An odd episode to kickstart the season.
Introduction of new characters that are portrayed as old friends/old love (Joe/Colin) seems pretty too convenient. We haven't seen what role Joe (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) would play, but Colin as Frenchie's old love is awkward.
I would've liked it better if the script takes its time to rekindle their old flame - especially given that we have not seen any indication that Frenchie was a queer before - but they just go straight to bed with it. Especially the way Kimiko told Frenchie to move on from her. After all that build up, dancing scene, and the whole mon coeur repertoire... this whole "getting back together" just feels too hurried. Kinda destroys the whole Frenchie-Kimiko relationship they had been setting up.
I see that they're also trying to mend the very anticlimactic ending from Season 3 with Soldier Boy. But this retcon kinda moves us a step or two backward. Butcher is an useless drunk again. Butcher is trying to prove his worth again. We've seen that in previous seasons. What's the use of all that pep talk with Soldier Boy in Season 3 then? Butcher has always been playing fast and loose with his team, but it seems like now they're just reiterating late Season 2-early Season 3 with this dynamics.
I like they take Sister Sage as the opportunist libertarian power-grabber though. With her view on how the masses are dumb and can be easily provoked. She might be living a meager life but her classist attitude seems apparent - it's good that the show still focuses on such power relations instead of reducing their political commentary to identity politics devoid of class (intersectionality, people!). Despite being such a supposedly smart supe, Sage's flawed worldview is showing - and I hope that's intended by the writers, lest we'd get MCU all over again.
That said, this pilot is certainly not The Boys's strongest, if not the weakest one to date. Hopefully The Boys is not becoming what they're mocking. Let's see what happens in next episodes.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2024-06-14T03:54:31Z
[7.5/10] “The Department of Dirty Tricks” sets up a lot of threads for the new season. Some of them are good. Some of them are fine. Some of them are questionable. Let’s take them one at a time.
I like the angle on Homelander -- that he is aging, worrying about what kind of world he’s leaving behind, having a bit of an existential crisis now that he’s gotten what he wanted and still isn’t fulfilled, and worse yet, has no one around him he respects.
I don’t know. Somewhere along the way, Homelander became my favorite character in The Boys: not because he’s good or eevn sympathetic, but because he’s broken and deceptively complex in his emotions in ways even he doesn't fully comprehend.
I’ve often said that Homelander is roughly the result of “What if Eleven from Stranger Things ended up in a bad family rather than a good one?” The answer is clearly that you would get a monster, but one who is a human as he is stupid and terrifying. That's not the kind of character you see much of on television, and Antony Starr’s performance continues to bring this megalomaniacal manchild to life in brilliant ways.
Of course, The Boys also uses him to offer some social and political commentary. It’s not difficult, because the world is increasingly as extreme and ridiculous as the events in this show (albeit sans the superpowers). Still, Homelander’s trial reflects both Donald Trump and Kyle Rittenhouse in interesting ways, particularly in the media spin around Homelander eye-blasting a guy last season. And not for nothing, it pushes Homelander even further into a supe-remecist direction.
I was painfully naive when Homelander talked about feeling nothing despite having achieved his dreams by ruthlessly climbing to the top of the corporate ladder and being cheered by the people for doing what he’s always wanted to do. Maybe this was going to be a reluctant Homelander, one who, upon finding himself surrounded by sycophants and easy adoration might take the advice of Lisa Simpsons and realize that getting what you want all the time will ultimately leave you unfulfilled and joyless. Instead, he’s leaning toward going full genocidal and fascist, deciding that more [wince] “cleansing” needs to take place in order for him to be happy. Well, we know where he comes from, I suppose.
It does give power to the invitation from a character played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan(!!!), who invites Butcher to join his shadowy organization that aims to take down Homelander as the big prize, rather than following the CIA’s lead and chasing down new VP Neuman. Joe Kessler tells Butcher they need to act before Homelander and his ilk start rounding humans up into camps and, while that's the kind of talk that might cast you as a villain in the world of X-Men ‘97, given what we hear from Homelander in this episode, it’s not a cockamamie thought.
