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Amazon Prime series for “The Boys,” from the mind of “Preacher” creator, Garth Ennis

John Day

Member
Watched season 1 over the past week. I'm loving it! Season 2 bring it on!

Karl Urban has now played all sorts of roles from Eomer and McCoy to Judge Dredd and Billy Butcher, he deserves a medal for his efforts. And let's not forget that he played two different roles in Xena, the warrior pricess.

tumblr_mp14q5FXv11s9qqfgo3_250.gif


The cast is great and the heroes are adequately creepy, especially Homelander is absolutely fantastic. I didn't know that was a comic book series, but they definitely made a great amazon series out of it.

Hah those poor Christians, when does the largest and most powerful religion on this planet finally get a break? :D

According to Wikipedia the comic started in 2006, incidentally that's when Ted Haggard was all over the news for his drug and sex scandal. It's quite clear where at least some of the inspiration for that episode is coming from.
I learned (from Gizmodo of all places) that he played 3 characters in Xena/Hercules; Cupid, Caesar, and in an episode that was an allegory to the story of Abraham. Crazy, a medal indeed!
 

Makariel

Member
I think you missed something. Were those in retaliation to criticism? That’s what differentiates it from Charlie Hebdo.
In all cases it was some psychopaths shooting up a large number of people because they found that "the other" were dead wrong on a fundamental level and need to be killed. Blaming one single element is never the right answer, or would you blame World of Warcraft and Counterstrike for Breivik's killing spree? But coming back to your earlier posting, why would you assume that I'd be "afraid" to say anything bad about Islam? The Satanic Verses are standing on my bookshelf, next to A History of The Crusades. I'm an atheist, all praying to and worship of fictional characters is weird to me. But if you think it helps you in your daily life I'm not going to stop you or tell you that you're "wrong" for being religious.

It's not that Christianity (or straight white guys or whatever) can't take a few punches, its when its ALL punches that I start rolling eyes.
Isn't Starlight a.k.a. the lead female character Christian? She's been portrayed positively for the majority of the series. Or was it too much for you that she questions if the way she grew up with is still the right way for her? I mean she doesn't tear up a bible and sacrifice a goat or anything.
Superman was often interpreted as a Jesus-like figure, so it does make sense to take that into account when making a satirized version with Homelander. I would find it very weird if Homelander would cite the Quran or teachings of Buddha in this series.

It would be like if the only gay character was a foppish dandy who did nothing but simp for the male lead and it pandered to every bad stereotype.
Fair point, I agree that this character was not treated well in the script. Most of the other supes have more shades of grey.

So if they are gonna smear Christians, there ought to be some balance to the portrayl, just like you'd expect out of a muslim, jewish, LGBTQ, or whatever storyline.
Well, the super-villains that were created by Homelander's scheme are all Muslim, are they not?
So one could argue the writer is simply against religion, not just against Christianity. It's just that Christianity has the biggest target on it's back for the simple reason that if you grew up in the Americas or Europe you're more likely know a lot about Christianity and little about other religions.

sj14-int-religmap.jpg.resize.710x399.jpg


So for any work of fiction or entertainment coming from that part of the world it's then understandable that they focus more on what they know.

Lazy storywriting leads to emasculating your male characters just to build up your female ones, and it leads to mocking an entire religion just to have a little character development.
I didn't see much emasculating happening with Billy Butcher for example?

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near

Gold Member
Watched the first two episodes last night and so far I'm loving it. I'm not familiar with the source material so I didn't know what to expect at all. I figured Hughie would turn into a supervillain after the first episode but it seems the heroes are the villains. I'll probably binge through the rest this week.
 

llien

Member
Watched all 8 episodes, it's a hit!
I hope that's it and season 2 is not coming.

I guess the original material was great, that, multiplied by fantastic cast (from great to, dude, this guy was born for this role) is nothing short of a masterpiece.
Easily my highest ranked series of 2019.
 

