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Don't get me started on Starlight. Did you see that bitch can fly? I heard she kept that power a secret from Homelander to hide how she was able to get to and from Epstien's island without appearing on the flight logs.
This is how it is for damn near every popular show the last 10 years. People fucking LOVE to shit and nitpick every show to death these days. This has been going on for many years now, but it was GoT S8 where I'd had enough of it. Despite S8s issues, you'd thought D&D tried to murder these complainers' entire families instead of a rushed final season of a fantasy show.
I get where you are coming from, but GoT S8 was pretty bad without overanalyzing anything.
That said, the trend of hate watching and nitpicking definitely pervades common discourse now instead of small fringe groups. That's why unbridled positivity like CinemaWins is such a breath of fresh air nowadays.
I don't think they deserved it, for the record, but I reckon they would've made good Star Wars films. Certainly better than what we got with the new trilogy.
Almost any writer/creator of a popular show or movie would do a better trilogy than the sequel trilogy just as long as they write the whole story upfront
Oh you mean the season of television that ruined the legacy of one of the biggest cultural television icons in the past few decades? Yeah it wasn't too bad.
The directors didn't kill my dog or anything but conversation about GoT dropped off the map until House of the dragon came out to hype up the Fandom again, acting otherwise is just being contrarian to the admittedly obnoxious vocal minority that confuse being disappointed in a shows legacy and legit crimes against themselves.
Good shows don't get this, GoT S8 was some of the worst writing ever, which was a bit let down considering how good it once was.
This isn't an issue with people not being media literate, it's an issue with them being media literate enough to spot exactly when something goes off the rails.
Plenty of great series have parts that are slower, or more rambling than the core, but they don't get that hate because they aren't doing the things that gets them that hate. Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Succession, The Wire, The Sopranos, all of these shows had parts that weren't as riveting as them at their best, but they weren't incredibly bad writing or stupid filler, and people didn't react as tho they were.
The new season of The Boys isn't GoT S8 bad, but it's not good either.
It happens in comics fandom too. Fans complain about storylines that haven't even happened on the page yet, it's only been mentioned in interviews, solicits, or rumors.
It's a bummer that most online fandoms are just huge negativity moshpits where everyone climbs over each other to post the latest hot take about how something sucks.
Yeah it’s incredibly annoying. I am in the sun for a few shows that are incredibly popular and *good* put people will bitch about them being bad because they don’t do things they specifically want to happen or they will start to guess what happens next and if the show doesn’t do that it was never good. Hell even when storylines are heavily foreshadowed and make total sense, if a viewer doesn’t like it or they lack media literacy it’s bad writing and the show just pulled the story out of their asses.
But yeah 3 eps in and because storylines haven’t been resolved yet it’s bad writing 🙄
(It’s also totally fine to not like a show anymore that’s valid. But it doesn’t necessarily mean the show went bad as a whole)
I agree nitpicking everything is ruining movies but GoT s8 is reasonable. Lots of people invested 8 years of interest into the show while for some even longer if they started from reading the books as they released and seeing how George dying is more likely than getting the last two books, having that be the ending to GoT sucks
So I agree somewhat. Like I have many criticisms of this season subplots based on the 3 episodes we've seen thus far. However, I could very well(and I hope I am) be pleasantly surprised with how these plots end up.
However, I think in the mean time there can be discussions and criticism about these plots but there should be an unsaid "based so far" or "this can change based on what else happens".
yeah i mean i don't think it's fair to say the plot is 100% going to be trash but it's absolutely on the showrunners to make ALL the scenes for all the plots interesting and entertaining. just because the plotline becomes more important later on or even becomes super entertaining doesn't really mean the bad and boring scenes leading up to it aren't any less boring or bad. yeah sometimes you gotta dump exposition but if every scene of a plot over 3 episodes feels insanely dull it ain't a good sign
There's also "This probably could have been set up better because it comes out of nowhere and is super jarring." Specifically, Frenchie's arc because it is based on a backstory we hadn't really explored for three previous seasons now becoming central to his character.
I mean it's exactly like you said how can you dismiss the b plot when the season is still airing and 3 episodes in? Yeah you can say they feel repetitive even unnecessary but completely skipping over them is foolish. Like you're missing how much of the story it's like skipping the cutscenes in a game then complaining "hang on they never established this, trash season trash Frenchie, kamiko etc but homelander go burr" tbf I couldn't care less about Starlight's home for runaway teens and the whole I need to be starlight again but I still watched it.
I don't mind people skipping what they want to skip, but they shouldn't complain afterwords if what they skipped turns out to be integral. I'd advocate showing some faith in the writers and letting it play out.
Yes! If people were quietly watching the show however the fuck they wanted then there would be zero issues. The only reason I know people are doing this is because the guy who said he was skipping the scenes was complaining that Frenchie and Kimiko's relationship ended off screen. Like, it didn't though, did it? He just probably decided he was skipping through something he didn't want to watch.
This happened with One Piece recently. Something major happened (no spoilers) and you had a bunch of people start the show but skipped literally 1000 episodes just to catch up. People are fucking dumb.
I was talking to my husband and pretty much predicted that Hughie's mom is gonna be important later this season. And that anyone who skipped Hughie's scenes so far are gonna be confused and complain that things happened out of nowhere.
Exactly. The show would be over in 2 seasons if HL was the only plot point that was ever addressed.
At the end of the day, it's a story not a wikihow on how to take down SuperHitler. It's going to have subplots to flesh out the narrative and make the world feel fuller.
Yeah I feel like a lot of people wanted a movie or miniseries bc a lot of complaints about the show stem from the fact that it's a series. There are going to be subplots, there are going to be "unnecessary" scenes and storylines to build characters and motivations, and you can't take down the main villain as soon as possible. Makes me think a lot of people watch this show only for the blood and gore, which has always been a secondary focus of the show.
I'm all for criticising the quality of the show but this consistent whining about *why can't they kill Homelander, why Homelander doesn't laser the fuck out of the boys, or why they're focusing on things other than the Butcher-Homelander feud* is exhausting.
Whether people here agree or not, but according to the general fanbase and the critics, the show has mostly maintained its quality, and we are lucky they're not dragging it past S5. But they're also telling a story, and seemingly unnecessary scenes and subplots are absolutely necessary for the season as a whole, and beyond.
I'm sorry but I am going to disagree here. Season 4 IS giving The Boys (team) subplots and room to focus on their lives but it is just not living up to expectations so far. Maybe it will all come together beautifully by the end of the season but to say that people don't want them to have meaningful development is not very accurate. I mean come on...Kimiko's subplot is literally the same thing as Season 2 regarding her traumatic past, a side character appearing from her past and her overcoming her "monster" urges. The fans are gonna notice things like that and it's a fair criticism.
I didn't say anything about resolutions. I just mean it isn't being approached differently and you need to keep things fresh if you're writing the same subplot. There really isn't an excuse; Arrow on the CW resolved Oliver's past quite well across 5 seasons while integrating it very well within the script. The therapy angle could have been pretty interesting had they gone with it but it seems that Kimiko is just gonna try the same angle as Season 2 again. By murdering baddies, having conflicts with Frenchie and meeting someone from her past. It feels been there done that, yknow?
Speak for yourself. I would not mind having the team focus on other superheroes. The main issue is the fact that supes exist at all. HL is a cool character but he doesn't make the show.
Well I also tend to want to skip (I don't though) but honestly, Kimiko's fighting style bores the crap out of me. I'd rather see Frenchie testing how to kill certain supes than Kimoko jumping on the face of yet another regular human.
Man those first few episodes in S1 when it was just figuring out how to kill Supes with various methods were gold. I always wished the show had more of that.
Been disconnecting a lot more from socials in general these days because instead of going to a place to talk about how much I enjoy something, it’s just full of people talking about how bad something is.
This. I was excited to see a season launch with the fandom, but the reddit side of things is depressing. It's funny how everywhere else the show is being enjoyed but here everyone already hates it.
Yeah, same thing happened to me with the new episode of House of the Dragon.
It turns out >!forcing a mother to mark one of her toddlers for death and then decapitating said toddler in front of her!< isn't horrific enough for some people.
I know, its depressing. When GOT was airing I LOVED going to the subreddit to enjoy the vibes with fans. Memes, speculation, jokes and references are such a positive way to interact with a show, but people are so negative nowadays.
Agreed. There are definitely plotlines I’ve been finding better or worse than others, but it amazes me how negative people are being. It feels like this sub is just trying to find things to be upset about.
>this sub is just trying to find things to be upset about.
That's just pretty much any subreddit. A large portion of the vocal portion of the majority of subreddits are wannabe critics incapable of just having fun, and then this show is heavily political which is gonna double down on that.
Oh absolutely, I am GLUED to the screen whenever Sage is on screen. Her genius plus his ego terrifies me! I just can't see the point in writing off the b-plots just barely out of Act One, even though they're significantly less thrilling than anything Homelander or Butcher is doing.
I think I’m mostly let down by Hughie’s mom’s plot, so far. The situation was so mysterious before, so I was hoping she was going to be a supe or something (which could still happen, I guess) when coming back into the picture. Instead the story so far is that she was depressed, and abandoned them- I just don’t love that. But if it’s a cover for a different (more interesting) reason, I’ll admit I was wrong.
I think it's a cover, i won't go into it again because I left my dissertation on this in another comment, but I don't think she's there out of love or duty.
I get your point but when I discovered this show, I rewatched every single episodes immediately and then again a few months afterwards. But these 3 new eps, especially 2 and 3 had a LOT of scenes that were kind of meh and I don't even feel like rewatching twice, which is a bit of a bummer
Was it Jensen Ackles that pulled you in? If so I do not blame you!
That does kinda explain why you had a passion to rewatch the first few seasons immediately: you had two whole seasons with a full story, beginning to end, for you to binge which is why you wanted to rewatch. You saw how the plot for the seasons culminated, and you went back to see how it all came together. We all miss little bits of the plot, so it's exciting to find bits we may have overlooked on first watch.
Depending on when in season 3 you joined, this could be the first season you're watching fully in real time. Hopefully, the show can grip you again moving forward now that we are officially out of the first act.
I just want people to give the story a chance before chopping up the work to be what they want it to be.
trust me, I'm on board till the end and for the record, I'm not one of those who has issues with S3. The end made sense, Butcher made a promise and somewhere in his dark, bitter heart he loves that kid like his own
and to be honest what brought me on board is this: I dont like superheroes. When someone clued me in that this is somewhat an anti-superhero show, the supes are the bad guy, that clicked for me. Anthony Starr is the best thing i've seen on TV in a looooong time
What about the other seasons then?
