A Look Back at The Boys - Season 4

 

A the final season of The Boys will be arriving soon. So it's time to look back at the previous season one last time.

The Boys is a comic book TV series based on Garth Ennis' comic series of the same name with production by Sony Pictures Television, Kripke Enterprise, Point Grey Pictures, Original Film, Kickstar Entertainment, KFL Nightsky Productions and Amazon Studios, the later of which is also the distributor. The show is developed by Eric Kripke with this season consisting of eight episodes.

The story is, it's been six months since the events of the last season and the stakes are ramping up. Homelander is a mission to supes to rule the entire country and achieve the supes supremacy he's been wanting. Meanwhile, The Boys are trying everything they can to put a stop to this. But personal issues from past sins and one of their own only having months to live is putting the team is dark and hopeless spot.

• Negatives

Oh boy...where to begin. Let's start with the most obvious and frequent thing this season has been getting criticize for, the not so subtle politics. If you thought it was bad in the previous two seasons you haven't seen nothing yet. The show wants you to believe it's still tackling both sides of the political parties but that's clearly not the case. The writing is so obviously only poking fun at the right aka Republicans that it because not only annoying to watch, but boring to watch. If you're gonna do satire, you need to target everyone! That is the basic rule of comedy! And you don't believe count how many times that make fun of Republicans' belief like abortion. Because of this terrible way of writing Eric Kripke feels like his taking a page out of James Gunn's book. Where he wants to oh so edgy, but at the same time he wants to be woke. And even if you can ignore that, which I don't how you could, the dialogue just isn't good. Count how many times people talk like a Reddit post and not actually people. I mean for crying out loud, they actually had Butcher say "incel". I kid you not. The bad only gets worse once you think about characterization. Something that use to be the show's strongest points even in a weak season, but here it's just plain garbage. Starlight started out fine at first but as the show went on she only got worse. She actually victim blames Hughie despite the fact he was tricked in a very brilliant way. The writing is made even worse when this season Hughie himself is an assault victim not once, but twice in this season. M.M. was useless in this season. You'd think it would be because of the stress he's under what with now being the leader, and yes that does play apart, but it's also because the writers just make incompetent. Frenchie has a mess of a story arc. At first he's feeling bad for his past sins, then he just spends time in prison for awhile, and then his right back with the time like his prison time meant nothing. Which begs the question, what was the part of him trying to serve time if you were just gonna bring him back an episode or two later? At first Kimiko seems like she was gonna have a pretty good story about the people she hurt during her terrorist days, but by episode four that storyline is just dropped and never talked about again. And things on the Seven's side aren't any better. The newest additions to the time those being Sister Sage and Firecracker suck. Sister Sage is suppose to be "The Smartest Person in the World" but it's clear as day that Eric Kripke and co. didn't know how to write a genius character. Because the only reason any of her plans worked is because time and reality got warped. Logically speaking nothing she did should've worked. Like how she plans to misdirect The Boys yet every single one of those plans gave them the information they needed. Not to mention her origin story for hating humanity is just so stupid. Basically she found the cure for cancer at the age of ten, showed the doctors, and they didn't believe her. Note, she's suppose to "The Smartest Person in the World" and yet she didn't thin for one moment that maybe a ten year old saying this wouldn't have been a smart idea. Now I think I said enough about so let's move onto Firecracker. Not only is she the show's not so subtle way to poke fun at Republicans, but there's really nothing else to her character other than having a rivalry with Starlight during the beauty pageant days and being a Homelander simp. Then we have Homelander's son Ryan. The writers really need to decide what they're doing with this character and stick with it! One moment he's Homelander Jr., then he feels remorse for what he's done, then he's Homelander Jr, then he's bonding with Butcher, then he's Homelander Jr., then he's this, then he's that! Either turn him into villain or don't! Speaking of Homelander what happened to him? Sure he had a good moment in episode 4, but instead of being an interesting villain he's now been reduce to being the Donald Trump stand-in. Which as we all know is just a daring, brave, and brilliant story element that hasn't been going on since 2016. The only saving graces were Victoria Neuman and Billy Butcher. Victoria was actually a pretty fun political character who's willing to do evil deeds to make her political campaign a success. Then we have Butcher I was really enjoying his story of coming to terms with dying and that plot twist (which I won't spoil for you) was actually really good.

Then there was the humor. I already talked about the political stuff so I want bother going over it again. But all of the shocking stuff this season just didn't work. It was so bad the shocking stuff now just feels like a parody of edgy comedy instead of actually being funny.

• Mix

The mix bag is the action. There was time when it was alright, but then there where times when you could tell things were choregraphed or a quick cut was used not for excitement but because the editing just wasn't good that day.

• Positives

The only real praise I can give is the acting. Despite how awful the material was, everyone still did a great job performing. But it's just sad to think how these people deserved better storytelling.

So yeah folks, it goes without saying but I hated this season. Hated it so much there were actually times when I took a day or two of not watching episodes because I just needed a break to get away from the crap I was witnessing.

My final rating is, Bad.

You know what's worse than watching this season, it's I have no faith for season five. I'll still hope for miracle but after watching what I just watch I doubt we're gonna get one. Anyways, sorry to bum you out, but thankfully that's all for now. Come back on Thursday, Apr 9th, for a brand new Cinematic Disasters review. Don't worry, that one's gonna be pretty funny...only not in the way the filmmakers intended it to be. But until then, enjoy the rest of your day.