Aithne

Oh wow. That would get a huge amount of criticism, but I would sort of love it - a way to give them what they should have had all along, before Chuck and his minions started mucking around with them. Especially if they confirm the other universe still exists as an AU, so they aren't retconning Sam's kid out of existence, just creating a different possibility.

I wish people said stuff like this about shows with only strong male characters. The amount of Gary Stus we'd be complaining about would be astronomical.

So y'all see what JA commented on the pic of KU and JQ? Looks like he might be back sooner than expected!

JA was terrific in the role. I get the impression SB has something to do with the show's endgame (he only gets introduced midway through the season to be put on ice again at the end? Definitely have future plans for the guy), and I thought they gave him quite a bit to work with in terms of complexity, which is why people can argue how much of a villain he really was based on actual written lines and concepts rather than just JA's considerable talents. (Ie, he has little control over the beam and legit wouldn't have wanted to kill the civilians in midtown, he was right about the priest and nun, he kept faith with Butcher, he had self-awareness about his own shortcomings.) I think Kripke knew more of what he was getting with JA this time around, and knew he could handle the complexity with deftness, charm, and also darkness. The entire show is about extremely grey individuals, and SB is no different.

Yeah, I'm still mulling over that scene with Kimiko killing the Vought lackeys. It doesn't bother me that much from the perspective of "there were contractors on the Death Star" or whatever, and I don't think she was being gleeful in the killing (she was serious once she got to work, I think she was just trying to find some sort of pleasure through music to get her through a tough thing, like some people do for workouts). The thing I'm mulling over is her overkill on the second dead guard, where she was slashing his face and slamming him into the floor. Everything else was efficient, and then the moment she thinks everyone's dead, she goes nuts on this guy. Was she remembering her last fight, and the emotions from that that have propelled her to accept the V back? It was reminiscent of that, but this time instead of being called back to reality by Frenchie telling her it was over, she was called back by seeing him about to get shot. And I just don't really know why that's part of the scene if we weren't supposed to find it troubling. Why would it have such specific consequences (ie, the one thing that she accepted her powers back to prevent) if it was just supposed to look cool? I don't know, I feel like this might be a recurring issue for her (getting into a rage/bloodlust). It was a problem for her in S2 as well, and it was sort of brushed under the rug (when she voluntarily hired herself out for hits to vent the rage she felt about her brother's death). But it seems like it's a key part of her psychology (maybe not surprising, all things considered) that has the potential to be a real problem down the line. But yeah, I am not terribly excited about the fight for Ryan's soul either - it's not that I know how it's gonna end or that it's predictable or whatever. I just need a break from the relentless focus on Homelander.

I totally understand that POV. It's a show that indulges a lot of what Kripke enjoys in terms of blood and guts (I'm sure he wishes he could've done more of it on his actual horror show), which definitely isn't for everyone. It's funny, because there was another board where I was discussing this show, there's a vocal group that's just obsessed with Homelander, but I agree with you - I think the actor's great, but if the character died tomorrow, I'd be totally ready to move on from him. I think sometimes that I watch the show wrong, because the two that I really obsess over (akin to my Dean love in SPN, want to check out other things their actors are in etc), are Frenchie and Kimiko, and they're the least connected to the plot. 😆

And yet Cas grew stubble, haha. So inconsistent. JA looked gorgeous with the wild hair - that scene where SB is back in the states and looking around at everything and is just like wtf, he's so pretty. But I think they were going for a soldiers bonding in a foxhole vibe with him and Benny, so the mountain man look was not to be.

Haha, I think it's just referencing that he mentions he'd love to do other things in the superhero genre.

