The Boys considers questions of fatherhood and family in “Proper Preparation And Planning”
TV Reviews Recap
This post discusses plot points of The Boys episode “Proper Preparation and Planning.”
What does it mean to be a father? For as long as we’ve known Homelander (Antony Starr), we’ve seen him pretend to be a hero while really acting as a villain. He knows the performance people want, and he gives it to them: The broad-shouldered blonde with the American flag cape, wide smile, and promises of American exceptionalism. He is superior enough to take out a safe house of terrorists all by himself, and maniacal enough to think he’s a god. It’s no surprise, then, that his fathering style is one of toxic masculinity, bullying, and passive aggression—the same stuff that has worked to keep the Seven in line, and to retain Homelander’s position as their leader. The praise kink relationship he had going with Madelyn Stillwell (Elisabeth Shue) before he murdered her is totally out the window.
We see that new, but not really surprising, side of Homelander as he spends more time with his son Ryan (Cameron Crovetti; the Big Little Lies kids grew up so fast!), who has been raised in seclusion and secrecy by Becca (Shantel VanSanten), Butcher’s missing wife. I have so many questions about the circumstances of Becca and Ryan’s lives! I’m assuming that they are being held by Vought? Perhaps blackmailed in some way? Who is Dr. Park? He has to be connected to Vought, right, if Homelander knows who he is? And if Homelander knows who Dr. Park is, what does he already know about Ryan? He’s convinced that his son has powers: Remember how he says to Ryan: “You and me, we’re gods. We can do anything we want, and no one can stop us.” Is that confidence because Homelander knows for a fact he was able to genetically pass on his powers? Or is that because Vought is, perhaps, experimenting with Compound V on Ryan—and maybe Homelander knows?
That whole subplot holds an array of potential questions about what other nefarious shit Vought is up to (remember, they’re a pharmaceutical company!), and certainly makes Dr. Park seem like a real jerk, given that he acknowledges the domestic abuse nature of Becca’s situation and ignores it. (Although, was Dr. Park’s “Just keep him calm” comment to Becca about Homelander … or about Ryan?) And of course, Becca being alive totally changes what Butcher (Karl Urban) has thought for years. We know he’s still committed to finding Becca again—how he scrawls, in crayon on a Tony Cicero’s paper place mat, what he can remember about her house makes that clear—and that he’ll even make a deal with Grace Mallory (Laila Robins) from the CIA, with whom he had previously parted ways, to do so. Once again, he dangles before Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), Frenchie (Tomer Capon), and Hughie (Jack Quaid) clean slates to help him, but after Kimiko learns that the super terrorist they’re hunting for the CIA is her long-lost brother, can Butcher’s plan really hold?
Kimiko’s brother Kenji (Abraham Lin), who remained with the Shining Light Liberation Army after Kimiko was taken for Compound V experimentation, has a point that Homelander, and the Seven, are bad! As further extensions of American imperialism around the world, they crush dissent and rebellion and just walk away, ignoring the repercussions. How often is their murder of rebels just creating more rebels? (A question that HBO’s adaptation of Watchmen also considered.) I guess it tracks, though, that Butcher would have no issues capturing Kenji and bringing him to the CIA. Everything Butcher has done has been in service of finding Becca again, even if that means burning his own team, and it’s not like he has a real connection with Kimiko anyway. But Kimiko’s clear distress and pain at seeing what her brother has become, and realizing how Compound V has altered both their lives, is one of the best moments of character development we’ve gotten for her so far. Karen Fukuhara sold that anguish well.
Meanwhile, what is the Church of the Collective up to with the Deep (Chace Crawford), and what is Stormfront (Aya Cash) up to with her active undermining of the Seven while being its newest member? Let’s tackle the Deep first. I remain surprised by how much time we spend with the character, and the backstory that his self-loathing is what caused his sexual harassment and exploitation of women … ehhh. That has not worked so well for me, although Patton Oswalt voicing his gills after the Deep tripped out on mushrooms was an amusing casting choice. (That “Don’t fuck with me!” moment was definitely a Good Will Hunting homage, right?) Is the Church of the Collective trying to amp up the Deep again, so they essentially turn him toward their own interests? And if so, what are those interests? I can’t figure it out.