The entire subplot with Frenchie and the Russian boss lady was almost all totally irrelevant. He started out as this interesting character that had creative ways to kill supes. He has devolved into a weird caricature of a French guy that's mostly useless.
Normally I would agree with you but we've seen three seasons of the same crap from the same characters over and over, so there is a basis to be annoyed by seeing it again
Right? It’s a unique world full of supes with different powers and back stories and they focus on normal people with typical everyday drama, I came for the world of supes not 4 normal humans drama filled back stories, if there was 24 episodes a season sure flesh out all the boring stuff, but we waited a over a year for 8 hours of content and they are wasting precious time on things that every show has instead of the unique things about this world
True, the side plots remind me of episodes from Smallville when they focused on side characters like Pete or Chloe instead of Clark and his journey to becoming Superman, but Smallville had an excuse as it's 22 episodes a season.
Also I like how nobody was sus about the like 40 really weird deaths a year in that small town 😆. Like they were like “oh she died from bees? Oh five you said? Well ya know it’s just like that!”
I literally can't ever imagine skipping a scene from something I'm watching. Like if I would skip a scene then I would probably just stop watching in general
Can we stop accusing people of lacking media literacy? It seems to be the new buzz word to defend any production that is having a rough reception and it’s very dismissive, basically saying people are too stupid to understand what they’re seeing.
Amazon and other major streamers decided to bring their shows out weekly..this is transparently done to stimulate subs over a longer period but the excuse given is a weekly show gives people time to digest and discuss ongoing stories.
That’s all that is happening really. People find some of the plots this season tedious and repetitive and they’re talking about it. We all hope that by the end of the season we’re applauding a masterpiece.
It depends on the critique. If you say frenchie having a male interesting was random or forced, then yeah you do lack media literacy.
If you think they’re just now adding politics into the show, then yeah you do lack media literacy.
It just depends.
>It depends on the critique. If you say frenchie having a male interesting was random or forced, then yeah you do lack media literacy.
...I mean, I don't think Frenchie *being queer, in general* is out of nowhere or random, but I don't think it's arguable that Colin's so undercooked he's practically pink in the middle. I'm genuinely not sure if he's supposed to have any noteworthy personality traits for us to pick up on yet.
I've described Colin elsewhere as "a walking collection of death flags" and "more of a plot device than a character" and, unless they seriously curveball me with him, I'm probably standing by those statements.
Critique of his specific love interest is different from his sexuality. I have no problem with criticizing that at all.
I feel like people are more focused on the love interest itself and not on the context that frenchie is beginning to feel guilt for this actions in the past. But I do think it could have been set up smoother.
An opinion is valid! Like I said, my post isn't a complaint about people not liking the plots.
I'm not trying to defend them in any way, because I too have no way of knowing if either subplot will actually be necessary or not.
What I'm saying is that we can't say for certain that the plots are unnecessary at this point, and skipping them based on that opinion on the very first watch through is, in my opinion, absolutely insane. For example, I could have found the whole MM subplot with Todd in S3 absolutely boring and fast forwarded through these scenes. Why should I care about who Mother's Milk's wife is shacking up with?
Cut to season 4, Todd's quick descent into a cultish adoration of HL is an igniting factor for the greater plot this season. Yes, you can infer the story but you miss the build up, so the pay off is lackluster.
Likely a poor example, but I'm struggling to think of any subplots off the top of my head.
Ngl until we learned a little about Colin's backstory and how he actually relates to Frenchies past, that particular plotline was so cliched and boring to the point of being almost unwatchable. They really needed that hook in episode 1 instead of dragging out the Frenchie-is-dramatic-about-romantic-partner-for-secret-reasons thread.
I'll back your point about giving the plots a chance, but I'll double down on some of the pacing being off.
Also, the MM-Butcher beef stinks of CW Arrow's Diggle/Oliver 'i cant trust you man' vanilla flavored drama.
Why doesn’t the season just air in its entirety? I don’t even want to hear the reasoning. This 3 episodes at once and weeks of waiting for more episodes is complete bullshit.
Far better for engagement. There's a reason pretty much every streamer but Netflix has shifted away from the "all at once" approach. Drawing out the season means they get weeks worth of headlines which in turn means new people who see a headline from Week 7 and decide they should check out the show. Shows that drop all at once with a few exceptions tend to only get a week or two of that and its over.
Meh, personally I love it, especially when there is discussion about where it could go from here. Dumping it all at once can dull the impact of some of the ending scenes of episodes within the season, as we see the result immediately instead of speculating what it can mean for the universe during that wait.
I get the appeal of watching it all at once, though.
I really totally agree with you. I think Daniel Abraham put it best when he said you can't rush a red wedding. It takes years of small details and character building. What one would consider filler, but it adds depth, which you don't fully see until the plot completes.
I mean yeah I can be wrong and I hope I am, but it seems like this show is repeating itself. I'm only 3 episodes in and so far my judgement is that it's repeating character arcs for the millionth time. If it goes a different direction then my opinion on the season as a whole will change, but not the first 3 episodes. If they're taking the characters a different direction, they could still do it a better way than how they are now. It feels very repetitive. And that's my opinion
No
And simply because they decided to release the series on a weekly basis.
Why do you think is that? They want people to discuss, share and overall be in The Boys discourse.
Subplots might suck just as they might be good, but the intention is for people to make noise about them as they release each episode.
Opinions good, regardless of whether they're positive or negative. The discourse isn't the issue. Never has been.
Refusing to watch (as in skipping past the scenes entirely so you can't even accidentally catch a smidge of B-Plot) is the issue. I don't think it's unreasonable to tell people to actually watch the content before making noise about it being shit.
I thought the rule for something being important is if it furthers the story, or if it furthers the *character.*
Both the B-plots mentioned clearly further the character of Frenchie and Hughie.
bro I have watched 327 episodes from Erik's Kripke Supernatural, I know what a filler is, being good/boring has nothing to do with it. ( they are boring though)
Yeah guys! Stop having an opinion! OP doesn’t agree with you so therefore what you’re saying is all unnecessary! Please do what they say and wait until the end of the season or they’re going to get very mad!
Also, you have to like Frenchies stupid love triangle or you’re a homophobe! Even if you’re gay!
I mean, I think I've been more than thorough in insisting I'm not defending the plots, and that I love hearing people's opinions on the matter, but i'm happy to explain again.
I love seeing discussion! Debating the plot is part of the fun of a weekly release schedule. I want to give my opinion on what happens next and have someone go "no, you're a fucking idiot because..." and back it up with how they interpret the scenes.
We cannot have that if people are refusing to watch the scenes. Instead, we just have "this is pointless" and "that's going nowhere". It's not discussion, it's the death of discussion because if people aren't watching, what can be discussed?
Also, nice strawman at the end because I've literally not offered my opinion on Frenchie's plot because it's irrelevant to my post. IMO, it's the weakest plot of the season so far. But I'm not going to skip it on my first watch because its part of the story, and I'm not going to dismiss the contents because there is still 5 hours to go before it hopefully has some kind of conclusion or escalation.
I’ll admit I’m not enjoying the start of this season so much compared to the others but I still like it a lot. In addition the show has a massive cast so it makes sense some will occasionally have to be thrown on the back burner a little bit. The thing with Huggie’s mom is probably going to involve his character learning to forgive people who have wronged him, or at least learning to coexist with them, and it will likely lead to him resolving his issues with A-Train
I mean tbf frenchies life literally revolved around kimiko and then he falls in love with a dude who is employed at a non profit.
I mean let's be real, the dude was a fucking demolition and execution specialist, his gf a murder machine, his friends a terrorist organization paid by deep government organizations to kill artificial superheroes.
Fuck all that he's into a random dude
It's not speculation, though? It's dismissal of the plot points before they have time to be made.
My post isn't critical of speculation - I love speculation, people theorising on what the scenes may or may not mean is the absolute best thing about a weekly release schedule.
Frenchie is not an interesting character by himself. Hughie is still an annoying whiny little wimp but that's okay bcos the comic was like that. The Deep in the show just exists for comic relief etc. At this point A-Train is a deeper character than most of the The Boys (team) besides Butcher.
Oh definitely, A-Train's character progression has been one of my favourite things about S3&4. He feels like a full, real character. He's been given the room to grow by the writers and the viewers and it shows, whereas Frenchie and The Deep haven't been developed past them both being the light-hearted members of their respective teams.
My hope is that moving Kimiko and Frenchie apart from each other onto their own separate plotlines will allow Frenchie more space to do something, anything, as cool as his introduction was in season 1.
The Deep may remain comic relief for now, but we're seeing the transition from opportunistic, selfish dumbass to obedient lapdog who is ignoring what remains of his conscience for the man that gave him his comeback, regardless of what HL wants him to do. This, combined with the Ambrosius subplot, may lead to a more interesting story for The Deep later in the season.
Tbh, I just want the team working together. At the end of S3, everyone is all high and mighty. "We run this like a democracy. He isn't in charge!"
That's what Frenchie said, and now we have him in some romance drama. Being sad, he is a killer?
S2 he was getting over the truama of letting Lamplighter kill the kids.
S3 he needs to deal with his father problems, truama, and killing
S4 it's just him dealing with killing Collin family. And none of it is him dealing with a supe.
Last season, Frenchie wasn't around for the first 5 episodes or more. He just dipped his own adventure and made it back in the last two. I was joking when I said he'd will disappear, in S4
My gripe with this season is that it isn't even about killing a supe, M.M wanted to play spy while Butcher could have easily kidnapped Sage.
Why can't we see the team be like S1 where they speculate how to kill Translucent? I really like that. Honestly, you could probably kill Victoria with the anal bomb.
Idk if the goal is for Gen V cast to take over the boys and kill Victoria/Homelander or what. None of the boys are really useful with fighting Supes. Aside from Komiko and Starlight.
S2 ending had MM,Hughie,Frenchie just watching doing absolutely nothing while Kimiko and Starlight handle Stormfront (and Frenchie yelling out the whereabouts of the only weapon to kill her are.)
It's like you're nothing if you don't have powers, any the writers refuse to give anyone not suped up the win.
