The Boys (Amazon)

[Veltigar]

4 minutes ago, Martini Sigil said:

Total nitpick, as this might be my favorite thing this year... but for a show called "the Boys"... the best part of it is the Seven... the Boys, themselves, are --for the most part-- kind of bland... or maybe it's just because Antony Starr steals every scene he's in ... The Boys need to get into more mischief, IMO

It's like you copy-pasted my post from a few pages earlier! Totally agree  

[Corvinus85]

Episode 5 was bonkers. Another one with moments of great tension.

[karaddin]

6 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Episode 5 was bonkers. Another one with moments of great tension.

The AOC standin's horror and fear when he landed next to her at the protest was so palpable. She clearly knows what he's capable of even if she's holding back to what she has proof of in public statements.

[Gaston de Foix]

2 hours ago, karaddin said:

The AOC standin's horror and fear when he landed next to her at the protest was so palpable. She clearly knows what he's capable of even if she's holding back to what she has proof of in public statements.

Yup.  That was a great moment.  In many ways these two back-to-back episodes explore Homelander's real weakness:  Susceptibility to emotional manipulation.  One episode after he declares he doesn't need anybody, Liberty clearly has increasing power over him.  And she's not fragile like the humans he plays with and breaks.  

I hope the titular Boys now actually do some shit? Escaping Black Noir with their lives (or a knife wound for MM) is impressive, but I haven't seen them accomplish anything all season long.  Protecting Ryan (who is their replacement for Homelander) is clearly of enormous importance for Vought, a chance to fix the mistakes they made with him.   

[karaddin]

I saw some people annoyed that Edgar didn't demand proof of the photos or attempt to get them destroyed, I got the impression that Edgar actually wanted to make contact rather than kill them. Noir could have killed them all before Butcher even made the threat but he was taking things uncharacteristically slow. He may have let Butcher catch sight of him in the first place. 

I'm still convinced there's more going on there than is obvious.

[Corvinus85]

Outside of Starlight with Hughie's help exposing Vought, the Boys' biggest accomplishments so far is to not get killed or caught, despite two close run-ins. But I do appreciate getting more background on MM and Butcher. Now it really feels personal. 

 

[Kalbear]

The Deep remains deeply stupid as far as a plot so far. I don't know how the Deep is going to help, but honestly I don't really care. 

Homelander is still amazing though.

[Veltigar]

Very good episode. Also one of the more balanced one's as far as supes v. boys is concerned. I don't know whether the Boys were more interesting or the Supes less interesting, but it felt like a bit of middleground between the two. I do hope this will lead to some more development from the boys because they remain the weakest element of this whole series by far.

MVP was Homelander again. No surprises there. His 

Spoiler

sex scene with Aya Cash was surprisingly hot

Curious to see where all of this leads.

 

EDIT: I also keep loving The Deep. I know he's a douchesnozzle, but I just love how everyone keeps on shitting on him.

[Red Tiger]

1 hour ago, Veltigar said:

Very good episode. Also one of the more balanced one's as far as supes v. boys is concerned. I don't know whether the Boys were more interesting or the Supes less interesting, but it felt like a bit of middleground between the two. I do hope this will lead to some more development from the boys because they remain the weakest element of this whole series by far.

MVP was Homelander again. No surprises there. His 

  Reveal hidden contents

sex scene with Aya Cash was surprisingly hot

Curious to see where all of this leads.

 

EDIT: I also keep loving The Deep. I know he's a douchesnozzle, but I just love how everyone keeps on shitting on him.

Veltigar getting turned-on by nazis. *Sigh*

Spoiler

I mean, I fully agree, but you should still be ashamed!

 

[Gaston de Foix]

1 hour ago, Veltigar said:

Very good episode. Also one of the more balanced one's as far as supes v. boys is concerned. I don't know whether the Boys were more interesting or the Supes less interesting, but it felt like a bit of middleground between the two. I do hope this will lead to some more development from the boys because they remain the weakest element of this whole series by far.

