The Deep!!! Man I laughed. Great stuff.
Wauw, that scene in the plane... Of all the superhero flicks I have ever seen nothing even comes close to this. And this for an ip that has existed since 2006... And from their standpoint... It's kinda made sense? The combination of these two things and the sheer brutality of it sets this show apart (there are more things ofcourse) from everything else.
Did anybody see that fly? I mean, that was intentional? looks suspicious...
That dolphin thing might have traumatised me a little.
...
She ain’t no spice girl either.
Homelander and The Deep really need to work on their rescue skills.
[7.8/10] I can’t recall the last time I saw a scene that cracked me up with dark humor and another that shocked me with its genuine darkness in the same episode. Holy hell!
The dark comedy comes from The Deep. I like how they’ve gradually shifted him into the more traditional Aquaman-esque butt of the joke. His sad sack “I’m good enough, smart enough, and doggone it people like me” routine, combined with his desire to speak out to protect the dolphins at the ocean theme park he’s a spokesman for are hilarious. Treating him as a dope who is, if you’ll pardon the expression, out of his depth in everything he tries to do, is a hoot.
But the piece de resistance is the scene where he tries to smuggle a dolphin out of the park, fends off its sexual advances, and then screeches to a halt that sends it flying through a windshield to be run over by an eighteen-wheeler. It’s hard to explain why something so grim is so hilarious, but the slow motion sequence of a dolphin gazing lovingly at a human before its ridiculous demise as a Spice Girls song plays in half-time is so absurd that it wraps back around to being uproariously funny.
At the same time, I can’t remember the last scene that disturbed me in the way the airplane hijacking scene did here. Sometimes, blood and guts can hit me like that, but what really worked here is the chilling psychological element of it. The emotional whiplash of Homelander and Queen Maeve showing up and taking out the bad guys, telling them the danger is over, watching the pilot die, seeing them reassure the passengers that everything’s fine despite the fact that they know they’re toast, threatening them if they don’t back off, and then Maeve practically begging Homelander to save a few of them is out-and-out harrowing.
It’s the biggest testament to Homelander’s psychopathy yet. It’s one thing not to be able to save someone. That’s an interesting scenario a superhero would confront and could be challenging. But it’s how matter-of-fact and disingenuous he is about the whole thing. The second he knows there's no saving the plane, he’s nonplussed about it. It’s like he got a stain on his second favorite pair of pants. And the way he bald-faced lies to the desperate people on board, not to comfort them but so he can get out without resistance, which turns hostile when he gets some, is utterly monstrous.
Watching such callousness to innocent people perishing, refusing to save any of them because even a few survivors might tell tales that make you look bad, is horrifying. And using the tragedy that you had a hand in causing to make the pitch that if you were officially allowed to intervene by the U.S. government, it wouldn’t have happened, is so utterly craven.
As much as it exposes Homelander as the callous sociopath he is, the disturbing set piece also humanizes Maeve. She’s complicit in all of this, as much a cynical part of it as anyone. But she at least tries to come up with alternatives to help the people aboard. She tries to convince Homelander to save two of them. Even though she takes her exit and plays her part when the cameras roll, she winces just enough at her partner’s lies to show the twinge of a conscience after all these years. At base, Maeve cares, and that’s something, if only by the rock bottom standards of The Seven.
We also get a pretty darn cute date between Annie and Hughey at a bowling alley. We get the firmest confirmation that Hughey has PTSD from what he’s witnessed, with hallucinations and flashbacks to the deaths of both his girlfriend and Translucent. At the same time, we learn a little more about Annie, how she felt compelled to hide her power with guys lest they be emasculated and not like her, and how her smalltown upbringing was as chaste as it was religious.
The fact that Hughey reflexively accepts her and is amazed by her for who she is rings true and sweet, but is, in keeping with the show’s sensibilities, is undercut by the fact that he is, at best, lying by omission to her about what his intentions are, and bugs her phone in the process. Nothing can be pure in this series.
That just leaves the main plot, with Billy, Frenchy, and Mother’s Milk chasing down the ersatz X-23 through the city and Penn Station. We get a little more backstory on the crew. They all worked for someone named Mallory. Lamplighter hurt her and her grandchildren thanks to Frenchy not following orders, which is the source of MM’s beef with him. Billy believes that they’re all “shite” together but, like the Spice Girls, are magical together. It’s all solid character development and exposition delivery in an organic way.
We also get a little more pure plot advancement. The group is working against A-Train, who recognizes that his connect situation is screwed up now, and tries to dispel any investigation so he can engage in a one-man cover-up. It creates enough (fast) moving piece to make the Anti-Supe Squad have to work for their wins, beyond just piecing together the clues that point to X-23’s whereabouts.
My favorite part of this storyline, though, is the intuitive bond Frenchy has with her (or at least the way he empathizes with her). His backstory about being stolen from his mom by his dad, dragged around and abused is heartbreaking. The way he refuses to hurt her but tries to get her to trust him is endearing. For a guy in such a rough line of work, there is, like Maeve, a sense in which he cannot help but care that elevates him a little bit here. I’m intrigued to see how his attempt at friendship with the X-23 analog pays off for the group.
