The Boys recently reached its final episode and it wasn’t well received. We were promised “scorched earth” and what we got barely singed the White House lawn. It’s symbolic of the main problem with the show, especially in later seasons. Lots of setup and no payoff.
Trigger Warning
This article will briefly discuss sexual assault and rape.
A New Show
I’ve never liked Garth Ennis’ work. It’s always felt to me that he’s just trying to write the most fucked up things he can in an edgy “I’m 14 and this is cool” kind of way. It’s not something that appeals to me, even as an avid comic book reader. Of course, I know many people enjoy that kind of satire, and Ennis is good at writing it, so I get why he’s popular.
So when the show came along, I almost dismissed it as something I wouldn’t enjoy. But then I read an article about a controversial scene in the first episode, and how women on the writing team wanted their voices heard through that scene. That struck me, so I decided to give the show a shot.
I was hooked from the opening scene. I’m not a fan of gore – I’m actually quite squeamish, but seeing Hughie’s girlfriend die in such a shocking way somehow got me interested. What hooked me more was how well developed the characters were. Unlike in the comics where every character is overtly fucked up, each character here is more nuanced. There was an obvious parallel with real-world celebrity culture, and how behind the scenes a lot of the people we love may not be so loveable.
So I invested my time into the show. I wanted to see how things would play out in this new take on the superhero genre.
Getting it Done
By the time we got to the fifth series, my attitude had changed. I was still watching the show, but it had become more of sunk cost fallacy. The show’s writing had gotten pretty bad, and there were many things that didn’t make any sense. They introduced Sister Sage, who’s superpower is that she’s “smart,” yet somehow made her the dumbest character on the show. There was an extended rape scene with Hughie that wasn’t treated with the same nuance as Annie’s sexual assault in the first episode.
That last scene became contraversial after Kripke was shocked that people viewed it as a sexual assault, stating, “Well, that’s a dark way to look at it! We view it as hilarious.” Obviously I don’t want to downplay how women are affected by sexual assault, but the fact they view the same thing happening to a man as “hilarious” rightly upset a lot of the fanbase.
So when the fifth season came along I felt like I was just watching it to get it over with. I had invested all of this time, so I needed to see how it ended. I was hoping they could bring things back to the quality of the first series, but I had justified doubts. What followed was a season that seemed to be more interested in setting up more new story threads than bringing things to a close. By the time of the final episode I (and many others) were wondering how on earth they were going to stick the landing.
The answer is that they didn’t. Everything was resolved in the simplest way, with the characters just scrapping it out in the White House. I can’t fault the performances, especially of Antony Starr, but the story kind of just fizzles out. When Homelander dies it didn’t feel earned, it just felt like something that had to happen because its the end of the story now.
The Problem
One of the major problems with the fifth series (and earlier) were that the writers seemed more interested in setting up new story threads without concluding older threads properly. A big example comes from the very first episode. In the fourth series a major plot point was that Homelander was setting up camps to incarcerate people. The analogy with concentration camps was clear.
At the end of the series, most of the Boys are captured and taken to these camps. This seemed to be leading to a storyline where we would explore what it means to have these camps, the general population’s reaction to them, and how they would affect the American people.
Instead, the Boys get rescued in the first episode, and the camps are never mentioned again. We go back to the status quo of the Boys as a group coming up with random schemes to get to the heroes. Of course, since Butcher went insane at the end of the last series he’s not with them anymore, right? Or, at least their relationship is completely on edge for this series?
Nope. Butcher just comes back, saves everyone, and back to the status quo. It was like Voyager, except even worse.
Then there are many examples of setup with no payoff within the fifth series itself. The virus basically never gets used as we learn some supes are immune to it. Homelander chases after a compound known as “V1” to make himself immortal. He succeeds, but then nothing about him changed. The Boys simply stick to the same plan of depowering him.
The GenV characters were set up to be powerful enough to take on Homelander, making many believe they would show up in this series. They appear for two scenes in which Annie tells them to go away.
A major plot point was Homelander declaring himself to be God, and purging anyone who didn’t believe him. This could have led to genocidal behaviour, and Homelander really becoming a demonic presence in the series. It actually results in a cat man and a dog man sniffing each other’s arses (seriously) while the Boys save a few people in a room that Homelander tries to kill.
What’s crazy about all of this is that they had the time to finish the season right. This wasn’t a Game of Thrones situation where the studio cut them down to a single season of six episodes. They had all the setup for a great final season. They just couldn’t help leaving threads hanging and setting up new stuff instead.
It was all setup with no payoff.
Final Thoughts
In the end, the show had become what I had disliked about the comics. The showrunners kept trying to shove as much fucked up shit into the show as much as possible in an “I’m 14 and this is cool” kind of way. I don’t want to dismiss the whole show as terrible, it had its moments. Homelander returning to the lab where he was experimented on. An aging film producer telling Homelander how it is. A-Train’s ultimate redemption. The Deep always being a loser.
But overall the show’s writing declined after the third series, and especially into the fifth. Writers seemed to forget specific details, such as Kimoko being raised in Japan, or that Homelander’s laser ripped her in half in the opening episode. People noticed and it started to feel lazy.
The ironic thing is that the comics don’t suffer from these flaws. Even though I don’t personally like them, at least they are consistent in their writing, and they manage to payoff things by the end of the run. If only the adaptation could have achieved that as well.
