Let's hear it for THE BOYS [Onwards to Season 3]

[Zorral]

Ah, Don Romperking Jr.

[Maia]

On 7/12/2022 at 6:38 PM, Corvinus85 said:

The woman who escaped Stormfront's lab has the power to implode/crush things, while Neumann seems to explode them. Also Neumann requires direct line of sight.

Doesn't Neumann's power work only on living things? Cindy can implode everything, but I think that she needs line of sight too - that's why they were  hiding behind corners from her during their raid on the facility.

 

On 7/14/2022 at 5:22 PM, IFR said:

 Maeve spent most of the series terrified of him, and now suddenly she's holding her own against him and Soldier Boy? Very disappointing. They should have killed her off.

I don't understand the need to belittle Maeve's powers. It fits the spirit of the show far better if she was in fact stronger and more dangerous to Homelander than she told herself she was. If she truly could have done something during all these years, but willfully chose not to out of cowardice. What's the attraction in Homelander being completely unassailable? It just makes the whole overarching plot seem like boring make-work.

And personally, I would have found it deeply unsatisfying and disappointing if they killed her off, but let A-Train and Soldier Boy live. The lengths they went to to preserve A-Train were far more egregious and far less explicable, IMHO. Give us some more evil mirrors instead - there are plenty of popular super-heroes to chose from.

BTW, speaking of breeding superheroes - why didn't Liberty/Stormfront have Soldier Boy's kids again, if she wanted to create her master race? At least, not in the natural way and not to her knowledge, since I strongly suspect that Homelander was created from her egg-cells.

 

On 7/14/2022 at 5:22 PM, IFR said:

I'm not sure if I will continue with the show now that the writers have shown their cards and seemed determined to needlessly protract things.

Yea, it seems clear that the overall arc is doomed to be pedestrian water-treading until they are ready to finish or know that they are getting canceled. Even then we'll likely get something awfully clichéd like Ryan being the only one capable of finishing dear old dad. Still, as long as the episodes in isolation are entertaining I'd likely watch.

[IFR]

5 hours ago, Maia said:

I don't understand the need to belittle Maeve's powers. It fits the spirit of the show far better if she was in fact stronger and more dangerous to Homelander than she told herself she was. If she truly could have done something during all these years, but willfully chose not to out of cowardice.

Fair enough. It seems we're looking for different things in this show.

I would say if Homelander successfully slapped down Maeve for showing some spine, the spirit of the show would be that sometimes underdogs underestimate themselves and when pressed do remarkable things, but then sometimes underdogs have correctly evaluated themselves and when they attempt some heroism they are beaten down. Which is consistent with real life.

5 hours ago, Maia said:

What's the attraction in Homelander being completely unassailable? It just makes the whole overarching plot seem like boring make-work.

I disagree. Homelander was like some elemental terror, a ticking time bomb that could go off at any moment. He was this constant menace in the background, like the Joker in The Dark Knight, or Jaws.

At some point this would all have to come to a climax, of course. The premise of the show initially was very interesting. When you have this God-like force set against a group of much weaker individuals, one wonders how they could possibly contend with this force?

Well, in answer this show provided the characters with a serum that gave them nearly equivalent powers, and also showed that Homelander himself was potentially outclassed by his own colleagues. Nothing clever or interesting. Maeve simply had to have her anime-trope of an emotionally induced power-up and suddenly she could take the most powerful baddies on.

This is incredibly boring to me. Suddenly Jaws is just some random shark who can be easily taken down. The writers just have to procure for the characters some improved Compound V, or Maeve can rediscover her powers again - maybe through another introspective, emotional episode. Etc.

Homelander comes off as an artificial threat at this point, which largely takes away from the series in my opinion.

5 hours ago, Maia said:

And personally, I would have found it deeply unsatisfying and disappointing if they killed her off, but let A-Train and Soldier Boy live. The lengths they went to to preserve A-Train were far more egregious and far less explicable, IMHO. Give us some more evil mirrors instead - there are plenty of popular super-heroes to chose from.