Overall, the way the plot and the characters move in this one is all very good, but the dolphin scene and the plane scene would each be worth the price of admission on their own, albeit for very different reasons.
OMG this show is f***ing awesome!!!
I think my only problem with this episode was the farcical treatment of the end of the Deep-saves-dolphin scene: everything from the van's hard-stop to the ending smear on the road felt like a bad parody (well beyond what the show inherently is), too ridiculous to be real. I get the point that Deep is no planner and screws up when he goes out on his own, but the writers could have worked just a little more to make that piece feel more real and less like a detour into self-parody.
I also have to wonder if, if Deep's apparently real passion-concern for marine life were taken remotely seriously by Vought and the team, maybe he'd be a better hero and less of the jerk they've basically taught him to be (and Vought could even spin it into yet another PR plus if they really wanted to), but that's a whole another thought-experiment.
Otherwise, this episode continues this show's pretty impressive job of stitching together an image of a superhero-populated world (rife with corporatism and politics and PR) whose possibility no one wants to face. Except, maybe, that it still has Spice Girls.
That damn airplane scene is hard to watch. This show is something else so far! Maybe I should buy the comics and read them. Is there a big difference? Anyway, that Dolphin scene made me laugh, sorry.
How do you know so much about The Spice Girls :joy:
Also, The Deep sub-plot was so funny until... :dolphin::boom::truck:
I thoroughly enjoyed that Spice Girls pep-talk, particularly since it was swiftly followed by their Wannabe hit.
Why did no one fix Maeve's wig? You could actually see her hair peeking from under it.
Wow... i just have to say how much I hate The Homelander.
He is an ASS!
Maeve has to do something!! She knows to much!!
She can't he's partners anymore.
Broooooo I really love this series hahah
Wait, who is Butcher with?
What an intro
Susan: "You're really working this one, huh?"
Butcher: "Just being an upstanding citizen, luv."
Hughie: "She's not a bad person."
Butcher: "She's a Supe, Hughie. Just like the fucking rest of them."
The Deep: "So, get this, the dolphins there, I mean, they are really underfed and abused."
Hughie: "He's got a son?"
Homelander: "Take it easy just relax."
Queen Maeve: "What do we do?"
Homelander, carry it
Man, The Deep and Maeve trying so hard to be heroes but they're too weak to fight against the corporation
That's gonna be in Maeve's and my nightmares
Hughie: "You want to quit stroking my ego and show me what you really got?"
Frenchie: "So I know what's it's like to want to go home."
Frenchie: "No. Let me talk to her."
Butcher: "Don't be fucking stupid."
Frenchie: "What if she's a Spice Girl?"
My god, man. This show is bananas. Fricking bananas. This is what superheroes are about, man. This is what the MCU should look at sometimes. Being a hero is hard and in this world, all heroes are discouraged. it's so depressing man but I hope they can get through it. Frick.
Rewatching season one to prepare for season two. That plane scene still gives me chills, man.
The Boys has always been about bringing down superheroes to their mundane, daily lives as ordinary humans--with desires, hopes, anxieties. This episode shows it the best.
We get to see Starlight with Hughie interacting further, A-Train juggling with his addiction and relationship, The Deep with his anxieties about finding purpose in his life, and finally, Homelander, the iconic face of noble superhero, with his cold, irreverent view of strangers, a complete opposite of the corporate brand of "good guy" he always attempts to create. Starlight and Homelander makes a stark contrast here, while Queen Meave seems to tread carefully of this line of about being human with powers. The plane scene was an emotional fuck ups that plays this dynamics quite nicely, albeit in very vulgar way.
This episode has enough tense while still maintaining occasional humor without creating disconnection from the tense it had been building up. The weird part perhaps is the way Frenchie interacts with the girl, as it may seem like it's coming from nowhere. But the rest of the episode is engaging to watch.
Okay, the show was okay at first, BUT NOW ITS AMAZING. The episode had amazing acting, and it shows how brutal and sadistic homelander is.
This show is making me depressed. I don’t usually mind that much seeing awful people doing awful things, but maybe because the Boys is kinda social commentary it aligns too much with reality and that makes the bad things really feel… awful. It’s very effective (the scene in the plane, Jesus Christ) at what it’s trying to do. I still just hope that this is not the only thing this series tries to go for, though. But yeah, this series is a hard watch.
The Boys??
More like... THE (SPICE) GIRLS !!!!
“But together… they’re the goddam fucking spice girls”
that poor dolphin :dolphin::persevere: o jesus
wow that plane scene was absolutely brutal! i said my worry with watching this show is that there'd be a lot of bad things happening because of bad people who don't get punished for it and it'd be hard to watch. i think they probably will get their come-uppance in the end but oof, until then...! i'm not sure quite when i developed enough of a conscience to feel bad about watching bad things happen in a TV show, i used to be totally desensitized... but yeah, i dunno, wow.
i guess i'm invested though because i was super nervous during the whole date scene, i don't want him to mess things up! i hope they eventually tell each other the truth and work together... plz no contrived relationship drama because "you lied to me!" and etc.