I’m similarly skeptical of Stormfront, who leans into her disaffected millennial branding this week. How much of this is her own personality, and how much of this might be what the Vought executive suite told her to do to rankle Homelander? Her disdain toward the “Girls get it done!” promo work seems legitimate, as do her complaints about the lack of pockets in women’s clothing (cosign, honestly) and the superficiality of forced professional networking (… also cosign). She also seems very much like the kind of alternative girl who would, understandably, dismiss Annie/Starlight (Erin Moriarty) immediately; that rang sincere, too. But does Stormfront protest too much when she calls Annie “some fucking Vought spy Barbie”? And does her comment about sexual assault hint that she might know more about Annie than she’s letting on? “If someone sticks a dick in your mouth, bite it off … Pippi Longstocking would bite a D, that’s for sure” (delivered by Cash very much in the style of Artemis Pebdani from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) was dripping with innuendo.
Obscure writing seems to be the pattern this week, between whatever is going on with Homelander/Becca/Dr. Park, the Deep/the Church of the Collective, Butcher/the Boys, and finally Stormfront/the Seven. All that opacity makes for a slightly disconnected episode. But things take an undeniable step forward when Annie secures her stolen sample of Compound V and uses it to blackmail A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), now out of his coma and back in the Seven. A-Train didn’t forget that Hughie and Annie were together before his heart attack at the end of season one finale “You Found Me,” but he did forget that he confessed to them about murdering his girlfriend—and Annie uses that to her advantage to secure his secrecy. Remember in Watchmen when Rorschach sent his journal off to the news media to blow up Ozymandius’s spot? Seems like Annie is following right in those footsteps by letting everyone in on how superheroes are not born, but made, with Compound V—but is she willing to pay the same price that Rorschach did for that truth?
Stray observations
- Even just hearing the awful press-junket question “Tell us how fun it is to have all this girl power!” took years off my life.
- How rich are the Seven, really? A-Train can just casually buy Prince’s guitar from Purple Rain? I demand to see tax returns!
- I really hope Elena (Nicola Correia-Damude) did not get reintroduced into Maeve’s (Dominique McElligott) life just to be put in danger! But I am worried!
- Of course Homelander would be pissed that Ryan can’t throw a fastball. Of course.
- Butcher and Homelander mostly aren’t similar at all, but Butcher describing his team as having a “raging case of vagina” when they want to protect Kimiko—that’s very Homelander-like!
- Tony Cicero’s looks like their lasagna portions are immense, and I WANT THEM.
- I am consistently amazed by the many different ways Starr communicates to us how sexually aroused Homelander is by milk. Are we sure he is not a McPoyle?
- “I love you, son. … Now say it back.” Yikes.
- Butcher’s rhetorical loophole (“I promised not to come to your house again”) for tracking down Grace was very him.
- This week’s Billy Joel bop: “You’re Only Human (Second Wind).”
- This week’s pricey licensing flex: Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer.”
- This week’s product placement: Burger King! Jiffy Pop!
- The Shining Light Liberation Army that had captured Kimiko and Kenji, and which Kenji grew to agree with ideologically, is obviously modeled after the Peruvian Maoist group Shining Path, who had been featured in the music video of Rage Against The Machine’s “Bombtrack.” The video is now pretty difficult to find, but “Bombtrack” still slaps.
- That quote from Stormfront, “Fuck this world for confusing nice with good”? That seems illuminating, doesn’t it?
66 Comments
I don’t think A-Train bought the guitar. I think he took it.
Antony Starr absolutely kills it as Homelander. I seriously consider this a casting choice on par with Billy Bob in Bad Santa. He just crushes it. Owns it.*spoiler, maybe*Is anyone else hoping they keep the Black Noir comic book storyline? I hope they do. It’s gonna blow peoples’ minds if they’ve never read the comic. I found this twist pretty great when I read it.
I felt like the Black Noir just being slightly singed during that mission in the first episode was a nod to them having that twist.
There’s no way they let this be subtle like that.
Same but I just wish they would let Starr spit out those acorns he stashes in his cheeks.
It’s called an underbite. Very sexy combined with those sharp canines.
Wow, you’re a dick.
Over on The Boys subreddit, I think the push has started to make Black Noir be revealed to be Abed Nadir.It makes sense you think about it. The man has stared into the abyss and survived. Admittedly not completely in one piece (not even he could go to that particular void and come out completely in one piece) but still came out more intact than most would.That fits with Black Noir mostly holding together up to now but obviously only able to do so by venting with the occasional gruesome murder.Also, we already know it’s been established that Abed is Batman.
