[8.3/10] I didn’t expect something close to a happy ending, or at least as happy as you can get in the gray and black world of The Boys. “What I Know” is a rejoinder to that sort of thinking, one that seems directly meant to oppose Maeve’s “Nothing ever changes; nothing ever gets better, and I’m tired,” mentality. It’s an easy sentiment to feel these days, especially in the throes of the real word malign forces this series addresses through abstraction and metaphor. But this finale uses the same tools to suggest that, with the right motivations and the right actions, things can get better, and it’s an unexpectedly wholesome note to land on for such a dark show.
The peak of that is Billy Butcher. When Becca comes to him asking for his help to find Ryan, he cuts a deal with Stan Edgar, who only cares about money, to recover the kid as Vought’s contingency plan against Homelander. His price, though, is that Vought takes Ryan away, so that Billy and Becca can reconcile. His ultimatum is despicable, but true to character. Billy loves Becca, and hates supes, so this gives him what he wants without what he despises. The choice isn’t good, but it’s on brand.
And yet, Becca makes him promise on his dead brother’s soul to reunite her and Ryan, and in the moment of truth, Billy can’t go through with his original scheme. He not only delivers the mother and child to their safe spot and tries to get MM to drive them to Mallory, but he comes clean about the whole thing. He’s willing to sacrifice his own happiness for theirs, not wanting to pull Becca away from a child he loathed for what he represents, and even having the self-awareness to not want to go with them lest he pass on the same anhedonic tough guy bullshit his dad passed down to him. It’s the most decent, selfless thing we’ve ever seen Billy do, and whether it’s from Hughie’s influence, or the wake-up call from seeing his dad, or just his love for and promise to Rebecca, he breaks good in the most profound way he ever has.
Oh yeah, and Stormfront goes down! (For now at least -- it seems like she survived worse from her and Homelander’s S&M sessions, but she’s at least worse for wear.) In the public eye, A-Train pilfers some files from the not-Scientology people, turns them over to Hughie and Annie, and the revelations of her Nazi past make her pesona non grata to the public. In truth, that feels a little pollyanna. It’s a grim truth that Stormfront isn’t wrong when she says that a lot of people like what she’s saying; they just don’t like the word Nazi. It seems plausible that a lot of folks would write it off as fake. But I’ll still take the win of the public turning on her once they find out who she really is, especially when her downfall comes thanks to a person she’d think of as lesser.
But she also gets her frickin’ ass kicked! I’m not sure there’s been a more fistpump-worthy moment in the series than Starlight blasting her, Kimiko getting some licks in for revenge, and Maeve jumping in to get the Big Damn Hero moment. The legitimate “girls get it done” moment is outstanding, not just because it represents the righteous justice delivered to the most deserving person imaginable, but because it features all three heroes choosing to make things better, to right wrongs visited upon them, when they could have chosen not to.
She doesn’t fall at their hands, though. Instead, she falls at Ryan’s. His story is interesting here, someone who tells his father that he’s not like him, but whose powers emerge when his mother is threatened. It is tragic, to say the least, that Ryan inadvertently kills his mother when trying to stop Stormfront from choking her to death. The bitter irony of his attempts to save the person he loves most from pure evil personified, only to lose her in the process, stings, and in an episode with more than one reflection on absent moms, makes you wonder how it’s going to affect the poor boy.
The tragedy certainly affects Billy. His quiet sobs, after Becca asks him to promise that he’ll tell Ryan this wasn’t his fault, are some of Karl Urban’s best acting in the whole show. And for a moment, you believe that he’ll take out his rage on poor Ryan, that his prejudices will catch up to him, that his projected anger at Homelander will result in a confrontation with his overwhelmed kid. That is, until, Homelander himself shows up.
Despite him arguably not being the focus here, this is a great, revealing Homelander episode. I am continually impressed at how The Boys manages to make Homelander a total, irredeemable monster, whose selfish and cruel actions hurt nearly everyone, while also making him a pitiable and pathetic figure, who’s been abused and emotionally scarred until he became this person, with glimmers of humanity beneath the psychopathology.
When Ryan gets overwhelmed by the crowd at a Planet Vought restaurant, Homelander empathizes with his son, talking about how he had a similar experience and felt lonely since the people who raised him were terrified of him. When Stormfront tells him that with Compound V being widespread distributed to where there’s more Supes, he won’t have to go in front of crowds and do the “dancing monkey crap,” it’s the opposite of what he wants to hear. Homelander needs to be in front of crowds, needs to bathe in their adulation, because it’s a hollow replacement for the genuine, intimate, person-to-person love he never had, from a partner or a parent.
And when relating to Ryan, he admits that he used to cry, though hasn’t in a long time, when he went through something similar. As fucked up as his relationship with his son is, Homelander genuinely cares about Ryan, in his own twisted way. He’s trying to replace the relationship he never had with a real father and mother by being on the other side of it, hoping to have family that really loves him. When Ryan chooses to go with Butcher instead, when Maeve shows up to cow him into submission with the video from the plane that threatens to take away the public’s love as well, it renders him alone and unloved again. That bond, fractious though it may be, is severed, and he cries again. Homelander is still a terrifying, twisted psychopath, but for a moment at least, he’s a human being whose lost something precious, and there is genuine pathos in that.
