Speaker 1: Warning, Today's episode contains spoilers for this The Boys, the
Speaker 1: entire series, that series finale, season five, and The Boys
Speaker 1: writ large, also some vought rising just the entire Boys universe.
Speaker 2: There's gonna be a lost boilest bit of Boys.
Speaker 1: Hello. My name is Jason mccupcio. He on'm Rosey Night,
Speaker 1: and welcome back to ex Revision, the podcast where we
Speaker 1: dive deep to your favorite shows, movies, comics of pop culture,
Speaker 1: company from my Heart, where we're bringing you through episodes of.
Speaker 2: Weekless news, close news.
Speaker 3: In today's episode, we are giving you our reactions to
Speaker 3: the finale of the Boys, and then we're going to
Speaker 3: discuss the final season overall and kind of how we
Speaker 3: feel about the conclusion to this show that's start in
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen and has been this kind of wild political
Speaker 3: commentary ride right until the end in some really unexpected ways.
Speaker 1: But first the Boys Bays, let's quickly recap what we've
Speaker 1: seen as we go to head towards the season finale.
Speaker 1: The series finale, starting with episode six, Though the Heavens Fall.
Speaker 1: This is the episode in which Sage and Homelander watch
Speaker 1: a guy and injected with blue serum. Sage's attempt at
Speaker 1: V one recreation, he bleeds out of his rectimens and dies.
Speaker 1: We meet Paul Riiser as the Legend. We meet the
Speaker 1: other old timer v one Soup's bomb Site, and Goldie
Speaker 1: the Deep has his pipeline disaster and films a propaganda
Speaker 1: video about how the sea life loves oil and then
Speaker 1: privately admits to a fish that they all kind of
Speaker 1: hated and this turns the ocean basically against him. Sage
Speaker 1: Sister Sage defects. The Soldier Boy has a long reverie
Speaker 1: about stormfront Uh and then Soldier Boy goes back to
Speaker 1: Vaught Tower presents Homelander with the V one after having
Speaker 1: stolen it from the boys. He depowers bomb site by
Speaker 1: burning the V one out of him with his nuclear beam,
Speaker 1: and then Homelander uses his heat vision to open a
Speaker 1: wound in his own arm. He injects himself with the
Speaker 1: V one and he is now immortal.
Speaker 2: Scary.
Speaker 1: Episode seven, penultimate episode, which was strangely strangely divisive episode.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very divisive.
Speaker 3: It was super Producer Joel was a big fan of
Speaker 3: this episode, felt like it really worked.
Speaker 2: I felt quite neutral about the whole season, like it
Speaker 2: didn't excite me. Greatly. It didn't like sev me, but
Speaker 2: it was a very divisive episode.
Speaker 3: We'd already had the fill episodes conversation, and with episode
Speaker 3: seven we kind of started to feel people feeling a
Speaker 3: fatigue with the show and where it was going. I
Speaker 3: think maybe because it was going exactly where we.
Speaker 2: All knew it was gonna go.
Speaker 3: And when you know that and it does deliver on
Speaker 3: what you're expecting, the question is like, it's all about execution,
Speaker 3: and sometimes it's not gonna work for people.
Speaker 1: So in episode seven, where you've got the big build
Speaker 1: up to Homelander is God, Oh Father, is you know,
Speaker 1: rehearsing for the big Homelander is God reveal. Homelander is,
Speaker 1: of course now immortal. He makes a list of things
Speaker 1: that he wants done. They include make the Democratic Church
Speaker 1: of America in the national religion, send troops into sanctuary cities,
Speaker 1: ban abortion, one on abortion, on all nut milk, no
Speaker 1: pure breast milk or milk cow milk only. That's it.
Speaker 1: No more nut milk. It's a it's a scourge on
Speaker 1: the country. Calhoun, President Calhoun, the sock puppet. President cal
Speaker 1: Kunling lightly pushes back on stuff and Homelander kills him.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say bad idea, like extremely bad idea.
Speaker 1: Ashley Barrett is not president. Homelander dissolves the Seven, declares
Speaker 1: he doesn't need them anymore because he is.
Speaker 3: God pride before a fool my guy like you are.
Speaker 3: He falls into this so quickly and so obviously. Again,
Speaker 3: I do think this is one of the issues, is
Speaker 3: like you would hope that someone who's so evil semoniacal.
Speaker 3: We know he's fucked up, we know he's like stuck
Speaker 3: in this kind of you know, frozen in childhood, but like,
Speaker 3: who isn't my guy, we don't know become like crazy fascists.
Speaker 2: We're all dealing with actual.
Speaker 3: Mode, Like come on, So yeah, it's uh he I
Speaker 3: feel like he falls for it too fast, but he's
Speaker 3: just like, fuck it, I don't need anyone.
Speaker 2: I'm tough, I'm a god, I'm immortal. It's gonna be.
Speaker 1: Badly, very pathetically pleased to stay on in it.
Speaker 2: Hard to watch consistently.
Speaker 3: Yes, in this show, we shouted him out, like when
Speaker 3: we were talking about the boys before, But like Chase
Speaker 3: Crawford is just what a role like unafraid to just
Speaker 3: be the absolute fucking worst at all. Times and always
Speaker 3: be showing the worst possible side of this character is simpering,
Speaker 3: like begging to be involved, begging to be allowed to
Speaker 3: be part of like the world's worst fascist government. It's
Speaker 3: so pathetic it is hard to watch. You're right, which
Speaker 3: is a credit to him.
Speaker 1: We see Soldier Boy in cryo and this and a
Speaker 1: scene that feels like a handoff to the Vote Rising prequel.
Speaker 1: The boys irradiate Comiko. He hears Kamiko screaming, finds Frenchy
Speaker 1: and Butcher exposing her to massive of enriched uranium in
Speaker 1: the safe house. They are trying, of course, to replicate
Speaker 1: the original Russian experiments that gave Soldier Boys his power
Speaker 1: stripping nuclear check collassed U. It's very painful. Huey's horrified,
Speaker 1: Butcher and Frenchy insists this is the only thing that
Speaker 1: they can do, and Camiko's like, yeah, I want this
Speaker 1: keep going.
Speaker 2: I want sick nuclear powers.
Speaker 1: Now here come the youngsters. Marie Moreau Jordan show up.
Speaker 1: Annie initially tries to dismiss Marie, saying her powers are
Speaker 1: too unstable to be useful, which is.
Speaker 2: Yes, is where the conversation started.
Speaker 1: But it does not make sense, doesn't Marie then throws
Speaker 1: Annie's online back at her, saying, since when did hopeful
Speaker 1: and I You've become the same thing. The four of
Speaker 1: them stake out Vought Studios, where O father has been
Speaker 1: spending a lot of time. They discover oh father is
Speaker 1: running a focus group screening of the Easter Homelander unveiling
Speaker 1: for ordinary folks, with she Line and dog Knot and
Speaker 1: two of the teenage kicks embedding the audience to basically
Speaker 1: murder anybody who doesn't believe that crazy that this is true.
Speaker 1: She Line and dog Knot are disgusting, sniffing each other,
Speaker 1: licking each other. MM and Annie are are horrified listening
Speaker 1: and watching them through the events, and when they start
Speaker 1: murdering the crowd, MM and Annie get involved hell she
Speaker 1: Line and dog Knot and Annie evacuates the focus group
Speaker 1: to safety. We get the emotional core of the episode,
Speaker 1: which is MM telling Annie where his nickname comes from.
Speaker 1: As a kid, he found a baby bird. He nursed
Speaker 1: it back to health, and the kid and neighborhood kids
Speaker 1: were mocking him, but it stuck.
