Let’s talk about that ‘The Boys’ finale …

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Here’s A BUNCH OF TV News

Alright — I’ve given you time to watch the series finale of The Boys, and I’m ready to talk about it. It’s going to get spoilery up in here, fair warning. If you don’t want to be spoiled, scroll down to the Instagram post by Jimmy Kimmel, and you’ll be safe.

First, a few tidying-up links for you:

And now I’m going to get even more spoilery, so get ready. As for the criticism of the show, if you’re a fan I’m sure you’ve seen some of the conversation on social media. From what I can suss out, these are the biggest complaints:

  1. Oh no, you killed Homelander, the redeemable (anti-)hero of the show!
  2. The final fight between Homelander and Butcher was too small and pathetic. WE WERE PROMISED “SCORCHED EARTH” AND HOMELANDER KILLING MILLIONS!
  3. Homelander deserved to suffer more.
  4. Butcher didn’t deserve his fate because he really wouldn’t have gone through with it.
  5. Naming your baby after an ex is gross.

So about all that:

  1. If you thought Homelander was the hero (or antihero) or that he was redeemable, you’re media illiterate and you might have a fetish for fascism. Homelander’s externally-given powers masked who he was at his core: a pathetic, cowardly baby man whose greatest fear was being treated the way he had treated everyone else in his life. Among many other things, Homelander is a metaphor of the mediocre white man who succeeds in this life not because he’s smarter or better than everyone else, but because he’s been born with the superpower of the patriarchy.
  2. Just go watch a Marvel movie, because The Boys was never going to be that. The Boys was always a parody of superhero movies, and so it was fitting that the final battle was so … small. And it’s fitting that Homelander was denied a glorious death that would have turned him into a martyr.
  3. There have been complaints that Homelander should have been forced to live without his powers for longer, but I’ll let Kripke handle that: “There’s a flaw to that, which is he could just take V again. Just because they take away his powers doesn’t mean that it would be permanent. You can’t actually let him walk out of that room, because he’s just one shot of V away from being back. Then it was all for nothing. But we wanted that experience — we wanted the audience to have a taste of how pathetic this guy is, and weak, once you take away all of his bluster.”
  4. Again, I’ll turn to Kripke to address Butcher and whether or not he was capable of pulling that particular trigger: “What’s great about what Karl did in that scene is that it’s open to interpretation. I have my own opinion, and maybe I should not share them as much. But I 100 percent believe he would have done it. But I think the fail-safe he’s built into his life from the pilot is Hughie. He very specifically brought Hughie on because he doesn’t trust his own impulses, and he needs someone to be check his sociopathy, and that he’s a good enough person to know that he’s not a good person. So I think this is Hughie fulfilling the role he’s been destined to play since the pilot. But I agree with you: Butcher is a shark, and he wasn’t going to stop, but there was a part of him that’s aware he needed to be stopped.”
  5. No, yeah, I agree with that one.

There is one criticism of The Boys finale that I begrudgingly agree with, from Vulture’s Roxana Hadadi, in which she argues that in the show, Butcher wasn’t made nearly evil enough to earn his death. She compares the show’s finale to the comic’s ending, in which it is revealed that (SPOILER FOR THE COMICS): behind the backs of his allies, Butcher had been plotting an elaborate scheme to kill all the supes and he kills Mother’s Milk, Frenchie, and the Female (Kimiko) when they try to stop him. Hughie killing Butcher is, like in the show, out of fear of who Butcher has become, but also an act of revenge for killing their friends. The point is, Butcher in the comics is plainly irredeemably evil, he’s never going to stop, and there’s no pulling him back from the brink.

However, in the show, she points out that Butcher is kinda right about the supes:

The problem with that framing, though, was that a lot of the time, Butcher turned out to be right. Butcher was supposed to be a warning, a sign of how lost we could become if we used the tools of the enemy against them. But The Boys played the supes for humor, disgust, and shock value, and more often than not, they were worth reviling. Some of them objected to Homelander, but more of them went along with him, offering themselves in service of a world in which they would rule. As the series shook off most of the original comic books’ critique of the American military-industrial complex and leaned into Vought as a company built on Nazi ideology and Homelander as a Trump-like figure, whatever equivalency Homelander and Butcher were supposed to have became increasingly facile. Even when suped-up Butcher did awful things like kill Victoria Neumann, how could that really compare to Homelander staging a coup, taking over the country, opening internment camps for thousands of Americans who disagreed with him, trying to murder his own son, and killing his lover Firecracker and longtime Boys member Frenchie? How to weigh those on the same scale?

She kinda has a point, though.

What did you think of the finale? Let me know in the comments!

 

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Jimmy Kimmel doesn’t have time for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s bullshit. 

Lisa Rinna gets it.

#MeToo

As noted a couple of weeks ago, Hayden Pantierre has recently written a book about her life growing up in Hollywood, and the horrors she faced as a young starlet. One of those stories involved her essentially being pimped out to some British singer-songwriter on a yacht. Another involved an Oscar-winner flashing her his testicles. Or how she had to make out with a 20-something actor when she was 13. All of which are perfectly believable stories — if even relatively innocuous ones, frankly. So explain to me why people are out here accusing her of making them up to sell books? OH RIGHT, MISOGYNY.

The head of Channel 4 has apologized to the women from Married at First Sight who allege they were sexually abused while filming the series. However, she insists the accused men can not be investigated by their network; that’s the police’s job. She also insists the show has not been canceled.

A former Love Island U.K. contestant wrote about the Married at First Sight scandal as someone who has lived in the reality bubble. She suggests what reality dating shows need to do to fix their growing abuse problem: a group independent from production that would monitor safety and welfare while filming takes place, and also screens potential contestants’ social media presences for red flags. HEY, ABC, AND BACHELOR PRODUCERS: ARE Y’ALL LISTENING? BECAUSE THIS JUST MAKES SENSE. AND GOD KNOWS YOU COULD USE THE HELP.

The investigation into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is expanding into financial crimes and potentially espionage.

Speaking of, Jeffrey Epstein’s former assistant Sarah Kellen has accused the former mayor of Miami Beach, Philip Levine, of sexually abusing her, as well as fashion photographer Patrick Demarchelier, and hairdresser Frédéric Fekkai. Fekkai has denied the allegations.

Everything about this is note-perfect. Trust me, watch to the end.

 

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If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673), which routes the caller to their nearest sexual assault service provider. You can also search for your local center here. 

Renewals

In Development

  • The Ambassador, a comedy starring Samantha Bee, has been greenlit at CBC in Canada.

Casting News

  • Wil Wheaton will guest star in Stuart Fails to Save the Universe on HBO Max.

Mark Your Calendars

  • Calabasas Confidential debuts on Netflix on May 29.
  • AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to Eddie Murphy will debut on Netflix on May 31.
  • Norway: The Dark Horse premieres on Netflix on June 9.
  • The Ribbon Hero debuts on Netflix on August 8.

R.I.P.

Sonny Rollins, Legendary jazz musician

Manny Fernandez, Super Bowl-winning NFL player

WATCH THIS

Frontline: The War Cabinet: A look at the players behind the current administration’s expansive (excessive) use of the military. Hey, remember when he campaigned on not starting wars? BECAUSE I DO. 9 p.m., PBS

Saltburn: Every time I hear “Murder on the Dance Floor,” I think of this wicked little movie. 7:57 p.m., HBO Hits East

Late Night:

  • Jimmy Kimmel Live: Emily Blunt, José Andrés

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