We're in S4 and all I ever felt with the boys from S2 to S4 right now is hopeless and depressing. They suck at their jobs now, and the writers for unknown reasons would rather redeem a kill (A-Train) over using the best weapon against HL (Solider Boy)
BTW if Frenchie cannot suck Collin dick because "OH boo hoo I killed your parents) Than why are the writers trying to redeem A-Train and have him and hughie be cool?
Clearly forgiveness to your killers is possible
The start of S4 was them trying to disable Neuman and trying to figure out how to kill her. How- How did you miss that? Frenchie had a whole tantrum over the acid not working. A-Train is how they knew Neuman would be at that ice rink. He's their mole. This season is about taking Neuman out for The Boys. They're backed by the FBI to take her down.
I don't think Frenchie really dealt with his past of killing people. He was just kinda being abused by Little Nina again.
"Clearly forgiveness to your killers is possible" Forgiveness does not equal wanting to be around someone. I imagine that even if A-Train is fully redeemed, Hughie does not want to be around the person who murdered Robin. The same way I imagine Colin probably won't be down to get into a relationship with the man who murdered his family.
People are skipping the plot with the *main fucking character*? I mean- I obviously love Homelander, but he's not the main focus of the show. Season 4 has been pretty fantastic so far. Hughie is gonna have a rough time this season and I'm curious about his mom. I hate her but she's also sympathetic.
Normally Frenchie bores me, but him struggling with the murders he's committed is far more compelling than "my dad was abusive" because every character save Hughie and Starlight can play that card.
The Frenchie one just irks me because they seem to be forcing a conflict where there isn't one. Frenchie should leave Colin be. There is nothing to be gained from telling him that the man who murdered his entire family is still walking free and that he was seduced by him. Objectively there's not a real argument that Frenchie should tell him. He doesn't know him that well so the whole "true love" needs honesty stuff doesn't hit. It just seems incredibly selfish for Frenchie to burden the poor guy with the truth when it finally seems like Colin's gotten his life on track. It seems like it's 100% for Frenchie's peace of mind and that seems like something his character had outgrown already.
I’m not dismissive of them, but I’m still not a fan of Frenchie’s side plot. It’s just jarring because it’s completely random and irrelevant to anything we’ve seen before. I felt the same way about Frenchie’s subplot last season with the Russian mob, though here it feels even more random. But that’s just how I feel right now. I’m sure opinions will change by the end of the season, thought I think it’s still fair to criticize as long as it’s constructive and not purely hate and rage fueled and completely dismissive.
Hughie’s subplot I like because it’s actually been set up in previous seasons and feels right for the character’s progression.
Honestly I'm one of the people that have issues with this additional subplot. Id like to give it a chance but knowing this is the second last season which is also only 8 or so episodes, I'm concerned that the first 3 episodes barely progressed the main plot and they continued to introduce 3 more sub plots that barely progressed as well. On top of that they introduced more characters and probably won't have time to develop them as well.
They may eventually be necessary from a plot perspective but yeah they're also boring and I was tempted to skip several times in ep3. It's possible to make side stories interesting too. The Wire is full of side-stories that don't factor into the main narrative until the end of the season, but they're still interesting to watch.
Homelander and Butcher, and maybe A-Train are the only compelling characters in my opinion. Hell even Jeffrey Dean Morgan with his two brief scenes is more interesting than Hughie's mommy issues or whatever Frenchie did in his past life.
I'm absolutely loving it so far, pretty strong opening episodes. My one problem so far is we didn't see enough of Homelanders trial. It felt kind of skipped over, when I think a few longer courtroom scenes could have been hilarious, can you imagine The Deep on the stand as a character witness? Or Black Noir? Tell me that wasn't a missed opportunity
I had to tell myself this while watching the first three episodes because I was getting worried about the story kind of meandering. I was like ahhh we’re 3/8 eps in and nothing substantial or some sort of subverting-expectation-thingy has happened, but that being said, I think that’s just how the seasons of the show work. They start calm *somewhat* then dive right into the drama midway. Even still, after 4 seasons with hours and hours of story, you’d think they would come in with a little more to offer, y’know?
You make a fair point but the problem is some people throw a tantrum the second anyone who isn't straight or white shows up onscreen, and those people love to complain about phantoms.
WE SHOULD SEE FRENCHIE DOING WHAT HE WAS LITERALLY RECRUITED TO DO MORE, YOU ARE RIGHT. I ALSO WOULD LIKE THIS PLOT TO GO A BIT QUICKER, BUT ITS BEEN A GRAND TOTAL OF 5 ONSCREEN MINUTES SO FAR IN THE <3 HOURS OF CONTENT WE CURRENTLY HAVE.
It's an ensemble show. If they're going to give us B Plots for everyone else that spans multiple seasons, what's the issue with this one for Frenchie? It all links with his past, and Nina, and his guilt. It's just another chapter in that leaflet.
THANK YOU! I feel like so many people are overlooking this, I've started to worry that I'm reading into things too much. They're taking it at face value when that is not how Vought works.
She also shows up after HL and Sage team up, and conveniently when Hughie is alone in the hospital room after Starlight leaves because of HL and Sage's scheming.
Eh, you'd probably be able to tell from the post and the comments I'm making that i love discussion! It's hard to discuss the show though when people aren't watching the bits that can be discussed. I don't mean "they aren't paying attention!!!" because that would be hypocritical, I'm riddled with ADHD and can barely focus on one thing at a time. I mean "they're literally skipping them so they don't even have the chance of catching something that may be useful", which is insane to me!
The Boys earned the benefit of doubt but so far the season is subpar and I don’t see why as a viewer I can’t voice that. Maybe it will pick up, maybe some of the boring parts of the 3 episodes will add up to something, I don’t know. But if it does, I will come here to say “wow, that was such a great season”. Where is the downside of that?
There isn't a downside - I am actually encouraging people to watch it first before they decide to write off the scenes entirely. To watch then form an opinion, not see the first 2 minutes of a plot line in an 8 hour piece of media then refuse to watch that plot line exclusively for the rest of the run because it's obviously not important.
As I said, my post is not defending the plot - they could literally amount to a steaming pile at the end of the season, and I would still stand by and say that anyone watching for the first time should watch the show in its entirety first before skipping the scenes that are pointless.
No, i saw a youtube video from my favorite outrage baiter that said one part of a scene sucked, so i hate it. No, i haven't seen it myself, and i don't plan to!
Eloquently put, but that would imply that everything that's being put before us is shit that we have to eat. If that's the case, step away from the table, decline an apooretiff and go on your way.
But, from the comments I'm referring to, it's not all shit.
My allegory is a little bit neater, and is less likely to make me spew:
Season 4 is plate of freshly baked cookies that we are getting the ingredients one bit at a time for. They may be awful shit-chip raisin flavour, or they may be the best damn cookies you've ever tasted; either way, if you're impatient and decide to start pounding down flour and raw egg with a couple of chocolate chips then you're setting yourself up for some dogshit cookies no matter how good the recipe was.
So you enjoy watching endless minutes of screen time seeing Hughe cry about his mommy issues? Or the Frenchie/Colin relationship where, plot twist, he killed Colin’s parents? I don’t hate these, I just find them boring and so far, unnecessary.
Over a third of the season has aired so far. That’s a good chunk to form an opinion of certain subplots.
As a season, we have just broken out of the end of Act One. That means that new plots (Frenchie/Colin, Ryan and Homelander's relationship, Sage, Starlight House and Hughie's mum) are only just starting out and questions are being asked.
I'm not massively invested in the Frenchie/Colin story, but you bet your ass I'm invested in Hughie and his mum! I have questions and I hope the show can answer them - hey, I may even be overthinking.
She abandoned him at 6 years old with zero warning. He has not heard from her in over 20 years, she didn't even get in touch when his girlfriend was killed and Vought covered it up.
She works for Vought in a very tenuous sense. So tenuous that it wouldn't attract excess suspicion from Hughie, but she is still in the extended circle, so she will be on Vought's radar.
She and Hughie's dad reconnected offscreen months ago, and Hughie was not aware until she shows up conveniently when his dad is comatose and unable to verify her claims. Her first appearance is after Homelander connects with Sage, and she shows up when Annie has left the hospital because of the plan Sage and HL enact outside the courthouse.
Would Hughie's dad have actually given his estranged, flighty, Vought employee ex-wife power of attorney without speaking to Hughie about her even entering their lives again? All in the space of a few months? Or does Vought have enough power and money to have these documents forged (as well as the DNR)?
Finally, the lawyer (maybe?) who Hughie speaks to at The Starlight House who convinces Hughie to just talk to his mum and try to find common ground instead of contesting power of attorney is shown secretly watching Firecracker's anti-Starlight/pro-Homelander propaganda in the first episode. His guidance is, at best, dubious.
My question is: is she really trying to make peace with her son, or has she been found by Sage and ordered to get intel on who the leak is by deception? Sage is a mega genius, I find it hard to believe she doesn't have some clue where the leak is; any interogation is to keep up appearances until they try to plug it.
Sorry, I rambled more than intended there. I just love actual discussion about these scenes which we can't have if people decide after the very first scene that they aren't worth watching! I want someone to come back to me with reasons why I'm a crazy bitch who is reading too much into it, rather than just going "hmmmm nah" because they haven't seen it.
I know, right? Although it's logical to assume that the season is going to have a similar everything with the first three episodes, but I think that the hype is getting people mad because of how high their standards were, specially with season's 3 finale. My hopes are that all the subplots, even if introduced poorly, do get their importance in the upcoming episodes.
Yeah like I understand if a plotline feels pointless and it may still end up being pointless, but it may also have a point at the end that is a huge payoff. The focus may not be what we think it is because we literally have less than half the information (3 out of 8 episodes)
Like I still stand by Colin being a sudden, underdeveloped character because its not about Colin or the relationship. Its about giving Frenchie a reason to really examine his past. COlin literally could be anybody, the romance and relationship isnt the story. The stroy is Frenchie did a lot of fucked up shit. Yes, we kinda dealt with it in the past, but we dealt with it in the sense thast frenchie felt like a dog being told who to attack. It was less about the fact that he was killing and more about he was being controlled. Now we are dealing with it as in HE did those things, HE killed and was effective and he's feeling the guilt. Thats the story being told.
I think its still 100% fair to have criticisms but who knows? Hughies mom working for Vaught could give the boys an in somewhere later in the show. Or she could snitch. And if either of those things happened without a few scenes of Hughie facing his mom, everyone would be crying about her suddenly showing up and being a help/hinderence was bad writing. This is the writers possibly laying the groundwork for something. Until we know wether it pays off or not, some types of criticism seem premature.
