Comic Book Cinema
The Boys Season 4 Review
[MUSIC] >> Welcome to the most must see comic book movie content on the interwebs delivered to you by every woman's fantasy. Jonathan May, this is Comic Book Cinema. [MUSIC] >> Full disclosure, The Boys is my all time favorite superhero show. In seasons one through three, it was always obvious that Homelander was written and designed to be a comparison to Donald Trump. But at least there were jabs thrown at both sides of the political spectrum. >> Perfectly balanced, this whole thing should be. >> The United States of America unfortunately isn't so united these days. Making political statements in entertainment is always a risky proposition. As you could piss off or alienate, half of your audience. Well, that's arguably what The Boys season four has done. Recently, one of their show runners has been quoted saying, I clearly have a perspective and I'm not shy about putting that perspective in the show. Anyone who wants to call the show woke or whatever, that's okay. Go watch something else. But I'm certainly not gonna pull any punches or apologize for what we're doing. Then the interview asked, some people who watch it think that Homelander is the hero. What do you say to that? Then the show runner responded again, this show is many things. Subtle isn't one of them. So if that's the message you're getting, I just throw my hands up. Aren't all good supervillains supposed to think they're right and be misunderstood? Thanos and Vader come to mind. Of course you can go the Heath Ledger Joker route. >> Some men just wanna watch the world burn. >> But that's clearly not what they've done with Homelander. He has some redeemable qualities and is charming in his own way. The funniest thing to me is that these writers and creatives over at Amazon have all the power in their camera lenses and pins. They give us this character that is clearly a satire on Donald Trump. They do everything in their power to make him unlikable and yet there is still a huge portion of the audience that gravitates towards this character. >> Come on, I do not want to miss Smash Mouth. >> The politics have certainly been turned up to 11 this season. No matter how unsettled the director says they have always been. Seasons one through three were a little more even across the board and perhaps a little more tolerable to some that might be easily offended. I'm personally not easily offended. The politics and/or agendas, however you want to look at it, in this season weren't enough to ruin the season for me personally. In fact, I still had a good time once again. Although it was clearly established in an earlier season that Frenchie was by. It felt very out of left field to see this character just abandon the love of his life to go have a gay fling with someone that he killed their family. This felt more like Amazon trying to check boxes as opposed to servicing or furthering their story. By the end of the season, Frenchie and Camico are back together, of course. But he won't abandon her again in season five for another dude. Homelander continues to become slowly but surely more unhinged. Butcher is dying because of the temp V that he injected into himself in the last season. He continues to struggle with the voices in his head which get a name and a face this season. Brought to us by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, AKA the comedian, AKA Negan. Aaron Moriordi and Laus Alonzo, the actors that play mother's milk and starlight, look noticeably different this season. Aaron Moriordi recently underwent plastic surgery which has become a prevalent and controversial topic among the fandom. And the 50 year old Laus Alonzo lost a significant amount of weight before filming this season and also shaved most of his beard which led some fans to wonder if he had been recasted. In true the boy's fashion we got some extremely uncomfortable bits this season. The guy rimming all the duplicates of himself and the sex torture scene involving Huey comes to mind. I know that there are some people that have some very odd sexual fantasies but surely there can't be people this weird in the world right. I mean what we got with this web weaver slash Huey stuff where he goes down in the dungeon it is just so over the top and I'm sure that that's what they're going for here in the show. But I kept thinking to myself surely people aren't this weird right. Right. Weird. Weird. Speaking of Huey this character was really put through the ringer this season with the traumatic death of his father which was really well done I might add. They made Simon pegs scary and that's no easy feat to pull off. A train finally leaves the dark side and helps the boys out this season. We also get a very powerful moment when he saves mother's milk's life with the simple shot of a kid smiling at him and this is the perfect example of how you can accomplish so much with so little if it's done right. Overall I do think that this is probably the weakest season of the boys but it doesn't change my rankings for the show as a whole. On a scale from zero to ten zero being unwatchable and ten being perfect I had this show still ranked at a nine but if I had to rank this season by itself like I said it is the weakest season that I've seen in my personal opinion so far it would probably be at a 6.5. The ending of the show was massive. Camico talks for the first time as Frenchie gets taken away. All of our protagonists get taken away from what we can see except for Starlight who is able to escape. It was also cool to see them bring back that Magneto esque figure that they introduced I think at the end of season two and finally have that post credit pay off in some form. It certainly sets up a very intriguing final season from the boys and I personally can't wait to see what goes down. What are your thoughts? Do you think the show is too political? Do you think the show is not political enough? Maybe you think that I have the worst take ever. Let me know in the comments below. If you're listening to us on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon Music, we thank you. Check us out on our other socials, we're on TikTok, we're on Instagram, you can pretty much find us anywhere. Until next time, thanks for watching. [MUSIC]