Speaker 3: I'm going to tell you something, guys, five million times
Speaker 3: fucking bat than where he got them in the comics,
Speaker 3: do not google it, do not fucking read it.
Speaker 2: Fuck that.
Speaker 1: You can guess, you can get guess you can guess
Speaker 1: based on the coming. Butcher and Hughey infiltrate Vought's studios separately,
Speaker 1: they're captured by Synaps, who is a shape shifter. Synaps
Speaker 1: pulls the Joe Kessler hallucination right out of Butcher's head
Speaker 1: use it against him. We basically find out that Butcher
Speaker 1: was the only member of his SA S unit to
Speaker 1: survive or remission because he'd do the most horrible things
Speaker 1: he needed to do in order to complete the objective.
Speaker 1: Butcher is broken psychologically, and Synaps extracts the location of
Speaker 1: the boys safe house where Sage and Kimiko are. Huey
Speaker 1: buys time by distracting Synaps, and Butcher kills him. Homelander
Speaker 1: goes to the base and you know, Camiko and Sage
Speaker 1: are in there. French. He volunteers to be bait. He
Speaker 1: loures Homelander towards the uranium chamber, talking big shit in
Speaker 1: French talking. They've already replicated Soldier boys depowering ability, and
Speaker 1: you know we're going to use it on you very soon,
Speaker 1: he French. He locks himself inside the radiation chamber gives
Speaker 1: Homelander to the finger, you know, implying that the chamber
Speaker 1: will kill a Homelander even though it won't. Homelander is
Speaker 1: v one immortal. He does not take the bait regardless,
Speaker 1: instead reaches through the glass through Frenchy's chests and rips
Speaker 1: out his organs. Yeah, Kamiko finds him blading. Yeah, Kamiko
Speaker 1: finds him bleeding out, and they have a heartwarming moment
Speaker 1: together as he you know, says Chitim mccor all of
Speaker 1: his his most notable phrases. And also this to your
Speaker 1: point about comics authenticity, this was this was very much
Speaker 1: like the comic version of his death, although you know better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, As with everything in this show, it was just
Speaker 2: so funny.
Speaker 1: And then finally we end with sister Sage, just like
Speaker 1: in a depression spiral, she realizes she can't predict the
Speaker 1: impact of like love. She can only impact like predict
Speaker 1: like hate and stuff and her own heartbreak over Thomas
Speaker 1: Goodalkin it has basically like totally broken her and so
Speaker 1: she's useless. So she keeps lobotomizing herself and binge watching
Speaker 1: Love Island, another trash TV good fab Now we come
Speaker 1: to the finale Homelander. We get you know, basically a
Speaker 1: we open with a body count montage, basically setting us
Speaker 1: up for hopefully a very satisfying end of Homelander, letting
Speaker 1: us know all the terrible things that he's done. We
Speaker 1: go to Frenchie's funeral. It's all the boys, you know, Butcher, Hueye, CANi, Go,
Speaker 1: m m Annie and Sage standing around. Hue reads Frenchy's will,
Speaker 1: which is crude and funny as you would expect.
Speaker 3: Lots of talk about He's seen the fucking asses and
Speaker 3: the assholes and their dick and get it lovely.
Speaker 1: Kimiko can't speak. She has also apparently lost the ability
Speaker 1: to fire the depowering blast because of butcher diagnosis. It
Speaker 1: has because of like the emotional trauma of losing Frenchy.
Speaker 1: Ryan is hiding somewhere in Russia and the wilds of Russia,
Speaker 1: still watching watching TV, which I guess goes out around
Speaker 1: the world in English. Yeah, of course famous Homelanders shows up.
Speaker 1: Now if you want immortal, basically trying to like make
Speaker 1: up with Ryan is like you should come come back
Speaker 1: with a tower you have, like you have a whole floor.
Speaker 1: You have my blood. It's very important that like the
Speaker 1: son of God, you know, like you could just you know,
Speaker 1: you can just kill people in the street like me.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be great. Ryan is out of it, but
Speaker 1: you're in. Sage return to Frenchy's grave, where Kimmiko is
Speaker 1: still there. Stage launches into it very mean monologue in
Speaker 1: which she refers to Kimiko as friend, she's pet and
Speaker 1: this is French She never got to be happy because
Speaker 1: of her, and that his death is because of her.
Speaker 1: Chimico's rage builds, and she does fire the powering blast
Speaker 1: as out of like emotional destroyers.
Speaker 2: When I get into.
Speaker 1: Firing the blast, Sage takes a full hit and when
Speaker 1: she gets up, she's dumb. Now she's just a regular person.
Speaker 2: She can't dream.
Speaker 1: She's wanted this forever.
Speaker 2: Due She really upset about this, that like she's evil.
Speaker 2: Why did she get what she wants?
Speaker 3: I'm like just labby dumb, Like it's much less they
Speaker 3: in dressed to everyone. This is like abolition, babe, just
Speaker 3: labby dumb. Like she's fine. She's no good to editing
Speaker 3: evil now.
Speaker 1: Butcher confesses that Sage agreed to this provocation of Chimico
Speaker 1: as a way to figure out if she's if Kimmico
Speaker 1: still had the power, and it works, so we go.
Speaker 1: We now realize can strip a soup of their powers
Speaker 1: permanently with her chest blast.
Speaker 2: You may coo do x macinnacd X Macanna.
Speaker 1: The boys then decide that they're going to ambush Homeland
Speaker 1: Or during his Easter Sunday Oval Office televised speech, and
Speaker 1: they use the underground. They're going to use the underground
Speaker 1: tunnel the JFK supposed leads to sneak. Marilyn Monroe in
Speaker 1: Sage announces that she's not coming because she doesn't she
Speaker 1: can't do anything anyway, and all she wants to do
Speaker 1: is go to Harry Potter World in Universal Universal Studios.
Speaker 1: It's very funny.
Speaker 3: Do you think they added that to be like she's
Speaker 3: still evil? They were like that's the only place she
Speaker 3: wants to go. They were just like, she's just normy.
Speaker 3: She's like, she's just annoy me.
Speaker 1: I think that's what they're saying. The boys, Marie, Marie, Jordan,
Speaker 1: Emma evacuate the rescued focus group people to Canada. They're now, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: go away, go to the border.
Speaker 3: Hey, what do you mean this is one of the
Speaker 3: best ships we've ever had in the hole of the
Speaker 3: fucking Boys universe, and not even that, two of the
Speaker 3: most interesting powers we've ever seen. Like, even if Marie's
Speaker 3: obviously I'm not gonna lie, I feel like I gotta
Speaker 3: know the behind the scenes choices here Crippkey is saying
Speaker 3: it's because in season three there's season three that got
Speaker 3: canceled of GENV it would have been Marie's like Dagabar
Speaker 3: Yoda learning her training season. But I feel like we
Speaker 3: actually got that with her in Godolkin.
Speaker 2: That was kind of the point. She was being trained
Speaker 2: by the most.
Speaker 3: Evil, fucking powerful guy who created Soups, So it was
Speaker 3: like she was being trained to be the Homelander, you know,
Speaker 3: a bomb. I think it's crazy that for some reason
Speaker 3: that got delayed at it think I would have just
Speaker 3: loved to see her. Imagine if she'd just like they'd
Speaker 3: let her try like halfway through the episode and you'd
Speaker 3: be like, why is this happening and she just like
Speaker 3: blew off his arm or something, and they were like,
Speaker 3: for fuck's sake, you're not powerful enough, like go train
Speaker 3: anything better than just like go Like she can let
Speaker 3: really control people.
