Smad

So what you're saying is HL is still winning and/or living to see another day? Yes that's just like the previous 2 Seasons. The only difference is now he's in complete control, has a cult and the VP (and soon to be President probably) in his pocket. Which means there is no way to beat him. The only way to beat HL is by killing him and they wasted their best shot. I have no interest in Ryan the plot device eventually turning on daddy and being the big hitter or some nonsense that takes HL down. But in essence the situation is the same as before, HL is alive. So no change there. I acknowledged that he probably has racism in him just by the fact that he was born beginning of the 20th century when things were very different. And considering he lived up to the 80's before he was frozen, there is probably not much that changed. What was missing however were hints in live action current time. This show constantly mentions HL's and Butcher's racism, we got Blue Hawk's and of course Stormfront's. This show doesn't pass up opportunities to blatantly point out a character's racism so the audience can be 100% sure they are a racist. But there was nothing of that with SB in present time. HL is the biggest racist on the show. Even more than Stormfront. First there is his racism against ALL humans. He talks about supes being a different breed and above the 'mud people'. Then you have his more familiar racism (aka racism that is more in line with what exists in our world). He made cracks about Latinos and Muslims and probably some more I can't recall. And then there is his distaste for people with deformities/disabilities (disgusted at Deep's gills and wanting him to cover them up, disgusted at the thought of the blind Blindspot joining The 7). And of course his need for everyone to perfect specimen (aka body shaming A-Train). Hilariously, while people will endlessly talk about Blue Hawk's, Stormfront's and even SB's racism, you never see people talk about HL's or even Butcher's (who is racist against all supes). I find that weird honestly.

The actress was always doing such a great job with the small things. One of my favorites was her constantly fiddling with the bracelet on her right lower arm because that was the arm that didn't heal right after she broke it stopping the bus. She's been doing that since S1. In this episode my fave was the literal sneer she had as soon as she saw Hughie. That was funnier to me than her 'it's like you have a neon sign...'.

Supposedly it was COVID and travel restrictions etc. for this Season. Oh God that was painful. For one, Anni is still useless in terms of superpowers. So what the hell? She didn't even fly, she hovered. Apparently even her power up can't blind people anymore, so that power up is even weaker than her normal powers. Not to mention that unlike Maeve, SL never trains her powers or fighting skills so there will never be an improvement. And as you said, it takes credit away from Maeve herself. She got sober on her own, planted fake rumors about herself to disguise her training and was Butcher's inside woman, sending them on their path for the Season because she wanted HL dead. Annie had absolutely nothing to do with any of that. Sure the woman seemed downright suicidal but if she can do the world a solid by taking HL down with her, she will. The whole thing sounded like a fluff piece to promote Annie but nothing we have seen on screen this Season backed that up. Never ever do 'tell, don't show'. It's the worst storytelling. You 'show, don't tell'.

Supernatural in a nutshell. Wonder if Kripke ever watched that show and took inspiration from there.

Really the only two good things in this episode... 1) Maeve getting the hell out of there 2) A-Train's brother telling him to go to hell When will movie/tv show makers learn to have someone on staff for these superhero things that just deals with power skaling and how that would look in a fight? You have Meave and Homelander, two of the 3 strongest supes, exchanging blows and the worst it does is dent filing cabinets. Last Season when Noir fought Starlight, he literally threw her through a wall and a freaking pillar and hit her with a collapsed pillar. If Maeve misses her punch it shouldn't dent a filing cabinet, it should go through the cabinet and the wall behind it.

The obvious way to go IMO with this show to keep it both interesting and to keep the characters from being static: de-power Homelander, have him gain his powers back at the end of S4, end S4 in an epic battle in which HL finally dies. The big bad of S5 (and final Season IMO) should have been Butcher. That to me was always the obvious final big boss, if you will.

Well reading some of Kripke's post show interviews (or snippets of them anyway), the reason they didn't kill off Maeve was because she was LGBTQ+. And the reason she is removed from the show, for now anyway, is because they want Starlight to be without her guardian angel. Thanks, I hate it all.

There are conflicting rumors about that. Vought HQ reported months ago she was retiring from acting to go to med school. Other sources said she was leaving due to her being unable to work with Anthony Starr. Neither the first nor second rumor was ever confirmed by anyone. Then there is video of DM at a con (I haven't watched it myself) where she mentions S4. So basically right now, no one knows anything for sure.

I'm not optimistic at all. On top of the Ryan news, finding out that the S3 Finale was written by guys who have never written for The Boys (and one of them has never written PERIOD), this show is going to peter out. Why join Netflix and Marvel in hiring people who have no experience in writing?

