The Boys gears up for a Supe-ocalypse in S5 teaser
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I was a big fan of season 1-3, I quit watching halfway through season 4. The show just lost me.
Now they expect me to watch a spinoff in addition to season 4 to catch up on everything that has happened. I dont know about that.
Now they expect me to watch a spinoff in addition to season 4 to catch up on everything that has happened. I dont know about that.
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It's a series that has gone on too long. Also, while I understand that there are a lot of people who misunderstood the messaging of the show so they course corrected by replacing ANY subtext with direct text, in practice, all this did was drive off the people who actually needed to hear the message while worsening the quality of the show... because it turns out subtext is good writing sometimes. I have no idea what the answer is, if using it means people think Homelander is a hero, but going direct means driving those people away so they don't hear your message at all, but being in that rock and a hard place, I'd err towards focusing on good writing so that it's at least entertaining.
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I liked seasons 1 and 2, but 3 and 4 were just OK. They seem to be trying to one up the crudeness/gore of previous episodes and it's getting a little old. I understand that it has always been a part of the show, and I'm OK with that to a point, but the story should be front and center, not the shock value.
I'll give S5 a shot. Didn't even know there was a spinoff (GenV). Hopefully I don't have to watch that to understand S5. I'm not really interested.
I'll give S5 a shot. Didn't even know there was a spinoff (GenV). Hopefully I don't have to watch that to understand S5. I'm not really interested.
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I think the issue is that the show was better off being a three or four season affair instead of trying to drag it out to five. The writing got sloppier in the latter seasons, and I ended up tuning out myself.
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I'm pretty sure that if the "offended audience" hasn't gotten the message by now, they never will.
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I've only watched season 1 (a bit too gory for my taste) so maybe I'm missing some further development in mind, but I have a hard time imagining anyone seeing Homelander as a good guy? How is that even possible?
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If you think really hard, I bet that you can find a large swath of the US population who thought he was the good guy until the writers literally came out and said it to their faces that he wasn't.
I agree with other sentiments here; the show was great in the first 2 seasons when the commentary was more subtle and nuanced, but kinda fell off the rails when they had to resort to South Park levels of pronouncement which distracted from the subtleties of the characters and made them caricatures instead.
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Yeah, because, they apparently see nothing wrong with him threatening his co-workers with murder on an almost daily basis, nor secretly experimenting on babies, nor murdering people to cover up experimenting on babies, nor shaking down cities, and entire countries for exorbitant sums of money.
I think it was literally Episode one, or maybe Ep 2, where we saw him murder for the first time (that is, that's the first time WE saw him murder, but then we find out he has been murdering for awhile, which shouldn't have come to anyone as a surprise by that point).
But I bet you're right that a whole bunch of people (mostly men, but there seem to be some women highly supportive of fascism) who thought he was the good guy despite all the clear evil he was doing.
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This show was never, ever subtle. "Evangelicals are suckers who are exploited for political gain by people like Homelander" was a whole episode back in s1.
I should also point out, to anyone unfamiliar with the source material, that the show is far, far more understated than the printed edition.
I can believe there was a vocal minority of viewers who thought Homelander wasn't evil. That doesn't shock me. America absolutely has a vocal minority with zero media literacy.
However, America also has a vocal minority of people who lie through their teeth for clicks. This group tends to congregate around the exact kind of themes Homelander exemplifies.
As far as I can tell, The Boys haven't suffered a disproportionate exodus of viewers, which one might expect if large swaths of its viewership quit in disgust upon realizing they were the bad guys all along. Our media ecosystem, in addition to promulgating ignorance and lies, will also magnify tiny events until they look like trends.
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Multiple things can be true.
Subtext and politeness is for cowards and got us <checks notes> an actual fucking fascist takeover. Also, The Boys just isn’t that well written, but it’s not due to lack of subtext.
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I watched seasons 1-4, and S1 of Gen V.
I guess I'll see it through? I'm burned out on it though.
Gen V especially made me want to just take a shower after watching it. And I'm not even talking about the obvious gross out stuff, giant dick etc, just the whole social media influencer etc stuff feeling a little too on the nose.