By god, though, the good guys win! The Nazi revelations scuttle Vought’s plans to sell Compound V to the public and the Pentagon. Starlight is cleared of suspicion and returns to the fold. Butcher and the boys are absolved of their crimes. MM reunites with his daughter. Frenchie and Kimiko are relieved of their moral burdens and have the time and space to go dancing. Billy offers kind words and a token of Becca’s perspective to Ryan, finally mentally separating him from his father and being able to see him as a reflection of his mother, before sending him to safety with Mallory.
Victoria Nueman gets put in charge of the Department of Supe Affairs to monitor the metahumans. Mallory gets an off-the-books crew and funding to help that mission. A-Train’s act of decency gets him back in The Seven. Homelander is reduced to jerking off on rooftops from being penned in by everyone else. Hughie and Annie reunite as a couple. Hughie even confronts his inability to stop clinging on to whatever’s around him given his abandonment complex with his own mother, choosing to stand on his own two feet instead. This is as clean and clear a victory as you’re likely to get in the world of The Boys.
Granted, there’s plenty of cliffhangers and hints of potentially grim things to come. It turns out that Neuman is a Supe and the one responsible for all the heads popping, including the head of not-Scientology. The Deep’s deserved but pitiable tale of woe continues, as his return to The Seven goes the way of the dodo when A-Train’s act leaves the speedster taking his place. Hughie going to work for Neuman is as ominous as it is empowering for the kid. Homelander’s dead eyes suggest there’s worse evil that lies within him. And whatever Homelander’s renewed spiritual impotence, A-Train’s efforts to stop a genuine evil, or Maeve and Starlight’s heroics, they’re all part of the Vought machine again.
Yet, as Annie tells Hughie, as hard as it is to rejoin such a collection of schmucks and craven assholes, she views it as her responsibility to keep fighting, keep trying to steer things in the right direction from that place of power, to stay in the fray rather than abandon it to the worst people. At a time when it’s easy to throw up your hands and believe the problems that plague the world are an unwinnable battle, this bleak, cynical show becomes an unlikely source of inspiration -- that if you keep working, keep fighting, keep expanding the franchise of people you care about, then such measured yet momentous victories remain possible.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2022-08-21T03:40:14Z
[8.3/10] I didn’t expect something close to a happy ending, or at least as happy as you can get in the gray and black world of The Boys. “What I Know” is a rejoinder to that sort of thinking, one that seems directly meant to oppose Maeve’s “Nothing ever changes; nothing ever gets better, and I’m tired,” mentality. It’s an easy sentiment to feel these days, especially in the throes of the real word malign forces this series addresses through abstraction and metaphor. But this finale uses the same tools to suggest that, with the right motivations and the right actions, things can get better, and it’s an unexpectedly wholesome note to land on for such a dark show.
The peak of that is Billy Butcher. When Becca comes to him asking for his help to find Ryan, he cuts a deal with Stan Edgar, who only cares about money, to recover the kid as Vought’s contingency plan against Homelander. His price, though, is that Vought takes Ryan away, so that Billy and Becca can reconcile. His ultimatum is despicable, but true to character. Billy loves Becca, and hates supes, so this gives him what he wants without what he despises. The choice isn’t good, but it’s on brand.
And yet, Becca makes him promise on his dead brother’s soul to reunite her and Ryan, and in the moment of truth, Billy can’t go through with his original scheme. He not only delivers the mother and child to their safe spot and tries to get MM to drive them to Mallory, but he comes clean about the whole thing. He’s willing to sacrifice his own happiness for theirs, not wanting to pull Becca away from a child he loathed for what he represents, and even having the self-awareness to not want to go with them lest he pass on the same anhedonic tough guy bullshit his dad passed down to him. It’s the most decent, selfless thing we’ve ever seen Billy do, and whether it’s from Hughie’s influence, or the wake-up call from seeing his dad, or just his love for and promise to Rebecca, he breaks good in the most profound way he ever has.
Oh yeah, and Stormfront goes down! (For now at least -- it seems like she survived worse from her and Homelander’s S&M sessions, but she’s at least worse for wear.) In the public eye, A-Train pilfers some files from the not-Scientology people, turns them over to Hughie and Annie, and the revelations of her Nazi past make her pesona non grata to the public. In truth, that feels a little pollyanna. It’s a grim truth that Stormfront isn’t wrong when she says that a lot of people like what she’s saying; they just don’t like the word Nazi. It seems plausible that a lot of folks would write it off as fake. But I’ll still take the win of the public turning on her once they find out who she really is, especially when her downfall comes thanks to a person she’d think of as lesser.
