The Boys debuted on Amazon Prime in 2019 as one of the most genuinely subversive pieces of superhero television ever produced. Eric Kripke’s adaptation of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s comic book series ripped apart the superhero industrial complex with vicious precision, presenting a world where corporations weaponize caped figures for profit, public manipulation, and political power. Seasons 1 and 2 were sharp, brutal, and genuinely transgressive. Season 5’s premiere suggests the show has become the very thing it spent four years satirizing with heavy-handed propaganda dressed up in bloody spectacle.
The premise remains compelling on paper. One year after Season 4’s finale, Homelander has consolidated near-total control over American society. Citizens are now categorized as Supe, human, Hometeamer, or Starlighter. Freedom Camps, a very not-so-subtle allegory for concentration camps, hold Homelander’s enemies while Annie January, better known as Starlight, leads a resistance against him. Sister Sage, positioned as the world’s smartest woman and Vought’s new CEO, operates as the strategic brain behind Homelander’s operation while apparently running a long game whose endgame remains unclear.
The execution, according to pop culture analyst Byl Holte, who sat through the premiere so others could make an informed decision, is something else entirely.
“It starts with three male team members in prison because ‘incarcerated hero’ is the latest female empowerment trope,” Holte noted. “Two minutes in and I’m already squinting at the under-lit screen.” The lighting complaint is legitimate and well-documented among streaming television audiences - the industry’s obsession with cinematic darkness has made numerous shows physically difficult to watch.
The political commentary has also become a blunt instrument. “Then comes a barrage of modern politics so heavy-handed I can barely follow the story.” Holte clocked Homelander name-dropping that the Obamas call Sister Sage for advice, alongside Peter Thiel. A shareholder meeting crowd chants “USA! USA!” in what the show frames as a MAGA rally. Homelander wants to make memes illegal.
The Boys Season 5, based on this account, the targets are almost exclusively from one side of the aisle. “Kripke has turned this s****show into CNN with superheroes,” Holte wrote bluntly.
The gender dynamics drew particular criticism. “All the men are weak or die horrifically for comedy. All the women are nasty entitled c**ts.” A character named Worm, a new incel figure, eats dirt and expels it for gross-out laughs. The Deep and Black Noir 2 host a Manosphere podcast. Homelander, described as “the most powerful male on Earth,” operates entirely under Sister Sage’s direction. The formerly mute character gets cut in half by a laser and survives anyway because, as the reviewer observed, the show’s female characters have become functionally invincible.
The White Christian female VP, married to a black superhero, wants to abolish DEI because “those three letters are in DEVIL.” Sister Sage responds by dismissing her faith as belief in a “magic sky ghost or his baby sky ghost.” This is writing that thinks it’s clever.
“Starlight now has duck lips from too much plastic surgery. Starlight vapes,” Holte noted, capturing the show’s apparent determination to make even its heroic characters difficult to root for.
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes are calling it “the most savage and politically charged season yet” and “must-see TV.” Audiences who remember what the show was in its first two seasons may reach different conclusions.
The Boys was never comfortable viewing. The show has always operated in transgressive territory. The difference between early Boys and what this premiere apparently delivers is the difference between a scalpel and a sledgehammer.
Kripke built something fun with the early seasons. Season 5’s premiere suggests he’s more interested in scoring political points than finishing the story he started.
Are you watching this show still?
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