I guess I'll see it through? I'm burned out on it though.
Gen V especially made me want to just take a shower after watching it. And I'm not even talking about the obvious gross out stuff, giant dick etc, just the whole social media influencer etc stuff feeling a little too on the nose.
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I watched like two episodes of the original and bailed. Most people never see the kind of gore and violence that the show depicted IRL. I have.
It's not entertaining in any way, shape or form when its clearly gratuitous and a core aspect of the "appeal".
You can only be shocked so many times before it becomes boring and contrived. And that's how I saw it after two episodes, boring and contrived. I saw no one to root for. No one to have any shits to give about.
Decidedly not my cup of hemlock.
It's not entertaining in any way, shape or form when its clearly gratuitous and a core aspect of the "appeal".
You can only be shocked so many times before it becomes boring and contrived. And that's how I saw it after two episodes, boring and contrived. I saw no one to root for. No one to have any shits to give about.
Decidedly not my cup of hemlock.
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I liked the recent season of Gen V. They didn't have to wallow through all the character introductions they did in S1, they had a decent Big Bad - at least for the first half+ of the season - and the inevitable tie-in with The Boys finale gave them something to build to beyond the end of this season.
I could have done without Bushmaster, but she had a fairly small role.
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Fair, though they were pretty clear that God U isn't about teaching supes to be heroes, but how to manipulate media for personal enrichment. Which does make sense given that it's a private for-profit institution founded by a media company.
Also, the fact that that they called it "God U" should be a warning that the whole show is going to be very on-the-nose.
Hamish Linklater did a great job being a menacing villain.
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RickRoyLeonPrisZhoraRacha
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Same. I enjoyed the Anti-hero series of 1 and 2, where I was just inundated with the whole Marvel Comics movies and series that this was a breath of fresh air.
I now am numb. And MCU is not for me. Off to play Metroid 4...
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The problem is that following the success of Preacher, Garth Ennis was left with the impression that people loved stories in which you constantly increase the gross-out factor.
So he stol^H borrowed a lot of stuff from the UK comic scene. Watchmen by Alan Moore, New Statesmen from Crisis (which is also where Garth's first work was published), Marshal Law (and later Brats Bizarre) by Pat Mills, Zenith by Grant Morrison; Temps by Neil Gaiman: they all got dumped into a blender alongside the grossest ideas that could be found by scouring sources such as Troma's entire back catalog, and the worst of the 80s video nasties
The problem is, that while he successfully cranked up the grossness factor, the underlying plot was pretty weak.
And so the TV series started to seriously deviate from the original story, pretty much from the first episode. While still holding onto the belief that the best way to keep viewer attention was to keep cranking up the grossness...
To be fair, they've managed to improve on the original in some ways, and Antony Starr in particular does absolutely deserve every award in the world for his portrayal of Homelander.
But still. The law of diminishing returns kicks in hard when it comes to grossness, and I stopped watching The Boys somewhere around the third season, as I was frankly a bit bored.
It's a shame, because in trying to stretch out the plot of The Boys, the writers of the show have had to go back and plunder even more from the stories which inspired it. Which in turn means that we're even less likely to see the older - and generally far better - stories ever getting a conversion.
Because The Boys has already done that, yes?
So he stol^H borrowed a lot of stuff from the UK comic scene. Watchmen by Alan Moore, New Statesmen from Crisis (which is also where Garth's first work was published), Marshal Law (and later Brats Bizarre) by Pat Mills, Zenith by Grant Morrison; Temps by Neil Gaiman: they all got dumped into a blender alongside the grossest ideas that could be found by scouring sources such as Troma's entire back catalog, and the worst of the 80s video nasties
The problem is, that while he successfully cranked up the grossness factor, the underlying plot was pretty weak.
And so the TV series started to seriously deviate from the original story, pretty much from the first episode. While still holding onto the belief that the best way to keep viewer attention was to keep cranking up the grossness...