MVP was Homelander again. No surprises there. His 

  Reveal hidden contents

sex scene with Aya Cash was surprisingly hot

Curious to see where all of this leads.

 

EDIT: I also keep loving The Deep. I know he's a douchesnozzle, but I just love how everyone keeps on shitting on him.

Spoiler

I found the sex scene to be surprisingly fake and off-putting.  Unlike the tense scenes with Madelyn Stillwill and Homelander.  But YMMV.  

Remind me - 10 episodes total?

 

[Zorral]

17 hours ago, karaddin said:

The AOC standin's horror and fear when he landed next to her at the protest was so palpable. She clearly knows what he's capable of even if she's holding back to what she has proof of in public statements.

I was praying that the AOC figure would not get killed.  I prayed also for the audience, but I thought if he was going to do it, he'd do her first.

Just watched this week's ep.  Whew.  They make one feel the incredible courage it takes to even try to counter such power.  The powerful's regard for our lives is zero.  They show this to us.  I'm feeling even that, in this climate, even with comix, on 'tv' takes a lotta guts.  They look braver than most of the media that's for sure.

Who or what is Black Noir (and why does he have that stupid name, which comes out to Black Black or Black Dark?)? What is his superpower anyway?

 

[ithanos]

14 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Who or what is Black Noir (and why does he have that stupid name, which comes out to Black Black or Black Dark?)? What is his superpower anyway?

 

I always took it as a hint to his (comic-book) origins. It's literally in the name.

Noir having a body cam and being mic'd up makes sense. I would guess his season opening mission was seen by the support techs, which made his tech assist scenes from the previous episode much more tense.

Ugh, I need to stop reading YouTube comments. It's disconcerting how many were disappointed in the dream sequence reveal.   

 

[karaddin]

The combination of cutting commentary, the horror/terror of being a normal person in the face of the powerful, and the genuine hilarity and cringe of other moments is really quite an amazing combination. 

The honest trailer really nailed it with the whole "soulless corporation takes your genuine heartfelt fight against injustice and them, packages it up, sells it and makes you complicit" line and we've got that again with the gross Maeve coming out part. Also amazing cringe there too.

Completely different cringe with HLs hallway scene was also great. The Starbucks always getting your name wrong gag with Stormfronts juice cup is the attention to detail that makes it feel real.

I think my favorite exchange was Maeve and Deep with "fuck no I'm not here for this", "you think I'm a piece of shit?" "*Snorting* fuck yeah".

Another genuinely well done moment was SF being racist to A Train in exactly the "deniable" way racists insult people of color. Right out in the open, but just enough deniability that attempting to address it will just blow back on the person of color, and the respectable white people will be pissed at them for playing the race card. Much more real than normally is shown.

[Rippounet]

Great episode. So many good things there, I can't be bothered to list them all.

12 hours ago, karaddin said:

I saw some people annoyed that Edgar didn't demand proof of the photos or attempt to get them destroyed, I got the impression that Edgar actually wanted to make contact rather than kill them. Noir could have killed them all before Butcher even made the threat but he was taking things uncharacteristically slow. He may have let Butcher catch sight of him in the first place. 

I'm still convinced there's more going on there than is obvious.

I agree. I think Edgar knows he needs an ace against Homelander, and The Boys is the best thing he thought of, especially since everyone knows Butcher is really after him.
Which means there might be far more to Coumpound V than we know. Not only are there probably variations that can extend a supe's life and amplify their powers (Liberty being the guinea pig), but there may be others. Either an antidote that can strip a supe of their powers and/or outright kill them or a variation that grants very powerful powers, but for a limited time and/or with massive risks.
Edgar would then need someone to off Homelander with that. Who better than The Boys? Once the deed is done, they'd be easy to get rid of, especially when labeled as domestic terrorists, thus granting a huge popularity boost in the process.
Wild speculation here: there may come a time when Butcher will have to choose between his revenge (by offing Homelander) and hurting Vought. He's already starting to wonder what he really wants, and this season has villains worse than Homelander.

