Same. Knew nothing but the premise, but it was fun throughout. Karl Urban is a fucking treasure, and the guy playing Homelander was great.


The ending...I’m curious to see it play out.

Spoiler

We tend to fetishize the roaring rampage of revenge - so it’s just interesting to see one flipped. And apparently that’s a total divergence from the comics, which is ballsy and I respect that.

How the fuck does Butcher handle this? She’s alive, but she had to make a choice between the man she loved and an unborn child and chose her child despite its origins - and that’s an understandable choice even if it’s a fucked up one for everyone involved.

So he has to handle that and refactor his rampage, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen.

 

I’m honestly wondering what the hell they did to Anthony Starr to give him that uncanny valley look. It’s subtle, but it really helps make the character.

 

Yes, this is pretty much expected from the average viewer, to know absolutely nothing of the source and therefore have little to no reason to dislike it.

It's a disaster, to put it simply. The background origins of the Boys is different, which I wouldn't mind too much if they'd actually bothered with getting right anything at all about their team history with Mallory (also, Mallory's a woman now, wtf, why?) or characterizations. I still don't understand why Deep went from a black guy to a white dude, and the reverse for A-Train. Did someone just find it funny to have a black guy peddling super-drugs? But also pull back from him fucking with Starlight, because two stereotypes would be 1 stereotype too much?

About the only change that I didn't mind in the whole show was Raynor's relationship with Butcher. Everything else's a fucking miss. And once you do watch the show, and you see the reveal in the last episode, you'll absolutely hate it.

 

Did they say if they are at least following the comics plot?

I'm not a massive fan of comics but i read through this one mostly because of how batshit crazy it got towards the end.

And if they get rid of the coup, it kinda ruins it for me.

 

Okay, so if you look in old grammar books, the rule for using a singular pronoun for every individual person in a group of people is 'he'. This wasn't actually sexist, because if you think about it, this particular rule means that the word 'he' isn't entirely masculine. It describes something that may be masculine or feminine. Thinking about it was too much for some people, so we went to 'he or she' for a little while. If this were the rule, it would change the meaning of the word 'he' to being entirely masculine, and then people forget about the logical conclusion of the previous rule. Anything that so much as referenced two genders wasn't going to last the 2010's, so now in public it's they, which is plural and therefore grammatically confusing. In academic papers, it's 'she'. Why? No one can complain.
The point of going through all this grammar bullshit is because I think it's the same reason behind making male characters female.

In terms of racial things, they're just going to change the story again to avoid stereotypes, like the time A-Train attempts to rape Starlight. That's not making it to the screen, and I wouldn't be surprised if they just used Deep instead. What I'll really be interested to see is if they keep the pejorative terms you see throughout the series.

 

I read the comics as they came out and did a reread last year. Show is much better for the most part

 

I had no idea The Boys was a comic before reading about it here, and that was the best thing I've seen on Amazon prime video yet. Twist at the end, to quote Billy, was fucking diabolical.

 

So I've got a question about episode 2 of The Boys, hopefully someone can provide an answer.

Spoiler: ep. 2 spoiler

So Frenchie has a heart to heart with Hughie, and he talks about seeing this hot, high-class woman in a midtown elevator with dirt under her nails. And then he says that's the first person he killed? Am I understanding that correctly? I couldn't make sense of that scene at all, it seemed like it had no relevance to anything. Can anyone illuminate me?

 

Spoiler

I believe the point was that because she was the first person he killed, he remembers her so distinctly. Essentially replying to Hughie's question by implying that killing someone, at least the first one, left a distinct mark on him in the form of that memory.

 

Spoiler

Agreed, seemed like a very strange way of trying to reassure someone that seeing the faces of people was a completely normal thing.

 

Spoiler

Strange, but that whole story was very in keeping with Frenchie as a character. I mean in one episode he calls himself “hard on the outside, soft on the inside, like an egg, or a pineapple.”

He’s a bit of a crazy cunt, and that’s all there is to it.

@Odran seems to me, from what I’ve looked up, that amazon stayed pretty true to the comics as far as the spirit of the thing goes. Certain elements are changed, yeah, but most seem done to deliberately avoid some serious social faux pas.

Spoiler

Like a black character sexually assaulting the stereotype of middle American girl next door in the first few scenes. Or said black character being dumber than a box of rocks.

 

I recently finished The Boys.

Spoiler

First, I should say that I hadn't read the comics before the show. In fact, I watched the trailer once, maybe. So I went into the series rather spoiler-free, besides knowing the general concept and reading a few spoiler-free reviews. I also knew Kripke (the co-creator of the show) from his other works.

And I'm so glad for that. Because I loved almost all twists and turns the story presented. In addition to the writing, I loved the visual storytelling. I was hooked six minutes into the first episode, with that shocking scene of A-train killing Robin. I had to rewatch it three times before moving on. I knew there would be graphic violence etc., but that still caught me off-guard.