The next most interesting part of this one is Sage, the smartest person in the world, and Homelander’s new advisor. For one thing, Susan Heyword gives a hell of a performance. There’s a relaxed confidence in her presence that makes her seem like a formidable foil for Homelander. The way she instantly diagnoses Homelander’s conditions, hang-ups, insecurities, and anxieties makes her a sharp-witted Sherlock Holmes type, with the stones to stand-up to evil Superman at a time when he’ll not only tolerate that, but wants it.
But the idea, explored in The Venture Bros. of all things, of a Mr. Fantastic-turned-asshole type is intriguing, especially as she couches destruction and extermination in the realm of statistics and inevitabilities, makes her independent of Homelander. The idea of her stoking divisions, creating martyrs, creating unrest and then positioning her benefactor (or maybe, secretly, her) as a savior is cynical but salient in the modern era. Given the real life conspiracy nuts who abound, I’m a little more sanguine about “It’s all a deliberate scheme from those in power!” storylines these days. Despite my squeamishness, the idea of Sage fomenting unrest and roiling resentments to accelerate destruction works on its own terms, and is downright chilling in places.
We get hints of more interesting stuff on the villain side. Ashley’s still a unique presence as Homelander’s corporate lackey. We get hints at A-Train being uncomfortable both with his job under Homelander’s thumb and at the prospect of having to share the spotlight with another Black person. And by god, The Deep commiserating with a Tilda Swinton-voiced octopus is hilarious and incredible.
Oddly enough, the parts of the premiere that left me colder are on the good guy side of the equation.
The most compelling part of that milieu is Butcher. The idea that -- whether it’s a brain disease or just his conscience, he’s hearing the voice of Becca as the angel on his shoulder -- is an intriguing one. I like the idea that, god help him, he genuinely wants to protect Ryan and make good with the lad. There’s potent material here in the tug-of-war between Homelander and Butcher as father figures, each seeing something important in Ryan, each fucked up in their own way, and the poor kid doing his best to get by without inheriting all their damage.
It’s as sentimental as we’ve seen Butcher, and you feel like he means it. Whether it’s a promise to Becca or his own internalized feelings for the kid, last season he had the chance to kill HOmelander, and he gave it up to protect Ryan. That says something, and his willingness to look after the kid are one of the most admirable qualities we’ve ever seen in the guy.
But he’s not willing to throw Hughie under the bus to do it. “The Department of Dirty Tricks” plays with your emotions a bit. It would be in the spirit of The Boys’ cynical bent to have Hughie being the one part of the good guy crew who wants to keep Butcher around, only to be screwed over when Billy sells him out to Nueman. Instead, Butcher stays firm, albeit potentially at the cost of his mental stability. Head-Becca is right that these schemes tend to blow up in his face. Butcher trying a different, even slightly more straight and narrow path, could be interesting.
The rest of the storylines don’t do much for me. There’s something real and well-observed about Hughie ducking his father’s phone call and then feeling miserably guilty when his dad has a stroke. But I don’t know. His dad has barely been a character since season 1, and it’s been so long, that the whole thing feels more abstract that as emotionally poignant as the show seems to be going for. The prospect of his mom finally turning up grabs your attention, but that's more of a tease here than anything substantive.
Otherwise, the rest of it is fine. I’m relieved that Kimiko essentially states for the audience that her and Frenchie will never happen, but hotshotting Frnechie immediately to another relationship feels too sudden. Likewise, I’m interested in the idea of M.M. having to reconcile with his daughter after struggles with losing her would-be stepdad, but everything there happens pretty quickly and is laden with yawn-worthy “that nebbish must have a large penis” humor. At least it ties into the main story. And Starlight wanting to establish her identity apart from being Starlight is an interesting throughline, but we only get the bare bones here.
All-in-all, this is a solid, albeit not overwhelming start to the new season. As with even the best seasons of The Boys, this is kind of a hodge-podge, with a lot of interesting ideas floating around, but a lot of them popping out of nowhere and feeling awkwardly quilted together. There’s ways to make that work, some of which the series has found in the past. But at this stage, with so many plates spinning after three years’ worth of stories, I’m more apt to simply enjoy the parts I like and wait out the ones I’m unsure of, with less confidence that it will all coalesce into a greater whole.