Arozay

Member
Randomly checked out episode 1 during dinner, ending up binging the entire series.

Best show I've watched this year and I usually avoid the superhero stuff. Urban and Starr nailed it.
 

Panda1

Banned
This is what graphic novel fans want.
Marvel is what we grew up on if you are now in your late 30's or 40's. The Disney marvel films are still just kids films to sell toys.

Novels like Y the Last Man, The Boys, MetaBarons, Watchman is what I never dreamt of actual making into movies. the market is obviously there, and I hope they keep this shit up as there is so much more material out there other than X-Men/Marvel/DC that is 100% better and actually worth my time watching. Even the Netflix Punisher, Daredevil shows seems ok but they still suffered hard for not being true adaptions and still not as true to their source material.

Cant wait for season 2 and hopefully more adventures of the Deep! DEEEEEEP
 
I watched the series after seeing Red Letter Media talking about it. I got the impression from them that it had some teeth.
Overall I thought it was pretty good. A few thoughts...

Homelander is a great and believable villain. The way he let everyone on that plane die was really cold blooded. I was impressed too that the show runners allowed those terrorists to be arabs. I didnt think they'd have the guts.
I didnt understand Butchers accent. Was he meant to be British, or an American trying to do an Aussie accent?
It was a bit depressing to see Elizabeth Shue so old. Time fucks us all over, but she was so cute in Karate Kid :/
Did Translucent deserve to die? I guess he was going to kill Butcher and Frenchie if Hughie didnt top him?
Starlight is very cute and looked much better in that more revealing super hero outfit. I was rolling my eyes hard, when that little girl said she wanted to wear that. Sooo predictable.
It was dumb that the superheroes didnt get mobbed by fans when out and about (Starlight at the Christian convention and The Deep at the supermarket). That was very unbelievable for me. Also, no one (except Butcher) recognizing Starlight in her "disguise" (just civilian clothes) seemed very off. At least Clark Kent had glasses.


I look forward to season 2.
 

cryptoadam

Banned
binged it over the last few days. Watched the 1st ep and it was on like donkey kong from there.

I never read the source material but did read some wiki and overall this seems to be pretty different from the comics?

Homelander was great. You could feel his menace behind his facade and everyone even the other supes were always on edge around him.

Feels like there was a lot of back story missing and they ran out of runway towards the end. Also think the back half outside of EP 8 was weaker then the first half. Feels like there is a lot of flash backs and back story that would really build the world that was saved for season 2.

The Deeps storyline was meh for me, and I do know according to wiki that it was Homelander who did that to Starlight not the Deep.

What was Black Noirs power? Did he even have any?

Did Deep and A-Train also have super strength? A-Train was pulling the train at the end was that him running super fast but being slowed down by the train or he was super strong? Deep punched the shit out of that guy on his patrol but they never alluded that he was super strong.

So basically now we have a few cliffhangers:

A-Train dead or alive?
Huhghie/MM/Frenchie/Female-whats going on with them
Starlight-is she solo again
Is the Seven and Voght finished?
Is Homelander a full on villian now?
 

cryptoadam

Banned
anyone find the reasoning behind everything a little weak?

Like Butcher hates all supes because his wife had an affair/metoo'd by HL and he thinks HL killed her.

But why does he hate every other supe and think they should die?

I mean the 7 outside of HL are not really that bad. Sure they are dicks and their image is a facade, but most of them aren't "villians".

A-Train, before killing Robin (which is bad) was just a a fake Ahole who takes drugs.
Deep outside of his metoo thing he is just a vain ahole.
Mave, we know nothing about her except she is a lesbian and drinks. She actually cared about the people on the plane and wanted to bring in the shooter alive.
Black Noir, we know nothing about.
Translucent outside of probably going into every womens bathroom he didn't do anything evil.
Starlight is actually a good person
Ezikel, while he is a huckster being gay doesn't make you a villian.
Shockwave, just wants to run fast and beat A-train
Popclaw, ya she killed that dude when she was hoped up on V but aside from that she seemed like a good chick who was late on her rent.

