Amazon's Anti-Superhero Series The Boys Fails to Be Truly Subversive | TV/Streaming
It’s an exciting world to be dropped into, with its bracingly honest take on the superhero constructed out of criticism against the likes of Marvel and DC Comics, and making it real by showing just how superficial it would be: the PR stunts, the stock points, the movie deals. And it presents compelling off-the-wall scenarios too, like what would happen if a superhero killed someone you love in the supposed line of duty. That’s the case with Jack Quaid’s Hughie, who watches his girlfriend Robin (Jess Salgueiro) burst into a splash of guts when a “supe” named A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) blitzes through her on the street. The corporation behind A-Train and other heroes, Vought Industries, want to chalk it up to collateral damage, and give the traumatized Hughie a settlement package, which his father (Simon Pegg) encourages him to take. But Hughie wants something more—he wants justice. For the history of how many villains have been inspired to fight superheroes based on personal grudges, it’s a compelling flip, as the caped crusaders are mostly the douchebag villains, and the ones trying to kill the heroes are the good guys.
But “The Boys” visibly struggles to have a personality outside of its concept, which is best embodied by Karl Urban’s character Billy Butcher, who enters into Hughie’s life offering a way to get payback against all supes. At first you think this is more Hughie’s story, especially as Quaid’s performance is effectively twitchy and scared, but it’s more about the machinations set in place by Billy. Once Billy’s plot to hunt heroes takes off by about episode three, each episode practically starts with him sending Hughie on a type of mission, while he speaks in half-slang and a Cockney accent. All this to say that he looks like a parody of a tough guy, and that this series takes him seriously to a dangerous fault, shedding him of his dynamic qualities. In spite of his abrasive entrance into Hughie’s life Billy is just another scowling mug, leading a group of other gritty anti-superhero men like Laz Alonso's Mother's Milk and Tomer Capon's Frenchie. That the series is named after Billy's group isn’t the statement of a show with an encouraging bluntness, but a revelation of the boring side that "The Boys" struggles to conceal.
And within this tantalizing idea of our superhero fantasies meeting the hellish reality of human nature, there of course has to be a Superman. In the world of "The Boys," that's the almighty Homelander, the most powerful, untouchable, and therefore most dangerous of them all. With his blonde hair neatly coiffed in a certain way, speaking shallowly about his impenetrable power while wearing the American flag as a cape, he’s like a vision of Trump that's jumped out of a Ben Garrison political cartoon, a timely context that this series thankfully only winks at. Homelander is depicted with an effectively creepy fascistic nature by Antony Starr, who makes an eerie habit out of Homelander stating “You’re the real heroes” to any group that applauds his latest act, and then following it up with a condescending, venomous sneer. It’s wonderfully grotesque, like in an episode when Homelander hovers over a massive religious festival crowd in a Christ-like position, paralleling a speech about the supremacy of America with his own godlike spectacle.