One thing that supports this direction for the plot is that Edgar didn't demand any guarantees from Butcher, which makes little sense, unless Noir was indeed only there to make contact and figure out what The Boys really know and how they can be used.

I wouldn't be surprised if Butcher became a supe. He hates them so much it's almost an elephant in the room. And he's already a terrorist, so he's the ideal super-villain for Vought to fight.

[karaddin]

Yeah I definitely wouldn't be surprised if that's one of the directions it heads in. I'd put one qualifier in which is that Edgar already has one ace against HL in SF, but I think the situation is complex. Vought has a Nazi founding, SF is absolutely a Nazi and relying on her might be fine for the company but it's playing with fire for Edgar. I suspect layers of contingencies and personal insurance vs corporate control.

Noir clearly has some level of personal loyalty to Edgar, and the way tracking down Butcher was done is entirely deniable - Noir acted like he was just pursuing his own obsession as far as anyone else at Vought was concerned. If it was an open Vought move then the tech guys would have just been instructed to concentrate on the hunt for Butcher and Noir dispatched openly. Instead we have him intimidating the tech girl into helping him and running off on his own and then following Butcher all the way from Becca's which would have started at night, so plenty of opportunity to take him out alone.

[Denvek]

6 hours ago, karaddin said:

Yeah I definitely wouldn't be surprised if that's one of the directions it heads in. I'd put one qualifier in which is that Edgar already has one ace against HL in SF, but I think the situation is complex. Vought has a Nazi founding, SF is absolutely a Nazi and relying on her might be fine for the company but it's playing with fire for Edgar. I suspect layers of contingencies and personal insurance vs corporate control.

Edgar wouldn't have picket Stormfront if he didn't have insurance - he'll know that she was Liberty, and anyone else she might have been before that, and he'll know what she's think about people like him being in charge of Vought. I imagine that's part of her motivation to do the anti-Vought social media work she's done - it's not just for her image but also has an underlying long-term goal of undermining and removing Edgar.

[Veltigar]

13 hours ago, Red Tiger said:

Veltigar getting turned-on by nazis. *Sigh*

  Hide contents

I mean, I fully agree, but you should still be ashamed!

 

This is kind of bad for my forum rep XD but I'll stand by my statement :p

12 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

  Hide contents

I found the sex scene to be surprisingly fake and off-putting.  Unlike the tense scenes with Madelyn Stillwill and Homelander.  But YMMV.  

Remind me - 10 episodes total?

 

I mean 

Spoiler

Fake obviously. I have never shot laserbeams at my girl's boobs (although I did break a wall once) have you? 

Off-putting also yes! These are horrible people after all, but it was still hot regardless XD

 

7 hours ago, karaddin said:

Yeah I definitely wouldn't be surprised if that's one of the directions it heads in. I'd put one qualifier in which is that Edgar already has one ace against HL in SF, but I think the situation is complex. Vought has a Nazi founding, SF is absolutely a Nazi and relying on her might be fine for the company but it's playing with fire for Edgar. I suspect layers of contingencies and personal insurance vs corporate control.

Noir clearly has some level of personal loyalty to Edgar, and the way tracking down Butcher was done is entirely deniable - Noir acted like he was just pursuing his own obsession as far as anyone else at Vought was concerned. If it was an open Vought move then the tech guys would have just been instructed to concentrate on the hunt for Butcher and Noir dispatched openly. Instead we have him intimidating the tech girl into helping him and running off on his own and then following Butcher all the way from Becca's which would have started at night, so plenty of opportunity to take him out alone.