One of the strengths of the show is that the shocking scenes aren't there just for the shock value. It makes sense in the setting the show created, doesn't make you wonder how the hell could those things happen. Not only that, but normal human interactions makes one wonder about their own beliefs. The scene of Hughie and the lawyer's initial talk about the settlement comes to my mind: I loved how Hughie imagined rejecting the offer immediately, but asked for some time to think about it in the end.

I found myself thinking about various topics while watching the show.

After finishing it, I found myself wanting to read the comics, but decided against, because I wanted to remain spoiler-free in the upcoming episodes. After having a small talk with a fan of the comics (who also wasn't entirely impressed with the show), I said what the hell and read the first two issues. To be honest, the comics is a bit much for my tastes, and all I got out of that experience was realizing how much I liked the show (especially the first episode). To be fair though, they are two different mediums and I will probably read the whole thing after the show ends.

Some of the things on my mind after the last episode:

- I thought the survival of Becca's child was somewhat predictable, but I didn't expect her to be alive as well. And Homelander is such a horrible being for bringing Billy Butcher to that situation. The scene was also giving mixed signals. Was Becca actually raped, after all? I read (after finishing the show) that is the case in the comics, but I didn't get that vibe from the security camera and Becca's look at the end. But almost all articles I read described Becca's exit from that room as being broken after the rape, I said to myself "You know what? I guess I can see it." That said, I still don't have a strong opinion about that. I will watch those scenes more carefully during my rewatch.

- The scenes with Madelyn's baby (his name was Teddy, I think) were surprisingly suspenseful, because I spent half the time worrying if Homelander would fry Teddy's head with his laser eyes. Homelander's obvious dislike of the baby might imply that Teddy died in that explosion (because why would Homelander rescue him?), but I also have a hard time believing that. I'm relatively sure he was also a supe, especially after the talk in which retired guy (Vogelbaum or sth) was saying he regretted the fact that "John" grew up in a lab and a mother's care was needed to prevent violent habits. And Madelyn was very insistent on getting the baby away from that scene. Granted, I might be off, drawing parallels where there aren't one, and Madelyn could be just a concerned mom. But I don't know, we'll see in the next season I guess.

- I know the Boys used compound V in the comics and the show ignored that. While I probably would've liked the conflict on a more equal grounds too, I liked the ways in which normal humans fought against the "superheroes". Their wins were not cheap, and carelessness resulted in serious problems. So, I'm looking forward to seeing how the conflict will go on.

By the way, I kept wondering why they didn't use poison on Translucent. Would that not work?

There were a few things I didn't like as much as other things in the show, but other parts/acting were so impressive that I didn't mind it much. Besides, it's not like there's something I truly dislike in the show.

I think the show is very fresh, entertaining and satisfying for those who don't really know much about the comics. From the explanations made by Kripke and my own observations of the issues I read, most of the changes were necessary because of the medium and made the storytelling better in the end.

That said, I'm a fan of Kripke's storytelling and still not over being very impressed with the show, so I might be a little biased.

By the way, Eric Kripke did an AMA and answered some interesting questions: https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/cjt17f/im_eric_kripke_the_cocreator_of_the_new_amazon/

 

Does anyone watch Alone on History Channel? I got into it a few years ago and it's generally a good show; it's basically the only thing I watch on television because it's something I can discuss with my dad, who is also into that sort of thing.

 

Finally finished The Boys. Amazing, so much better than the comic. The Deep was the stand out, I did not expect to get some invested there

 

Kevin Conroy is going to play a live action Batman. It's not something I was expecting to ever happen, but thanks to upcoming Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover of the Arrowverse TV Shows, it will.

On top of that Brandon Routh is going to play Superman again. A Kingdom Come version which is probably a better choice than just Superman Returns version.

They even got Burt Ward, but didn't reveal who he's going to play.

I'm sure they will add few more names. Someone from Smallville should definitely join the cast, but I'm not sure if they have enough money to get Tom Welling to finally put on the costume or Michael Rosenbaum to go bald again.

 

Got to say, Supergirl is kind of a guilty pleasure (love the characters, but the writing is a mixed bag at best), and I've not really got into any of the other Arrowverse shows, but Crisis is sounding pretty awesome. As for Smallville cast, there's no word on the Crisis crossover itself, that I know of, but Erica Durance played Supergirl's mother in series 3, so she might be brought back.

 

Supergirl keeps throwing in characters from Legion of Super-Heroes, which was my favorite DC series not named Flash when I was a kid, so I keep getting the itch to watch it. I just don't know if I can stand to get invested in another Arrowverse show after the shitfest that Flash and Arrow became.

 

Imagine the shitfest that was Arrow and Flash, but infuse it with SJW shenanigans and you've got supergirl..

 

Not sure if this is the right place for this- it’ll work for “Other TV shows” but is just in the casting phase so may need its own thread?

Amazon has this little project they’re working on and just released the cast.

Wheel of Time. Things look solid from what I can see- I particularly like Perrin and Mat from what I’ve seen so far.

 

Love the casting. Slightly concerned about summaries they may be changing the story to be more “woke.”

Casting looks great. Concerned about story.