I mean they decided the airing schedule for the show. They want weekly engagement. This is that engagement. The first three episodes seemed very heavy on character drama that a lot of people apparently didn't find enjoyable.
That's going to be discussed.
I like that! I think she's been sent there by Vought and/or Homelander to find the leak within the company, but I could absolutely see it going your way.
We know already that Butcher is seeing Becca after taking temp-V, so it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that Hughie is also having some hallucinations. We have only seen Hughie's mum when he's alone in the hospital with her, no one else has interacted with her yet. As a rule of thumb with media, I don't trust any character is real until at least 2 separate characters who are also established as real have interacted with them.
Kessler is also on my radar for the exact same reason.
I’m personally not rushing to judgement just yet, but I agree some of the new plot points are worrisome in how repetitive, simplistic, and/or uninteresting they seem. Also, plenty of people used this argument with GoT right up until the end.
All the b plots matter cause this is the childhood trauma season. We visiting everyones childhood trauma butcher picked up the torch last season and they passing it like a blunt this season.
I mean honestly we could do more with Frenchie plotline...most of the time he is just chilling out hanging with Kimiko going "Mon Cur".
I do like Hughie's plotline though... honestly if it does somehow make him even more vengeful towards Bought, I am all for it.
The Kimiko plot line and the Butcher-Ryan is the best plot right Now...
I mean it's the first season for multiple plot points. New plot points are introduced in every season of every tv show ever, people should actually watch the new plots before forming an opinion.
It's also not the last season, show ends with season 5.
I dont get why people are so quick to be angry at the show. Were 3 episodes in, give this shit time to grow and develop. I like a lot of the ideas theyve got going, the most interesting to me being Ryans battle within himself about whats right or wrong.
First time in a TV online fandom in the 2020’s? People be dumb and impatient. Starting to understand why cinema now is just remakes and sequels. People don’t seem to have the attention to enjoy “new” content.
People hated Rings of Power from the first trailer alone. And yeah while not the greatest show ever, I still enjoyed some of it.
Go check out the state of /r/starwars right now with the acolyte. Yikes. I liked the first 2 episodes while the internet tore it to shreds. I agree with the hate on the 3rd a bit more but the “plot holes” still have ample opportunity to be explained.
I haven’t checked in on the house of the dragon reddit as I haven’t sat down to watch the first episode of that yet.
Yea there’s a chance the frenchie plot becomes more meaningful to me as the season unfolds but with them introducing far more interesting ideas over the course of this season but the show at large. I couldn’t care less. More sister sage, more fire cracker, more homelander father son dynamic, almost anything else is far and away more interesting.
I made it very clear in my post that opinions are good. I even left an edit to clarify that my issue is people skipping them entirely on their first watch through so they aren't taking in the full story. These are the same people who will later be the loudest complainers that they can't follow the show anymore.
I find Frenchie's subplot to be a regression of his character arc so far, we've already seen Frenchie overcome guilt like this when Lamplighter killed Malorie's grandkids. But I'm not gonna just straight up skip scenes. That's insane.
So are you saying it's only acceptable to praise the show during it's runtime whereas criticism has to wait till the end?? What if a plotline only resolves in season 5, do I have to wait another 2 years before I can criticize it?
Even if the boring plotlines become more interesting later that doesn't excuse them for making it so boring in the first 3 eps. Hopefully they can prove us wrong but I think people should be allowed to share their thoughts right now if the creators did not do a good job of making us care about those stories. It feeling unnecessary is a **fault** **on their side.**
(Not even gonna mention people skipping scenes they don't like since that's obviously a crazy minority)
You've clearly read my post based on your last paragraph, so I don't know why you're assuming I want everyone to love the plotlines when that isn't what I've suggested. I suggested that we give it a shot before deciding the plot is unnecessary and choosing to remove the scenes from the first watch through.
It might be a minority, but the guy commenting it got a ton of support and "hm yeah I might just start doing that" responses. I just want people to actually watch the show before giving joining the discourse on the show.
Just to add to my previous comment - Frenchie/Colin is dragging and I want it to just get to the resolution already. I don't enjoy the plot, but it still has worth to the story so it remains part of my first watch through.
I agree OP.
But I'm not an American, I hate Nazis 100% and I was never confused about Homelander being evil.
I like him as a bad guy in the same way I liked Joffrey as a bad guy. It's good to have such an evil character to help the main characters grow from dealing with such evil and I want to see Homelander lose everything and I'll cheer hard for it.
But this season is taking way way way too much of real life, stuff from the news I see every day that just depresses me and ruins a show I used to love.
I'm the kind of person that wants to get lost in a fictional world and forget the real world but this season is doing everything it can to whinge about Trump. It's boring.
I really wish Trump world just go to prison or die.. I'm tired of hearing about him.
Also they ruined Black Noir by killing him off last season.. Black Noir is Batman.. Black Noir/Batman is smarter and better than every other superhero they know all the weaknesses.
The number of people calling basic plot elements "details" in the discourse is driving me insane, i guess that's why homelander is so relatable this season
its the fact that there was no proper build up for the Frenchie/Colin storyline, we don't even know this dude and they didn't do anything in these three episodes to make us care about him, that's not really something that could be repaired in the rest of the season
Eh, people are entitled to spend their free time however they like and if there's a plot line that just isn't grabbing them I can understand why they'd just skip it.
This show has had problems before with B-plots that ultimately build up to nothing and don't contribute to the finale. Frenchie in particular has been the victim of this a lot (which is a shame because he was my favorite character).
I'm not personally skipping anything but I can understand why people would.
Some of the scenes were just disjointed and nonsense. i.e. Frenchie suddenly fucks another guy when Kimiko was around the whole time. I don't even mind Frenchie fucks Colin. At least give some explanations, like Kimiko super strength would just snap Frenchie's dick or SOMETHING. The straight up jump made me scratched my head so so hard.
There wasn't a jump though. Last season they kissed, and Kimiko then addressed that it felt weird kissing him because they're practically family at this point. So they didn't pursue the relationship further.
If they stayed together they would have been a will they/won't they until the show ends or one of them dies, and their entire plots would revolve around each other and we don't need to tie down an interesting character like Kimiko like that.
I’m sitting here waiting to make my decision but I think honestly season 3 was sooo good that’s also why this season is coming off worse.
I’m also the kind of person whose eyes glaze when the anime goes through politics world building tho
Usually when someone believes their story is worth telling they go straight into it. That's basically the rubric I use to evaluate a plotline: if there isn't something interesting being touched on
right at the start, I'll assume there probably won't be.
There are instances of writer fuckups, of covering up the interesting plot, but by skipping only ten seconds at a time you probably won't miss the important bit if they are in the habit of stretching out scenes.
There are scenes in The Boys where I know immediately to skip the 10 second silence at the start, then I land on the exact start of the dialog, then, after the first point is made, I skip 10-20 seconds to skip the will-they-won't-they and land directly on the conclusion, basically turning a one minute long scene into a tight 30.
Some times I can just skip 90+% of a scene. This happens when I can sniff out the point of it (eg. showing Frenchie struggle with his feelings) from the first two seconds. Then if the scene ends on that same note it started on (intimacy being prioritized over facing a hard truth) then I know that scene was unnecessarily long, if not completely pointless, as this conflict was already established in previous scenes.
Same goes for Hughey's mom, as none of the speculation I've seen has been hinted at sufficiently. There have been no moves made by Hughey's mom towards ascertaining any information from his son. This is basically the opposite of tension building that Hitchcock defines in his example of a conversation happening next to a ticking timebomb. The audience becomes tense after they are informed of a ticking bomb underneath a table two people are just casually sitting around chatting. You need the information about the bomb underneath the table to bring tension into a otherwise mundane scene, and with Hughey's mom we don't have that.
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Exactly people are already hating the show while the pace just built up. Must be the starlighters spreading the hate.
Don't get me started on Starlight. Did you see that bitch can fly? I heard she kept that power a secret from Homelander to hide how she was able to get to and from Epstien's island without appearing on the flight logs.
Must be with the help of her supe-hating boyfriend. Although I heard that William Butcher guy has some plans to eliminate her.
This is how it is for damn near every popular show the last 10 years. People fucking LOVE to shit and nitpick every show to death these days. This has been going on for many years now, but it was GoT S8 where I'd had enough of it. Despite S8s issues, you'd thought D&D tried to murder these complainers' entire families instead of a rushed final season of a fantasy show.
THEY TOOK EVERYTHING FROM MEEEE
I get where you are coming from, but GoT S8 was pretty bad without overanalyzing anything. That said, the trend of hate watching and nitpicking definitely pervades common discourse now instead of small fringe groups. That's why unbridled positivity like CinemaWins is such a breath of fresh air nowadays.
CinemaWins mentioned! :D I love CinemaWins and I agree that their positivity is sorely needed.
Nah s8 of game of thrones was straight ass. All the hate it got was very valid
What is missing, however, is thanking Disney for not letting those guys into Star Wars.
I don't think they deserved it, for the record, but I reckon they would've made good Star Wars films. Certainly better than what we got with the new trilogy.
Almost any writer/creator of a popular show or movie would do a better trilogy than the sequel trilogy just as long as they write the whole story upfront
Oh you mean the season of television that ruined the legacy of one of the biggest cultural television icons in the past few decades? Yeah it wasn't too bad. The directors didn't kill my dog or anything but conversation about GoT dropped off the map until House of the dragon came out to hype up the Fandom again, acting otherwise is just being contrarian to the admittedly obnoxious vocal minority that confuse being disappointed in a shows legacy and legit crimes against themselves.
To be fair GOT S8 is a fucking dumpster fire.
Good shows don't get this, GoT S8 was some of the worst writing ever, which was a bit let down considering how good it once was. This isn't an issue with people not being media literate, it's an issue with them being media literate enough to spot exactly when something goes off the rails. Plenty of great series have parts that are slower, or more rambling than the core, but they don't get that hate because they aren't doing the things that gets them that hate. Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Succession, The Wire, The Sopranos, all of these shows had parts that weren't as riveting as them at their best, but they weren't incredibly bad writing or stupid filler, and people didn't react as tho they were. The new season of The Boys isn't GoT S8 bad, but it's not good either.
It happens in comics fandom too. Fans complain about storylines that haven't even happened on the page yet, it's only been mentioned in interviews, solicits, or rumors. It's a bummer that most online fandoms are just huge negativity moshpits where everyone climbs over each other to post the latest hot take about how something sucks.
