Hi folks! What a year this has been! Almost every show is on a hiatus due to the pandemic and the terrifying “there’s nothing new to watch” seems to be creeping on us, luckily, Amazon is here to save us from dying of being bored with the second season of The Boys, thank god for a long post-production! Right off the bat, we start with the season premiere “The Big Ride” and let me tell you, what a ride it was indeed, there’s a fuck-ton of things to talk about, so let’s put some amazing music and dive right in!
1. Black Ops? More like Noir Ops
First, let’s talk about the first three minutes, we have two juxtaposed scenes, the government on the negotiations with Vought for contracting the supes and Black Noir infiltrating a terrorist cell to kill the Super Terrorist Naquib.
Compared to other scenes of this show, it is a fairly straightforward scene, but it stuck with me, for two reasons, first, because Black Noir was used mostly as comic relief on the first season, (except for when he almost killed Kimiko), and I thought that he was not so super, you know, maybe I compared him to Batman; but in this scene we see him withstand a direct explosion in front of him, that means that he is a whole more dangerous than I assumed, and he is willing to do Homelander’s dirty work.
The second reason was that it was very interesting to me seeing a negotiation within the Industrial War Complex, in particular the Casualty Rate proposed by Stan Edgar, 34%. That means that every 1 in 3 person will die in a superhero related situation, they care so little for the life of others they profit with the death of innocent people. It makes you think, what’s the cone of silence Casualty Rate for the real life Army? Or every cop department in the US?
2. Hiding
As expected, our… heroes? Are hiding out. They are with the Haitian Mafia, and everybody is coping in their own way, Mother’s Milk is building a dollhouse, Kimiko is learning English, Frenchie is helping out with smuggling drugs and weapons and Hughie is risking his life to see Starlight in the subway.
We can see the tension between them, mainly between MM and Hughie, because the former wants to be extremely cautious and the latter kinda wants to be the leader of the team, but he seems to be seeing the world on an absurdly positive way, Hughie still believes that they can show the press about Compound V and Vought will fall, he is still naïve and that, of course might get them killed.
This changes at the end of the episode, after seeing Susan Raynor’s head explode in front of them, Hughie call’s off his plan to get Compound V from Starlight and Billy comes back, so, the team is reunited, but at what cost?
3. Homelander takes control (and then loses it)
Just like last season, it is fascinating to see Homelander’s arc, this time, after killing his oedipal lover se see him still being a pervert, but most importantly, he believes that he is in control now, he sees himself as a god (his “I will save you” in Translucent’s funeral was really unsettling), he destroys the ears of the Daredevil-esque Blindspot and threatens Ashley in order to be his informant and helper, not his boss, he is in control now.
Then he almost immediately loses that control when Stormfront comes in with a live streaming and introduces herself as the newest addition of the Seven, so he confronts Edgar. Giancarlo Esposito’s acting is mesmerizing, no wonder he is a great villain in Breaking Bad and The Mandalorian.
His character, Stan Edgar is a fast-talking, condescending asshole, and, most importantly, he is not afraid, at all, of Homelander, despite apparently being powerless. So, although most certainly he is a bad guy, I feel a little relieved that Homelander still has someone who can put a leash on him.
4. Blackmailing Gecko
Nobody is innocent, not even Starlight, the moral compass of this show, her whole reality fell down during the first season and now she is a changed woman, and she is willing to do whatever is necessary to make her world a better place.
Continued belowHere, she blackmailed Gecko, a super that can regenerate whatever part of his body, and sells the experience (and the body parts) to perverts, and I started thinking about other non-famous supers, (like last season’s Mesmer). Just like Syndrome from the Incredibles said “when everyone’s super, no one will be”, and that’s exactly what we see here, there are so many superheroes that some of them never make it, they never become famous or they do for the wrong reasons, that’s what would happen in real life too, they would be victims of a system that rewards not talent but profit.
5. Lies
The main theme of this episode to me was honesty, of the lack of it to be precise. The world of The Boys is a thinly veiled world full of lies, Hughie lies to Starlight, Vought lies to the world hiding Compound V and producing movies from their supers, the government lies to the people, hiding casualty rates and collateral damage, his creator lied to Homelander, it’s a world full of lies. And of course, it’s not so far from real life.
Thankfully on our world, we seem to be pulling off the curtain, discovering the lies and doing steps to get justice by our own hands, with the efforts to convincing people to vote, women’s marches and the #MeToo movement, and the Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police movement. So, eventually, I would love to see it reflected on this show, how will the “regular” people in fiction will react to finding the truth? I believe that only we can show them how to do it, and the show will reflect it to us.
BONUS: Those are my five main thoughts, but if I’m being honest I feel like I talked about so little compared to all the things that we saw in the first episode, so here’s a list of stuff that also happened and I’m sure will pay-off on later episodes:
- The Deep had a whole subplot where he hits rock bottom and is probably joining the Church of Collective Destinations, one of the most interesting aspects of last season was his story, should we have empathy for a predator? He is human after all.
- I loved the contrasting scene between Annie and Hughie where they got ready in the morning, they are in absolute different worlds, but they are still connected and hopefully in love.
- What’s up Stormfront? All I know that she is a white supremacist and I am curious to see her arc.
- Is Blindspot fine? (We probably won’t find out to be honest.)
- Is Mother’s Milk going to finish his Vermont Country Dollhouse?
- Who is the terrorist that came in the boat?
And that’s it for this episode, what a banger! It was gory and thought-provoking, I couldn’t ask more from this show. What did you think of this episode? Leave your comments below and join us next week for our take on episode 202, “Proper Preparation and Planning”.
Oh! And it’s worth mentioning that the first three episodes are out, but the remaining five will be posted weekly, so, no binge-watching, we’ll have to enjoy it the old way.