Outside of HL none of the supes really do anything that gives us reason to believe that they should all die. Translucent didn't deserve to have a bomb stuck up his ass and he had nothing to do with A-Train, compound V or HL.

Its like because celeberties aren't up to their image should we create a team to kill all of them?

The boys and Butcher were actually the villians in the series. Yes A-Train deserved to go prison for what he did and HL is clearly a villian pretending to be a good guy. But the rest of the supes are just like your typical Hollywood POS, no reason for a genocide.

Even Voght isn't really that evil. Ok injecting babies with V is kinda evil, but in the end they just wanted money. Their plan wasn't to take over the US or the world once Supes are in the army. They just wanted Lookheed money. And pretty much all the bad stuff was done by HL on his own (Mayor, the flight, the shooter, and Naqib).

And a final point. What was the whole point of Stilwell, her son and the relationship between her and HL. This felt like there was a huge backstory missing. Why did he "love" her. The son played no role really. It built early tension but never paid off. It actually would of been funny if he threw the son out the window just to hammer home how much of an ass he is LOL.
 
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DragoonKain

Neighbours from Hell
People have told me over and over to try this series. I watched episode 1 and didn’t like it and then more people told me how good it was and I’m seeing all these positive reviews. So I watched episode 2 and still don’t like it. Should I stick with it? Is there a “take off” point where it really hooks you?
 

Barsinister

Banned
I only know the show, never read the source material. I am still parsing my thoughts on the complete season. I see it as an ultimate Nietzscheian fantasy. Completely nihilistic. Man creates God(s), God is in Man's image, Man does not like what he sees in God, Man attempts to kill God. Belief is for the simple minded. Even in oneself.

There are more thoughts I am thinking of, but that right there is the foundation.
 

cryptoadam

Banned
People have told me over and over to try this series. I watched episode 1 and didn’t like it and then more people told me how good it was and I’m seeing all these positive reviews. So I watched episode 2 and still don’t like it. Should I stick with it? Is there a “take off” point where it really hooks you?

I got hooked after the first episode and was in binge mode on episode 2.

I found that the middle portion though kinda dragged, so if you aren't into it by episode 2 I don't know if episodes 3/4/5 will hook you. The last 2 episodes were good and the conclusion was satisfying but left open some cliffhangers for season 2.

It doesn't really ever go beyond its premise and all though there are a few reveals, there is a ton of back story that never gets explained and to me felt like they were saving for season 2.

In the end I liked it and its only 8 episodes so its not a huge investment so I would say continue watching, but I don't know if the next few episodes will hook you. All though there is one scene with HL and QM I think in ep 4 that might change your mind.
 

gioGAF

Member
I really enjoyed the entirety of this show. After all of the disappointments preceding "The Boys", it was really a breath of fresh air.

Well written, great cast, Karl Urban continues to be gold. Focuses on the characters and the story for the most part, not distractions from current day propaganda (still slams religious individuals, but that is a Garth Ennis staple that I would say precedes current Clown World standards).

It also gives us a different world than the Marvel / DC stuff, which has become very formulaic IMO. Really looking forward to next season, I hope the team behind this can keep it up!
 
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Helios

Member
Finally finished the first season as well. Really enjoyed it. Like everyone else said, Karl Urban and Antony Starr are both great. The ending was also really fucking good.
Other than a specific episode where they go way out of their way to demonize Christians, I have found the show super enjoyable.
Why? They demonize the bad parts of religion(people that profit off people's blind belief, having God figures) while also praising the good parts (Starlight who is a good Samaritan even after she found out about all the lies)
 
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Verdanth

Member
This series is ice on the cake. Its a breath of fresh air compared with the latest Marvel and DC stuff.

