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A Beginners' Guide To THE BOYS Season One (Massive Spoilers Ahead)


And while I'd earlier published my Non-Spoiler(wish) impressions of THE BOYS, this blogpost however breaks down the what you need understand the 8 episodes of THE BOYS currently streaming on Amazon Prime. Consider this a Beginners' Guide To The Boys, but with plenty of SPOILERS.

I have tried to be as "generic" as I can, with a general pass at the show, but not too much details (I hope) - ALL of which are SPOILERS AHEAD, so be warned if you want to start off the show without any aids to better understand what you will be seeing/watching ~ Cheers :)


GENESIS:

THE BOYS first started fictional life as a extremely graphic comic-book created by writer Garth Ennis (responsible for “Preacher” - also another comicbook-adapted-to-TV property), and co-created and illustrated by Darick Robertson, from October 2006 – November 2012.

The comic series has been described to be extremely violent, sexual and deviant to the average comicbook reader. A lot of references will be made to the source material, but I will try my best to NOT do that (much) in THIS post, and as well refrain from mentioning artists' names ~ Cheers :)

FINAL TRAILER:

"THE BOYS is an irreverent take on what happens when superheroes, who are as popular as celebrities, as influential as politicians and as revered as Gods, abuse their superpowers rather than use them for good. It’s the powerless against the super powerful as The Boys embark on a heroic quest to expose the truth about “The Seven,” and their formidable Vought backing."
VALUED ASSESTS:

In the world of “The Boys”, super-powered “superheroes” exist, as a “commodity” under the employ of “Vought America” - a conglomerate-style entity that places specific superheroes in specific cities, for a profit and financial gain.

The superheroes are treated as “celebrities” and literal “heroes to humanity”, and are generally revered by the masses. Besides planned/schduled “superhero-ing”, they make movies, appear on television and have curated social medias, and even attend evangelical events. They are essentially “Super Stars” in every literal sense.


WHO ARE THE SEVEN:

THE SEVEN are the world's premier superhero team, and a top earner for Vought.


The “Superheroes” in THE BOYS are essentially parodies of their comicbook counterparts, with most of the “heroes” in “THE SEVEN” being parallel characters to DC Comics’ “JUSTICE LEAGUE”, and their “G-MEN” being direct parodies of Marvel Comics’ “X-MEN”. Their parodies are rude, crude, and full of vile, and mostly unkind.

THE HOMELANDER is Superman
QUEEN MAEVE is Wonder Woman
BLACK NOIR is Batman
THE DEEP is Aquaman
A-TRAIN is The Flash
TRANSLUCENT is (the closest I can think of is "Martian Manhunter")
LAMPLIGHTER is Green Lantern, whom is being replaced by STARLIGHT.

“STARLIGHT” is presented as “the light of hope” compared to the rest of the “Supes” (as they are referred to on the show, mostly from Billy Butcher and the boys).

The primary concentration of “The Boys” is on American soil, but the story has since branched to foreign lands/countries, via nefarious reasons (See below).

When we begin - in the world of THE BOYS - there are no “Super-(powered)-villains”, but that changes before Season One ends.


HOW IT BEGUN:

The triumphant story of Heroes versus armed criminals begin to unravel with the death of Hughie’s girlfriend, via the devastating speed of A-TRAIN (A member of The Seven), and which a subsequent cover-up / media-manipulated situation leads to Hughie’s path of revenge, when Billy Butcher shows up and offers up Hughie a opportunity to seek said revenge.

Billy has an obvious agenda, but Hughie had been blinded by his internalised rage and anger by the subsequent cover-up, and follows Billy into the “unknown”.


WHO ARE THE BOYS:

In the story of THE BOYS, besides the Supes, there is the existence of “The Boys” - whom are not necessarily called as such in Season One, except in a throw-away reference. The episodes of Season One are essentially Billy forming the team - which includes first FRENCHIE, then MOTHER’S MILK, and subsequently THE FEMALE (whom has a name), and of course HUGHIE. None of them have any "super-powers", except for "Kimiko" AKA "The Female".


Billy doesn't really "like" the Supes, or more bluntly put, he HATES Supes, and especially as a hard-on for THE HOMELANDER (their parody of "Superman"), reasons which are revealed in the course of the 8 episodes on Season One, and by which the climax of said season one ends on the semblance of an "answer" (that was not apart of the comic book source).


HOW REAL IS "REAL":

One distinct aspect of the story anchoring themselves to “our real world”, is the mentioned reference to “The Spice Girls”.


REVENGE LEADS TO HATE, HATE LEADS TO BLOODSHED:

The “revenge story” begins with Hughie being recruited to plant a bug in THE SEVEN’s headquarters, and is eventually discovered by TRANSLUCENT - a member of THE SEVEN, whose power includes turning invisible (but he would have to be naked), and near-invulnerable skin.

Situations led to TRANSLUCENT being captured by Hughie and Billy, whereby they rope in FRENCHIE, and together they kidnap and torture TRANSLUCENT. They eventually find a way to kill the Supe, and eventually MOTHER’S MILK is recruited to help surveil another new character, POPCLAW, from yet another superhero-group “TEENAGE KIX”.

POPCLAW is romantically involved with A-TRAIN, hence Hughie’s continued involvement with the group.

WHAT IS COMPUND-V:

The thread tying all of them - and what propels the story along - is the search for a mysterious blue-serum/liquid, known and referred to as "Compound V" which essentially boosts and provides (unknown) superhero powers, and the subsequent development/creation of super-powered "terrorist" villains.


HELLO STARLIGHT:

And while all these are happening, a new superheroine has been inducted into THE SEVEN - replacing THE LAMPLIGHTER (their equivalent of “Green Lantern”) - where we are introduced to "Annie January" AKA STARLIGHT. She is the naive (but not "innocent") "good girl hero" who wants to save the world. We are also seeing the world of THE SEVEN unravelling before her eyes very quickly.

Her first encounter with a member of THE SEVEN is THE DEEP (their parody of “AQUAMAN”) leads to her being blackmailed into performing fellatio on him, in the meeting room on the HQ towers of THE SEVEN.

And while Hughie's a revenge story unravelling, Annie's story is the destruction of her dreams, but both characters go through their own individual growths, beyond the smaller worldview when they started out in the series.


WHEN A BOY MEETS A SUPE:

Both Hughie and Annie January meet in the park - both identities unknown to each other, and they first become acquaintances, then friends who text each other (when Hughie and the boys have discovered their real identity) and go for after dinner drinks, and eventually they have carnal sex, all within the span of 8 episodes.

In many ways (and this is my personal take on them): "Hughie" is "us" / The viewer discovering the series, while "Annie" is perhaps our "wish fulfilment" to be a "superhero", and THE BOYS is a cautionary tale into "hero-worship", as it were, IMHO.

SEASON ONE ENDS:

The climax of the first season includes Billy's and Annie's situation, and the revelation of Billy's and The Homelander's shared "tragedy" and life.

Tons of blood and death in-between, sexual deviantness and rude language, all rated-R for a glorious presentation of brutality of superhero-dom. Folks might label this being a "knee-jerk" to the over-fetishing of "super-heroes" in modern day media, but I reckon this is a "kick-to-the-groin-followed-by-rounhose-kick-to-the-head" kinda "response", and I LOVE IT!

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