Speaker 1: Cancel the show and that's it. Yeah, that's why. That's honestly,
Speaker 1: I does feel like that, right, that's why the show.
Speaker 1: And they probably had her on a studio option for
Speaker 1: appearances in other Boys properties contingent on gen V continuing
Speaker 1: and it didn't, so they they could have had her
Speaker 1: in it more.
Speaker 2: But bro, I got it.
Speaker 1: He actually they'd probably have to sign her to a
Speaker 1: new deal.
Speaker 2: And so this is what I needs happened. I need.
Speaker 2: The only way that I will support.
Speaker 3: Vat Rising is if it's secretly a show about Marie
Speaker 3: Ramireau going back in time and killing all those Nazis.
Speaker 3: Eric Kripkey, you got to surprise us, because no one
Speaker 3: want to watch that Nazi romance show.
Speaker 1: So the Boys infiltrate the White House through the fuck Tunnel. Homelander, however,
Speaker 1: has anticipated this and locked the door behind them, and
Speaker 1: the mission is very nearly doomed. But then President Ashley Barrett,
Speaker 1: acting on her conscience after spending the entire episode not
Speaker 1: able to tap into her Voldemort head because of an
Speaker 1: argument they had in episode seven, goes down and lets
Speaker 1: them through, and the other actually is basically like you
Speaker 1: did it.
Speaker 2: Bitch, Congratulations, good job, good job.
Speaker 1: And he kills the deep. They have a fight. They
Speaker 1: have a fight over by like a shoreline, and she
Speaker 1: gives him one last chance to renounce Homelander. Of course
Speaker 1: he can't. He blames her for ruining his life. She
Speaker 1: into the ocean and the sea life. Finally get the
Speaker 1: revenge octopus tentacle through the through the ass, up through
Speaker 1: the mouth, and he is dead.
Speaker 2: Good. It was like he was. He was always abusing
Speaker 2: that octopus. This is what he does.
Speaker 1: He was terrible to all sea creatures that he knew
Speaker 1: it was wrong. Hue and m M get into it,
Speaker 1: get into a fight with o father in the studio
Speaker 1: in the TV studio. Oh father is about to blast
Speaker 1: hue but then and EMM puts the instructible ballgag that
Speaker 1: Ashley had given him into his mouth and as he's
Speaker 1: using his like scream and it blows his head apart
Speaker 1: and sprays Hueye with gore. And Huey is like, why
Speaker 1: am I doing.
Speaker 3: This very multiverse of madness? Ye black belt coded what mouth?
Speaker 1: That's so good? Homelander is in his the middle of
Speaker 1: his divinity speech. He's basically gone off teleprompter and he's
Speaker 1: being like the most you know, vengeful, openly evil version
Speaker 1: of a god telling people like I'm going to live
Speaker 1: forever and the world is destroyed and his ashes, I
Speaker 1: will be the god of the ashes, like fuck you all.
Speaker 1: Butcher blows a hole in the Oval office and they
Speaker 1: start fighting. It's a pretty even fight until Ryan arrives
Speaker 1: and the two of them are grappling with Homelander as
Speaker 1: Kimiko comes in and it seems like she's not gonna
Speaker 1: be able to blast them with her deeppowering blast, but
Speaker 1: she has a vision of Frenchy who's like, you can
Speaker 1: do it, and she does it. And now Butcher, Ryan
Speaker 1: and Homelander are deep power free. Ryan honestly so good
Speaker 1: for him. Ryan was, i think, is happy with this
Speaker 1: that to happen. Homelander then begs For's life. It is pathetic,
Speaker 1: it is it's.
Speaker 2: And it's like tel.
Speaker 3: Is saying he will do anything like it's so bad,
Speaker 3: Like it's really it's exactly what cowards would do, but
Speaker 3: it's also what men who look up to cowards don't
Speaker 3: want cowards to do.
Speaker 2: So it's like it at this moment Homeland that loses everything.
Speaker 3: I think that aspect of ritual humiliation was something I
Speaker 3: didn't think they were going to bring to it, and
Speaker 3: I did think that was quite cathartic.
Speaker 2: I do think this was still a long overdue death.
Speaker 3: I don't necessarily know if it delivered, but I did
Speaker 3: think that that I did. I like how both one
Speaker 3: again and now this kind of us this idea of
Speaker 3: like public humiliation from men who have tried to use
Speaker 3: the media to kind of reshape the world in that
Speaker 3: image is really interesting.
Speaker 1: And then we get like an extended kind of cruise.
Speaker 1: Towards the end, we see we see Stan Edgar announcing
Speaker 1: he's returning to Vaught, and we see the kind of fallout.
Speaker 1: Ashley is president for like an hour is eventually like
Speaker 1: and it just gets impeached, like impeached immediately by the
Speaker 1: by the United Congress and Senate. After saying like I
Speaker 1: had nothing to do. He's like, I.
Speaker 2: Didn't do anything wrong.
Speaker 3: I'm the president now, and that like absolutely fucking doult bitch,
Speaker 3: You'll get impeached Extreme vat vibes.
Speaker 1: Butcher meanwhile has a vial of the soup killing virus
Speaker 1: and slips away. While everybody's feeling like this whole thing
Speaker 1: is over, he goes to Vaught, but hue notices and
Speaker 1: meets him there, and then they have this conversation about,
Speaker 1: you know, whether or not to drop the virus and
Speaker 1: kill all the soup, kill every last soup. Butcher's like
Speaker 1: waiting in Vought for like all the soups to come
Speaker 1: in to work, and instead Huey shoots him and apologize
Speaker 1: for doing it, and so the all the soups who
Speaker 1: are currently alive get to continue being sous.
Speaker 3: Which obviously he has to do because his girlfriend is
Speaker 3: a soup.
Speaker 2: Like obviously I have I'm eiger to.
Speaker 1: Talk about this and have Joelle call me a genocider
Speaker 1: of all soups, but like, I'm I'm e going to talk,
Speaker 1: I'm eager to talk about this. Then we get the epilogue.
Speaker 1: Robert Singer, president elect framed in season four, is president again.
Speaker 1: Hughey and Annie are together. They go back to work
Speaker 1: at like the radio shack type store, and Annie is
Speaker 1: pregnant with Hughey's child.
Speaker 2: We hope, Yeah, who is called Robin? Please tell me?
Speaker 2: Was that the name of like? Is that the name
Speaker 2: of his girlfriend who got killed in the first episode?
Speaker 2: I can't remember.
Speaker 1: I heard no, God, Oh that's so weird. Okay, no,
Speaker 1: but actually that's nice. That's nice.
Speaker 2: I take it back kind but it kind of is.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it's nice. I think that's nice.
Speaker 3: This breach has just gone on like a superhero killing
Speaker 3: like Nightmare Journey because of that woman's death. And then
Speaker 3: he's like, I'm gonna name a baby after so I
Speaker 3: can always remember all the people I killed.
Speaker 1: I like the mentality. I think it's nice. Mm reunites
Speaker 1: with his family, Ryan joins.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Mm finally gets to get like engaged or
Speaker 3: like Mary isiance. Like.
Speaker 2: I love that he got a happy ending.
Speaker 3: That was like probably the only person I was invested
Speaker 3: in getting a happy ending.
Speaker 2: I didn't really care about anyone else by the end.
Speaker 2: So I think that was a nice moment.
Speaker 3: Unexpected kind of goes against what you expect from a
Speaker 3: comic adaptation like this, So I did like that moment.