Homelander is a fantastic villain, butcher and the french steal the show for me on the "good" side.

Started watching the series without knowing anything from the source material and couldnt be any better.

S2 asap, please.
 
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Croatoan

They/Them A-10 Warthog
anyone find the reasoning behind everything a little weak?

Like Butcher hates all supes because his wife had an affair/metoo'd by HL and he thinks HL killed her.

But why does he hate every other supe and think they should die?

I mean the 7 outside of HL are not really that bad. Sure they are dicks and their image is a facade, but most of them aren't "villians".

A-Train, before killing Robin (which is bad) was just a a fake Ahole who takes drugs.
Deep outside of his metoo thing he is just a vain ahole.
Mave, we know nothing about her except she is a lesbian and drinks. She actually cared about the people on the plane and wanted to bring in the shooter alive.
Black Noir, we know nothing about.
Translucent outside of probably going into every womens bathroom he didn't do anything evil.
Starlight is actually a good person
Ezikel, while he is a huckster being gay doesn't make you a villian.
Shockwave, just wants to run fast and beat A-train
Popclaw, ya she killed that dude when she was hoped up on V but aside from that she seemed like a good chick who was late on her rent.

Outside of HL none of the supes really do anything that gives us reason to believe that they should all die. Translucent didn't deserve to have a bomb stuck up his ass and he had nothing to do with A-Train, compound V or HL.

Its like because celeberties aren't up to their image should we create a team to kill all of them?

The boys and Butcher were actually the villians in the series. Yes A-Train deserved to go prison for what he did and HL is clearly a villian pretending to be a good guy. But the rest of the supes are just like your typical Hollywood POS, no reason for a genocide.

Even Voght isn't really that evil. Ok injecting babies with V is kinda evil, but in the end they just wanted money. Their plan wasn't to take over the US or the world once Supes are in the army. They just wanted Lookheed money. And pretty much all the bad stuff was done by HL on his own (Mayor, the flight, the shooter, and Naqib).

And a final point. What was the whole point of Stilwell, her son and the relationship between her and HL. This felt like there was a huge backstory missing. Why did he "love" her. The son played no role really. It built early tension but never paid off. It actually would of been funny if he threw the son out the window just to hammer home how much of an ass he is LOL.
I believe the point is that, other than starlight, most of the characters are anti-heroes or just people making bad decisions.

I would classify both Butcher and Homelander as villains though. They are both sociopaths.
 
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-Arcadia-

Banned
anyone find the reasoning behind everything a little weak?

Like Butcher hates all supes because his wife had an affair/metoo'd by HL and he thinks HL killed her.

But why does he hate every other supe and think they should die?

I mean the 7 outside of HL are not really that bad. Sure they are dicks and their image is a facade, but most of them aren't "villians".

A-Train, before killing Robin (which is bad) was just a a fake Ahole who takes drugs.
Deep outside of his metoo thing he is just a vain ahole.
Mave, we know nothing about her except she is a lesbian and drinks. She actually cared about the people on the plane and wanted to bring in the shooter alive.
Black Noir, we know nothing about.
Translucent outside of probably going into every womens bathroom he didn't do anything evil.
Starlight is actually a good person
Ezikel, while he is a huckster being gay doesn't make you a villian.
Shockwave, just wants to run fast and beat A-train
Popclaw, ya she killed that dude when she was hoped up on V but aside from that she seemed like a good chick who was late on her rent.

Outside of HL none of the supes really do anything that gives us reason to believe that they should all die. Translucent didn't deserve to have a bomb stuck up his ass and he had nothing to do with A-Train, compound V or HL.

Its like because celeberties aren't up to their image should we create a team to kill all of them?

The boys and Butcher were actually the villians in the series. Yes A-Train deserved to go prison for what he did and HL is clearly a villian pretending to be a good guy. But the rest of the supes are just like your typical Hollywood POS, no reason for a genocide.

