Prime: The Boys

[Mark Thibodeau]

Here's my review, from my media blog, The Mediavore
(www.themediavore.blogspot.com)

THE BOYS
Amazon Prime

Based on the cult Garth Ennis/Darick Robertson comic book series, The
Boys is about an on again, off again clandestine team of deep cover
agents whose job is, ostensibly, to keep a tight leash on the nation’s
growing community of superheroes. These “supes”, as the Boys refer to
them, are mostly affiliated with Vought-American, a vastly powerful
private corporation that has its tentacles wrapped around everything
from pharmaceuticals and defense contracts to movie production and a
24-hour news channel.

All of Vought’s disparate entities operate behind a ruthlessly
enforced, corporation-wide, culturally “conservative” facade, infused
with the sort of pseudo-populist, phony Christian “friendly fascism”
with real-world echoes that should be all too familiar to anyone whose
powers of perception are superior to those of the average jar of
mayonnaise.

The Boys consist of Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), the hot-headed,
foul-mouthed leader, Frenchie, the weapons expert, Mother’s Milk, whom
the others look up to as being the most pure-hearted, the Female (of
the Species), who is a deadly dangerous, psychologically damaged young
South Asian mute who was drugged by Vought as part of a treacherous
plan to [NO SPOILERS FROM ME], and Wee Hughie, who longs for revenge
against A-Train, a speedster supe (and member of the World’s Greatest
Superhero Team, The Seven) who, while freaking out on a dose of the
specialist supe pharmaceutical Compound V (as opposed to Compound W,
America’s most popular wart removal system), ran straight through his
girlfriend, accidentally exploding her like a water balloon full of
blood and guts.

Meanwhile, The Seven are also important characters who get a lot of
screen time in their own right, particularly team leader The
Homelander, sort of a psycho-fascist cross between Superman and
Captain America. There’s also the newest member of The Seven, the
relatively innocent and swiftly disenchanted Starlight, who
coincidentally—some might say a little too coincidentally—becomes Wee
Hughie’s friend and love interest after a chance encounter in a park.

I have long been a fan of the comic book The Boys. It’s an intriguing
concept—one that was tried a few years before, with far less
recognition and far fewer laughs, with the 11-issue run of the DC
series Stormwatch: Team Achilles (a series of which I appear to be the
sole surviving fan)—and the Amazon studios version of The Boys feels
like an unmitigated success to me, even if it isn’t slavishly faithful
to the comics.

However, where the series truly excels, even exceeds expectations, is
in how it takes the comic book’s portrayal of the prevailing political
climate of illegitimate Preznit Dubya’s post-9/11,
post-T.H.E.U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T.A.C.T., post-Shock-and-Awe America—the
often justified paranoia and distrust engendered by all those no-bid
multi-billion-dollar contracts and unaccountable mercenaries murdering
carloads of innocent Iraqis and the phony rescue narrative cooked up
around “kidnapped” soldier Jessica Lynch and the very suspicious
“friendly fire” death of former NFL’er Pat Tillman, all of which led
to the rapid rise of conspiracy theorizing as America’s new favorite
pastime—and updating it for the even more horrific, post-reality,
anti-truth, proof-allergic, New Fascist International(e) America, full
of brainwashed, Bizzaro World, “alt”-media sheeple who think that
repeating their favorite paranoid, raging, Pizzagating Q-tard
Youtuber’s rants verbatim proves that they’re independent, original
thinkers who “do their own research”, all of which are hallmarks of
the even more illegitimate Reality TV criminal/traitor Preznit Donald
Trump’s ongoing pornocratic kakistocracy.

Anyhoo, I binge-watched all eight episodes of The Boys in one day, and
the entire series just flew by. Oh, and just for the record, I’m
totally ready for Season Two, and hope they’ve already begun to film
it, because Season One ends on one hell of a cliffhanger. RECOMMENDED!

On Sun, Jul 28, 2019 at 7:52 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Much better than expected, and not just faint praise.  A pretty deep power
> construction.  Lots of lies, victims, and back story.  Villains become
> nearly lovable.  And ETERNAL WAR is the capitalist goal.
>
> David Morris
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l