Speaker 1: Kimiko goes to Marshall Franchi's hometown where you know, the
Speaker 1: two had talked about going there together, and she gets
Speaker 1: the dog that they had been talking about getting. She
Speaker 1: has her voice back and she seems happy, and you know,
Speaker 1: Stan Edgar is the CEO of lot so let's take
Speaker 1: a break, insane. No, let's take a break and be
Speaker 1: back to talk about this episode in the season boys
Speaker 1: in general. Yeah, and we're back. Okay, what do we think, Rosie,
Speaker 1: what do we think?
Speaker 3: I think it was a this is my I was
Speaker 3: I was walking this one and through my little walk
Speaker 3: and I was like, this is kind of this is
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say that it was a it was a phenomena.
Speaker 2: It was a men like, like, Okay, I thought it
Speaker 2: was fine. I think like I think it was it
Speaker 2: did what he needed to do.
Speaker 3: I think unfortunately, this season has felt to me a
Speaker 3: little bit like it's serviceable, and at times it's been
Speaker 3: really great. But I think like this felt like a
Speaker 3: serviceable finale. But like, I'm not gonna lie. When they
Speaker 3: did the Butcher thing with him still having the virus,
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my god, they're gonna kill all
Speaker 3: the soups, And I thought that was an really crazy
Speaker 3: interesting route to go because also set up Hueiye, he
Speaker 3: lost his love at the beginning, he loses his love
Speaker 3: at the end, but now there's no soups.
Speaker 2: Who does he hate next?
Speaker 3: You know? I think like, also I didn't really care
Speaker 3: about like him killing Butcher. That's like whatever to me,
Speaker 3: you know, I just there was some moments, for example,
Speaker 3: I really wanted Ryan to be the one who killed Homelander.
Speaker 3: You know. There was just some some choices they made
Speaker 3: that weren't the choices I was kind of hoping for,
Speaker 3: which I think is really normal for any finale. Also
Speaker 3: obviously huge gen Z head GENV head. Love my gen
Speaker 3: Z friends too, though, but the gen V stuff definitely
Speaker 3: impacted it for me. I thought they set up Marie
Speaker 3: so interestingly to be a player in this. I think
Speaker 3: they could have at least had her be part of
Speaker 3: the fight with Jordan, even if she isn't the one
Speaker 3: who does it. I mean, it's hard not and this
Speaker 3: is not a reflection on the creative team, because we
Speaker 3: know that's not how shows are made all the time
Speaker 3: like this, especially in this political climate, but like it's
Speaker 3: hard not to feel a certain way when they set
Speaker 3: up this young black woman who, by the way, we
Speaker 3: all kind of were always theorizing that if they hadn't
Speaker 3: been the tragic loss of chance who played Andre, it
Speaker 3: probably seemed like this was actually a storyline they were
Speaker 3: doing for him for the third arc.
Speaker 2: But after he passed away.
Speaker 3: It seems like they switched it to Marie to set
Speaker 3: up this young black woman who has this deeply complex,
Speaker 3: almost villainous arc at the beginning and has this horrific power,
Speaker 3: the most interesting powers that I think takes that boy's
Speaker 3: grotesquerie to a place that a lot of male viewers
Speaker 3: didn't like, which is this idea of her being able
Speaker 3: to control her blood but discovering it via her first period.
Speaker 3: There's very grotesque to a lot of men, Like she
Speaker 3: just has such complexity, such interesting like breadth and depth,
Speaker 3: and also has a really scary, gross power where she
Speaker 3: can basically manipulate people as if they are blood bags. Right,
Speaker 3: So it fits into that violent framework of the boys.
Speaker 3: It's hard not to see them basically nerving her and
Speaker 3: then going to rising as some kind of optics decision
Speaker 3: or like just disappointing in a show that has for
Speaker 3: the most part been incredibly subversive.
Speaker 2: It really has.
Speaker 1: I kind of give them grace on it, just because
Speaker 1: like the show didn't do well enough to keep going.
Speaker 2: And at that point, if I ever believe that stuff,
Speaker 2: because it's like.
Speaker 1: I mean, I believe it, I think if they have it,
Speaker 1: I just think if you have a hit, you keep going,
Speaker 1: and if the cost benefit analysis makes sense, then you
Speaker 1: keep going. Not only that, but like you're talking about
Speaker 1: like a young actors who are cheap. Now that's true
Speaker 1: that five of the Boys season two of gen V
Speaker 1: like you get them at a discount, and if and
Speaker 1: if it made sense to do, they would have kept
Speaker 1: doing it.
Speaker 2: I think that is real.
Speaker 3: But I do think that's I do think that's true
Speaker 3: to a point, like numbers wise, but also there are
Speaker 3: shows that we know do not have good numbers that
Speaker 3: they have to keep making that cost tons of money,
Speaker 3: like Rings of Power.
Speaker 2: And I love Ring Different.
Speaker 3: What I'm saying is, I think that when you are
Speaker 3: a corporation and you do have deals like that where
Speaker 3: you have to make these billion dollar shows, some shows
Speaker 3: that maybe aren't like wouldn't have gotten canceled otherwise end
Speaker 3: up becoming cancelations. I think, like Amazon has so much
Speaker 3: money that movies and TV can be a lost leader
Speaker 3: for them, Like that is something they've always I don't.
Speaker 1: Disagree that it is on some but it clearly just
Speaker 1: didn't hit. It just clearly didn't hit.
Speaker 2: I just didn't. I don't think they gave it the time.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, I do think it's like anything.
Speaker 3: It's also because it's been canceled, it's going to be
Speaker 3: a really interesting time capsule into that space of like
Speaker 3: trying to do a spin off, trying to do a
Speaker 3: youth focused thing, trying to do something that imagines something
Speaker 3: new instead of leaning on nostalg I mean, but they're
Speaker 3: going for the nostalgia idea with what rising instead is
Speaker 3: a really interesting like conversation because it's all about supernatural, right, and.
Speaker 1: Well to continue. I think that so GENV didn't do
Speaker 1: well enough and they had to cancel it, and I
Speaker 1: think at that point you're kind of like locked in.
Speaker 1: I almost would prefer that they just didn't have any
Speaker 1: of the gen.
Speaker 2: V people we do.
Speaker 1: That's the way I think that that's the way they
Speaker 1: should have gone.
Speaker 3: If they'd have just gotten an email that was like
Speaker 3: we're sending them to the Canadian border would have been better.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think attempt to tie off that storyline of
Speaker 1: a show you canceled made it it just we didn't
Speaker 1: need that, they didn't need to show they didn't need
Speaker 1: them at all, which just happened to me. Let them.
Speaker 3: We'll imagine they're just fucking in a different universe, getting
Speaker 3: into crazy trouble, going to house parties. We don't need
Speaker 3: to see them, but that's why it feels more like
Speaker 3: a nerfing to me.
Speaker 2: But anyway, I also, what do you think about speaking
Speaker 2: of that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Of like the issues of other shows and expanding that
Speaker 3: Boys universe. How do you feel like the finale dealt
Speaker 3: with the vote rising stuff? Because I actually did feel
Speaker 3: like they did a good job pulling it back from
Speaker 3: feeling as much like a setup though obviously, you know,
Speaker 3: I just thought that has been one of the big critiques,
Speaker 3: and I did feel here that they were actually doing
Speaker 3: a bit more to just wrap shit up and and
Speaker 3: like try and do as much set up, because it
Speaker 3: did start to feel like some of the setup stuff
Speaker 3: was overwhelming the actual like plotline of this season.