I read the comics over the summer in anticipation of Season 2 here after having liked Season 1 so much (after having read the first few issues way back when they came out and dropping it pretty quickly due to Ennis’ spectacular excess, even by his standards). I actually ended up enjoying the comics pretty well, as some of the worst stuff he did kind of tone down over the course of it, and when he’s not trying to deliberately be shocking for the sake of being shocking, he comes up with some good stories. The point of this is that I had no idea of the Black Noir twist, and also really liked it and how it played out.I wasn’t convinced the show was going there by Season 1, but the opening of Season 2 and BN getting just barely singed by Explodey Guy now has me convinced that they are going there. I do think it will be cool if they play it out as well as the show’s gone so far.
No, just… no. I don’t think it will work at all. They leaned a bit too much on Black Noir being a comedic presence in the show(regardless of what he actually does) that I just can’t see how they’d pivot that into that grotesque thing in the comics.
“And does her comment about sexual assault hint that she might know more about Annie than she’s letting on?”Annie has spoken publicly about her sexual assault, that’s why the Deep was exiled to the midwest.I think Becca made a deal to raise her son in an experimental community run by Vought in exchange for protection from Homelander and possibly protection for Billy. Vought realized they screwed up by treating baby Homelander like a caged rat, and hope they get a more stable (and controllable) Homelander out of the deal. Homelander assumes the kid has powers because he’s an egotistical asshole.
Exactly. Homelander will be in for huge disappointment when his kid doesn’t live up to his expectations. My fear is how he reacts to that…
But if he’s going to be playing house, will he wear his costume the whole time? That’s kinda funny
I also wonder if they are hoping the kid can be their insurance policy if Homelander ever goes (further) off the deep end. Someone who would be powerful enough to go toe to toe with him, and moral enough to want to stop him from murdering millions.
Absolutely. Which is what I meant by a more stable Homelander – that the kid would be a more stable version of Homelander – although now I see that I didn’t really express that clearly at all.
This show continues to make me laugh at moments that are really not funny. Like when Becca is desperately unloading on Dr park about Homelander and the dude just wantonly says you cant put the toothpaste back in.Loved the way Starlight was laughing in the background when Stormfront got tired with the feminism questions.
How rich are the Seven, really? A-Train can just casually buy Prince’s guitar from Purple Rain? I demand to see tax returns!I assumed A-Train was either lying or had gotten fleeced.
Lol why do Tv/shows movies always make their allegorical characters so effing on the nose? Homelander’s “this is me showing the audience I’m racist/homophobic” lines are so hamfisted. The average internet troll is more subtle.
-They gave Karen Fukahara some real meat to chew on and she surprised me. I couldn’t make anything of the “boy/girl” scribbles she was showing Frenchie either, and then it’s like “Brother! Oh! Of course!” But if she signs, why didn’t she reveal that to the gang after all this time? Even if they don’t know what she’s saying, at least they’d have a better understanding of her.
In any case, I really liked her non-dialogue scenes with Kenji (For a real-life martial arts champion, she’s impressively good as an actress) and I loved that when he put her threw a building, she was still back on him seconds later, lol. So deadly even Butcher won’t fuck with her. (That look!)-The Deep’s gills absolutely disgust me. Hard to sit through all that
That quote from Stormfront, “Fuck this world for confusing nice with good”? That seems illuminating, doesn’t it? Cynical people love shit like this, so yea, I guess? Definitely the kind of rhetoric millennials champion as deep this day and age. Stormfront embodies her base perfectly. Perfectly. Whatever happens next, she’s already the villain in my eyes, lol.
They established that her sign language is self-developed not any of the standard ones.
Yeah the Deep storyline is as nauseating as his gills. And I love Jessica Hecht is in this, but I still don’t care about any of it.
I find it entertaining because it’s funny and the actor is very good, but the problem is it’s not connected to the rest of the action. It might as well be a different show at this point. And I find the gills effect very upsetting too for some reason
I’m reading ‘boy’ as ‘bouy’
Hey, weird prejudiced bullshit out of nowhere! Thanks for letting us know you have a weird axe to grind against feminists and millennials, I guess.
I have so many questions about the circumstances of Becca and Ryan’s
lives! I’m assuming that they are being held by Vought? Perhaps
blackmailed in some way? Who is Dr. Park?