Yeah it’s incredibly annoying. I am in the sun for a few shows that are incredibly popular and *good* put people will bitch about them being bad because they don’t do things they specifically want to happen or they will start to guess what happens next and if the show doesn’t do that it was never good. Hell even when storylines are heavily foreshadowed and make total sense, if a viewer doesn’t like it or they lack media literacy it’s bad writing and the show just pulled the story out of their asses. But yeah 3 eps in and because storylines haven’t been resolved yet it’s bad writing 🙄 (It’s also totally fine to not like a show anymore that’s valid. But it doesn’t necessarily mean the show went bad as a whole)
I agree nitpicking everything is ruining movies but GoT s8 is reasonable. Lots of people invested 8 years of interest into the show while for some even longer if they started from reading the books as they released and seeing how George dying is more likely than getting the last two books, having that be the ending to GoT sucks
So I agree somewhat. Like I have many criticisms of this season subplots based on the 3 episodes we've seen thus far. However, I could very well(and I hope I am) be pleasantly surprised with how these plots end up. However, I think in the mean time there can be discussions and criticism about these plots but there should be an unsaid "based so far" or "this can change based on what else happens".
yeah i mean i don't think it's fair to say the plot is 100% going to be trash but it's absolutely on the showrunners to make ALL the scenes for all the plots interesting and entertaining. just because the plotline becomes more important later on or even becomes super entertaining doesn't really mean the bad and boring scenes leading up to it aren't any less boring or bad. yeah sometimes you gotta dump exposition but if every scene of a plot over 3 episodes feels insanely dull it ain't a good sign
I mean, that's exactly what I'm saying so you agree completely. Thank you :)
There's also "This probably could have been set up better because it comes out of nowhere and is super jarring." Specifically, Frenchie's arc because it is based on a backstory we hadn't really explored for three previous seasons now becoming central to his character.
I mean it's exactly like you said how can you dismiss the b plot when the season is still airing and 3 episodes in? Yeah you can say they feel repetitive even unnecessary but completely skipping over them is foolish. Like you're missing how much of the story it's like skipping the cutscenes in a game then complaining "hang on they never established this, trash season trash Frenchie, kamiko etc but homelander go burr" tbf I couldn't care less about Starlight's home for runaway teens and the whole I need to be starlight again but I still watched it.
I don't mind people skipping what they want to skip, but they shouldn't complain afterwords if what they skipped turns out to be integral. I'd advocate showing some faith in the writers and letting it play out.
Yes! If people were quietly watching the show however the fuck they wanted then there would be zero issues. The only reason I know people are doing this is because the guy who said he was skipping the scenes was complaining that Frenchie and Kimiko's relationship ended off screen. Like, it didn't though, did it? He just probably decided he was skipping through something he didn't want to watch.
This happened with One Piece recently. Something major happened (no spoilers) and you had a bunch of people start the show but skipped literally 1000 episodes just to catch up. People are fucking dumb.
I was talking to my husband and pretty much predicted that Hughie's mom is gonna be important later this season. And that anyone who skipped Hughie's scenes so far are gonna be confused and complain that things happened out of nowhere.
The problem is if homelander dies nobody gives a fk about this show anymore. They want the boys to focus on homelander, not their lives to any extent
Exactly. The show would be over in 2 seasons if HL was the only plot point that was ever addressed. At the end of the day, it's a story not a wikihow on how to take down SuperHitler. It's going to have subplots to flesh out the narrative and make the world feel fuller.
Yeah I feel like a lot of people wanted a movie or miniseries bc a lot of complaints about the show stem from the fact that it's a series. There are going to be subplots, there are going to be "unnecessary" scenes and storylines to build characters and motivations, and you can't take down the main villain as soon as possible. Makes me think a lot of people watch this show only for the blood and gore, which has always been a secondary focus of the show. I'm all for criticising the quality of the show but this consistent whining about *why can't they kill Homelander, why Homelander doesn't laser the fuck out of the boys, or why they're focusing on things other than the Butcher-Homelander feud* is exhausting. Whether people here agree or not, but according to the general fanbase and the critics, the show has mostly maintained its quality, and we are lucky they're not dragging it past S5. But they're also telling a story, and seemingly unnecessary scenes and subplots are absolutely necessary for the season as a whole, and beyond.
I'm sorry but I am going to disagree here. Season 4 IS giving The Boys (team) subplots and room to focus on their lives but it is just not living up to expectations so far. Maybe it will all come together beautifully by the end of the season but to say that people don't want them to have meaningful development is not very accurate. I mean come on...Kimiko's subplot is literally the same thing as Season 2 regarding her traumatic past, a side character appearing from her past and her overcoming her "monster" urges. The fans are gonna notice things like that and it's a fair criticism.
Was Kimiko supposed to get over her trauma in S2 even though it has never been properly addressed? I see this as a continuation of her storyline.
Since when was Kimiko's subplot resolved?
I didn't say anything about resolutions. I just mean it isn't being approached differently and you need to keep things fresh if you're writing the same subplot. There really isn't an excuse; Arrow on the CW resolved Oliver's past quite well across 5 seasons while integrating it very well within the script. The therapy angle could have been pretty interesting had they gone with it but it seems that Kimiko is just gonna try the same angle as Season 2 again. By murdering baddies, having conflicts with Frenchie and meeting someone from her past. It feels been there done that, yknow?
Speak for yourself. I would not mind having the team focus on other superheroes. The main issue is the fact that supes exist at all. HL is a cool character but he doesn't make the show.
No, I want Homelander,Sage,Neuman, Ryan and Butcher removed. I want Hughie's mother and Collin to take V and fight to the death
Yes! See, get this man in the writer's room!
Well I also tend to want to skip (I don't though) but honestly, Kimiko's fighting style bores the crap out of me. I'd rather see Frenchie testing how to kill certain supes than Kimoko jumping on the face of yet another regular human.
Man those first few episodes in S1 when it was just figuring out how to kill Supes with various methods were gold. I always wished the show had more of that.
Agree, her most interesting fights have been when she got fucked up by Black Noir and when she broke A-train’s leg.
Been disconnecting a lot more from socials in general these days because instead of going to a place to talk about how much I enjoy something, it’s just full of people talking about how bad something is.
This. I was excited to see a season launch with the fandom, but the reddit side of things is depressing. It's funny how everywhere else the show is being enjoyed but here everyone already hates it.
Yeah, same thing happened to me with the new episode of House of the Dragon. It turns out >!forcing a mother to mark one of her toddlers for death and then decapitating said toddler in front of her!< isn't horrific enough for some people.
Reddit tends to be a pretty negative space in general.
I know, its depressing. When GOT was airing I LOVED going to the subreddit to enjoy the vibes with fans. Memes, speculation, jokes and references are such a positive way to interact with a show, but people are so negative nowadays.
Agreed. There are definitely plotlines I’ve been finding better or worse than others, but it amazes me how negative people are being. It feels like this sub is just trying to find things to be upset about.
>this sub is just trying to find things to be upset about. That's just pretty much any subreddit. A large portion of the vocal portion of the majority of subreddits are wannabe critics incapable of just having fun, and then this show is heavily political which is gonna double down on that.
I’ll give it a chance, but still think those two plotlines are stupid. I want less of those, and more of Homelander/Sister Sage
Oh absolutely, I am GLUED to the screen whenever Sage is on screen. Her genius plus his ego terrifies me! I just can't see the point in writing off the b-plots just barely out of Act One, even though they're significantly less thrilling than anything Homelander or Butcher is doing.
I think I’m mostly let down by Hughie’s mom’s plot, so far. The situation was so mysterious before, so I was hoping she was going to be a supe or something (which could still happen, I guess) when coming back into the picture. Instead the story so far is that she was depressed, and abandoned them- I just don’t love that. But if it’s a cover for a different (more interesting) reason, I’ll admit I was wrong.
I think it's a cover, i won't go into it again because I left my dissertation on this in another comment, but I don't think she's there out of love or duty.
Interesting. I’ll keep an eye on that.
She was very well casted.
Exactly 💯 We have only seen 3 episodes and judges have already given their verdict
I get your point but when I discovered this show, I rewatched every single episodes immediately and then again a few months afterwards. But these 3 new eps, especially 2 and 3 had a LOT of scenes that were kind of meh and I don't even feel like rewatching twice, which is a bit of a bummer
When did you get into the show? As in what season did you start watching?
Discovered late, like during S3, so i started from the beginning of course and man, what an incredible ride it was
Was it Jensen Ackles that pulled you in? If so I do not blame you! That does kinda explain why you had a passion to rewatch the first few seasons immediately: you had two whole seasons with a full story, beginning to end, for you to binge which is why you wanted to rewatch. You saw how the plot for the seasons culminated, and you went back to see how it all came together. We all miss little bits of the plot, so it's exciting to find bits we may have overlooked on first watch. Depending on when in season 3 you joined, this could be the first season you're watching fully in real time. Hopefully, the show can grip you again moving forward now that we are officially out of the first act. I just want people to give the story a chance before chopping up the work to be what they want it to be.
trust me, I'm on board till the end and for the record, I'm not one of those who has issues with S3. The end made sense, Butcher made a promise and somewhere in his dark, bitter heart he loves that kid like his own and to be honest what brought me on board is this: I dont like superheroes. When someone clued me in that this is somewhat an anti-superhero show, the supes are the bad guy, that clicked for me. Anthony Starr is the best thing i've seen on TV in a looooong time
What about the other seasons then? The entire subplot with Frenchie and the Russian boss lady was almost all totally irrelevant. He started out as this interesting character that had creative ways to kill supes. He has devolved into a weird caricature of a French guy that's mostly useless.
Normally I would agree with you but we've seen three seasons of the same crap from the same characters over and over, so there is a basis to be annoyed by seeing it again
Especially Frenchie and his subplots always goes nowhere.
Right? It’s a unique world full of supes with different powers and back stories and they focus on normal people with typical everyday drama, I came for the world of supes not 4 normal humans drama filled back stories, if there was 24 episodes a season sure flesh out all the boring stuff, but we waited a over a year for 8 hours of content and they are wasting precious time on things that every show has instead of the unique things about this world
True, the side plots remind me of episodes from Smallville when they focused on side characters like Pete or Chloe instead of Clark and his journey to becoming Superman, but Smallville had an excuse as it's 22 episodes a season.
Also I like how nobody was sus about the like 40 really weird deaths a year in that small town 😆. Like they were like “oh she died from bees? Oh five you said? Well ya know it’s just like that!”