Speaker 1: For me, I didn't I didn't love it. I don't
Speaker 1: love the vot rising. I don't love vot rising as
Speaker 1: an idea in general. But I understand why they're going
Speaker 1: to do it, because these are the characters that have
Speaker 1: been established through the Boys and who pop and then
Speaker 1: the opportunity to have Soldier Boy back in an on
Speaker 1: running series is I think too much for them and.
Speaker 3: Also down My understanding is they will have you know,
Speaker 3: obviously we got that big episode with you know, the
Speaker 3: guy who plays Castile and the guy who plays the
Speaker 3: other Supernatural brother, Jared, so they are going to be
Speaker 3: in the show too. So I think this idea of
Speaker 3: Cripkey being able to do this three right reunion for Supernatural,
Speaker 3: it's like a really big deal.
Speaker 2: It's very interesting to me.
Speaker 3: Supernatural has a very heavy gay fandom, and I think
Speaker 3: a lot of like the nostalgia and love for the
Speaker 3: show is about Dean and castiell or as they were called,
Speaker 3: destil an.
Speaker 2: Insane time in fandom. But I'm very interested to see how.
Speaker 3: Cripkey is going to subvert our expectations because I just
Speaker 3: do not think this is a man.
Speaker 2: I interviewed Kripkey. You can read it on the Hollywood
Speaker 2: Reporter before the show came out.
Speaker 3: I reached out to my editor and I was like, Hey,
Speaker 3: I want to interview him and ask, how the fuck
Speaker 3: do you adapt the Boys? Because this comic is actually
Speaker 3: horrific and it sucks, and if you read it, so
Speaker 3: much of the worst stuff is played for laughs. It's like,
Speaker 3: this very horrendous and I specifically want to talk to
Speaker 3: him about the starlight stuff in season episode one and
Speaker 3: in issue one where she gets you know, gang raped
Speaker 3: and it's played for laughs and that's how she gets
Speaker 3: into the boys, right. I was so astounded by how
Speaker 3: open and chill Kripkey was. And they actually put together
Speaker 3: an entire room of women who were working on the
Speaker 3: show from different spaces and different departments and shit to
Speaker 3: talk about how to adapt it.
Speaker 2: And that was how they kind of came.
Speaker 3: To this space where it was more of a of
Speaker 3: a conversation around me too, and like this idea about
Speaker 3: coercion and.
Speaker 2: Obviously less explicit and not shown in the same way.
Speaker 3: I don't think that guy is at this time gonna
Speaker 3: just like make a show about Nazis and be like,
Speaker 3: here's how Nazis. You know, even though it feels bad
Speaker 3: that that is the show that's getting made, I know
Speaker 3: he's gonna do something to subvert it. I just need
Speaker 3: to know what it is, because right now I don't
Speaker 3: feel like that is the legacy that this show needs
Speaker 3: to have. But I'm hoping that there is gonna be
Speaker 3: a different layer to it, and really it's about like
Speaker 3: the resistance.
Speaker 2: But I will say, I don't know if I've told
Speaker 2: this story on the podcast before, but I think about
Speaker 2: it a lot.
Speaker 3: When The Boys' season three, I believe came out when
Speaker 3: with Stormfront might have been season two, but the Stormfront
Speaker 3: season basically it was incredible, right, And obviously, if you
Speaker 3: know about neo Nazi online culture, you know whose Stormfront
Speaker 3: is gonna be. You know why she's named that. But
Speaker 3: the show did this incredible job. I think it was
Speaker 3: the second or third episode where they did a whole
Speaker 3: like promotion of Stormfront as if she was this like
Speaker 3: powerful boss, girl boss blah blah blah, right, And I
Speaker 3: wrote an article for it, a nerdice called Girls Get
Speaker 3: Things Done like this kind of white supremacist feminism takedown
Speaker 3: and why it was so good, And like two weeks later,
Speaker 3: Amazon decided to start promoting the show via like girl
Speaker 3: bossy type merchandise and a girl Boss themed episode where you.
Speaker 2: Could interview all the girls and they.
Speaker 3: Were gonna, I still have like a Girl's get It
Speaker 3: done like fucking mug. They completely misunderstood why it was
Speaker 3: good and decided to promote it the same way the
Speaker 3: show was promoting the heroes. It was really confusing branding
Speaker 3: and also to me was something like representative of something
Speaker 3: you talk about, Jason, which is like, when you are
Speaker 3: satirizing the thing and you become the thing you are satirizing,
Speaker 3: whether that's scream, whether that's this, it becomes very hard
Speaker 3: to stay on top of the culture. And obviously we
Speaker 3: are in an accelerationist this is time now where stuff's
Speaker 3: happening faster than ever, so even harder to keep up with.
Speaker 1: This is my concern with with Vought Rising is you know,
Speaker 1: and people will say, oh, but like, yes, they're white
Speaker 1: supremacists characters in the show, but like you know, this
Speaker 1: person and that person or Jewish or this person and
Speaker 1: that person aren't you know, very against that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and they're involved in the production. I get it, but like.
Speaker 2: Why is that show?
Speaker 1: I still I still feel like that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that it's going to be good and
Speaker 1: that you're not platforming white supremacist white supremacist TV.
Speaker 2: Ideologies as well. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3: I also want to say it reminds me kind of
Speaker 3: like I don't know, if I wrote this article about
Speaker 3: The Punisher. We obviously didn't like it very much, but
Speaker 3: that was a point that we'd spoken about. But one
Speaker 3: of the parts that really spoke to people in the article.
Speaker 3: It is on my newsletter, Tinfoil Hat ghost Io. You
Speaker 3: guys can subscribe now. It's free for everyone to read
Speaker 3: the articles, but you can pay if you want to
Speaker 3: support me. But like one of the pieces that really
Speaker 3: stuck out to people, that made people understand why this
Speaker 3: show was dangerous, I put the hate Bread song and
Speaker 3: I was like, look, guys, Jamie Jasta has thrown Nazis
Speaker 3: out of his shows in the last few years.
Speaker 2: I'm proud of him.
Speaker 3: But listen to this fucking song and imagine Frank Castle
Speaker 3: shooting a ton of people in the head, including people
Speaker 3: of color, and tell me that it was not made
Speaker 3: for the worst fucking places of the Internet. And I
Speaker 3: just don't think that it's responsible. I'm not telling you
Speaker 3: don't make it. I'm not telling you sense to yourself.
Speaker 3: I'm saying, be a fucking responsible adult. And I do
Speaker 3: think you're right. I think that it's the same with
Speaker 3: that Girl's get this shit done Stormfront. Stuff like it
Speaker 3: can be read the wrong way, even by the companies. Wellstand.
Speaker 1: I think the part of the issue is that like
Speaker 1: adults will get this subtext or adults that like are
Speaker 1: are sensible, are sensible and well read enough about, you know,
Speaker 1: issues in the shape the world, you will not like
Speaker 1: Younger viewers won't realize. I just think it's I just
Speaker 1: think it's it's think about responsible, but it but it
Speaker 1: it towes that line where you essentially are platforming white supremacist,
Speaker 1: Nazi adjacent Nazi created characters, and while you are satirizing them. True,
Speaker 1: the level of satiricalness is going to be lost on
Speaker 1: a portion of the audience who are going to think
Speaker 1: these people are cool. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I find it.
Speaker 1: I find it weird. And my other thing is that
Speaker 1: I I think Butcher should I think Butcher should have
Speaker 1: been allowed to kill them all.
Speaker 2: I actually agree in this.
Speaker 1: I just think that Hughie is being is clearly doing
Speaker 1: what he did because of his attachment to Starlighter.
Speaker 2: Yes, now I wish because.
Speaker 1: That's why, and I do wish they would have that's
Speaker 1: a cool choice too, but I wish they would have paid.