It’s heavily insinuated that what happens to Robin, is a frequent occurrence, both through the lawyer and dialogue surrounding the legal sign-off, and through the support group for those ‘accidentally’ hurt by supes, later on.

Making literally almost everybody sympathetic though, does go some way to undoing that, I agree. There’s an interesting story to be had about an abusive upper class of physically superior humans, but it doesn’t really explore that, preferring to just tell us it’s a thing, outside of Homelander.
 
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xrnzaaas

Gold Member
Just finished with season 1 and I really enjoyed it. I was actually surprised it wasn't primarily a comedy (I don't know the source material) and that it included a lot of heavier stuff like what happened to Billy's wife. Homelander is the perfect "superhero villain", I already knew Anthony Starr was a great actor after watching Banshee, but it was still a nice surprise to see him delivering great performance for a very different character.

The only character from the show that didn't click with me was Deep. Started out as a promising asshole, but became filler over the course of the season. Also he's a part of some animal cruelty scenes which I didn't find funny at all.
 

Trogdor1123

Member
I finished episode 5 last night. I'll keep going but it certainly has dropped off a bit.

I get it is supposed to be overt but come on...
 

RavenSan

Off-Site Inflammatory Member
That plane scene was one of the most chilling things I've ever seen.

(Note that I hate horror flick and the like, so I don't normally go for that kinda thing)
 

A.Romero

Member
I really liked this show.

I agree with some of you saying that heroes don't deserve to die just because they are heroes. In some ways they are victims of their own environment. They didn't volunteer to get pumped with drugs.

That said, society could never adapt to something like that. Those powers give them keys to the world, above every single law. I wonder if they age normally...

I think Voght's CEO will play a larger role next season and it will turn out they are actually villians.

Everytime Homelander was in scene it felt so tense. That was my fav part of the show.
 

DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
I loved the show. Can't wait for season 2.

Also, I don't get some of the criticisms lobbed at it. It isn't SJW and it isn't "girl power"... It's pretty balanced.
 
We finally finished it, what an awesome show! Homelander and Billy Butcher are probably my favourite characters in any show this whole year.

Favourite quote in the show: "Rapy Santa" :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
anyone find the reasoning behind everything a little weak?

Like Butcher hates all supes because his wife had an affair/metoo'd by HL and he thinks HL killed her.

But why does he hate every other supe and think they should die?



And a final point. What was the whole point of Stilwell, her son and the relationship between her and HL. This felt like there was a huge backstory missing. Why did he "love" her. The son played no role really. It built early tension but never paid off. It actually would of been funny if he threw the son out the window just to hammer home how much of an ass he is LOL.
I think Butcher deep down has an inferiority complex, which manifests as a hatred for all supes. Plus there is the whole thing with his friends children (grandchildren?) getting killed when the boys first broke up. I also think that he might have suspected that his wife had voluntarily slept with HL.

The whole point of the Stillwell baby thing was that HL never had a childhood, he spent it all in a sterile lab with a blanket as his only comfort. Stillwell was used to control him by acting as a literal mother to fully grown HL still having the emotional growth of a toddler. The baby made him extremely jealous because of this. It basically highlighted why he had become such an asshole.
 

cryptoadam

Banned
I think Butcher deep down has an inferiority complex, which manifests as a hatred for all supes. Plus there is the whole thing with his friends children (grandchildren?) getting killed when the boys first broke up. I also think that he might have suspected that his wife had voluntarily slept with HL.

Butcher has some issues, but I don't think the show really explained why he hated supes so much. Maybe they are saving that for season 2. I could get his hatred for HL because of his wife, but everyone of em, even starlight who had been part of the 7 for like 2 weeks. And it wasn't his "friend" it was his boss. again something that will probably be shown in season 2, but if you read the wiki of the comics you can get the backstory. She basically did to Butcher what he did to Hughey, used him because of his wife "dieing" to attack supes.

