3 out of 5

Developed by: Eric Kripke

I did not want to watch The Boys.  The comic was my turning point in my evaluation of Garth Ennis: he’d always existed on the cusp of shock-for-shock’s sake writing, and certainly would occasionally cross that subjective line, but prior to Boys – which I made it through about 30 issues of before giving it up – almost everything he’d written would, in my eyes, balance things out with great characters, cutting or humorous commentary, or even sometimes the occasionally hefty emotional wallop.  But The Boys was nothing new; Ennis had taken the piss out of heroes before, only this time – especially once it moved to publisher Dynamite – he purposefully set out to go as far as he could with crass concepts (to ‘out-Preacher Preacher,’ as the series was promoted), and paired this with leads who weren’t particularly likeable people themselves.  This imbalance then apparently unseated any need for plotting or patience: prior to this, narratives would get hijacked for a page or possibly an issue for long-winded, talking head diatribes; The Boys simply alternated between violence and this, turning Garth’s ‘clever’ writing into old man screeds against, like, whatever.

I’d watched Preacher, the show, pick up the dumber parts of the book and chop them up and remix them to be even dumber; springing from that show’s producers, I had no reason to care about what their take on The Boys might turn in to.

And then I discovered Eric Kripke was involved.  Kripke is by no means flawless; beyond Supernatural, his other projects haven’t been nearly as stirring, but it was a point in Boys’ favor nonetheless.  And they cast Karl Urban.  Again, this ain’t a guarantee of anything, but it helped.  As reviews rolled in, I’d scan them for highlights of the offenses I remembered from those 30 issues and didn’t find anything that flagrantly stuck out.  Curious.

The Boys take place in a world where superheroes exist, but are “managed” – by a company called Vought – and thus turned in to celebrities, with planned out crimes to stop, speeches written, public appearances scripted, and habits and indulgences (sex, drugs, the lot) swept under the rug.  Vought’s VP, Madeline Stilwell (Elisabeth Shue) is doing her best to manipulate (via blackmail) government leaders so that the team she oversees, The Seven, is officially made part of the armed forces; we see Aquaman proxy The Deep (Chace Crawford) sexually harass new teammate Starlight (Erin Moriarty); Wonder Woman proxy Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) sneers at the general public and imbibes; invisible man Translucent likes to hang out naked in women’s bathrooms; Superman proxy Homelander (an inspired-cast Antony Starr) commits atrocities while turning to his public with a chiseled grin and “you’re the heroes” catchphrase.  And then our Flash variant, A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) speeds through Hugh’s girlfriend in a seeming coke-fueled haze, reducing her to pulp which is splashed on her boyfriend (Jack Quaid), the latter getting a halfhearted apology and a check and setting him off on the path to meet… our titular Boys.

The comic goes much further with this, and then muddies the water by making The Boys their own breed of bad news.  On TV, though, The Boys – Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), Frenchie (Tomer Capon), and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) – while not particularly wholesome, are at least recognizable as flawed, vulnerable people, agreed on the ‘supes’ being monsters and not idols to be worshiped.  Butcher, in both media, is manipulative, using the tragedy Hugh has suffered to encourage him into dangerous situations – bugging the Vought offices, for example – but our writers are also careful enough to drop in notes that let us know there’s a reason for his gruff exterior.  That doesn’t make his behaviors fully justified (and this is mightily thanks to Urban’s performance, as well), he comes off as a lot more likeable here than in print, just as Hugh (same props to Jack Quaid) is a much better POV character than in the books, in which he plays a much more put-upon role.  So over eight episodes, The Seven does crappy things, and The Boys figure out how to get the evidence to prove it.

But it’s not just that the show holds back on Ennis’ over-the-top stuff that ends up (in my opinion) making it superior, and actually worthwhile, it’s how it shades in the black and white ‘our heroes aren’t heroes’ with gray: The Seven are all guilty of various crimes, that’s incontestable, but they’re also not shown as full-on cackling villains.  This makes our moments with them watchable beyond “let’s see what antics they’re up to,” as there’s a bit of trying to pull apart the nature of celebrity, and living within a vacuum of fame and power, mixed in, just as The Boys – represented as the struggle between Hugh’s and Butcher’s reticent vs. aggressive personalities – waver over the “right” way to solve the problem of heroes, and whether or not they’re all enemies.  Yes, The Boys – the show – is guilty of going for shocks, but it’s much more punctuated than in the comic, making it more effective, and allowing more room for character.  And the characters, nigh all of them, end up carrying the show; after the fact I realized how little “effects” and fight there actually were in favor of conversations, and yet the episodes went by just fine.

…However… I’m not sure the writers know exactly what they want to do here.  Some of the grey concepts are very purposeful, but some – such as The Deep’s arc – just seem questionable, as we, as viewers get to take revenge on his actions by watching him become the butt of several jokes.  The show goes half-in / half-out with playing this for laughs and playing it as subversion, but his initial actions sort of feel equally swept under the rug, without the writing being smart enough to really talk about that.  Similarly, the show takes a stance that’s a few levels removed from reality, not just in its inclusion of superheroes, but in casting the general population as background.  The world never feels real.  Only The Boys apparently question these celebrities, despite their hypocrisies being pretty clear to anyone who listens or watches a moment beyond their soundbytes; it’s not that their crimes aren’t believable as being covered up (as sad as that is), it’s just that there’s zero conversation happening outside of corporate chatter at Vought and conspiratorial chatter amongst The Boys.  The entire thing exists in a bubble just containing the featured players, which precludes any need to really dig very deep with the commentary; it’s more about team versus team.

But lookit all them words I wrote.  A series I thought would adapt pretty well and was of interest – Preacher – ended up being a bummer, and a series I couldn’t given a crap about ended up impressing way beyond expectations, but then also being pretty good on its own.  Perhaps most importantly, apart from whether or not I was a fan of the source material, is that The Boys is distinct from that material, which I appreciate.  This freed it to pursue its own flavor and agenda, and frees it to grow on its sturdily established base in its second season, which I now won’t hesitate to watch.