To be fair, they've managed to improve on the original in some ways, and Antony Starr in particular does absolutely deserve every award in the world for his portrayal of Homelander.
But still. The law of diminishing returns kicks in hard when it comes to grossness, and I stopped watching The Boys somewhere around the third season, as I was frankly a bit bored.
It's a shame, because in trying to stretch out the plot of The Boys, the writers of the show have had to go back and plunder even more from the stories which inspired it. Which in turn means that we're even less likely to see the older - and generally far better - stories ever getting a conversion.
Because The Boys has already done that, yes?
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I feel like The Boys has always been a weird mix of extremely on-point satire and overwrought gross-out violence and physical humor that goes too far, and it always makes me wonder if the satire is an afterthought to dumb violence porn that goes too far for shock value, or whether the ultraviolence going too far is making a point as considered as the satire and I'm missing it because I assume it's just for shock value, but either way, yeah, I'm burned out on it too.
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Very excited to see how it all shakes out, this is by far the most fun I've had on a series in ages. Great performances and always seems to take the audience on unexpected trips! Not for the handwringing snowflake crowd though.
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I, for one, absolutely love The Boys. I've always been a sucker for dystopian stories. My favourite character? Billy Butcher, absolutely. Gen V wasn't really my cup of tea, but eh, it's watchable, so I'll trudge through it.
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It feels like she was in the cast solely to get them out of one particularly hairy situation.
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I asked my wife to get her hair done like Stormfront. She told me sure, as soon as I finish growing out my Hitler moustache.
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Hero worship is a Nazi desire too, but their idea of a 'hero' is not one that would include Superman, the 60's and 70's X-Men, or the Spider-verse characters.
Edited to add: (I haven't seen any of this; I swore off all things Amazon many years before this series was conceived.)
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I wonder if that "offended audience" even exists or if it's just a made-up marketing gimmick. The "Conservatives hate this show!!!" rhetoric seems like a way to make conversation around this show be about real-world political fighting rather than the quality of the show itself.
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Seasons 1 and 2 happened before we had a completely unhinged, megalomaniacal Neo-Nazi running the government.
Now the show hews too close to the bone.
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Before? The first season came out during the first Trump presidency.
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I would agree. Once the show came on, I went and reread the comic series which I had collected as it came out. There are major differences from the start but sort of work if you squint and say that the first two seasons were an alt universe before the comic started. Anyway, the comic humor was certain more juvenile and edgelordy, the story less serious, and the final ending (after Homeland's demise) sort of a let down.
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I was getting tired of it too. And while, I'm not going to watch the spin-off, I'll watch the final season. I think I'll be able to figure out whatever I missed from skipping the spin-off. And if not, who cares, it's just a TV show, If I don't grasp every plot point it's no biggie.
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There are actual people who think Trump is a good guy. Real living people.
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Best series in recent times, dripping with Trump-hatred. The Deep (the aquaman-esque character,) getting oral satisfaction from an octopus (voiced by tilda swinson) may have been the highlight but each far-right-trashing episode is cathartic. I will miss this show.
A lot
A lot
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Same here, no way I’m sitting through a bunch of ads on top of my over-a-hundred dollar subscription to Amazon just to watch a bunch of blood and gore.
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jonbob_newcastle
Ars Praetorian
I seem to be in a minority thinking that five series is alright, but I think we can all agree that two years between series is too long.
The spin-off is… watchable, but also quite forgettable. Hamish Linklater was good, but I still can’t quite believe that was him in Legion. You could see the twist for his character coming from a mile away.
The spin-off is… watchable, but also quite forgettable. Hamish Linklater was good, but I still can’t quite believe that was him in Legion. You could see the twist for his character coming from a mile away.
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It's not unlike all these billionaires who come away from CyberPunk literature thinking the MegaCorps are the good guys.
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Like some of the other posters, I hope it turns out not to be necessary to have watched Gen V to follow Season 5. I'm still interested enough to check out Season 5, but not so interested that I want to watch Gen V.
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Shouldn't be necessary. You may miss some of the finer character points, but nothing of any serious import I'd think.
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