I think @Denvek has a point in the sense that there has to be more going on there. Unless we get a Get Out reveal, than Edgar is a black guy working for a Nazi corporation. Selecting a supe like SF with a history of killing PoC to safeguard yourself against the potentially "(White) America First" style Homelander threat seems like a bad, bad idea from someone who is sold to us as very cunning.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is a layer above Edgar even who allowed SF to enter the fray. Like, if the Nazi founder discovered that he could give people superpowers than why on earth wouldn't he use all of that on himself?

So I'm betting there are layers upon layers of intrigues and guarantees here, mostly tied up to the threat of Homelander who is unstoppable for non-supes. So far we have at least four potential mitigations:

1. The Boys
2. Homelander's son
3. Black Noir
4. SF

Who knows how many others!

8 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I wouldn't be surprised if Butcher became a supe. He hates them so much it's almost an elephant in the room. And he's already a terrorist, so he's the ideal super-villain for Vought to fight.

 I would be surprised if it didn't go this direction. Apart from a few low-level supes there are none the Boys could actively defeat themselves without either superpowers or the support of the USAF. They sure as hell aren't getting the latter so the superpowers seem the most likely.

10 hours ago, Zorral said:

Who or what is Black Noir (and why does he have that stupid name, which comes out to Black Black or Black Dark?)? What is his superpower anyway?

 

I love his name. It sounds menacing but at the same time it is incredibly dumb. Such an American thing to do really XD It also fits in the theme of Vought not being very accurate with their descriptions. Remember Butcher's comment on Translucent in season one? That was hilarious.

[Zorral]

Starlight’s function in this episode seems to be meta commentary on the comix action superhero frachises’ sexualization of female ‘heroes’ via their fetish skin-tight ridiculous costuming of revealing as much skin as possible. In this episode we never see Starlight in mufti, but only in what Starlight labels the ‘fembot’ costume. The camera in this episode takes every opportunity to focus and linger just over long on her ass – one shot in the scene of Starlight searching Stormfront’s trailer for evidence she's nazi Liberty, is entirely her ass, and no other part of her. Earlier, at the set’s cafeteria table taking her mother to task for the lies of her past, her cleavage of mashed together breasts is what the camera carefully centers and forefronts.

But rather than meta commentary, this seems, again, as is usually the case with female characters, the producers having their cake and eating it too – critical, but participating in the travesty.

Though I've liked how the actor's played in the past, as in Homicide and Dear White People Edgar has hardly registered with me as a personality or participant so far -- no specific there there, yanno? -- quite like Black Noir.  Thank you, whomever suggested there might be a special connection between the two of them.

Did anyone else think that Hughie's face looked -- well, almost cult-dumb admiring or something equally icky while staring at Butcher at the conclusion?  What in heck was that all about?  Why was that the consequence of that little speech of Butcher's aunt about Butcher and his brother?

Homelander -- the pure American fool as villain.  Waaaaaaaaing for his mummy because the world isn't loving HIM HIM HIMM -- the mummy who would have made it all better, he killed -- so he goes looking for a new mummy who might just be more sociopathic than he is because she doesn't even have mummy issues.  Gods that was gross, though right.  This is not going to end well for all of us.

 

[karaddin]

There's speculation she could be his actual mother which would put them hooking up... Right in his wheelhouse. Getting what he wants without even knowing it.

With Edgar I think what we're mostly seeing of him is Edgar!Avatar of Nazi company Bought. With him acting through Noir we are getting the only glimpse of Edgar!The Person. I'm still not entirely sure how he feels about the Nazi angle, he's either fully on board with it despite what will happen to him or he thinks he can handle it. Either way he definitely needs to have a way to handle SF and she's definitely not going to be on board with him.

[Rippounet]

8 hours ago, karaddin said:

There's speculation she could be his actual mother which would put them hooking up... Right in his wheelhouse. Getting what he wants without even knowing it.

Eeeeeeew, that would top Game of Thrones...

On another note, shouldn't the thread title warn of spoilers?