it's been shown he can still publically laser a guy in the face and be loved by people, which is all he wants really. Having a psycho padawan will be an interesting thing to follow, and they've lucked out with the child actor.

Maeve's fake out death would've been more impactful had they just left her heroic sacrifice as that. Sure it's nice to see a 'goodie' get a happy ending but it was all a bit tacked on, especially if the actress isn't returning anyway.

[close]

[colacentral]

We've already gone through the thing of "They like me more when I'm being myself". This feels like it's more of the same but slightly more extreme.

I don't think the season has been that great as a whole. I didn't find Hughie's arc very believable and I thought everything suffered from splitting the characters up. The Frenchie story in particular was not very engaging.

Again, I still enjoy it for what it is but the plotting is a bit clunky.

Contrary to what the majority seem to think, I'm glad the powers aren't permanent and I'd be happy if they never came back again. I much prefer the idea of regular people having to find a way to fight back against people with super powers, basically if Lex Luthor was the good guy. Levelling the playing field takes that under dog quality away and some of the tension with it.

[BritishHobo]

Not really. Butcher pushed him away earlier in the season so Homelander is the only one to really show him love, and saying that killing his mum wasn't his fault seemed to help as well

True, but like the head-blowing Senator it feels like a plot point they neglected all season only to pull it out because the main plot was a damp squib.

[druss]

Personally I think that Homelander blowing up someone's head in public and being loved for it is a vastly different place to where we started.

[notjosh]

I think the biggest change to the show was right at the end. Now HL has seen that he will be supported despite blowing someone's head off he will be even more brutal and unforgiving, with the support of his MAGA-ish fans

I took this as a reference to the Trump quote that he could shoot someone in the middle of 6th avenue and not lose any supporters. Now that the series is quite explicitly referencing recent politics I wouldn't be surprised if the next series takes us down an imagined future route. One example might be: 'what if the capitol attack was succesful'.

[colacentral]

Personally I think that Homelander blowing up someone's head in public and being loved for it is a vastly different place to where we started.

Not from the start of the season where he was already told that the mob liked him being a cunt. It was obvious that him killing people publicly was where it was going from then so it's not some huge development to end the season on, and not that surprising. As shocking as the content appears to be on the surface, the writers tend to play it safe in terms of plot virtually every time.

[druss]

Not from the start of the season where he was already told that the mob liked him being a cunt. It was obvious that him killing people publicly was where it was going from then so it's not some huge development to end the season on, and not that surprising. As shocking as the content appears to be on the surface, the writers tend to play it safe in terms of plot virtually every time.

Something being seeded earlier in the season and it being a natural progression doesn't mean it ceases to be a progression though. I found it very shocking and a clear escalation from where we were. I'd rather see incremental progression than everything changing or five people dying.

[Dr Rock]

The end fight was a bit cramped, but its still the best show on TV

[colacentral]

Something being seeded earlier in the season and it being a natural progression doesn't mean it ceases to be a progression though. I found it very shocking and a clear escalation from where we were. I'd rather see incremental progression than everything changing or five people dying.

It's not that everything has to change or loads of people have to die, but occasionally doing something unexpected would be a nice change. I knew 100% that A-Train wasn't going to die after he collapsed a few episodes ago because of course he won't, he's a major character. And then even Maeve survives that explosion, defying the rules they set up for Soldier Boy's power only a few episodes earlier. That's the kind of show it is. It travels the path of least resistance. The occasional curve ball would be welcome.