Okay, I struggled a bit so far what to think about this mix of Breaking Bad and Superheroes. But this episode really deserves a great rating. Really every single character is extremely well multidimensional. You are torn between hating them and then feeling for them.
What I just don't get is this being described as "dark comedy" I don't find any of this presumably comedic moments funny at all. They are simply terrifyingly shocking. I mean what's funny about a dolphin being run over by a truck? Or a person being turned to a fountain of goo except for her hands? To me the whole series so far is not stage in a comedic way - like for example the British do so incredibly well. Yes there are some humorous moments but generally this is more like a psychological drama.
I struggle to think of a show or film that contained such an amalgam of scenes that each reach such a visceral impact as this single episode.
It ran the gamut from several moments of touchingly human moments that everyone wishes for in life, to hilarious speeches and turns of phrase (mainly from Butcher, but the dialog in this show is diamond-edged), to shocking, gory violence, to one moment that is blood-chilling. Entrenched power is a terrifying thing, especially with popular support.
I've read that the show diverges in most ways from the details of the comic, but, given the characters, as presented, the cast seems amazingly well casted, and work exceedingly well off of one another.
Damn that was mean to make him manifest his ex and she looked pissed too.
Holy shit the cheering on the beach with 100+ people dead out there is so fucked up. Those people should be ashamed
Who got paid to do Maeve’s hair because that wig looks horrible, you could even see a piece of her real hair
What was up with that fly by Bucther? Definitely had to be some meaning behind it
This is just messed up. I'm genuinely disturbed by the cold blooded supes. What's this show really about?
Billy Butcher: What's Sporty Spice up to?
Mother's Milk: Who?
Billy Butcher: Sporty fucking Spice. What is she up to?
Mother's Milk: I don't know.
Billy Butcher: Exactly. How about Posh? You know what she's doing?
Frenchie: I don't understand.
Billy Butcher: Making clothes for anorexics. Right? Not exactly a growth market. And Baby? You know what she's doing? Fuck all. Not even page six of the Daily Mail. And Scary Spice? Up to her eyeballs in lawsuits and sex tapes. Ginger, on the other hand, has released three albums. 'Passion', 'Schizophonic', and 'Scream If You Want To Go Faster'. They'll all make your ears bleed. You see, when they're apart, they're absolute fucking rubbish. But, you put them together... they're the goddamn fucking Spice Girls.
Mother's Milk: How do you know so much about the Spice Girls?
Read more: https://ficquotes.com/quotes/12996/
This is a show of two minds. One with interesting subversions on a dominating genre and the other playing strongly into other tropes that have their own issues.
It’s becomes difficult to reconcile the two at times because the fascist take on Superman and the corporate Justice League is running in direct opposition with a show airing on Amazon that feels to be pushing its shock comedy to the most that analytics will allow. It kind of weird when Homelander’s evils onscreen are less graphic than things were meant to laugh at—but this show wants us to find the over-the-top gore funny while also seeing the hegemony of the Seven as eerie and totalitarian.
I understand all the impulses from a creative standpoint and to a great extent don’t even find all of this as an issue, per se, but I think it’s amazing how much of these “Topics” here could be completely refined. It’s a common tightrope in these satirical pieces where things have to be razor sharp at all times because the show is essentially walking a moral high ground. It’s preachy about how the superhero trend is kind of funky when you unpack it, but it’s perfectly willing to revel in visual delights nearly exclusively available to the genre. It’s chomping at the bit to tackle issues of feminism as it pertains to those characters and the double standards they face societally, despite having barely any women in the above the line positions up to this point in the show (halfway through the first season, by the way) and having Butcher seeming to stalk his ex—methinks this is a bit un-feminist.
Okay. I know that seemed really harsh and perhaps this morning I’m just feeling a bit cynical, but I seem to have similar thoughts about these satirical types of projects each time. It’s something of a can of worms that you open up by turning the knife on yourself and, if you try to do that broadly, it can be particularly tricky. I think The Boys works when it’s dealing with it’s take on corporate mentality and the fascist take on the superhero, but could use a bit more perspective on some of its issues that face less screen time. This might be intentional, though! Perhaps they’re waiting until later episodes (when they do have women in higher up creative positions) to really get their hands dirty. I hope so! And as always, I genuinely hope to be wrong.
Letting a whole plane of people die Homelander? Well that just takes the cake
This show is so damn powerful!
They did the spice girls really dirty!
every time they try to put anti-male propaganda. bad father.., son wanna back to mother...
I laughed so hard when they talked about spice girls!
Given the context and how what Homelander did was probably just because he didn't give a shit or maybe to create a situation to push the "Supes in the military" agenda and get the people to further help, what he did was messed up. But he make some good points as messed up as even thinking about doing that let alone actually doing it is. As for Queen Maeve's part in it, she should've stayed and died with them instead of abandoning them too.
The pep talk. Too funny.
Damn the airplane scene. That was some messed up stuff.
Shout by Reiko LJVIP 6BlockedParent2019-08-17T20:26:43Z
Super effective use of the Spice Girls