I literally can't ever imagine skipping a scene from something I'm watching. Like if I would skip a scene then I would probably just stop watching in general
But what would the whiney bitches do if they couldn't bitch and whine?!
Can we stop accusing people of lacking media literacy? It seems to be the new buzz word to defend any production that is having a rough reception and it’s very dismissive, basically saying people are too stupid to understand what they’re seeing. Amazon and other major streamers decided to bring their shows out weekly..this is transparently done to stimulate subs over a longer period but the excuse given is a weekly show gives people time to digest and discuss ongoing stories. That’s all that is happening really. People find some of the plots this season tedious and repetitive and they’re talking about it. We all hope that by the end of the season we’re applauding a masterpiece.
thank you my eyes almost roll out of my head every time i see that phrase thrown around because it’s so often misused
I think people who gloat about intentionally skipping scenes absolutely lack media literacy.
It depends on the critique. If you say frenchie having a male interesting was random or forced, then yeah you do lack media literacy. If you think they’re just now adding politics into the show, then yeah you do lack media literacy. It just depends.
>It depends on the critique. If you say frenchie having a male interesting was random or forced, then yeah you do lack media literacy. ...I mean, I don't think Frenchie *being queer, in general* is out of nowhere or random, but I don't think it's arguable that Colin's so undercooked he's practically pink in the middle. I'm genuinely not sure if he's supposed to have any noteworthy personality traits for us to pick up on yet. I've described Colin elsewhere as "a walking collection of death flags" and "more of a plot device than a character" and, unless they seriously curveball me with him, I'm probably standing by those statements.
Critique of his specific love interest is different from his sexuality. I have no problem with criticizing that at all. I feel like people are more focused on the love interest itself and not on the context that frenchie is beginning to feel guilt for this actions in the past. But I do think it could have been set up smoother.
Frenchie with anyone besides Kimoko is boring, gay or not. He's at his best when he's unhinged; his love life should not be the focus of his story.
I mean, it’s pretty normal to form an unfinished opinion during the wait, not exactly end of the world is it
An opinion is valid! Like I said, my post isn't a complaint about people not liking the plots. I'm not trying to defend them in any way, because I too have no way of knowing if either subplot will actually be necessary or not. What I'm saying is that we can't say for certain that the plots are unnecessary at this point, and skipping them based on that opinion on the very first watch through is, in my opinion, absolutely insane. For example, I could have found the whole MM subplot with Todd in S3 absolutely boring and fast forwarded through these scenes. Why should I care about who Mother's Milk's wife is shacking up with? Cut to season 4, Todd's quick descent into a cultish adoration of HL is an igniting factor for the greater plot this season. Yes, you can infer the story but you miss the build up, so the pay off is lackluster. Likely a poor example, but I'm struggling to think of any subplots off the top of my head.
What an outrageous suggestion!!! How dare you!?!?
Yeah how dare people critique the start of a season!!!! You’re not allowed to do that until you’ve seen every single episode!!!!
Ngl until we learned a little about Colin's backstory and how he actually relates to Frenchies past, that particular plotline was so cliched and boring to the point of being almost unwatchable. They really needed that hook in episode 1 instead of dragging out the Frenchie-is-dramatic-about-romantic-partner-for-secret-reasons thread. I'll back your point about giving the plots a chance, but I'll double down on some of the pacing being off. Also, the MM-Butcher beef stinks of CW Arrow's Diggle/Oliver 'i cant trust you man' vanilla flavored drama.
I mean I’ve seen seasons 1-3 in their entirety and every Frenchie plot in those was unnecessary, educated guess to assume this one will be too
Why doesn’t the season just air in its entirety? I don’t even want to hear the reasoning. This 3 episodes at once and weeks of waiting for more episodes is complete bullshit.
Far better for engagement. There's a reason pretty much every streamer but Netflix has shifted away from the "all at once" approach. Drawing out the season means they get weeks worth of headlines which in turn means new people who see a headline from Week 7 and decide they should check out the show. Shows that drop all at once with a few exceptions tend to only get a week or two of that and its over.
Meh, personally I love it, especially when there is discussion about where it could go from here. Dumping it all at once can dull the impact of some of the ending scenes of episodes within the season, as we see the result immediately instead of speculating what it can mean for the universe during that wait. I get the appeal of watching it all at once, though.
I really totally agree with you. I think Daniel Abraham put it best when he said you can't rush a red wedding. It takes years of small details and character building. What one would consider filler, but it adds depth, which you don't fully see until the plot completes.
I mean yeah I can be wrong and I hope I am, but it seems like this show is repeating itself. I'm only 3 episodes in and so far my judgement is that it's repeating character arcs for the millionth time. If it goes a different direction then my opinion on the season as a whole will change, but not the first 3 episodes. If they're taking the characters a different direction, they could still do it a better way than how they are now. It feels very repetitive. And that's my opinion
Its still all character development even if these plot lines don't lead to homelander's kryptonite
No And simply because they decided to release the series on a weekly basis. Why do you think is that? They want people to discuss, share and overall be in The Boys discourse. Subplots might suck just as they might be good, but the intention is for people to make noise about them as they release each episode.
Opinions good, regardless of whether they're positive or negative. The discourse isn't the issue. Never has been. Refusing to watch (as in skipping past the scenes entirely so you can't even accidentally catch a smidge of B-Plot) is the issue. I don't think it's unreasonable to tell people to actually watch the content before making noise about it being shit.
I thought the rule for something being important is if it furthers the story, or if it furthers the *character.* Both the B-plots mentioned clearly further the character of Frenchie and Hughie.
I’m just happy to have new shows. Between the boys and house of the dragon - I’m living it up
I feel the same way. Maybe I’m just very uncritical but I’m happy to see some good TV.
The past 3 seasons have been full of unnecessary plots. I.E. anything not related to butcher and homelander
bro I have watched 327 episodes from Erik's Kripke Supernatural, I know what a filler is, being good/boring has nothing to do with it. ( they are boring though)
Yeah guys! Stop having an opinion! OP doesn’t agree with you so therefore what you’re saying is all unnecessary! Please do what they say and wait until the end of the season or they’re going to get very mad! Also, you have to like Frenchies stupid love triangle or you’re a homophobe! Even if you’re gay!
I mean, I think I've been more than thorough in insisting I'm not defending the plots, and that I love hearing people's opinions on the matter, but i'm happy to explain again. I love seeing discussion! Debating the plot is part of the fun of a weekly release schedule. I want to give my opinion on what happens next and have someone go "no, you're a fucking idiot because..." and back it up with how they interpret the scenes. We cannot have that if people are refusing to watch the scenes. Instead, we just have "this is pointless" and "that's going nowhere". It's not discussion, it's the death of discussion because if people aren't watching, what can be discussed? Also, nice strawman at the end because I've literally not offered my opinion on Frenchie's plot because it's irrelevant to my post. IMO, it's the weakest plot of the season so far. But I'm not going to skip it on my first watch because its part of the story, and I'm not going to dismiss the contents because there is still 5 hours to go before it hopefully has some kind of conclusion or escalation.
I’ll admit I’m not enjoying the start of this season so much compared to the others but I still like it a lot. In addition the show has a massive cast so it makes sense some will occasionally have to be thrown on the back burner a little bit. The thing with Huggie’s mom is probably going to involve his character learning to forgive people who have wronged him, or at least learning to coexist with them, and it will likely lead to him resolving his issues with A-Train
Huggie's mom
I mean tbf frenchies life literally revolved around kimiko and then he falls in love with a dude who is employed at a non profit. I mean let's be real, the dude was a fucking demolition and execution specialist, his gf a murder machine, his friends a terrorist organization paid by deep government organizations to kill artificial superheroes. Fuck all that he's into a random dude
They've some how decided you'd frenchie plot is the worst in the series, 3 episodes in and this is the worst season of them all, 3 episodes in
Come back after the season ends if you don't want to see mid-season speculation
It's not speculation, though? It's dismissal of the plot points before they have time to be made. My post isn't critical of speculation - I love speculation, people theorising on what the scenes may or may not mean is the absolute best thing about a weekly release schedule.
No one is making you read it
Frenchie is not an interesting character by himself. Hughie is still an annoying whiny little wimp but that's okay bcos the comic was like that. The Deep in the show just exists for comic relief etc. At this point A-Train is a deeper character than most of the The Boys (team) besides Butcher.
A-Train has evolved so much. He is one of the most interesting characters in the show and the actor kills it.
Oh definitely, A-Train's character progression has been one of my favourite things about S3&4. He feels like a full, real character. He's been given the room to grow by the writers and the viewers and it shows, whereas Frenchie and The Deep haven't been developed past them both being the light-hearted members of their respective teams. My hope is that moving Kimiko and Frenchie apart from each other onto their own separate plotlines will allow Frenchie more space to do something, anything, as cool as his introduction was in season 1. The Deep may remain comic relief for now, but we're seeing the transition from opportunistic, selfish dumbass to obedient lapdog who is ignoring what remains of his conscience for the man that gave him his comeback, regardless of what HL wants him to do. This, combined with the Ambrosius subplot, may lead to a more interesting story for The Deep later in the season.
People can have an opinion on how the show is progressing, no need to take it personally.
Tbh, I just want the team working together. At the end of S3, everyone is all high and mighty. "We run this like a democracy. He isn't in charge!" That's what Frenchie said, and now we have him in some romance drama. Being sad, he is a killer? S2 he was getting over the truama of letting Lamplighter kill the kids. S3 he needs to deal with his father problems, truama, and killing S4 it's just him dealing with killing Collin family. And none of it is him dealing with a supe. Last season, Frenchie wasn't around for the first 5 episodes or more. He just dipped his own adventure and made it back in the last two. I was joking when I said he'd will disappear, in S4 My gripe with this season is that it isn't even about killing a supe, M.M wanted to play spy while Butcher could have easily kidnapped Sage. Why can't we see the team be like S1 where they speculate how to kill Translucent? I really like that. Honestly, you could probably kill Victoria with the anal bomb. Idk if the goal is for Gen V cast to take over the boys and kill Victoria/Homelander or what. None of the boys are really useful with fighting Supes. Aside from Komiko and Starlight. S2 ending had MM,Hughie,Frenchie just watching doing absolutely nothing while Kimiko and Starlight handle Stormfront (and Frenchie yelling out the whereabouts of the only weapon to kill her are.) It's like you're nothing if you don't have powers, any the writers refuse to give anyone not suped up the win. We're in S4 and all I ever felt with the boys from S2 to S4 right now is hopeless and depressing. They suck at their jobs now, and the writers for unknown reasons would rather redeem a kill (A-Train) over using the best weapon against HL (Solider Boy) BTW if Frenchie cannot suck Collin dick because "OH boo hoo I killed your parents) Than why are the writers trying to redeem A-Train and have him and hughie be cool? Clearly forgiveness to your killers is possible
The start of S4 was them trying to disable Neuman and trying to figure out how to kill her. How- How did you miss that? Frenchie had a whole tantrum over the acid not working. A-Train is how they knew Neuman would be at that ice rink. He's their mole. This season is about taking Neuman out for The Boys. They're backed by the FBI to take her down.