Great thread! So I'm a big fan of The Boys - I think it lets Kripke get as sophomoric and wild as he wanted to be without all the restrictions on SPN (network and also just tonally speaking). So of course, Soldier Boy is fresh in my mind. I was pretty impressed with JA's contribution to the show. Without getting into spoilers, I thought he created a character who was believably the top dog of his day, with all the assumptions and beliefs of that time period, yet meshing seamlessly with the existing cast. The last three episodes were all fantastic from him in one way or another, from the to his in ep 7, to everything about the finale. Not a trace of Dean Winchester to be found, even when I expected it. Compelling and distinct and just very well done. I do wish

https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/the-boys-jensen-ackles-soldier-boy-dean-winchester-1235307355/ I like JA's take on this, because there were a number of times that other characters tried to taunt Dean with this notion that he was desperate for John's approval, that he couldn't live up to him, etc. JA lays out what I think we always saw in the performance - that Dean idolized what he perceived as his dad's heroism, but he's not chasing John's approval. It's not a SB-esque thing, where he doesn't feel good enough. It's more of a positive thing - born of respect rather than insecurity. That's why his perceived failures haunt him as much as they do - because he was accustomed to bring relied upon and trusted with (too much, for his age) responsibility. He believed he should be able to handle anything and everything, and if he slipped, it was that much more egregious for being unexpected.

If that's the case, what's with the "If you say anything, you're dead" look that she shot the analytics gal afterward?

May he never shut it again. :) He and Kimiko are this series' Dean Winchester for me, haha, I could write long and detailed treatises on what I find so fascinating about them if we had character threads.

I agree with this. Don't get me wrong - I love the Annie and MM dynamic, and the Frenchie/Kimiko story was aces in my opinion - great character exploration with solid grounding in previous seasons. What they did with these 4 will make the team dynamics richer next year. The enjoyment I felt in that last scene seeing MM tease Annie lightly about cleanliness (contrast with his irritability at the beginning of the season about using plates), and Frenchie finally at ease in spearheading their new egalitarian dynamic (contrast with his brooding in S2 about Butcher being missing and not having called) - good, good stuff, and it came from the team's fragmentation. They're going to be a more cohesive and proactive group now, which should be great to watch. But. What would the story have been like if it wasn't so fragmented? How would SB have interacted with the rest of the team if we weren't on our little Caucasian males-only adventure into traditional gender stereotypes and how we eventually reject them because they're not in our nature or out of love for someone else? The story isolated the Soldier Boy plotline basically as soon as he woke up, and I think it could've been really fun to explore the dynamics if it had been done differently.

Hopefully it's just one of multiple plot threads. Taking out Neumann is gonna have to occupy a lot of the team's attention too, I think.

Agree completely. I assume they must have something much better in mind, because this really seemed like the logical way to go.

I'm afraid that they might. It has largely become The Homelander Show, and as delightful as AS is in the role, he's wearing thin for me as the villain who is never really in danger from anyone.

Yeah, I'm baffled by that choice. Kripke used to write the season openers and finales for SPN himself, and they were always killer. Why leave your most important episode of the season in the hands of a total newbie and a newbie to the show?

What would've helped would've been a line or two about what goes into making it. I'm a biologist, not a chemist, so I don't know what the language would be. But if I were to be talking about a deadly virus, I could say something like "it's not hard to propagate from a technical perspective, you just need x cell line and cell culture equipment you'd find in any lab. The problem would be containment and making sure I don't die, so we'll need a BSL-4." or something along those lines. Doubtful that they'd be allowed to legit discuss how to make it on TV, but even a few lines establishing that it is surprisingly simple to make with a few common organic pesticides or whatever it is, and the challenge is actually (containment, not dying while you're working with it, stability, whatever) which they'd address by doing it at Vought with proper PPE etc. could've eased my mind there. And of course, disabling the cameras to give them more time before the guards came storming in, having Kimiko take the fight outside the lab to buy more time before he gets shot, etc. Establishing that they'd need even 20-30 min could have been more believable to the audience (regardless of whether the actual IRL procedure takes 3 minutes or 3 hours). I read that the writer for this episode was new, but really, the rest of the team should've tightened these things up before approval.

