the boys s1 vs s4 (mild spoilers i guess)

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I mean, the show still talks about what it wants, sure, but it's grown less and less subtle over time, and some of the scenes are really uncalled for.
 
watching gen v atm & i'm enjoying it a lot but it does kind of just feel like a (notably) edgier superhero programme for the most part (rather than the more targeted skewering of the main series in s1, e.g.) imo
 
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I told myself I wasn't gonna keep Watching after Season 3.

My biggest issue with the show is how they feel the need to keep upping the degeneracy of the super heros. Like season 3 opening with the shrunk dude inside that guy's weewee, the herogasm, etc. It's not interesting or fun to watch. The best part of season 3 was black noirs plot and him dying was fine. I don't see any issues with how that ended.

I don't think I'll be watching season 4 as it clear from what I've heard online that they've dumbed down the show and the writing blows chunks.
 
BP said:
I told myself I wasn't gonna keep Watching after Season 3.

My biggest issue with the show is how they feel the need to keep upping the degeneracy of the super heros. Like season 3 opening with the shrunk dude inside that guy's weewee, the herogasm, etc. It's not interesting or fun to watch. The best part of season 3 was black noirs plot and him dying was fine. I don't see any issues with how that ended.

I don't think I'll be watching season 4 as it clear from what I've heard online that they've dumbed down the show and the writing blows chunks.
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The writing for Season 4 is much better than most of the writing for Season 3, but the comedy was stronger than Season 4. The only difference is that the show is popular enough for the far-right culture war content mill to profit from making videos about it. My biggest gripe honestly is the extreme departure in the Dakota Bob/Neuman story arc, which was a satirization of the neocon presidency. Instead we're getting a very ham-fisted attempted analogy to the Biden presidency that suddenly tries to make Dakota Bob look like an ok guy now that Biden's in office. I appreciate the effort to maintain salience, but it's going to make a lot of the ending different from the comic's climax, where
Butcher literally unilaterally makes Nancy Pelosi President

People complaining about the show being heavy-handed clearly never read the source material, which was a satirisation of the "post-racial" Bush years, right down to the Supes botching 9/11 and leveraging their failure into political power. For those of us old enough to remember, it was the time where white people tried insisting they could drop the N-word, celebrities were getting caught in all sorts of awful behaviour, and the exploitation of young women and girls was getting extremely vile.

From my perspective on the series, it's always been a brutal critique on the politics of the crumbling jurisprudence and general legal environment in the post 9/11 era, the history of vigilantism in Amerucan politics, and of toxic masculinity (especially through Butcher) out of control.
 
It’s been one of the best seasons so far, but at this point in time most people just don’t want to be involved with more hero stuff and is becoming a niche once again.
Or just dont like that their fav character just kissed a dude i don’t know.
 
cookie said:
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The idea that this show was ever "gritty" is the funniest part of this whole thing!

It's a fun time but you can't expect to get anything more than that. It's hardly ever been more incisive beyond its surface-level obviousness. Its heavy emphasis on gore / gross-out shock is its best subversive tactic; not a bad one, but it doesn't lean into it with enough genuine nastiness for my liking.

If you're disappointed by where The Boys has gone, I recommend The Suicide Squad (2021) which is a million times better than anything it's ever done (or Invincible, for that matter, although at least The Boys is enjoyable and Invincible is, barring one or two moments, flat-out awful)
 
BKC said:
The idea that this show was ever "gritty" is the funniest part of this whole thing!

It's a fun time but you can't expect to get anything more than that. It's hardly ever been more incisive beyond its surface-level obviousness. Its heavy emphasis on gore / gross-out shock is its best subversive tactic; not a bad one, but it doesn't lean into it with enough genuine nastiness for my liking.

If you're disappointed by where The Boys has gone, I recommend The Suicide Squad (2021) which is a million times better than anything it's ever done (or Invincible, for that matter, although at least The Boys is enjoyable and Invincible is, barring one or two moments, flat-out awful)
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If you're looking for something with a similar level of shock factor to the boys while also telling a legitimate story worth investing your time into instead of larping as an allegory for modern-day politics, i'd recommend "The Garden of Sinners", specifically the film adaptation. It's pretty clear-cut as type-moon's best work, all the characters feel believable, and the story is actually good enough to enjoy standalone without getting into classic nasuverse timeline bullshit.
 
season 4 honestly feels like filler. The showrunners have stated that it will end at season 5 and I think season 4 is just set up for it

Frenchie's and Starlight's entire season 4 arc so far feels like they had no idea what to do with these two so they just added something in. Butcher's and Hughie's relationship gets barely any spotlight and when it does, it kinda feels a lot flatter than it was the last 3 seasons. And I am kinda tired from the politics, it was poignant and smart before, now it just seems... flat. Idk, it's just the same shit all the time

I felt kinda empty after episode 4, despite Starr's amazing performance, I just asked himself "how does this advance Homelander's character?". I come to the same conclusion after basically every episode. Nothing substantial is done, there is no deeper exploration of the characters. It's prolly why I enjoy everything with Ryan so much, he's the only one who changes throughout this season so far

Kinda wish they extended season 4 by 2-3 episodes and just ended it there. I can imagine season 5 being good again, because again, this all just feels like filler
 
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