From last season it was obvious Homelander had obsession about kids and was all pumped with having one with Becca. Vought knows Homelander is a psychopath and that kid could make him harder to control. They also clearly want to know if Compound V powers are heritable. So they faked Becca’s and the baby’s death and put them in their test community. Becca agreed to be safe from Homlander.I also think that Vought wants to see of they can get a version of Homlander that isn’t a complete psychopath. One that actually grows up in a safe, loving, idyllic home Homelander pretends to have had. You know a version that can be reasoned with and maybe eventually used to stop dad if he goes insane.Unfortunately, Homelander found out and no one in Vought is homicidal enough to refuse Homlander something he really wants in his face. At least not if it’s something not related to corporate interest. After all the motto is to make their main product happy – be it letting them have a Prince’s guitar or a son.
Of course Homelander would be pissed that Ryan can’t throw a fastball. Of course.
He wants a mini-him but has no idea how to actually interact with children. This is the same fake-acting he did when showing of his home. It’s also just like Black Noir trying to vibe with a kid while holding severed head. They are only mimicking what they saw as appropriate behaviour but all they achieve is being extremely creepy and wrong. I like those small nods to the comic.
Kimiko and her brother bonding and then finding their irreconcilable differences was so beautifully shown. Especially by Karen who doesn’t even speak. I also loved the look she gave Butcher.
It somehow feels wrong that the show makes me feel bad about The Deep. I don’t mean the gill scene that was both creepy and hilarious and Patton Oswald was great and I loved it. It explained why but didn’t change the fact that he ruined lives of so many women just because of his self-esteem issues. I mean being brainwashed into a Fresca cult. I keep wanting him to run.Stormfront is just too cool girl. On one hand she is saying all the right things about Vought and”girl power” branding and pockets. On the other she was picked by corporate and she Instagram’s everything. And the way she treats Annie shows that she certainly isn’t there to make friends. It feels like all of this is as fake as Homelander’s childhood.
Is there a law that got passed that said Patton Oswalt has to appear in everything, especially if it’s kind of nerdy?
it’s 2014 at the AV Club again i see
A modern emperor-has-no-clothes female persona, but showed at the end of the third episode she’s still the Stormfront from the comic books.
I kind of wish they had kept the longevity angle from the books; a Nazi Who Was There At The Time rolling their eyes in disgust at the modern LARP wanna-bes and muttering the National Socialist equivalent of “If Caesar were alive, you’d be chained to an oar.” would be an interesting view into just how vile the real thing was.
“I also think that Vought wants to see of they can get a version of Homlander that isn’t a complete psychopath. One that actually grows up in a safe, loving, idyllic home Homelander pretends to have had. You know a version that can be reasoned with and maybe eventually used to stop dad if he goes insane.”Agreed. And last season the doctor explicitly stated that the super kids who were raised without mothers ended up developing no empathy. Hence letting this kid be raised by his mom.
I feel there is a thing I am missing with that Fresca soda the Church of the Collective keeps forcing onto The Deep. Does Scientology sell a similar brand of soda in the USA? Does it contain some Vought chemicals?
https://www.cinemablend.com/television/2554104/the-boys-creator-talks-the-church-of-the-collective-and-explains-the-fresca-references
Thanks!
It’s funny to recognize Becca as Karen Baldwin from For All Mankind. She seems to specialize in being the troubled wife/mother back home with an exceptional but problematic man’s son. That series didn’t get much coverage here but she has a major role with a decent arc (my quick take: great cast, great space stuff, rather drawn out and morose personal dramas.) I hope Becca gets a shot at more than fear and distress.
It wasn’t until I finished the first season that I finally recognized her as Patty Spivot from The Flash.
THANK YOU!That was bugging the hell out of me though I was too lazy to IMDB her.
I recognized her right away. She deserved better than how Barry treated her, and instead she gets this. Poor girl. She’s killing it though.
Well I’ll be damned, it took me reading this comment to get that.
i dont get why people are acting like stormfront has some big mystery. She’s a racist and an asshole who likes to stir shit. its that simple.
I never read the comic, but no-one calls a character “Stormfront” for nothing.
Never read the comic either and I’m confused as to why people are calling her racist. Is it merely because of the name? Was the name really chosen with that intention? If so yikes
Do you see the Roman Eagle on her outfit? That symbol was co-opted by a particular group in the 20th Century.
