GoKawiilIt’s hard existing in a world seemingly designed for the undeservingly powerful and painfully boring few. They have been gifted what many of us only dream of: the ability to effectively do whatever they like, free from everyday concerns like money, housing, and health. But instead of living in quiet serenity, many choose to use their gifts to set the world aflame, then complain about the fire and our attempts to put it out. They wield their wealth loudly on our screens, spout old-timey racism on newly created social media, clog the arteries of creativity by dominating media, and don the robes of lawmakers to avoid the rule of law. They are incapable of being quiet, being unseen, being anything other than extravagant, excessive… in other words, “super.”
This narcissism is precisely what every superhero character demonstrates in Amazon Prime’s The Boys, which concluded this week with its series finale. While it succeeded in the final episode, the season as a whole felt unnecessarily long, with meandering plotlines and often little payoff. But, in the end, the satisfying conclusion brought the show back to its strengths.
Spoiler warning for all of The Boys, including the final episode.
The show started off very strong, adhering to Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s original comic. The titular group of ragtag ruffians has always had one goal: destroy superhero supremacy. Superheroes wear multiple hats — real-life celebrities, actual heroes helping people, Dionysian egotists indulging in every sick whim and sexual vice — and their powers seemingly prevent any human from intervening. This is where the Boys come in, each of whom has suffered loss by superheroes. Led by the boisterous Billy Butcher (Karl Urban doing his best-worst Cockney accent), we primarily follow the journey of Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid), the world’s most unremarkable man, who is now in a battle against the remarkable.
Image: Amazon
What makes the show compelling is that these normal humans are fighting what are basically gods, so they must use their individual skills and collective ingenuity to defeat bulletproof, highly destructive people that move faster than lightning. (This central imbalance is not in the comics, where the Boys have permanent superpowers too.)
The show dealt quite directly with contemporary themes not in the source material. The Boys’ writers seemed to emulate South Park by taking a topic still fresh in the headlines and making it a point of contention. The final season, written before Donald Trump’s second term in office, features many events we are still seeing in US news stories, from the rise of the manosphere to locking up political opponents in prison camps to AI dominating creative fields. Some scenes from The Boys feel indistinguishable from what we see discussed and reported today.
This season begins with Homelander (Antony Starr giving his all) having taken control of the entirety of the executive branch of the United States government. Some members of the Boys are imprisoned, while Starlight (Erin Moriarty) and her supporters have been doing what they can to dismantle Homelander’s control. All their efforts come up short. Homelander controls vast media and law enforcement apparatuses, while Starlight is fighting the most powerful enemy: belief.
Homelander’s supporters worship him and his MAGA-lite regime, lapping up nonsense about immigrants destroying the US and opponents being pedophiles. His lackeys and supporters use “woke” as an undefined pejorative. Starlight herself confronts this when she meets her stepbrother, who consumes only manosphere podcasts and Homelander-controlled news networks. To the show’s credit, it has always been excellent at showcasing how propaganda is created and perpetuated.
But the entire season feels like it should’ve been a few episodes or one long movie, as opposed to eight episodes. This is because there is little upward mobility for Homelander’s evil. Yes, he takes control of the US administration, but having already taken control of Vought — the most powerful corporation that effectively created supes — there is little difference in what he is now able to achieve. The show itself likes to blur the lines between corporation and government, without stating with its full chest that the US has always been a corporatocracy.
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