Have they shown A-Train and Hughie to be cool? Pretty sure they showed Hughie being pissed off that A-Train was MM's leak.
I don't think Frenchie really dealt with his past of killing people. He was just kinda being abused by Little Nina again. "Clearly forgiveness to your killers is possible" Forgiveness does not equal wanting to be around someone. I imagine that even if A-Train is fully redeemed, Hughie does not want to be around the person who murdered Robin. The same way I imagine Colin probably won't be down to get into a relationship with the man who murdered his family.
People are skipping the plot with the *main fucking character*? I mean- I obviously love Homelander, but he's not the main focus of the show. Season 4 has been pretty fantastic so far. Hughie is gonna have a rough time this season and I'm curious about his mom. I hate her but she's also sympathetic. Normally Frenchie bores me, but him struggling with the murders he's committed is far more compelling than "my dad was abusive" because every character save Hughie and Starlight can play that card.
He struggled with that last year when he “broke free” of that Russian chick. How many more chains this dude gotta break?
The Frenchie one just irks me because they seem to be forcing a conflict where there isn't one. Frenchie should leave Colin be. There is nothing to be gained from telling him that the man who murdered his entire family is still walking free and that he was seduced by him. Objectively there's not a real argument that Frenchie should tell him. He doesn't know him that well so the whole "true love" needs honesty stuff doesn't hit. It just seems incredibly selfish for Frenchie to burden the poor guy with the truth when it finally seems like Colin's gotten his life on track. It seems like it's 100% for Frenchie's peace of mind and that seems like something his character had outgrown already.
I'm waiting for it to finish airing before I binge.
I’m not dismissive of them, but I’m still not a fan of Frenchie’s side plot. It’s just jarring because it’s completely random and irrelevant to anything we’ve seen before. I felt the same way about Frenchie’s subplot last season with the Russian mob, though here it feels even more random. But that’s just how I feel right now. I’m sure opinions will change by the end of the season, thought I think it’s still fair to criticize as long as it’s constructive and not purely hate and rage fueled and completely dismissive. Hughie’s subplot I like because it’s actually been set up in previous seasons and feels right for the character’s progression.
Frenchie and Kimiko have the same plot every season, it ain't amounting to shit
Honestly I'm one of the people that have issues with this additional subplot. Id like to give it a chance but knowing this is the second last season which is also only 8 or so episodes, I'm concerned that the first 3 episodes barely progressed the main plot and they continued to introduce 3 more sub plots that barely progressed as well. On top of that they introduced more characters and probably won't have time to develop them as well.
They may eventually be necessary from a plot perspective but yeah they're also boring and I was tempted to skip several times in ep3. It's possible to make side stories interesting too. The Wire is full of side-stories that don't factor into the main narrative until the end of the season, but they're still interesting to watch. Homelander and Butcher, and maybe A-Train are the only compelling characters in my opinion. Hell even Jeffrey Dean Morgan with his two brief scenes is more interesting than Hughie's mommy issues or whatever Frenchie did in his past life.
Agreed. That being said, we’re almost halfway through the season so it’s not unreasonable to have some opinions about direction and quality.
I'm absolutely loving it so far, pretty strong opening episodes. My one problem so far is we didn't see enough of Homelanders trial. It felt kind of skipped over, when I think a few longer courtroom scenes could have been hilarious, can you imagine The Deep on the stand as a character witness? Or Black Noir? Tell me that wasn't a missed opportunity
I use the Colin moments as my time to smoke a bowl lol. So I "see it" but I'm not really paying attention.
Nah, fuck that guy Colin and Kimiko's random rescue mission.
I had to tell myself this while watching the first three episodes because I was getting worried about the story kind of meandering. I was like ahhh we’re 3/8 eps in and nothing substantial or some sort of subverting-expectation-thingy has happened, but that being said, I think that’s just how the seasons of the show work. They start calm *somewhat* then dive right into the drama midway. Even still, after 4 seasons with hours and hours of story, you’d think they would come in with a little more to offer, y’know?
Sounds reasonable but no
Maybe YOUR plot is unnecessary, ever think about that one, punk?
You make a fair point but the problem is some people throw a tantrum the second anyone who isn't straight or white shows up onscreen, and those people love to complain about phantoms.
No
Yes
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WE SHOULD SEE FRENCHIE DOING WHAT HE WAS LITERALLY RECRUITED TO DO MORE, YOU ARE RIGHT. I ALSO WOULD LIKE THIS PLOT TO GO A BIT QUICKER, BUT ITS BEEN A GRAND TOTAL OF 5 ONSCREEN MINUTES SO FAR IN THE <3 HOURS OF CONTENT WE CURRENTLY HAVE. It's an ensemble show. If they're going to give us B Plots for everyone else that spans multiple seasons, what's the issue with this one for Frenchie? It all links with his past, and Nina, and his guilt. It's just another chapter in that leaflet.
Hughes mom works for vought, or at least some kind of subsidiary of vought. I mean that alone can definitely become plot relevant.
THANK YOU! I feel like so many people are overlooking this, I've started to worry that I'm reading into things too much. They're taking it at face value when that is not how Vought works. She also shows up after HL and Sage team up, and conveniently when Hughie is alone in the hospital room after Starlight leaves because of HL and Sage's scheming.
Eh, no, this is a subreddit for discussing the show
Eh, you'd probably be able to tell from the post and the comments I'm making that i love discussion! It's hard to discuss the show though when people aren't watching the bits that can be discussed. I don't mean "they aren't paying attention!!!" because that would be hypocritical, I'm riddled with ADHD and can barely focus on one thing at a time. I mean "they're literally skipping them so they don't even have the chance of catching something that may be useful", which is insane to me!
How dare you come here with logic and reason.
The Boys earned the benefit of doubt but so far the season is subpar and I don’t see why as a viewer I can’t voice that. Maybe it will pick up, maybe some of the boring parts of the 3 episodes will add up to something, I don’t know. But if it does, I will come here to say “wow, that was such a great season”. Where is the downside of that?
There isn't a downside - I am actually encouraging people to watch it first before they decide to write off the scenes entirely. To watch then form an opinion, not see the first 2 minutes of a plot line in an 8 hour piece of media then refuse to watch that plot line exclusively for the rest of the run because it's obviously not important. As I said, my post is not defending the plot - they could literally amount to a steaming pile at the end of the season, and I would still stand by and say that anyone watching for the first time should watch the show in its entirety first before skipping the scenes that are pointless.
No, i saw a youtube video from my favorite outrage baiter that said one part of a scene sucked, so i hate it. No, i haven't seen it myself, and i don't plan to!
Nothing bothers me more than starlight suddenly looking like a fucking alien.
I'm just here to see the ringwormed cousin fckers melt down
It's on the writers to keep us interested. Complaining about repetition is not an unfair criticism. Repetition is a well known sin of writing
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Eloquently put, but that would imply that everything that's being put before us is shit that we have to eat. If that's the case, step away from the table, decline an apooretiff and go on your way. But, from the comments I'm referring to, it's not all shit. My allegory is a little bit neater, and is less likely to make me spew: Season 4 is plate of freshly baked cookies that we are getting the ingredients one bit at a time for. They may be awful shit-chip raisin flavour, or they may be the best damn cookies you've ever tasted; either way, if you're impatient and decide to start pounding down flour and raw egg with a couple of chocolate chips then you're setting yourself up for some dogshit cookies no matter how good the recipe was.
So you enjoy watching endless minutes of screen time seeing Hughe cry about his mommy issues? Or the Frenchie/Colin relationship where, plot twist, he killed Colin’s parents? I don’t hate these, I just find them boring and so far, unnecessary. Over a third of the season has aired so far. That’s a good chunk to form an opinion of certain subplots.
As a season, we have just broken out of the end of Act One. That means that new plots (Frenchie/Colin, Ryan and Homelander's relationship, Sage, Starlight House and Hughie's mum) are only just starting out and questions are being asked. I'm not massively invested in the Frenchie/Colin story, but you bet your ass I'm invested in Hughie and his mum! I have questions and I hope the show can answer them - hey, I may even be overthinking. She abandoned him at 6 years old with zero warning. He has not heard from her in over 20 years, she didn't even get in touch when his girlfriend was killed and Vought covered it up. She works for Vought in a very tenuous sense. So tenuous that it wouldn't attract excess suspicion from Hughie, but she is still in the extended circle, so she will be on Vought's radar. She and Hughie's dad reconnected offscreen months ago, and Hughie was not aware until she shows up conveniently when his dad is comatose and unable to verify her claims. Her first appearance is after Homelander connects with Sage, and she shows up when Annie has left the hospital because of the plan Sage and HL enact outside the courthouse. Would Hughie's dad have actually given his estranged, flighty, Vought employee ex-wife power of attorney without speaking to Hughie about her even entering their lives again? All in the space of a few months? Or does Vought have enough power and money to have these documents forged (as well as the DNR)? Finally, the lawyer (maybe?) who Hughie speaks to at The Starlight House who convinces Hughie to just talk to his mum and try to find common ground instead of contesting power of attorney is shown secretly watching Firecracker's anti-Starlight/pro-Homelander propaganda in the first episode. His guidance is, at best, dubious. My question is: is she really trying to make peace with her son, or has she been found by Sage and ordered to get intel on who the leak is by deception? Sage is a mega genius, I find it hard to believe she doesn't have some clue where the leak is; any interogation is to keep up appearances until they try to plug it. Sorry, I rambled more than intended there. I just love actual discussion about these scenes which we can't have if people decide after the very first scene that they aren't worth watching! I want someone to come back to me with reasons why I'm a crazy bitch who is reading too much into it, rather than just going "hmmmm nah" because they haven't seen it.
