The Boys will throw you for a loop if you think satire has to be LOL funny. It doesn’t, and The Boys isn’t. I had to look up the definition to make sure. “The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.”
Based in a world where superheroes are marketable corporate assets, The Boys holds a mirror up to modern society and you won’t like the reflection. The joke is us. We are the punchline when Homelander lets a plane crash to gin up enough xenophobia to convince the government to let superheroes fight in the military. We are mocked when Queen Maeve agrees to turn being outed (by Homelander) into a marketing campaign. We are the ones made to look like fools for wanting The Deep to get a second chance.
Anyone who puts any thought into what they’re watching is going to feel icky after watching The Boys. Kudos to the show for such biting satire. At times it does feel forced, especially with Stormfront in season two. But you forgive.
I’m only thru two of the three seasons, and I liked the second better. Sssssssort of. The thing about The Boys that I can’t get past is how unique and thoughtful the superhero storylines are but how cliche and boring “the boys” storyline is. Everything interesting about this show happens when the superhero characters are onscreen.
(To back up, the title “The Boys” comes from the name of the group of characters who are out to expose the superheroes as frauds. I’ll use lowercase to refer to the characters and uppercase to refer to the show.)
The boys are boring af. There is nothing to the Billy Butcher character other than his obsessive use of the C-word, which gets old after the first six hundred times he says it. Hughie is supposed to be the one we identify with. Can’t. We’re supposed to believe he goes from a limp-spined nobody to a vengeful mercenary because his girlfriend was killed in his hands (literally. It’s very gory.)? Don’t believe it for a second. The rest of the boys aren’t worth wasting pixels on.
Watching The Boys reminds me of something a sportswriter once said about the athletes he covers, “We don’t know these people.” The Boys introduces us to our heroes and they are not good people. They do awful things, they lie to us and we idolize them anyway.
The Boys would be better if the boys were just as interesting. Instead they’re boring and the show suffers. I don’t recommend this as a priority show for you. The best use case is for long flights or when you’ve got an hour to kill here and there. Not a show worth bingeing.
The Wandering Lostie 