For me, Maeve is a deeply uninteresting character. The humiliations she endured were sometimes amusing, but the character herself was about as fascinating as a wet noodle. 

And I don't particularly care for redemption arcs in general. There are exceptions. I liked the one in Schindler's List, and the one in Unforgiven (especially how it ended). I also liked Jaime Lannister's arc (in the books), and also Jean Valjean (probably the most saccharine of the lot, though).

Maeve's redemption did nothing for me. It would have been much more satisfying to me to see her further humiliated and then killed off.

I would have been fine if A-Train were also killed, though I really enjoy his character.

Quite frankly, I would have taken anything for this show to do something fresh. For me, this was the point they should have killed Homelander and ended the show, or taken things in a different direction. I would have liked it if in the battle between Homelander and Soldier Boy, they end up casually killing everyone else like insects (Hughie, Butcher, et al.). And then the final season is just about Homelander mishandling everything, going increasingly insane and then reducing the world to ashes at the end.

Or Hughie, in his naive idealism, releasing the formula for Compound V to the public, so everyone can obtain superpowers, which leads to society self-annihilating.

Or something. Anything. The premise as it is has been played out and is no longer compelling.

 

5 hours ago, Maia said:

Yea, it seems clear that the overall arc is doomed to be pedestrian water-treading until they are ready to finish or know that they are getting canceled. Even then we'll likely get something awfully clichéd like Ryan being the only one capable of finishing dear old dad.

On this we are absolutely in agreement. With all the spinoffs and everything in the works, the show has taken a tragic and abrupt nosedive in quality for me.

[HelenaExMachina]

Quick point regarding Maeve, this season she has also worked extremely hard to get herself ready to face Homelander. She's stopped drinking (mostly, just then one tipsy night with Butcher) and says she has been training. I think this is a lot different to the Maeve from season one and two. Maeve also showed she could at least hurt Stormfront in season 2 and that was before she began making an effort to train more. I didn't have an issue with her going up against Homelander in the finale - he was also clearly holding back from killing her for most of the fight

[IFR]

On 7/30/2022 at 2:53 PM, HelenaExMachina said:

Quick point regarding Maeve, this season she has also worked extremely hard to get herself ready to face Homelander. She's stopped drinking (mostly, just then one tipsy night with Butcher) and says she has been training. I think this is a lot different to the Maeve from season one and two. Maeve also showed she could at least hurt Stormfront in season 2 and that was before she began making an effort to train more. I didn't have an issue with her going up against Homelander in the finale - he was also clearly holding back from killing her for most of the fight

These are good points, but they don't change my assessment. Regardless of whether Homelander "held back" or Maeve did a lot of training, the ultimate outcome was that season 3 saw Homelander getting a fair thrashing throughout, which greatly diminishes the sense of terror which accompanied his character and was such a fascinating part of the show.

For me, all that careful buildup of Homeland's character was squandered for Maeve's uninteresting arc. That and the Compound V power up overdid it. As far as I'm concerned the show destroyed its own hook for nothing.

[Corvinus85]

 

[Nictarion]

 

[dbunting]

34 minutes ago, Nictarion said:

 

That's strange, they already have one sup who crushes skulls!

[mcbigski]

Just got caught up with this the other night.  Special Lady Friend took an extreme liking to Black Noir from the start.  They both share tree nut allergies, so BN was probably her favorite character.

I'm assuming that we haven't seen the last of Soldier Boy, since he has both the power, it appears, to cancel out Homelander, and also wants to make a place for his progeny.  

Probably been speculated on already, but I'd think either Butcher or Frenchie is going to take a shot at the remaining compound V from Kimiko's restoration.  When they showed the partial vial in the 'previously' recap, that's got to come back into play, right?

[Maltaran]

#JusticeForTimothy

 

[AncalagonTheBlack]