Department of Dirty Tricks

The new season has finally arrived, and let me tell you, it exceeded all my expectations. The first episode is absolutely riveting, setting a high bar right from the start. Homelander is especially chilling; his presence on screen is deeply unsettling, and he exudes a terrifyingly intense aura. The episode serves as an excellent introduction to the season, hooking viewers with its compelling narrative and strong character development. I am eagerly anticipating the rest of the season and have high hopes that the subsequent episodes will maintain, or even surpass, this remarkable level of quality.

If it isnt the best social commentary about our human life and how corrupt politicians and and corporations are then i dont know what is!

The boys are back with a new season but the same old good humor, great acting and wonderful story to follow especially after Gen v series.

The background music is excellent as always, the sarcastic tone in this episode has topped up a notch than the 3 seasons before and im loving it!

I hoped to see more im im being honest for a one hour episode, especially after what happened in Gen V last episode. But maybe its just a build up to a great season as we saw before!

The start was disappointingly slow and monotonous. It dragged on with repetitive scenes, lacking any real excitement or engagement. The same dull scenarios kept unfolding, making it a chore to watch. The pacing felt lethargic, with little variation or development to keep things interesting. Overall, it was a tedious beginning that failed to capture my attention or provide any substantial reason to keep watching. A faster pace and more dynamic elements could have improved the experience significantly. Surely not the real TheBoys episode we all know, CGI of the Gore looks a bit meh, like it's all gelly.

When I watched the first season The Boys back in 2019, I felt ecstatic. It was a fresh take on the rather stale superhero genre previously dominated by Marvel and DC. It was also a remarkably smart show, based around highly relatable characters. And, yes, when the story called for it, it included some rather extreme gore. It even managed to make good satire, throwing light punches every which way without ever feeling heavy handed.

Five years and four seasons further down the line, none of the above feels true anymore. Character arcs have come and gone, leaving them as empty husks performing the same routine in scene after scene. The gore, which doesn't feel particularly exciting or surprising anymore, is everywhere for no reason whatsoever (except possibly to hide that the show runners are out of ideas). As for the political satire, there's nothing light hearted about it anymore. It's just a gross blanket of boring propaganda choking the life off an already dying show. (And that's from someone who share most of the show runners views. But that doesn't mean I enjoy being force fed.)

Unsure if I'll ever be able to finish this season. Probably not.

A lot of things were getting me prepared for quite the divisive season with this outing of "The Boys." Not only were they building up for this to be a very political season of the beloved superhero-satire, but it generally feels like the viewers have started to catch onto what the show is trying to do as the world has descended into its more and more obscure qualities. However, with this first episode now in the bag, it feels like this is still the sharp and biting show that originally captivated audiences, just with a few more literal real-world points that challenges the satirical aspects.

For the people who are loyal supporters of populist and fascist leaders around the world, there is a chance that this episode may hit a little too close to home. However, "The Boys" has always been clear in what audience it's aiming at, and if people are not coming out and saying that the show has gone too liberal, then they've never fully understood the show. This opener may be a bit more on-the-nose than the others, but that's only because of the current political climate, which is way more unbelievable than anything you could ever watch on television, which is why this feels way more geared towards real-life issues and not the heightened versions that they've gone with before. However, even with that, this episode does work perfectly in setting up the real-world tension and face the fact that this is not a world that is fully in attack mode. Homelander is continuing to go down a dark path, and he is opening his closet to everyone, growing even darker and more toxic as his mind descends further and further. He is very familiar to the toxic celebrities that we know, and it adds to the show's overarching theme of how the entertainment industry changes people and turns them into these larger-than-life, horrible personalities. With all of that, though, the episode does have a pacing issue, often taking a little too long with some of its storylines, especially with Butcher who has little-to-nothing to actually do in this episode, except the odd comedic/emotionally-impactful moment.

"Department of Dirty Tricks" pushes the envelope far, but not so far that it becomes a fundamentally different show; it's just more openly itself now. The characters continue to grow in interesting ways, especially Homelander's dark descent, but there are definitely certain pacing issues that should be taken care of as the show goes along.