THE BOYS Season 5 Officially Begins Shooting; Episode 1 Title Revealed (2024)

Weird. Given Kripke's terminal case of TDS, I was expecting the name of the episode to be, "ORANGE MAN BAD!!! REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"

@mountainman - political commentary in entertainment has never been especially subtle.

I mean, everyone has these rose colored glasses of the Reagan years, completely forgetting he was also an actor who the left couldn't stand at all and basically inspired an entire musical generation in protest songs.

1981 was 43 years ago.

@SATW42 - Not sure why you think dunking on Reagan’s crap acting skills would be anything I care about or remotely relevant to this conversation.

Winter Soldier did a great job talking about the dangers of hidden people in power in the government.

The Matrix had a message about a fake reality that keeps people compliant so they can be used as a resource.

Star Wars criticized US imperialism. It was even smart enough to make the bad guys appear like Nazis, but Lucas very specifically said he was criticizing the US in Vietnam at that time.

Shogun had messages criticizing the patriarchal society of that time without the nagging messaging that too many shows and movies that try to preach that same message do.

I really don’t care what the message is or whether I personally agree with it or not. I want to watch a show or a movie and not modern politics we all are too inundated with all the time.

@mountainman - where did I dunk on Reagan's acting skills? Where did I even dunk on Reagan? I simply was drawing a parallel to him and Trump. Being this show is parodying the Trump administration, that's how it's pertinent to this conversation.

They both came from entertainment, they are both on the right, they both are/were despised by the left and brought about a strong criticism through the entertainment industry. Reagan happened to be mostly from the music industry, while Trump seems to be more in the form visual entertainemt.

My point was, this is nothing new, but everyone kind of tries to pretend it is. Like somehow now is worse than other times. It's not. People just have more access to more media

@mountainman - I'm a huge Matrix fan. Maybe too much of one with a collection of merch that borders on obsession. Yes I recognize the irony.

That being said, if there's one thing the Matrix never struck me as, was subtle. I'd argue, and this is my favorite film franchise mind you, it's not even particularly smart. It's a live action rip off of ghost in shell and other animes and Isaac Asimovs 1950s I, Robot. Maybe saying it isn't smart is extreme, but it's not original, at least outside of western culture, so if we're talking about "creatively bankrupt" hollywood, well, taking ideas from the East that aren't that popular in the West and presenting them as your own? Not EXACTLY "smart", again, my favorite movie and favorite film franchise.

I mean, man I could go on for days, but it literally just took a bunch of already existing ideas and coffee table philosophy and slapped it together. It doesn't even try and hide it, when Neo is hiding hacker stuff in "Simulacra and Simulation" and following white Rabbits, it's basically screaming at the viewer what it's doing.

What it did was make a visually interesting action movie. But subtle? I guess if you took it at face value and missed all the road signs.

@mountainman - Neo literally flies out of frame to Rage Against the Machine. Apart from the name of the band, the song is Wake Up. I don't think I have to tell you what that song is actually about so, again. All the subtlety of a Killing a fly with a machine gun, which, is what you are saying the Boys is doing.

The only difference is, while the Matrix gave us state of the art technology and action, the Boys is a generic and offers nothing to the greater pop culture and zeitgeist.

@SATW42 - If the Matrix had said “a specific political party in the US is who is the Matrix” (which some of the red pill folks of today totally get wrong in saying this), then Id agree with you. Also, The Matrix has also been given religious allegories by some who have seen it and some see it as a trans allegory.

In the early seasons of The Boys, it critiqued corporate culture, celebrity worship, government/corporate partnerships, and more. While those elements are still there to some extent, the partisanship (and in my opinion just flat out wrongness about what it’s trying to say) has degraded it.

Let’s talk crap about the military industrial complex, government working with big corporations, celebrity worship, etc. I’m all in for that. And in our real world, those problems are not partisan. Both parties do those things. So they water down the message by pretending like those real world problems are only associated with one party, or more specially with one politician. It’s lazy.

@mountainman - I won't argue that it's one sided, and if people don't like that, that's fine, but entertainment doesn't have to be fair. I'm not saying you said that, it's just a jumping off point for me.

I look at it like a political cartoon in the paper. It picks a specific topic, and that's what it decides to target and say something about. The artist can only fit so much into one political panel where they can't "both sides" everything they draw.

In the case of the Boys, they've decided this is the specific target of what they want to say something about. For me, Firecracker being an Alex Jones stand in is funny. But just because there's a stand in for the Alex Jones types, doesn't mean there has to be an Andersen Cooper to even it out. That's not how art works. I'm using art loosely here.

@SATW42 - I actually don’t care so much that they’ve decided to be partisan with the references as much as the intelligent commentary I liked in the early seasons is being done less.

One thing I did like in the most recent season was the episode where Vought had their “convention” talking about the future releases. Making fun of corporate pandering is clever. I also liked some of the stuff in Gen V as it mocked how young people are manipulated by multiple industries as commodities and went into the behind the scenes conspiracies that have taken more of a back seat.

This is all personal preferences of course. I come on here to state an opinion. If yours differs that’s fine. Neither of ours is right or wrong as they are both opinions.

This show and creator get so many jimmies russled and it's just [frick]ing hilarious to me.

"I thought this show was for me, than I realized it was about me waaaaah"

@soberchimera - I would love that if it's in the same sytle of DREDD!

Is that something that's really on the table or just hopefully thinking?

Cool , glad to see them about to start filming soon!!.

While last season might have been one of the weaker ones , I still liked it overall so hopefully S5 provides a satisfying ending for the show.

Been a big fan so far hence fingers crossed!!.

Ok we all know Homelander dies. MF should have died 3 seasons ago but whatever. We can all guess Butchers gone too with him becoming a villain.

But one line bothers me a lot and its the ''whoever dies richly deserves it''. Which means only the bad ones die.
See that's a problem...I like shows/movies where not everything is rainbow and sunshine. Good characters should be able to die too especially in a show that prides itself from being different to the usual bland CBM sh1t like Disney. Most of the Boys should die too. This is why Invincible will stay superior, when that show ends it just won't be only the bad characters dying. That makes you care more about not just the story but characters as well. I'm gonna be honest, I find the Boys characters besides maybe Butcher so bland and boring.Kimiko was a cool character but they turned her into the rest as well. Honestly most of them feel like Disney characters and it's quite jarring with the rest of the
tone/show/characters. Like when Butcher suggested V to take on the 7 because there was no other way and their reply was ''it's not ethical/righteous'' lmao. Like wtf, you rather get a pat on the back for not taking a drastic measure to save billions and your ego is more important than the fate of the world ? There was no other way. See sh1t like this takes me out of a show. The writing is so subpar and because the 7 are so OP, Homelander is so OP, that they have no other way to balance it out. I really loved this show but it's so reliant on shock value that it tries to cover up the lack of great writing. The episode where Hughie got R* for comedic value is a perfect example. I don't know I hope it sticks the landing but I feel like every season got worse and worse. S1 was great, S2 was good, S3+4 was mostly filler with some good moments but mostly disappointing.

Please stick the landing. Let it be good. Don't disappoint please.

Also give Karl Urban another chance at DREDD you cowards. That movie is up there with the likes of The Raid, John Wick.
I love movies where the antihero terrorizes the terrifying villain. We don't see many of those quality films.

I'm here to witness the most pathetic and humiliating defeat Homelander and Soldier Boy can get. Bring it Kripke.

Deliver me that and it'll be a classic bookend.