TV

The contra we need: It's good that the "boys" are here to stick a balloon in the superhero pin

After a second season that is a little uneven in its level, the new collection of episodes of "The Boys" returns it to the groove.

This time, too, it turns out to be the bloodiest celebration on television, and manages to demonstrate an impressive balance between a story full of soul, and a precise dose between the scenes of horror and laughter and the sharp statements about the genre and the industry.

Ido Yeshayahu

03/06/2022

Friday, 03 June 2022, 00:00

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Trailer "The Boys" - Season 3 (Amazon Prime Video)

The insane proliferation of superheroes on television is not a new matter.

The CW network alone is responsible for hundreds of episodes of the genre in recent years as part of "The Arrow" and its derivatives from DC Comics.

Netflix cut off some of Marvel's lesser-known material in favor of Daredevil, Jessica Jones and the rest of their comrades, who sponsored several notable streaming service series and seemingly infused depth and prestige into the genre.

But none of this much content has really screwed up at the forefront of pop culture.

Although the number may not have changed dramatically, since the first and very successful season of "The Boys" in 2019, the presence of characters with supernatural abilities has increased exponentially.

Disney Plus arrived at the end of that year and with it the Marvel cinematic universe expanded to the small screen as well.

Thus we got an incessant float of heroes and dozens of additional hours of content as part of the grueling fourth phase of its cinematic universe.

Accordingly, the counter-reaction to Marvel's cleanliness for the whole family also grew.

After "The Boys," more content reached a more mature audience, ones that challenged the conventions of the genre, mocked it, and questioned the cleanliness of the heroes 'hands or the villains' villains.

Series such as "Harley Quinn", "Invincible" and "Fishmaker", a spin-off to the movie "Suicide Squad", which itself belongs to this category.

In addition, with the success of "The Boys" also began to come the inevitable daughter-series.

In the meantime, "Devils" has come up, short animated episodes from her world, later a series that takes place in the College of Superheroes is also expected to arrive, and there are a few more that are in the early stages of work.

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The most entertaining psychopath.

Anthony Starr as Homelander, "The Boys" Season 3 (Photo: Screenshot, Amazon Prime Video)

The irony is that these contra contents also contribute to the feeling of congestion and deepening that is deepening.

With all the self-awareness and satirical attitude, the bottom line is more and more and more of the same genre.

And somehow, this is good news for "The Boys," whose third season airs today (Friday) on Amazon Prime Video.

The "boys" send a lot of direct arrows of contempt, including by the way one is particularly scorching towards Gal Gadot, but it is clear what its main purpose is.

At the heart of the comic book-based series by Gareth Inis stands a "Watt" conglomerate whose "boys" are not trying to hide their resemblance to Disney.

In its world it is a corporate organization that rolls in billions every year, pulls in government threads and is responsible for some of the most powerful people in the galaxy, which it also utilizes for the benefit of film and content productions for the streaming service Plus Plus.

Despite the saturation and density, the "boys" were and remain the refuge for those who dislike superheroes.

After all, at the forefront are those after whom the series is named, a gang that desperately hates the capable, the privileged, the ones who are responsible for so much peripheral damage without paying a price for it.

In the words of their leader Butcher (played by Karl Urban), in a paraphrase of the worn-out sentence from "Spider-Man": "With great power comes the absolute certainty that it will become shit."

The even-better news is that after a second season that is somewhat uneven in level, the new collection of episodes of "The Boys" (eight in all, six of which were sent for review) returns it to the groove.

This time, too, it turns out to be the bloodiest celebration on television.

The way the series manages to find new and original ways to shatter body parts, or whole bodies, is admirable.

The series this time wisely abandons the exaggerated excess stink from the previous season, like a Nazi superheroine, and returns to its bold and fun roots: Homeland is once again the main villain, and the essential theme on the episode is once again the innocent who die following the heroic actions of the superheroes.

At the same time, the question is becoming sharper than ever before, what makes a person human, whether he has special abilities or whether he is simple-minded.

If one would think that "The Boys" has a place as long as the superhero genre continues to flood us, the third season illustrates that this is not the case - precisely because it is successful.

Although the new season deepens and expands on these issues so that there is no sense of recycling, there is still a sense that this recurrence means that it is worthwhile to start marking the end and striving for it, before the "boys" begin to revolve around its own tail.

The beating heart and the moral compass.

Erin Moriarty as Annie, "The Boys" Season 3 (Photo: Panagiotis Pantazidis / Amazon)

A year has passed since the events of last season.

Hughie (Jack Quidd, the son of Mag Ryan and Dennis) currently works in a suit under Congresswoman Victoria Newman, who no one still knows is the one who blew heads last season.

Ryan (Cameron Crobati, "Big Little Lies"), the son of the late Becca from Homeland (Anthony Starr), grows up in an unknown location with CIA agent Grace Mallory (Leila Robbins), and Butcher occasionally comes to help as he promised his late wife .

Butcher even gets his hands on something that can change the balance of power - a temporary and experimental V compound, one that gives super powers for one day, who knows at what price.

Meanwhile in "Wat" Homeland, the all-American hero who is actually a murderous and very scary psychopath, is still dealing with Storm-Front's fatal injury - someone else in his life that he loved and was forced to part with.

Homelander was and remains the most fascinating character in "The Boys."

Always torn between his desire to be loved - by the masses and by those close to him - and the sense of superiority that inevitably comes with invincible forces like his.

Starr continues to embody all of these shades in a magnetizing and entertaining way, even as the series takes him to unfamiliar districts: Homelander gets wider and less glittering powers in "Watt," so for the first time he has to deal with the political aspects of the job so far, and interestingly See it.

Meanwhile the boys are looking for the ultimate weapon that can destroy him, and there may be one because he acted in the past on the invincible hero who preceded him, sometime in the eighties - Soldier Boy (played by Jensen Eccles, who reunites here with Eric Kripki, creator of the previous series Starring, "Supernatural").

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Unites with the creator.

Jensen Eccles, "The Boys" Season 3 (Photo: Panagiotis Pantazidis / Amazon)

Too little screen time.

Dominic McAlligot, "The Boys" Season 3 (Photo: Amazon Prime Video)

Amidst all the action, wild laughter and gallons of blood and flying internal body parts, the "boys" have always been careful to maintain humanity.

Some of the great representatives of this aspect in the past, Hughie, Franchi (Tomer Kapon) and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), are actually getting lower in the new season.

The former shows too much inferiority complex towards Annie / Starlight, his superhero partner (Erin Moriarty), which reveals particularly unpleasant sides to him.

The other two are as cute as ever, and even win one of the wonderful scenes of the new season, but are also pushed to the margins of the main story.

The condition of all these is still good in relation to Maeve (Dominic McAlligot), the broken and sad superheroine.

I have complained before about its little use, and unfortunately this season also hardly takes advantage of it.

Nevertheless, the "boys" this time do better to balance the full story with the soul.

She does this through characters who transcend their one-dimensional perception and this time demonstrate more human than expected, and especially by Annie,

Which continues to serve as the pulsating dog and moral compass of the series.

Indeed, "America's Baby."

In fact, almost all the doses in the new season of "Boys" are remarkably accurate.

Although not without problems, she demonstrates admirable skill in juggling her plethora of plot lines, tones and sayings - both those created as a mere repression and as a serrated knife stuck in the belly of an entire culture.

She consolidates all of this into one entertaining and coherent work, which positions her as one of the most impressive series on television, in the superhero genre and beyond.

The first three episodes of "The Boys" are available starting today on Amazon Prime Video.

The remaining five episodes will air weekly.

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