Speaker 1: I wish that they would have played that more for
Speaker 1: the complexity of it and less as oh Annie and
Speaker 1: Hue are together. Because Butcher's right, they've given all they've
Speaker 1: done is by time a new Homelander will come, the
Speaker 1: soups will at some point be like, Okay, let's do
Speaker 1: it smarter this time, Like why are we There's no
Speaker 1: way to control them. You know, they had taken over
Speaker 1: the entire country in the world and and did multiple
Speaker 1: war crimes, and now you're just kind of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that I guess because Homelander is dead, Like that threat
Speaker 1: has passed, there's still like multiple very powerful mind reading,
Speaker 1: mind control, super strength, a nuclear chest bomb soups like alive,
Speaker 1: who are direct threats to things that have been going
Speaker 1: going on. Okay, let's take a quick break and we'll
Speaker 1: be back to talk about this episode.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I also think just narrowed, like because I do
Speaker 3: think like you make a good argument within the universe, right,
Speaker 3: I do think I will say, you know, we know
Speaker 3: Joel would be here screaming genocide. She's not also ethically wrong.
Speaker 3: I want to talk on a narrative standpoint. This is
Speaker 3: a fucked up, weird show, right, that's always meant to
Speaker 3: be doing stuff that shocks us. Hue is plea for
Speaker 3: humanity here does not sell. I would have loved the
Speaker 3: more complex, like I love her. I love Starlight, don't
Speaker 3: you love her? Like that kind of thing I think
Speaker 3: would have sold it more. But also, like, think about
Speaker 3: an episode, think about how much this finale would have
Speaker 3: banged right and how much everyone would have forgotten all
Speaker 3: their problems if Butcher had basically been like to Hui,
Speaker 3: like this is why we met, Like this was your purpose,
Speaker 3: this is our purpose. And they do some fucking fight
Speaker 3: club ass ship where they just fucking pour it into
Speaker 3: the water and Chewy breaks down and he knows it's
Speaker 3: terrible and he knows his fucking wife's gonna die, but
Speaker 3: he also knows that was always his mission. Like and
Speaker 3: that is a bleak, complicated ending, Like I don't want
Speaker 3: q to have a happy ending. What about the whole
Speaker 3: arc where he was a toxic masculinity piece of shit?
Speaker 2: Wait? Would Qui maybe die because he was?
Speaker 3: He was He had V for a while, he was addicted,
Speaker 3: but I don't know. Maybe that's why I don't know,
Speaker 3: Maybe he got it burned out of him. I don't remember,
Speaker 3: but it was I felt like the happy ending of
Speaker 3: it all felt very contrived for.
Speaker 1: The boy, considering everything that we had seen. It's crazy
Speaker 1: to let V powered people continue to be a threat
Speaker 1: to this world unless and this is where I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess I would have liked to see
Speaker 1: in that epilogue. And I really enjoyed the season. I
Speaker 1: thought it was.
Speaker 2: I thought, I think it was kind of a return
Speaker 2: to form for the Yeah.
Speaker 1: Because it picked up on all the stuff from like
Speaker 1: season two and mid season three that was like really
Speaker 1: the stuff you cared about. But I I I thought
Speaker 1: the epilogue needed something where the new government and the
Speaker 1: president is like, Okay, soups, here's your choice. You can
Speaker 1: either like wear some sort of bracelet or something that
Speaker 1: allows the government to license you basically and control like
Speaker 1: what you're doing. You can't just like go off and
Speaker 1: like form your own like kick Creator set and like
Speaker 1: terrorized neighborhoods like Willy Nilly anymore. Like you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to like actually do stuff with the law. So like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so, like what so your choice is either
Speaker 1: we can have you under control one. Two you can
Speaker 1: be depowered. Will you can choose to like be like
Speaker 1: I don't want this anymore of this life, I'll be
Speaker 1: completely depowered, or three we drive like if if even
Speaker 1: one soup said just tries to avoid the choice of
Speaker 1: one or two, we drop the virus and we kill
Speaker 1: you all. I think that that had to be give
Speaker 1: them the choice.
Speaker 3: If Marie had actually killed Homeland of publicly by bursting
Speaker 3: his blood, it would have also been very easy to
Speaker 3: imply like it heyd impose some kind of fear shit
Speaker 3: as well, like yeah, there's his his superhero Jesus, who's
Speaker 3: not gonna kill you, who's young, who's you know woke?
Speaker 3: All that stuff they played into, but also just fucking
Speaker 3: blew up a god on TV with blood, so hey, everyone,
Speaker 3: best you know behave.
Speaker 2: I also like your idea of like the depowering rate.
Speaker 3: Obviously that would become something that would be monetized, but
Speaker 3: even if it couldn't be, they would have Camiko chained
Speaker 3: up depowering soups already.
Speaker 2: That's like the age of X stuff.
Speaker 3: I think that Mike carry did where Scott Cyclops is
Speaker 3: just like he has the advisor and they pull it
Speaker 3: up so they make him execute mutants every time, like
Speaker 3: when he's having a tough like he's being like tortured
Speaker 3: by our cane. I love that idea of kind of
Speaker 3: like it's almost like they forgot the world they were
Speaker 3: in for a moment.
Speaker 2: I guess it's kind of how it feels at the end.
Speaker 1: To me. The issue is it's the same issue with
Speaker 1: the with the gen V stuff. I think it's they
Speaker 1: need to serve the fact that one they want to
Speaker 1: keep it open ended, right, you can't kill the soups,
Speaker 1: because what if we do want to come back to
Speaker 1: The Boys as like a follow on sequel series and
Speaker 1: maybe we bring you know, who knows, maybe we bring
Speaker 1: Marie back into it and build another Boys series with
Speaker 1: you know whoever's left standing of Soldier Boy and the rest.
Speaker 1: They want to they definitely want to keep that open.
Speaker 1: They don't want to have a world in which they
Speaker 1: don't do soup shows anymore or only prequels. And two,
Speaker 1: you know, all the all the serving the prequel Vault
Speaker 1: Rising stuff. I think that was again that was the
Speaker 1: weakest parts of the final season for me, was both
Speaker 1: the kind of Hamhnded like execution of tying off the
Speaker 1: gen V stuff, which again didn't need to be there,
Speaker 1: and the overly like Vaught Rising tie in stuff that
Speaker 1: you just were like, oh, this is a tie in
Speaker 1: of Vault Rising because we actually don't need this that much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that is to me, those are the weaknesses.
Speaker 1: Is it's like ip ip itis.
Speaker 3: That's definitely what it is, right, IPI tis. That's such
Speaker 3: a good way of saying.
Speaker 2: It also hilarious to say fon foss No. I totally agree.
Speaker 3: I think this as we've said, how many of these
Speaker 3: problems I love Genba. I'm glad the two seasons we
Speaker 3: go exist, but how many problems that we're talking about
Speaker 3: with this series and the seasons come from that expansion
Speaker 3: when it was its peak and they were like, now
Speaker 3: we're gonna do this, spinoff, Now we're gonna do this.
Speaker 2: We had the Boys anime at spinoff.
Speaker 3: We haven't even talked about that, right, like right these
Speaker 3: they were pushing and pushing to expand, and now they're
Speaker 3: trying to contract. And I think, sadly we are losing
Speaker 3: a project that I think was way more interesting than
Speaker 3: the core show at its heart, like and we know that,
Speaker 3: we know that. I love GENV but like, I just
Speaker 3: think it's a shame to see what gets kept when
Speaker 3: things contract and expand. But like I said, if what
Speaker 3: rising's a secret Marie Moreau time traveling killing Nazi show,
Speaker 3: then maybe Eric Crypti, I'll forgive you.