I didn't read the comics but I read the wiki and not to spoiler to much but there is something with 9/11 and the brooklyn bridge which would explain Butchers hate a lot more than HL banged his wife so now all Supes need to die.


The whole point of the Stillwell baby thing was that HL never had a childhood, he spent it all in a sterile lab with a blanket as his only comfort. Stillwell was used to control him by acting as a literal mother to fully grown HL still having the emotional growth of a toddler. The baby made him extremely jealous because of this. It basically highlighted why he had become such an asshole.

I got that, but it was kinda subtle and never really played up. We see him sick of the baby crying, and jealouse about the breast feeding and then thats really it. Like I said it feels like there were some flashbacks and back story missed. I think some scenes were needed showing her caring for him when he was younger and why he had his Oedipus complex. And ya it would of been way funnier if he would of punted that baby, but I guess that would be a little to far LOL.

I think both of the above highlight that the show was missing some crucial backstory. IMO they are saving it for the second season. But it felt like they could of added another episode or 2 of flashbacks to explain some of the missing story elements.
 

Valonquar

Member
The show was merely ok. Preacher went way better IMHO. Homelander was pretty dark, but when I finished watching the season, Amazon suggested "The Booth at the End" as something to watch next. Now that shit was dark...
 

McCheese

Member
Had nothing to do yesterday so flicked across the first episode as I had heard some good thing, then ended up going and watching the whole series back-to-back.

This is so fucking good! The script and the casting is just *chef kiss*

Generally when I see the words superhero and TV series combined I have some very low expectations, but this was such a clever and unique take, it's dark and cynical enough to convince me that yup, this is how the MCU would pan out if it was set in the real world, and it clearly has the budget to not have to cut corners anywhere in terms of the VFX.

But the best part is the dark humour, just little lines here and there which are nothing like your forced MCU style quips, just some seriously dark, dead-pan shit that had me really chuckling, woke my partner up a few times due to "shaking the bed" at some of them

"you've been sloppy lately... except you Nior, you've been great"

Honestly, not sure if they can keep this up over multiple seasons. But this first season was a master class.
 
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Z

ZombieFred

Unconfirmed Member
I have to also chime in thanks to the response above and seeing this thread how great this show is.

This is probably the best comic book hero show I've thoroughly enjoyed and was impressed on its quality from start to finish.

Billy Butcher, Frenchie, Homelander are fascinating characters in their own right, especially the last mentioned.

He truly showed how fucking diabolical a anti hero Superman can be with that level of power and how tense he oozed by being sociopathic. You wouldn't want to let your guard down.

I can't wait for season 2 after that hell of a cliff hanger.


Also the whole plane sequence, dear lord. Pure chills.
 
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cryptoadam

Banned
So whats Homelanders powers in canon in the show?

Super Strength
Flight
Laser eyes
Hearing
X-ray
bullet proof

I think thats all we see. Not sure if he has super speed, or super breath. Also is Superman like super duper smart in the comics? I know in some versions he builds all kinds of crazy shit no?
 
Awesome, really enjoyed S1 and can't wait for S2. Very well put together show, from the music/audio, to characters, acting, directing, writing and some of the "engagement setups" it all works really well, The uniqueness of the show and "reality" based human traits of supes and boys is more enjoyable than most of the super hero movies out there. Unpredictable and messy, love it.
 
more season 2 info

episode titles leaked

The Boys season 2 episode titles have seemingly been revealed
The Writers Guild of America West website has tucked away what appears to be the first confirmation of all eight episode titles for The Boys season 2. Here they are, in alphabetical order:


  • Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker
  • Nothing Like It In The World
  • Over The Hill With The Swords Of A Thousand Men
  • Proper Preparation and Planning
  • The Big Ride
  • The Bloody Doors Off
  • We Gotta Go Now
  • What I Know


More S2 info there
 
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