Make America Super Again

The Boys is an odd show. I don’t mean that in a bad way, per se, but when you look at where the concept started – a parody of DC’s Justice LeagueThe premiere team at DC Comics, their version of the Avengers (which actually came before the Avengers and, really, has existed in some fomr since the early 1940s), the Justice League is the team-up to end all team-ups, featuring some of the most popular, and longest running, characters in all of comics history (and also Booster Gold). that also threw a lot of shade at the corporate dystopia of the Marvel Cinematic UniverseWhen it first began in 2008 with a little film called Iron Man no one suspected the empire that would follow. Superhero movies in the past, especially those not featuring either Batman or Superman, were usually terrible. And yet, Iron Man would lead to a long series of successful films, launching the most successful cinema brand in history: the Marvel Cinematic Universe. – you have to admit that where it is now is very far from that original core. Sure, some of the MCU shade is still there, but the show has gone from a discourse on superheroes and their inherent flaws to an all out attack against Trumpism and the nonconservative, far right movement. It’s quite the shift in tone and substance.

At the same time, though, I think this all makes for a better show. When you have a platform it’s important to use that platform. The Boys became a smash success for Amazon PrimeWhile Netflix might be the largest streaming seervice right now, other major contenders have come into the game. One of the biggest, and best funded, is Amazon Prime, the streaming-service add-on packing with free delivery and all kinds of other perks Amazon gives its members. And, with the backing of its corporate parent, this streaming service very well could become the market leader., and showrunner Eric Kripke clearly knew he could use that success to tell an important story. Seeing the state of the world, first under Trump (when this show debuted) and now swinging back towards Trump again in the current election, Kripke decided he has to say something. He needed to use the superheroes as an allegory for greed and hate and the far right movement. He let lead superhero Homelander, a Superman homage, become a Nazi-like leader obsessed with his own self image because, well… that’s what we’re facing right now with Trump. A dangerous, clearly violent, narcissist. Could be either man when you put it like that.

It’s amusing to see the fanboys online complain about Homelander’s arc this season. All the guys that thought he was so cool, even after he dated a Nazi and clearly was shown to be an unhinged lunatic (people see what they want to see, I guess) are now upset because he’s been shown to be a Trump-like figure that wants to end democracy and put himself in charge of the country (and, really, the world). Like, look at who you’re following, guys. Look at this show. It’s always been political, deep down, and if you didn’t see that, and can’t stand having a mirror shown on your own ideology, you shouldn’t have been watching this show to begin with.

This season is entirely focused on Homelander (Anthony Starr) and his plan to take over the country. With the help of newly introduced character Sister Sage (Susan Heyward), the smartest person on the planet, Homelander sets a plan in motion to put his own president in charge of the country. He strikes a deal with VP-elect Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit), who is secretly super-powered, which would ensure that a supe is in the White House. Then he plans to have President-elect Robert Singer (Jim Beaver) removed from office (permanently) so that Neuman can become the President and carry out Homelander’s agenda. With Sage calling the shots from behind the scenes, it all seems too easy.

Only issue is, of course, the Boys – the crew of Butcher (Karl Urban), Hughie (Jack Quaid), Annie / Starlight (Erin Moriarty), M.M. (Laz Alonso), Frenchie (Tomer Capone), and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) – who are dedicated to taking down Homelander, his corporate parent, Vought, and everyone else aligned with them. They stumble on a virus that kills superheroes (as established in the first season of Gen V), and they want to weaponize it and make it powerful enough to take out Homelander. They just have to work fast if they want to eliminate the big man, save the president-elect, and maybe just save democracy as well. Not so easy for a bunch of violent fuck-ups to pull off.

The fourth season of the show is good. I want to start off by saying that. I really enjoyed this season and I felt like, more often than not, the series was handling its overarching storyline fairly well. I think using this series to shine a light on the current state of American politics – the egotistical leader at the top of one party, the news organization touting his water, the corporate fat cats funding his plans for expansion, the plan that lays out the totalitarian dream – is smart and effective. Homelander is a scary figure, and the series knows how to use him to show just how flawed the far right really is. It’s so good.

At the same time, it does feel like the show, at times, it’s trying to temper its own plotline so that it doesn’t come across as too focused on one side over the other. If Homelander is an allegory for the far right, I’m not certain where Sister Sage fits in. On the one hand, I absolutely believe that the smartest person in the world would play games with U.S. politics just to see if they could. Where the allegory falls apart for me is that Sage is a black woman, and the far right generally reacts none-too-favorably to Black people or women. If the goal is to have this reflection of U.S. politics hold up, Sister Sage feels like an odd fit, in her current form, for the storyline.

Meanwhile, anything outside of Homelander’s arc feels rather superfluous this season. Hughie, for instance, spends half the season dealing with his father having a stroke, ending up in the hospital, and then dying (and we’re glossing over a bit of material there). While I think this storyline on its own works well enough, it doesn’t tie into the main story at all. It feels like a way to have Jack Quaid’s character off doing his own thing while (as has been suggested by commentators online) the actor had to film other stuff outside The Boys. He only joins up with the crew for the last couple of episodes, which were likely the key ones he could dedicate to filming without scheduling conflicts.

He isn’t the only one that has a storyline that doesn’t really go anywhere. Butcher spends a lot of time trying to convince Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), the son of Butcher’s wife and Homelander, to leave his father and go into hiding. This only ends up sending Ryan back into the arms of Homelander which… oh, is exactly where the kid started at the beginning of this season. Butcher also spends time trying to reform himself only to end up being an asshole again, just like always. Frenchie has a plotline where he meets the surviving son of one of his many past victims, and then he feels guilt and beats himself up over it… just like he’s done in similar arcs in past seasons. In many cases, characters spin their wheels in the background while the Homelander storyline moves forward.

The Homelander story is good. It’s so good, in fact, that it really should be the whole focus of the show. The only issue with that, of course, is that the series is titled The Boys, so all of those characters kind of need to be in the series. The show just doesn’t know what to do with them so it sends them off to do the same things they’ve done time and again, all to arrive back where they started so they can focus on Homelander. I get that we need the characters in specific places so they can be ready for what’s next. It just would have been nice, for them, if “what’s next” came a bit faster.

In many ways The Boys is still moving and shaking and I like its focus on the current political climate. When the series homes in on that, using Homelander and Vought as a way to look at the American far right and say, “wow, this is all pretty fucked up,” it works so well. But The Boys needs to have The Boys in it, and that, weirdly, is where the show is struggling. It’s almost like we should have had a different series focused more fully just on Homelander and his plans just to tell this storyline fully. The series isn’t above doing that, having rolled out Gen V so that a new story set in this world, without all the main series characters being around, could be told. Maybe we needed Homelander: The Fall or something just to get this story told in a better way.

There’s one more season to go for this show and I have a feeling (without spoilers) that where this season ended we’ll get a better focus on the Boys and their actions for the grand finale. I have to hope so. They felt superfluous in their own season this time around and if that continues in their fifth and final season it’s going to feel like a real letdown.