Speaker 1: Overall your thoughts on The Boys, the entire series.
Speaker 3: Oh, basically, I would say the biggest takeaway, And I
Speaker 3: know I sound like a broken record with this guy's
Speaker 3: I do think it is an astonishing feat of adaptation.
Speaker 3: Whatever the inconsistencies are, this is proof that you can
Speaker 3: take a project that is essentially unadaptable because it is
Speaker 3: so offensive and purposefully like Ennis was doing that on purpose.
Speaker 3: I mean, this book was originally published by DC and
Speaker 3: they had to drop it because it was so offensive
Speaker 3: and they had to you know, publish it elsewhere. So
Speaker 3: like to take something like that that I assume is
Speaker 3: probably toxic and nuclear if somebody ever actually looks at
Speaker 3: the comic before you do the pitch, and to turn
Speaker 3: it into something so thoughtful and subversive, it's pretty incredible.
Speaker 3: I will say, Jason, something that you spoke about with
Speaker 3: vaut Rising that I think this show failed that sadly,
Speaker 3: and it's not really its own fault. It's more about
Speaker 3: failure of critical media literacy. But I mean people are
Speaker 3: still online talking about how their surprised Homelander is the villain,
Speaker 3: like you know, right wing people or whatever, like they're stupid.
Speaker 3: But then again, it's like, if you know that's a
Speaker 3: majority of your audience, why do you make vort rising
Speaker 3: because you know they're gonna think the same shit, like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: we're watching the show. They are the protagonists, you know.
Speaker 3: So I think those are some of its failings. But
Speaker 3: I do think that it was also a victim in
Speaker 3: the last couple of seasons of what we've talked about
Speaker 3: a lot in the show, which is the world ipis
Speaker 3: and also the world catching up with the show. Yeah,
Speaker 3: crypt did not know that the real president of the
Speaker 3: real United States of America in the real world was
Speaker 3: gonna make a golden statue of himself the same week
Speaker 3: that Homelander revealed the golden statue of himself.
Speaker 1: Like, it's very distressing.
Speaker 2: It's very distressing.
Speaker 3: It also makes the show less enjoyable to watch as
Speaker 3: a dystopian fantasy because it's actually a reality. And I
Speaker 3: also think that you lose some of the sharpness of
Speaker 3: the satire. And as Krypkey said from the beginning, he
Speaker 3: had actually come out before the season came out and said,
Speaker 3: I don't know how it's gonna land because some of
Speaker 3: the stuff on the show is not as bad as
Speaker 3: what's happening in real life, and I do think he
Speaker 3: was a.
Speaker 2: Victim of that.
Speaker 3: But generally, I will always celebrate the show as proof
Speaker 3: that you can adapt something and you can elevate it,
Speaker 3: and you can also do it in a way that
Speaker 3: still appeals to the original audience, which is fucking crazy.
Speaker 3: I think that is my biggest takeaway and the show's
Speaker 3: biggest SaaS.
Speaker 1: I echo that, I think that the show. I think
Speaker 1: seasons one and two are incredible.
Speaker 2: Like I think two is like.
Speaker 1: Nine to ten, like nine out of ten to ten
Speaker 1: out of ten stuff, And I agree with you. Season
Speaker 1: two with Stormfront was when it was at its The
Speaker 1: show was at its most sharp, and the characters were
Speaker 1: at its their most vibrant, and you didn't feel like Homelander.
Speaker 2: Was being shown.
Speaker 1: It was really good, and it still felt like there
Speaker 1: was some juice in the Homelander as antagonist where they
Speaker 1: weren't just keeping him alive. I think, to a large degree,
Speaker 1: I think the show, whatever flaws it has, it's because
Speaker 1: it became a victim of its own success. It didn't
Speaker 1: agree it. It should have been more ruthless. It should
Speaker 1: have been, and I understand that it is adapting. You know,
Speaker 1: the comic book was the same thing. It was like,
Speaker 1: you know, the story as it became kind of successful
Speaker 1: for the size of story it was, you know, it
Speaker 1: got padded out, and I thought that there was a
Speaker 1: there's a more ruthless story to be told. That's actually
Speaker 1: that's better. And the fact that like so few of
Speaker 1: our core boys characters died until like the very end
Speaker 1: is to me like a reflection of that, like we
Speaker 1: should have lost more people sooner, and they let Homelander
Speaker 1: live for too long.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I agraize that that.
Speaker 1: The first two first two seasons are incredible, and I
Speaker 1: thought Joelle didn't didn't love the Oval Office Fight. I
Speaker 1: love the Oval Office Fight. And I thought for for
Speaker 1: like real superhero fights with powers that that are depicted
Speaker 1: in a cool way on TV, it doesn't it really
Speaker 1: does not get better than this, Like fights are amazing.
Speaker 3: I do think as well, like you said, the prom
Speaker 3: with it being like the victim of its own success
Speaker 3: is also definitely an issue.
Speaker 2: Again, like we've been.
Speaker 3: Talking about with other projects, whether it's you know, Mandlarin
Speaker 3: and Grogu, I think we may have another similar conversation
Speaker 3: coming up with some upcoming releases too, about TV and
Speaker 3: movie quality.
Speaker 2: This did start.
Speaker 3: Out performing the MCU when it came to inventive Action.
Speaker 2: Inventive Superhero absolutely did.
Speaker 3: So, then how do you satirize something that you are
Speaker 3: now punching down on? Essentially, obviously they're not really punching down,
Speaker 3: but it is Amazon punching down at Disney, It's it's
Speaker 3: corporations punching down at each other. It's and I think
Speaker 3: that that becomes part of the problem too, is like,
Speaker 3: then the MCU went through, as these things do, guys,
Speaker 3: We've been telling you this for years, ebbs and flows, right,
Speaker 3: this is like the Zeros, the mid Zeros, the late
Speaker 3: Zeros like it. It has Marvel sort of ebbed and
Speaker 3: flowed into this space where they weren't as on point
Speaker 3: in phase five going into the new era that hopefully
Speaker 3: is going.
Speaker 2: To be X Men.
Speaker 3: Then the Boys is like, what are you even satirizing
Speaker 3: because they're not doing like the Seven, They're not doing
Speaker 3: Justice League parodies anymore because those are kind.
Speaker 2: Of already outdated.
Speaker 3: So then they also lose the target and it becomes
Speaker 3: much more political, much more real life, and much more
Speaker 3: about less about the trappings of superhero entertainment, which I
Speaker 3: think is also why it loses a little bit of
Speaker 3: that like yeah, freshness.
Speaker 2: But it's also again that's that's not their that's not
Speaker 2: their fault.
Speaker 3: That's a situational issue because that is about how the
Speaker 3: blockbuster landscape changed. About COVID. I mean, also, this is
Speaker 3: a show that survived COVID.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 2: That's pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: It's true. I will miss The Boys, I I you know,
Speaker 1: for as much as I shit on it when it
Speaker 1: was bad. When it was good, it was it was
Speaker 1: great and like nothing else, you know, I think now
Speaker 1: there is you know, we'll see what happens with Rising,
Speaker 1: which I feel like will be necessarily a different tone
Speaker 1: of show somehow. You know, we're talking about set in
Speaker 1: a different world, a different era of the world. So
Speaker 1: we'll see how that goes. But I think we're missing that,
Speaker 1: like satirizing superheroes.