On this show it's the absolute worst you can possibly do.This show prides itself on it's adult language, violence, nudity and all around adult content. Putting a kid in the middle of that is going to tone the show down whenever he is around. Especially when you make him the freaking focal point now. It's going to be a lot of choppy action if he's involved in it, instead of the direct carnage we usually see. Basically it will be like the end of S2. Didn't we all want to see Stormfront deep fry? If Ryan hadn't been there, we absolutely would have gotten that. Instead we get laser eyes, intense light and boom..cut to SF on the ground. And then there is the language. They might get away with a 'c***' a Season but beyond that? They will not be allowed to so much strong language around the kid nor have the kid use it. This is going to neuter the show's gimmicks for which most people come to watch it. And with the writing seeming to get worse every Season, this is a really bad idea. Also I thought the point of the show was to KILL HOMELANDER (and really get rid of all supes), so we are going to stretch this out, YET AGAIN, via a plot device known as Ryan? And if they were going to do this, at least get a better kid actor.

In S1 Annie lashed out once against Maeve when she was drunk. But that was after Maeve apologized to her so that was weird. At the end of S2 I was annoyed when Maeve saved her yet again and SL came begging for more. Then she went to Maeve again this Season when she was trying to build her hero team to fight HL. But SL never did anything for Maeve in return. Always taking, never giving. In this Season SL could have paid her back by actually trying to look for her once HL captured Maeve. But nah, all she did was ask Ashley once and if Maeve wasn't such a badass, SL's constant social media postings about Maeve would have gotten her moved to an even more obscure and harder to find location. She was literally right there the whole time in the tower. And then said Maeve wasn't a hero for prioritizing HL over SB. Screw SL, have fun getting out of jams now that your guardian angel is gone. I actually think it's a nice payback (not if any innocent get killed though) that Maeve threw that bottle out there which definitely will have consequences for SL.

Not to mention it undercuts the whole 'Kimiko takes V for good reasons' and 'Huhgie takes V for the wrong reasons' that Kripke himself has remarked on. Did some people forget the flashback we saw with Payback? Hilariously we saw everyone except SB (and Noir I think) killing Mallory's people. The only people we saw SB fighting were those that actually attacked him. Even in the short cartoon Noir flashback, SB only killed enemy soldiers. If we trust the Noir flashbacks, then SB was a great A a-hole to his team. But lets not act as if the rest of them were some innocent lemmings. If they were that vain, crumbling under pressure, dumb and untrained...the must have left a lot of collateral in their wake. The current 7 are nothing to write home about. Deep is to dumb to actually go homicidal but he is a multiple rapist and if left unchecked would get the entire ocean sea life killed. A-Train will get rid or help get rid of anyone who stands in his way of being on top. Noir apparently should be brought up on war crimes. Translucent stalks women and apparently underaged girls, whether at home or at the OBGYN. We never see Maeve do anything but one could argue that her letting it all of this happen and just standing by is enabling all this evil. Disagree on Maeve. She had the most thankless role on this show. When she wasn't a chew toy for Homelander, she was delivery girl for Butcher and Starlight's guardian angel. And she never got anything out of that for herself. They literally had nothing for her to do except save Annie's ass every freaking Season. End of S1 she saved SL, end of S2 she saved SL and came to help the team against Stormfront/HL. And in this Season Finale it happened again. SL is useless, the boys screwed everything up so SL gives Maeve puppy dog eyes and Maeve has to sacrifice herself. Funniest thing in this Finale, Maeve saying SL doesn't need her anymore because she leveled up in power. When even with a power up SL was more useless than Maeve. So I'm glad she got out and hopefully stays out.

That's no excuse. So many ways they could have gotten Ryan out since there were plenty people to grab him and go. Including Hughie taking V and porting. All Payback members were shit stains. All supes we have seen are shit stains. They only vary in degrees and some are less of a shit than others. But other than SL, they are scum. Or at least those who get any fame are one degree of shit or another. Reminds me of the aftermath of Sam's decisions in S4 of Supernatural. The global death toll by the time the end of S5 comes around...phew. Or the refusal to close the gates of hell (though that wasn't on Kripke's watch).