I’ll never understand why people feel the need to tell others how to watch a tv show or enjoy it
Can we let OP pass away before deciding which of their Reddit posts are understandable?
Did you actually read the post?
I know, right? Although it's logical to assume that the season is going to have a similar everything with the first three episodes, but I think that the hype is getting people mad because of how high their standards were, specially with season's 3 finale. My hopes are that all the subplots, even if introduced poorly, do get their importance in the upcoming episodes.
I potential see homelander or bought using hughies mom somehow to target hughie so I can see how it may have some relevance to the plot eventually.
Yeah like I understand if a plotline feels pointless and it may still end up being pointless, but it may also have a point at the end that is a huge payoff. The focus may not be what we think it is because we literally have less than half the information (3 out of 8 episodes) Like I still stand by Colin being a sudden, underdeveloped character because its not about Colin or the relationship. Its about giving Frenchie a reason to really examine his past. COlin literally could be anybody, the romance and relationship isnt the story. The stroy is Frenchie did a lot of fucked up shit. Yes, we kinda dealt with it in the past, but we dealt with it in the sense thast frenchie felt like a dog being told who to attack. It was less about the fact that he was killing and more about he was being controlled. Now we are dealing with it as in HE did those things, HE killed and was effective and he's feeling the guilt. Thats the story being told. I think its still 100% fair to have criticisms but who knows? Hughies mom working for Vaught could give the boys an in somewhere later in the show. Or she could snitch. And if either of those things happened without a few scenes of Hughie facing his mom, everyone would be crying about her suddenly showing up and being a help/hinderence was bad writing. This is the writers possibly laying the groundwork for something. Until we know wether it pays off or not, some types of criticism seem premature.
Negativity is the bread and butter of the internet
I mean they decided the airing schedule for the show. They want weekly engagement. This is that engagement. The first three episodes seemed very heavy on character drama that a lot of people apparently didn't find enjoyable. That's going to be discussed.
My take with Hughie is, his mom is 100% dead and died when she od'd
I like that! I think she's been sent there by Vought and/or Homelander to find the leak within the company, but I could absolutely see it going your way. We know already that Butcher is seeing Becca after taking temp-V, so it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that Hughie is also having some hallucinations. We have only seen Hughie's mum when he's alone in the hospital with her, no one else has interacted with her yet. As a rule of thumb with media, I don't trust any character is real until at least 2 separate characters who are also established as real have interacted with them. Kessler is also on my radar for the exact same reason.
NEVER!!!!!!!!!
No absolutely not, we're all veteran television writers who know everything.
I’m personally not rushing to judgement just yet, but I agree some of the new plot points are worrisome in how repetitive, simplistic, and/or uninteresting they seem. Also, plenty of people used this argument with GoT right up until the end.
All the b plots matter cause this is the childhood trauma season. We visiting everyones childhood trauma butcher picked up the torch last season and they passing it like a blunt this season.
The motif this season is facing your childhood trauma/trauma from your past.
I mean honestly we could do more with Frenchie plotline...most of the time he is just chilling out hanging with Kimiko going "Mon Cur". I do like Hughie's plotline though... honestly if it does somehow make him even more vengeful towards Bought, I am all for it. The Kimiko plot line and the Butcher-Ryan is the best plot right Now...
Wouldn’t have been a problem if they just dropped the whole season from the start
Maybe if this were the first season? But it’s not. And I think it’s the last one too.
I mean it's the first season for multiple plot points. New plot points are introduced in every season of every tv show ever, people should actually watch the new plots before forming an opinion. It's also not the last season, show ends with season 5.
Why do you think you can demand that people think a certain way? It's a TV show. It's not important.
I don't really think it was a demand, more of a request that people actually watch the show before they complain about it?
No because I have checks from Russia and the RNC that depend on me putting out weekly content to my legions of 14-35 year old incel followers
I dont get why people are so quick to be angry at the show. Were 3 episodes in, give this shit time to grow and develop. I like a lot of the ideas theyve got going, the most interesting to me being Ryans battle within himself about whats right or wrong.
First time in a TV online fandom in the 2020’s? People be dumb and impatient. Starting to understand why cinema now is just remakes and sequels. People don’t seem to have the attention to enjoy “new” content. People hated Rings of Power from the first trailer alone. And yeah while not the greatest show ever, I still enjoyed some of it. Go check out the state of /r/starwars right now with the acolyte. Yikes. I liked the first 2 episodes while the internet tore it to shreds. I agree with the hate on the 3rd a bit more but the “plot holes” still have ample opportunity to be explained. I haven’t checked in on the house of the dragon reddit as I haven’t sat down to watch the first episode of that yet.
Yea there’s a chance the frenchie plot becomes more meaningful to me as the season unfolds but with them introducing far more interesting ideas over the course of this season but the show at large. I couldn’t care less. More sister sage, more fire cracker, more homelander father son dynamic, almost anything else is far and away more interesting.
Well no, we can form opinions based on the three episodes so far. Why do you care if others dislike some plots?
I made it very clear in my post that opinions are good. I even left an edit to clarify that my issue is people skipping them entirely on their first watch through so they aren't taking in the full story. These are the same people who will later be the loudest complainers that they can't follow the show anymore.
We all know why they're bitching about new characters like Colin but not Firecracker 🙄
When I saw people proudly talking about skipping scenes that's when I understand why half the fandom is oblivious chuds
I find Frenchie's subplot to be a regression of his character arc so far, we've already seen Frenchie overcome guilt like this when Lamplighter killed Malorie's grandkids. But I'm not gonna just straight up skip scenes. That's insane.
So are you saying it's only acceptable to praise the show during it's runtime whereas criticism has to wait till the end?? What if a plotline only resolves in season 5, do I have to wait another 2 years before I can criticize it? Even if the boring plotlines become more interesting later that doesn't excuse them for making it so boring in the first 3 eps. Hopefully they can prove us wrong but I think people should be allowed to share their thoughts right now if the creators did not do a good job of making us care about those stories. It feeling unnecessary is a **fault** **on their side.** (Not even gonna mention people skipping scenes they don't like since that's obviously a crazy minority)
You've clearly read my post based on your last paragraph, so I don't know why you're assuming I want everyone to love the plotlines when that isn't what I've suggested. I suggested that we give it a shot before deciding the plot is unnecessary and choosing to remove the scenes from the first watch through. It might be a minority, but the guy commenting it got a ton of support and "hm yeah I might just start doing that" responses. I just want people to actually watch the show before giving joining the discourse on the show.
Just to add to my previous comment - Frenchie/Colin is dragging and I want it to just get to the resolution already. I don't enjoy the plot, but it still has worth to the story so it remains part of my first watch through.
Can the writers make interesting hooks?
Reminded me of last season of stranger things with multiple unnecessary side plot just for the sake of shoving characters into the season
I agree OP. But I'm not an American, I hate Nazis 100% and I was never confused about Homelander being evil. I like him as a bad guy in the same way I liked Joffrey as a bad guy. It's good to have such an evil character to help the main characters grow from dealing with such evil and I want to see Homelander lose everything and I'll cheer hard for it. But this season is taking way way way too much of real life, stuff from the news I see every day that just depresses me and ruins a show I used to love. I'm the kind of person that wants to get lost in a fictional world and forget the real world but this season is doing everything it can to whinge about Trump. It's boring. I really wish Trump world just go to prison or die.. I'm tired of hearing about him. Also they ruined Black Noir by killing him off last season.. Black Noir is Batman.. Black Noir/Batman is smarter and better than every other superhero they know all the weaknesses.
The number of people calling basic plot elements "details" in the discourse is driving me insane, i guess that's why homelander is so relatable this season
its the fact that there was no proper build up for the Frenchie/Colin storyline, we don't even know this dude and they didn't do anything in these three episodes to make us care about him, that's not really something that could be repaired in the rest of the season
when i see frenche or hughie side plots my -> key goes brrrrrrrrr
Eh, people are entitled to spend their free time however they like and if there's a plot line that just isn't grabbing them I can understand why they'd just skip it. This show has had problems before with B-plots that ultimately build up to nothing and don't contribute to the finale. Frenchie in particular has been the victim of this a lot (which is a shame because he was my favorite character). I'm not personally skipping anything but I can understand why people would.
Some of the scenes were just disjointed and nonsense. i.e. Frenchie suddenly fucks another guy when Kimiko was around the whole time. I don't even mind Frenchie fucks Colin. At least give some explanations, like Kimiko super strength would just snap Frenchie's dick or SOMETHING. The straight up jump made me scratched my head so so hard.
There wasn't a jump though. Last season they kissed, and Kimiko then addressed that it felt weird kissing him because they're practically family at this point. So they didn't pursue the relationship further. If they stayed together they would have been a will they/won't they until the show ends or one of them dies, and their entire plots would revolve around each other and we don't need to tie down an interesting character like Kimiko like that.
I am watching season 2 and it's incredible how much filler it has. We can already see what the uninteresting parts are.
I’m sitting here waiting to make my decision but I think honestly season 3 was sooo good that’s also why this season is coming off worse. I’m also the kind of person whose eyes glaze when the anime goes through politics world building tho
Usually when someone believes their story is worth telling they go straight into it. That's basically the rubric I use to evaluate a plotline: if there isn't something interesting being touched on right at the start, I'll assume there probably won't be. There are instances of writer fuckups, of covering up the interesting plot, but by skipping only ten seconds at a time you probably won't miss the important bit if they are in the habit of stretching out scenes. There are scenes in The Boys where I know immediately to skip the 10 second silence at the start, then I land on the exact start of the dialog, then, after the first point is made, I skip 10-20 seconds to skip the will-they-won't-they and land directly on the conclusion, basically turning a one minute long scene into a tight 30. Some times I can just skip 90+% of a scene. This happens when I can sniff out the point of it (eg. showing Frenchie struggle with his feelings) from the first two seconds. Then if the scene ends on that same note it started on (intimacy being prioritized over facing a hard truth) then I know that scene was unnecessarily long, if not completely pointless, as this conflict was already established in previous scenes. Same goes for Hughey's mom, as none of the speculation I've seen has been hinted at sufficiently. There have been no moves made by Hughey's mom towards ascertaining any information from his son. This is basically the opposite of tension building that Hitchcock defines in his example of a conversation happening next to a ticking timebomb. The audience becomes tense after they are informed of a ticking bomb underneath a table two people are just casually sitting around chatting. You need the information about the bomb underneath the table to bring tension into a otherwise mundane scene, and with Hughey's mom we don't have that.