So "The Boys" is about a superhero group known as the Seven; as the name suggests, it's made up of seven superheroes: The Deep, Starlight, Maeve, Homelander, Black Noir, A-Train, and Translucent. Now to the general public, they're basically worshipped; however, it's more to these superheroes than meets the eye.
A lot more.
If anything, they're all pretty corrupt or involved in things that they shouldn't be involved in.
Truth be told, I was reluctant to watch this series at first and the trailer I watched didn't do much justice. However, I think I was hooked on the series within the first episode. In particular, the moment when Robin, Hughie's girlfriend, was ran through by A-Train. Now at the time, we didn't know why this happened or why A-Train lied and said that Robin was in the middle of the street. Though, it was later revealed that A-Train had been jazzed up on something known as Compound V - a drug, basically.
So not only had A-Train been juiced up on drugs, but he also wasn't remorseful about it. This led to Hughie being rightfully upset over this incident. And I mean, who wouldn't be? He lost the love of his life right before his eyes quicker than he could blink. Anyway, this is how another character, who goes by the name of Butcher, comes about. He approached Hughie under the pretense of being an affiliate of the FBI, but that was later revealed as a lie. Butcher convinces Hughie to take matters into his own hands and gets him to plant a bug in the Seven's headquarters.
Unbeknownst to Hughie and Butcher, who were leaving and heading back into town to drop off Hughie, Translucent saw the whole thing and then followed him back to his job. Butcher appeared to leave, and translucent took that as his que to get answers out of Hughie one way out of another. Luckily, Butcher comes to his aide.
I mean he literally tore down the store in doing so, but I guess this was practically life and death. Anyway, it boils down to a 2v1 as Butcher and Hughie end up taking translucent on. This leads to Hughie electrocuting Translucent and the superhero was thought to be dead at the time. Butcher realizes that they need to get rid of the body and this leads us to another important character, Frenchie. They get to Frenchie's place and open the trunk only to realize that translucent isn't dead, but is very much alive.
And naked still.
We see Frenchie panic at first and rightfully so because Butcher literally had a superhero in the back on his trunk. Not some reject, or a criminal or a druggie.
But a literally superhero.
If they failed at disposing of the body, they would be slaughtered by the rest of the Seven and they would have no mercy. And thus, this was how Butcher, Hughie, and Frenchie found themselves in up the creek without a paddle.
Not to mention, they had a hard time figuring out how to dispose of Translucent at first - given that he was literally supposed to be indestructible. I gotta say that by this point, I was beyond hooked here because I was curious how they were going to get out of this and curious as to how they were going to snuff out a superhero.
One thing I found interesting as we went along was that there was definitely some more to the superheroes than the public initially thought.
I found this enjoyable because most of the time, we always see superheroes in a positive light. They don't struggle too much or get involved in anything corrupt; they're completely clean. Now of course, some may have a double life or so - like Flash, who's a Forensic Scientist by day, or Daredevil, who is a lawyer by day, but that's as far as the double life goes for some of our DC and Marvel superheroes.
On the other hand, we literally saw A-Train run through a person and lie about it on national TV, we saw Homelander refuse to help a plane full of people. We saw The Deep, in the very first episode, take advantage of a Superhero newcomer - Starlight - in one of the most horrendous and disgusting ways. Not to mention, we also saw A-Train snuff out his own lover, Popclaw.
These Superheroes were certainly nothing like the DC and Marvel heroes we all loved and respected. If anything, they were no better than villains and they were a threat.
Another thing I found interesting and a bit disturbing was how these superheroes were made; they weren't chosen by God like they made the public believe. They were injected with compound V as mere babies and that's how they got their powers; they were essentially lab rats. Starlight really took this to heart when Hughie ended up revealing this. Her mother had put it in her head that she was chosen by God and she spent her whole life believing this.
This may be extreme, but her mother basically lied to her and brainwashed her. In addition, it seemed like her mother only cared about status and what it did for her. Quite frankly, she didn't seem to care about what it did to her daughter and that's a bit sad.
Lastly, interestingly enough, I felt like Hughie got over Robin a bit too quickly. Now I could be nitpicking, but he really lost his girlfriend in one of the most brutal ways and I don't think that's something that can be wiped over as quickly. I mean sure, Starlight is really pretty and they seemed to have good chemistry together, but I personally just thought it was a bit fast.
For someone that wanted vengeance for Robin, it sure didn't take him long to get distracted and start thinking with his other head.
And what was the whole thing with Madelyn and Homelander? They definitely had a pretty weird and questionable relationship. But eventually, that bridge ended up getting burned at the end of season one at least.
To be honest, one thing I really liked about this series overall, would have to be how I couldn't predict much of anything. This series has kept me on my toes and managed to keep my interest all at the same time. I even loved the whole plot twist at the end with Butcher and Homelander. Here we've been thinking this whole time that Homelander had his way with Butcher's wife.
I mean that was his whole story and everything. We could tell that Butcher really cared for his wife. However, come to find out, she was alive this whole time and raising Homelander's kid? She didn't reach out to her family to at least let them know that she was alive and okay? More insulting, she didn't reach out to her own husband.
That's a huge slap to the face if you ask me.
Anyway, I enjoyed this season a lot. I'm glad it turned out to be different than what I imagined. I always like when shows turn out like that; it's a nice surprise, to say the least. I can't wait to see what's to come in the second season and if more heroes are going to fall. They're already down to five - seeing as Translucent has been dealt with and The Deep more or less got fired.
So there are five left and I can't help but wonder what's to come of everyone.