Speaker 3: I agree, And what does that? What does that look
Speaker 3: like in Rising? Like are we satirizing?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: Look, I'll tell you this, this is my pitch that
Speaker 3: I'm suddenly seeing that could be interesting if you wanted
Speaker 3: to continue a satirical look at The Boys, you could
Speaker 3: look at how in the forties the thirties and forties,
Speaker 3: the rise of superhero comic books was really directly tied
Speaker 3: to anti Nazi propaganda and trying to create these like
Speaker 3: patriotic figures like Captain America punching Hitler and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: There is gonna be an interesting way that they could
Speaker 3: explore like superheroes and iconography as white supremacist propaganda or
Speaker 3: as American propaganda. I would be very interested to see that,
Speaker 3: but obviously very complicated because the American side of that
Speaker 3: comics history is very Jewish and was actively anti fascist,
Speaker 3: so it feels strange to do that through the lens
Speaker 3: of vot riising. But I'm interested to see where they
Speaker 3: go because that I just I just don't get it.
Speaker 3: I just still don't get it, and I just think
Speaker 3: it's I just think it's gonna have to be like
Speaker 3: a Watchman level like surprise for it to do something
Speaker 3: that doesn't feel like it shouldn't.
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be hard to do, and it's
Speaker 1: gonna be hard to do for the reasons that sequels
Speaker 1: are structurally more difficult, because, like you know how it
Speaker 1: ends to a certain degree, like I understand that Soldier
Speaker 1: Boy will not die at any point during vault Riising.
Speaker 1: I understand that Stormfront will not die at any point.
Speaker 2: Right because we know because we know where it's going.
Speaker 1: I understand that bomb Site will not die at any
Speaker 1: port point during vault Riising. So it's like, how do
Speaker 1: you how do you solve for that? I don't know
Speaker 1: that there's a good way to solve for that other
Speaker 1: than to find some other essential story. And Watchman is
Speaker 1: a great comp But what Watchmen did is basically make
Speaker 1: the most important parts of the emotional core of the
Speaker 1: story start in the prequel and end in the modern
Speaker 1: part of the story. Right, How interesting is that? And
Speaker 1: I don't think they can and they can't do that
Speaker 1: with with volt Riising. So we'll see. I'm I'm I
Speaker 1: will watch, of course, but I am concerned about I
Speaker 1: have my concerns about vaut Riising. One on it, you know,
Speaker 1: from the very basic level of it not being that
Speaker 1: good and being you know, just a harder degree of
Speaker 1: difficulty to make good. And two the risk of it
Speaker 1: not being as good as sharp, as thoughtful. You know,
Speaker 1: it's crazy to be like yeah, show in which like
Speaker 1: a guy rocks, you know, it was a thoughtful show
Speaker 1: about the terrible things that it was depicting, and to
Speaker 1: try to be as thoughtful as it could be. So
Speaker 1: I do worry about I worry about Vought from that, right.
Speaker 3: Okay, I guess I didn't know that they're going for
Speaker 3: the class Me and Jay said are big proponents of this.
Speaker 2: They did Redell season one, they did it in True
Speaker 2: Blood season one. It's a classic genre trope.
Speaker 3: I guess it's gonna be a murder mystery about the
Speaker 3: origins of Vought in the fifties, So maybe it's gonna
Speaker 3: be revealed about, like I know, human testing, but all
Speaker 3: that shit we know, Like I just I just don't
Speaker 3: see a way to make it valuable though, I say.
Speaker 3: I guess I forgot that they're doing a spin off
Speaker 3: The Boys Mexico, and that's like a real thing that
Speaker 3: is actually still happening.
Speaker 2: So I suppose they're trying to both sides us like Disney.
Speaker 2: That's how I feel right now. I feel like I'm
Speaker 2: getting both sides at all times.
Speaker 1: I will say, like, if either DC or Marvel wanted
Speaker 1: to enter like the partying Superheroes space, I think that
Speaker 1: there's like this is not your favorite creator, but superior
Speaker 1: foes of Spider Man, for instance, as a way like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, if you take like smaller scale villains, I
Speaker 1: think you're right, or like Avengers right and make right.
Speaker 1: I think that's a great way to satirize superheroes. You know,
Speaker 1: obviously it would not have the kind of cutting edge
Speaker 1: and the gross out factor of the Boys, but I
Speaker 1: still think that it's a that kind of satirical take.
Speaker 1: The critical take on the superhero dynamic is necessary.
Speaker 3: Actually because look, and again I was going to say,
Speaker 3: I'm about to bring up another book by a guy
Speaker 3: I don't love, but like the authority, right, That's why
Speaker 3: the authority great sight, But about the notion of James
Speaker 3: guns DC, because they were like, wait, this man's going
Speaker 3: to adapt shit that's never been done before. I mean,
Speaker 3: he's going to adapt stuff that could be violent, that
Speaker 3: could be crazy. I mean, we are getting that rated
Speaker 3: Clayface movie. I think if that hits, maybe we will
Speaker 3: be in this space where these companies can start satirizing themselves.
Speaker 3: And that's actually the best stuff they do. Look at
Speaker 3: how great Wonder Man was. It's because it was and
Speaker 3: knowing satire, a studio type satire of the Hollywood industry.
Speaker 3: Of the MCU, of the way that Superhero contracts are,
Speaker 3: of the way that crew is treated on set, like
Speaker 3: it was so interesting and specific.
Speaker 2: I think that there is a space.
Speaker 3: Now obviously there's gonna be a certain suspension of disbelief,
Speaker 3: but everything we enjoy is own by five people, now, guys,
Speaker 3: so get with it, Like there's gonna be a suspension
Speaker 3: of disbelief. All Disney satirizing Disney, but hey, and was
Speaker 3: one of the greatest anti fascist shows of all time,
Speaker 3: and it was made by Disney, like we take what.
Speaker 2: We can get, you know.
Speaker 3: And I think that there is a space where whoever
Speaker 3: gets to that first Jason and does some kind of.
Speaker 2: Like niche creating its own.
Speaker 3: World, but with a little bit more of that bite,
Speaker 3: a little bit more of that kind of satirical edge,
Speaker 3: a little bit more of that edge lordiness, honestly, like
Speaker 3: it's not there's good versions of being an edgeload and
Speaker 3: bad versions of it, and sometimes it hits. And The
Speaker 3: Boys is an edgelord fucking show, and they managed to
Speaker 3: do it in a way that wasn't horrific. And I
Speaker 3: think that Disney, and you know, Disney just made punishing
Speaker 3: one last kill they're not afraid to put some violent
Speaker 3: ass shit on there. So now give me the R
Speaker 3: rated Daughters of the Dragon where they go around and
Speaker 3: fuck up like creepy rapists in their neighborhood or whatever.
Speaker 3: Like if we can do it for Frank Castle and
Speaker 3: his you know PTSD treatment of just shooting one hundred people,
Speaker 3: then I think we can do it for other people.
Speaker 2: So I actually love that, Paul Jason.
Speaker 3: I think this is a little place where they could
Speaker 3: get an unexpected boost while the Boys is off.
Speaker 2: Between these shows.
Speaker 1: Our next episodes of X ray Vision, we're diving into
Speaker 1: the Marendalorian and grogu plus news. That's it for this episode.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. X ray Vision is hosted by Jason
Speaker 1: steps Young and Rosie Knight and is a production of
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 3: Our executive producers are Joel Menique and Aaron Korfman.
Speaker 1: Our supervising producer is Abusafar.
Speaker 3: Our producers are Harmen Laurent, Dean Jonathan and Faye Wack.
Speaker 1: A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
Speaker 1: songs by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 3: Special thanks to Soul Ruben, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and
Speaker 3: Heidi Our discord moderator,