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Anyone watching the new season of The Boys. Cause it feels...worse?
Like, the show was never really subtle. But it seems over the top now. I don't care about things like the Frenchie subplots already. But the show doesn't even seem to be able to keep a coherent continuity.
The amusing irony, to me, is that the more blatantly bad and stupid they make the red tribe look, the more incompetent and feckless the protags look.
They even lampshade it in Episode 1 of Se4. "How have you guys gotten WORSE at your jobs?"
Starlight is supposedly one of the more effective do-gooders but she can't even make a dent in Homelander's popularity, can't do any material damage to Vought, and can't even shift political outcomes in her side's favor.
If homelander's fanbase is as weak-willed and dumb as the show wants to portray them, then the protags should be able to outsmart them and possibly manipulate them to their ends. But nah. Apparently ONLY Homelander and co. are capable of manipulating rubes.
And the only guy who seems to be somewhat effective is Butcher, who is about as problematic as can be even if his heart is seemingly in the right place.
I am not even sure who a liberal viewer is supposed to root for.
Not just that. Starlight thinks she's in a war for America's soul, but is also so concerned about her purity that she refuses to go out and motivate people because she hates the Starlight brand....while also using it for her bullshit ramshackle charity org? It's past incompetence to even consider this.
As someone who grew up watching Supernatural, Kripke going "woke" seemed like a blackpill but are we sure this whole thing isn't some not-so-veiled critique of left-wing activism?
It could be. Not even hard to read it that way.
Hughie keeps trying to do things "the right way" and he ultimately got completely duped by Neumanns "empathetic liberal" shtick using skills she learned from Stan Edgar himself. Hughie comes back around to Butcher's "kill 'em all" mentality as the only workable solution.
Homelander is objectively a threat to human civilization, and they are just dicking around "fixing" minor side problems while he ticks ever closer to a mental breakdown.
Like they're more concerned with earning brownie points than ending the threat.
If they had literally just let Soldier Boy do his thing it would have been ended. Whatever else was wrong with the guy, he wasn't one for half-measures and DEFINITELY didn't want to leave unfinished business. HIS WHOLE DEAL when he returned from captivity was to immediately follow up on old grudges.
Homelander is a problem that activism cannot solve. Unless they come up with a much more creative solution than the comics do, somebody will have to fight dirty and finish him. There will be (already is) collateral damage.
Every day he continues to exist is demonstrating the protag's uselessness.
So yeah, I find it amusing how this show basically makes liberals out to be ineffective hypocrites, whilst the liberals watching the show fixate on the surface level jokes.
Honestly the show lost its way pretty early on. Up to the point where the boys blow up Translucent, it worked because they had a clear goal (kill the supes) and were working towards that goal in a meaningful way. But after that? Homelander is an excellent villain, but the heroes have made no progress in their goals and mostly seem to have lost sight of what their goals even are. Choosing not to kill A-Train in particular demonstrated the lack of narrative direction that had crept in. Instead you get silly subplots about how Hughie doesn't feel like enough of a man.
I'd have been mostly okay if the show had settled into being a sort of 'procedural' where the Boys have to figure out different approaches to kill different supes while being mostly limited to using standard, nonmagic tech and social engineering and the occasional superpowered assist.
It'd require a lot of creativity to keep it interesting, but yeah, at least they'd have a clear goal in mind.
Homelander as the big bad who is the most difficult to kill and whose confrontation is inevitable would keep the tension ratcheting up.
But now they've had to put Butcher and Homelander in this weird catty rivalry where they will stare each other down and even make snide threats and remarks when they encounter one another, even though both of them damn well know they're trying to kill each other, but are basically just mugging for the audience.
Incidentally, this is why I believe the Venture Bros. still holds the crown for the best, most consistent superhero universe. The reasons why arch-nemeses DON'T (usually) kill each other and the villains are allowed to commit crimes all over the place are all justified in-universe.
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