Frenchie remains the best. Start that union, you beautiful socialist. It won't surprise you that I totally agree about Kimiko. She was written SO WEIRDLY in this episode, from getting violent with Frenchie about the coke (where did that even come from?) to being so elated about getting to kill these guards that she kept putting in her earbuds and bouncing.while they were already shooting at them. If someone had gotten off a headshot early, Frenchie and their chances to get the neurotoxin synthesized could've been toast, because she was prepping to dance. So, so OOC for the Kimiko I've seen this season that I'm kind of at a loss for what to say about it. Literally the only things that made sense for her this ep were the mon couer speech and her acceptance of Annie onto the team. Very thrown off by what they did with her this ep.

It would be so satisfying to see her get some shots in on Homelander, after everything. Maybe he'll be softened up enough by *handwaves* whatever... Butcher, novichok... that she can get some of her own back.

I think Hughie started out just wanting to be useful. But he's a human who's lived in society - he can't help but internalize some things, even if he generally rejects them under normal conditions. And the taste of power that he got (blissing out healing while Kimiko was dying, getting to punch A Train, and being able to hang with Butcher and SB) did eventually push him to a place where he challenges his girlfriend on why she gets to be stronger than him when she seems to threaten his newfound strength. (It reminds me of a moment between the partners in True Detective S3, if anyone's watched - the "I want you to know I'm thinking it." - very different circumstances, but the same thing about the white guy defaulting to his social power when hurt by someone who society has told him should be lower, even when he's lived his whole life in an egalitarian way.) He was influenced by the people he was with, by the power he didn't want to give up. And it only took him an episode to reject it, which shows us that, once again, Hughie is our audience stand-in, dabbling in the thrill of being a Butcher or a SB, but too moral at the end of the day to embrace it.

This is great! I agree with all the Kimiko parallels, of course. There's differences (she never had a John-like figure in her life, who had such a major impact on how Dean developed), but if Dean and Sam had ended up totally alone, I could see Dean becoming very much like Kimiko. Ultimately she longs for home and family and love, much like Dean, she can be vengeful and violent, but is also compassionate toward those who need help. The Benny-Frenchie parallels you lay out are interesting - I can see it in terms of a friend who accepts you as you are (there are a few other parallels, if you squint - drug abuse / blood addiction, vengeful former bosses), and I think it's maybe the closest thing that Dean would've accepted. I think an immediate, relentless investment in Dean's personal well-being like Frenchie had for Kimiko would've freaked him right out. 😂

It's possible we have a type, haha. (But this time I'm a diehard bibro - amazing how two people being mutually invested in each other will do that!). But yeah, Kripke has a history of being too general / flippant, etc., which I think a lot of new fans of his through this show also discovered with his comments about Hughie. I kind of wave off his comments these days.

Yeah, I don't know if Kimiko's perception of herself ties into Kripke's comment about compound V - he's also said that she's being selfless in accepting it back, so clearly he doesn't think she's a monster. I think the monster thing is Kimiko's own hangup, and if V reveals her true self, it's in how she protected Frenchie against Black Noir when she hardly knew him, and in her courage in choosing to fight the supes rather than take his offer to send her home. I do agree that there's tragedy in what she's choosing, and that it's partially out of despair. It's no coincidence that she's giving up on romantic love and dancing and Marseille at the very same time she chooses to take V again. She's not afraid to take V anymore because she knows her darkness is internal, with or without it. But that doesn't mean this was a free and unbiased choice. She feels that her choice is take V, or eventually watch Frenchie die knowing she could've stopped it. And you're right, that's not empowering, that's a decision made out of fear. There's no triumph in how this season has ended for these two - they're back with the team, but the bright future they hoped for is farther away than ever. I agree, though, I hope that's still something they can have. And I don't think this show is so dark that this would be an impossible ending, actually.

Haha, I liked yours better because it tied into his last words to her in ep 6 - that feeling of resignation is definitely playing into it. They're not gonna get to Marseille, they're not gonna get what they want, but she can at least keep him safe. (I love them so much, I can't even deal.)