But she also gets her frickin’ ass kicked! I’m not sure there’s been a more fistpump-worthy moment in the series than Starlight blasting her, Kimiko getting some licks in for revenge, and Maeve jumping in to get the Big Damn Hero moment. The legitimate “girls get it done” moment is outstanding, not just because it represents the righteous justice delivered to the most deserving person imaginable, but because it features all three heroes choosing to make things better, to right wrongs visited upon them, when they could have chosen not to.
She doesn’t fall at their hands, though. Instead, she falls at Ryan’s. His story is interesting here, someone who tells his father that he’s not like him, but whose powers emerge when his mother is threatened. It is tragic, to say the least, that Ryan inadvertently kills his mother when trying to stop Stormfront from choking her to death. The bitter irony of his attempts to save the person he loves most from pure evil personified, only to lose her in the process, stings, and in an episode with more than one reflection on absent moms, makes you wonder how it’s going to affect the poor boy.
The tragedy certainly affects Billy. His quiet sobs, after Becca asks him to promise that he’ll tell Ryan this wasn’t his fault, are some of Karl Urban’s best acting in the whole show. And for a moment, you believe that he’ll take out his rage on poor Ryan, that his prejudices will catch up to him, that his projected anger at Homelander will result in a confrontation with his overwhelmed kid. That is, until, Homelander himself shows up.
Despite him arguably not being the focus here, this is a great, revealing Homelander episode. I am continually impressed at how The Boys manages to make Homelander a total, irredeemable monster, whose selfish and cruel actions hurt nearly everyone, while also making him a pitiable and pathetic figure, who’s been abused and emotionally scarred until he became this person, with glimmers of humanity beneath the psychopathology.
When Ryan gets overwhelmed by the crowd at a Planet Vought restaurant, Homelander empathizes with his son, talking about how he had a similar experience and felt lonely since the people who raised him were terrified of him. When Stormfront tells him that with Compound V being widespread distributed to where there’s more Supes, he won’t have to go in front of crowds and do the “dancing monkey crap,” it’s the opposite of what he wants to hear. Homelander needs to be in front of crowds, needs to bathe in their adulation, because it’s a hollow replacement for the genuine, intimate, person-to-person love he never had, from a partner or a parent.
And when relating to Ryan, he admits that he used to cry, though hasn’t in a long time, when he went through something similar. As fucked up as his relationship with his son is, Homelander genuinely cares about Ryan, in his own twisted way. He’s trying to replace the relationship he never had with a real father and mother by being on the other side of it, hoping to have family that really loves him. When Ryan chooses to go with Butcher instead, when Maeve shows up to cow him into submission with the video from the plane that threatens to take away the public’s love as well, it renders him alone and unloved again. That bond, fractious though it may be, is severed, and he cries again. Homelander is still a terrifying, twisted psychopath, but for a moment at least, he’s a human being whose lost something precious, and there is genuine pathos in that.
By god, though, the good guys win! The Nazi revelations scuttle Vought’s plans to sell Compound V to the public and the Pentagon. Starlight is cleared of suspicion and returns to the fold. Butcher and the boys are absolved of their crimes. MM reunites with his daughter. Frenchie and Kimiko are relieved of their moral burdens and have the time and space to go dancing. Billy offers kind words and a token of Becca’s perspective to Ryan, finally mentally separating him from his father and being able to see him as a reflection of his mother, before sending him to safety with Mallory.
Victoria Nueman gets put in charge of the Department of Supe Affairs to monitor the metahumans. Mallory gets an off-the-books crew and funding to help that mission. A-Train’s act of decency gets him back in The Seven. Homelander is reduced to jerking off on rooftops from being penned in by everyone else. Hughie and Annie reunite as a couple. Hughie even confronts his inability to stop clinging on to whatever’s around him given his abandonment complex with his own mother, choosing to stand on his own two feet instead. This is as clean and clear a victory as you’re likely to get in the world of The Boys.
Granted, there’s plenty of cliffhangers and hints of potentially grim things to come. It turns out that Neuman is a Supe and the one responsible for all the heads popping, including the head of not-Scientology. The Deep’s deserved but pitiable tale of woe continues, as his return to The Seven goes the way of the dodo when A-Train’s act leaves the speedster taking his place. Hughie going to work for Neuman is as ominous as it is empowering for the kid. Homelander’s dead eyes suggest there’s worse evil that lies within him. And whatever Homelander’s renewed spiritual impotence, A-Train’s efforts to stop a genuine evil, or Maeve and Starlight’s heroics, they’re all part of the Vought machine again.
Yet, as Annie tells Hughie, as hard as it is to rejoin such a collection of schmucks and craven assholes, she views it as her responsibility to keep fighting, keep trying to steer things in the right direction from that place of power, to stay in the fray rather than abandon it to the worst people. At a time when it’s easy to throw up your hands and believe the problems that plague the world are an unwinnable battle, this bleak, cynical show becomes an unlikely source of inspiration -- that if you keep working, keep fighting, keep expanding the franchise of people you care about, then such measured yet momentous victories remain possible.