ALERT: This review has some major SPOILERS. Usually I try to avoid them, but this show in particular feels like it needs some specifics. So, you have been warned!
If you know me (and if you're reading this, chances are you do; I don't get a lot of widespread appeal over here), you know that there are things about The Boys that aren't going to hit quite right for me. Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate violence and gore, and brutality and villainy, and sexuality from all angles.
But The Boys has a habit of taking those sorts to the extreme, sometimes to the point where you wonder, is this a thing that advances the show at all? Or is this just to give people something to talk about the next time they see each other? A certain urethral scene from a previous season comes to mind when I bring up this point.
This season of The Boys was no different in that regard; there were multiple extended scenes in multiple episodes that just felt unnecessarily crass, even if you forego my own general lack of appetite for such content. The scene with Hughie impersonating Webweaver and getting himself into a sexual abuse scene with Tek Knight went on way too long, with way too little story relevance, and way too many punchlines. And then the entire episode at the farm felt like someone's personal fan-fiction idea given way too much air.
But despite these (in my opinion) missteps, The Boys has historically been a show that has been able to appeal to a broad group of fans, myself included. Some fans enjoy watching superpowered beings blow each other up (or just blow each other), some fans like the modern pop culture references, and most fans enjoy the wild adventures, dangerous heroics, and compelling, three-dimensional characters engaged in four-dimensional storylines. This season, however, failed to deliver on that last key component.
The characters this season felt almost dumbed down, and not just to make Sister Sage look good. Each member of The Boys felt like their story had gotten a little less interesting, and pieces of the story dragged so much from episode to episode. Frenchie spent like four full episodes agonizing about having murdered his new lover's family. Then he goes to the police to admit his crimes, goes to jail, and then... is released. And that's kind of the end of it. Like, what? Why did we spend so much time with Frenchie's agony over that situation to have it just brushed aside in the end?
I'm fine with the things that happened at the end of the season (Victoria Neuman's demise, Butcher's turn, Sage's reveal), but it felt like half of the characters could've been left out of the season, or (preferably) given storylines that had more relevance to everything else. The characters felt much more like they were having individual stories this season, instead of the interweaving of numerous stories into a single, cohesive narrative.
The acting was still spot-on, and Karl Urban remains a must-watch talent for the small or large screen. Ever since he took off his helmet in The Two Towers, I've been a big fan. That reminds me, gotta add Dredd to my list of movies to watch. It never ends.
The Boys has built up enough goodwill with me that I'm still excited to see the final season of the show. And I'm hopeful that the stories that felt less important or unresolved from this season will come to a head in that final season, and it'll all feel worth it. We shall see.
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