I don't care about the actor in this regard. But the failure of the writers. SB seemed to be no worse than every other supe we have seen with the exception of Starlight and the younger supes (like Sonic and the other ones auditioning this Season). But the supes who climbed the ladder are all awful. If the goal was the Finale, where everyone decides to team up against SB instead of HL, then SB should have been established as worse than HL. And that's I think the problem most here (and elsewhere) have, the writing doesn't support this in any way. If they tried to make him overtly racist, they also failed. SB held Cosby (who is black) in high esteem. But he also bashed Noir in particular, supposedly because he was black. I'm confused here. Is he racist or not? Stormfront/Liberty. But at least she is dead. And wasn't there a reference at the beginning of the Season to something Noir did that he should be brought up on war crimes for?

I just assumed he meant generally. I mean every person he killed presumably had a family. And whether he killed someone in a fight or he left collateral damage behind, there is usually more than one person attached. Maybe he also even killed entire families, directly or indirectly. I never saw it as racial so much as 'there is a long bloody list buddy, which one are you referring to?'.

Same with the gay couple. He just looks at them openly walking down the street and is like 'what the hell?' and shrugs his shoulders. The only thing he expressed strongly in terms of his views is how he feels that men today are *pussy-fied* when he watched that commercial with Hughie.

I don't remember him showing remorse for killing anyone. He didn't show remorse for killing Latinos either. Or when MM said he killed his family and he just said 'which one?' all cocky. There were enough scenes to show he didn't care about collateral damage, no matter the skin color of the people. Except the problem is, they then have him being haunted (even if just initially) when he gets triggered and accidentally blows up that building. So we have a guy who is a shit to his own team (if Noir's flashbacks and the words of the rest of Payback can be believed) and who in the field is a hothead causing collateral. But he doesn't seem to be down for killing just because outside of the battlefield (or what he perceives as such) and revenge on his own team. The writing seems confused here which isn't helped by the lack of exploration of his actual background and character.

What a golden opportunity this show passed up. The Season should have ended with a depowered HL but who escaped. HL having to live as an ordinary human would have been such an interesting story. Doubly fun since he would have to remain off the grid as he is one of the most recognizable faces on the planet. If he shows his face somewhere, it would be all over the news and The Boys would go after him. Basically he would have to be underground the same way The Boys have been while trying to find a way to get his powers back. If they wanted to keep Ryan relevant, they could have gotten him out with his powers intact. So once HL gets frustrated he makes a ploy to go after his son. Maybe to try and get blood from Ryan to either see if it can give him his powers back or to engineer a new V out of him. Maybe HL would have to form his own version of The Boys which should not be that hard considering how many fanatical fans he has. Plus some people in high level positions would probably sign on for it for their own gain. This would be a much more believable way to stretch out the show than the nonsense they just pulled.

I don't even see the massive collateral damage here. Sure whoever is still in the tower and maybe people on the street getting hit by the tower pieces falling on the street. And maybe even The Boys, their allies, HL, SB and Ryan. That's still the much better option than letting HL live to go nuclear. Now that HL can murder fellow countrymen and a lot of people are a-ok with that, what's stopping this 'America First' guy from flying into another country, lasering the entire government and causing civil unrest/war as a consequence. Just for shits and giggles. Because unlike SB, HL can easily do that in a few minutes. And take his son along to show him that gods can do whatever they want. Speaking of Ryan, his character change makes little sense. Sure he flip-flopped last Season but he was uneasy about HL's 'we are gods' crap, became increasingly uneasy especially with Stormfront (the woman HL dated and whom was killing his mother) and who chose Butcher when HL came on the scene covered head to toe in blood. Earlier this Season he was talking about not even wanting to get a puppy for fear of hurting it. This boy now has no problem with daddy killing people just because? What? I think the most people can agree on, is that SB was a shitty human being. Basically he was a cocky SOB with the mindset from when he was born/raised (including the racism, sexism, toxic masculinity etc.). But beyond that, we get second hand backstory on him. How much can we trust Noir's memories of him? Noir has cartoon characters in his head for crying out loud. I don't doubt that he treated his teammates like shit, an entire team turning on him doesn't come from nowhere. But where are the neutral flashbacks? We get brain damaged Noir's POV, MM's POV (and we never find out why SB threw that car into his house) and Soldier Boy's POV. I can't say anything about the character other than he's a shitty person because the show didn't do a good job in telling his story. It certainly didn't show any reason for why they all focused so heavily on him rather than HL whose crazy, apocalyptic evil we have watched unfold for 3 Seasons. I as a viewer have been given no reason why I should be rooting for The Boys to take out SB rather than HL.

What the hell was that? No seriously, what the hell was that? Was the point of this Season to make me root for SB and HL? SB might be a crap human but he kept his eyes on the prize and honored the deal he had. Not to mention he only caused massive collateral damage when triggered. The only other person who had their priorities right was Meave and I'm glad she got out (unbelievable as her surviving that fall might be). Sure, her tossing the nerve gas out there in a Starlight bottle will cause problems but I don't care really. The boys and their allies deserve all that's coming for them. The fact that they thought SB was a bigger problem than HL is just so balls to the wall dumb...I just can't. HL is an 'apocalyptic level' threat to the entire planet and they all know this. He literally made that clear to both Butcher and SL during the Season. His son, if left to be raised by HL, will be on that same level. Did they all acquire collective brain damage or something? And I'm rooting now for HL to kill all these idiots on sight. Butcher is the biggest hypocrite who constantly berates people for their personal connections and how nothing is more important than killing HL but when it comes to a personal connection for him, he doesn't follow through. Not to mention that they could have gotten Ryan out of there. On top of that, wouldn't the kid be happier if he was depowered and finally able to live a normal life? Apparently The Boys rather have him be the next HL instead. Starlight has been freaking useless as a supe for the entirety of the show, even when she levels up like this episode she's useless. These freaking morons have made it so their two strongest allies (Maeve and SB) are out of the picture while at the same time letting HL continue on and double team with the kid who is supposed to become even stronger than HL. Hughie could have risked his life and taken temp V (or even take regular V) and port everyone out of there (especially oh so precious Ryan) before SB's blast goes off. Great freaking job guys, I hope HL lasers you all. Also what was the point of this Season? It's like it was complete filler. Noir could have died of almond joy. Maeve could have left after the video threat. Victoria could have become VP off screen. A-Train and Deep contribute nothing to the plot. Stan Edgar losing his position due to Compound V becoming public knowledge and employing a Nazi. The Boys are screwed. And on and on it goes...literally nothing in this Season changed anything.

The irony being that if Vought had cultivated the Starlights rather than the Homelanders, they would have achieved everything they wanted. They would have their supes in the armed forces, V as a product would be a great seller, less collateral damage, actual heroes, much less shit to clean up via PR spin and you don't create something like Butcher and The Boys. Basically they would have had a much easier time. For the dirty work they can still have black ops teams or something.

Exactly. Exploring toxic masculinity should should be done through the characters where it actually applies. For example the likes of SB, HL and Butcher. Hughie's story should be about the person having run from confrontation his whole life (verbal and physical) and who everyone saw as meek and bullied and what happens when they suddenly come into power. And what that power can do to a person like that, the good and the bad.

Except it's not the reason they stayed. Fenchie said 'Butcher is everyone's problem now. We're here to help.' And frankly it doesn't matter what they do. Supes or Little Nina, they are screwed either way. So why not make your dream come true, even if it's an illusion or you always have to look over your shoulder. Heck even if they leave and the boat or plane they are on gets taken out, at least they tried. I rather they die like that than just dying without even making an attempt. Sure both options (staying or going and dying) are nihilistic but at least they made a choice for themselves that was just about them. In the end though it doesn't matter, no happy endings on this show.

Kripke should have paid attention to Dumb&Dumber and their 'Inside the Episode' fiasco. Sometimes it's best to just not talk. Except the show seems to be all about nihilism all the time. No one ever scores a win except the bad guys. The bad guys aren't going anywhere so the status quo stays the same. The characters are becoming stale and stagnant. The ones who retain their morality and humanity are being poo-pooed by a lot of people (the current Hughie vs Annie debate is crazy...it's Walter White vs Skyler basically) and that's the show's fault. Maybe they didn't intend for their show to be received that way but here we are. Kimiko and Frenchie are a perfect example of this. They have rung the 'unhappy ending' bell the minute they talked about their future plans. Because as much as this show likes to call out real world issues and clichés, they still end up falling into that trap a lot. There hasn't been a single win or 'light at the end of the tunnel' moment that hasn't been immediately reversed. When they continuously have Frenchie and Kimiko decide to stay instead of doing what's right for themselves, that's the cliché right there. The show could have bucked the trend and have them leave together once Kimiko lost her powers. But they don't because both are beloved characters and are needed for the plot. At the very least they could have had Kimiko permanently loose her powers but that was never going to happen either because The Boys need people with powers on their side.

I wonder why they don't constantly carry around something that makes extreme noise. They did it last Season and it worked against HL and Ryan due to super hearing. And the bonus is that it's at a frequency that doesn't bother those with normal hearing. Crank that up even more and build a portable version. So when you face off against HL, you got something that can distract him. I really hate when shows do that. Dumb characters down and make them forget essential things for plot purposes.