Yes, and in the comic while the character is different in some other ways (a he, for one thing), he’s a straight-up Nazi. Full, out and proud Nazi.
People are assuming her to be a racist because Stormfront in the comic was an original Nazi from the time of the Third Reich. To say the character was overhauled in the adaptation would be an understatement. Not only was the comic version the opposite gender and not even in “the Seven,” I think he was kept out of the spotlight as much as possible because he kept saying Nazi propaganda.
I think they’re assuming her to be a racist because of Stormfront, the big neo-nazi website, which I think doesn’t exist anymore thankfully but certainly existed at the time the comics were coming out. But you’re right this version of the character sounds completely different from what was in the comics so I’m not sure why anyone’s thinking many of those characteristics will be kept
yeah, like i said, its not subtle. Also i like how the name has 2 meanings.
And the assumption that being from Portland = liberal. Most of the white supremacists groups stirring up shit now had roots in organizations that started in eastern Portland/Oregon.
didnt someone say she was from portland and she corrected them? Im not sure, i could be wrong
One of the issues I had with S1 was that the Butcher was just kind of a one note, extremely repetitive character and was kind of saddened that he shows up again and is basically the same character. I’m also not quite as enjoying Homelander being full on evil this season as part of the fun of his character in S1 was how his superhero visage turned so quickly from heroic to evil at the drop of the hat, usually conveyed just in how the actor changed his tone or expression.On the other hand, the scenes between Kimiko and were brother were great. Kimiko was also a bit of a one note character and all of that scene added layers and dimensions to the character I don’t remember seeing before. And like a lot of the people on this show, the acting was pretty stellar in that scene. I’m fully now fully on board with the character
Yea Butcher is the only one who we don’t really get to see the humanity of, except in EXTREMELY tiny doses.
Honestly I’m just hoping Butcher gets run over by a truck soon so we don’t have to see any more of him, plus also that I can gloat in a Purple Wedding sort of way. I find him a couple of notches less likeable and sympathetic than Homelander.
How the hell did Homelander hear Becca’s conversation with Dr Park?? Wasn’t she miles for the house?
I presumed superhearing, because why wouldn’t he have that?
Sure, but how does he filter out all the other noises in order to hear that particular conversation?
That’s how comic book superhearing works. IT JUST DOES.
Heh. I guess if I go down that road I have to wonder how The Flash avoids crashing into things when he’s running 7 times the speed of sound.
Same way we do? That being said, it doesn’t match what we have been shown him capable of so far. There’s lots of things he’s missed that he should have been able to hear if that’s the range of his hearing. I actually assumed there was an audio feed somewhere in the house of what goes on at the lab Becca went to. But I guess that wouldn’t make sense.
He has superhearing but it can be kind of inconsistent. Like in the tunnel, he didn’t appear to have heard Starlight and Hughie’s conversation before he showed up.
“the backstory that his self-loathing is what caused his sexual harassment and exploitation of women … ehhh”I think that it’s a good example of people having reasons for treating others as things. You’d like to believe all rapists are just bad people deep down so you don’t have to feel sympathy for people who do bad things, but people who do bad things have usually had bad things done to them in the past and deserve our sympathy even as we acknowledge that they’re not great people.
Plus “reason for behavior” =/= “excuse for behavior.”
Right, just because the behavior is explained doesn’t mean it’s excused.
That’s true, but also I don’t give a shit about that particular character’s journey of self-discovery and I’m not sure why the show is expecting me to.
Thanks, for the reviews, Roxana. I finished S1 just in time for S2 to drop, and your reviews here are a perfect addition. Will be reading them all.
How rich are the Seven, really? A-Train can just casually buy Prince’s guitar from Purple Rain? I demand to see tax returns!I got the impression from A-Train’s response that he zipped into Paisley Park at Mach 2 and stole it.
“(delivered by Cash very much in the style of Artemis Pebdani from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia)“Or, more accurately… “(delivered by Cash very much in the style of Aya Cash from You’re the Worst)“ Because, seriously, the cellphone stuff and the hairdo are the only things separating the two characters so far. Heaven forbid this show stop confusing gimmicks with personality.
This show deserves 7 more seasons
Doesn’t Homelander know about his son’s powers because of the video that Vought had of Becca very pregnant with baby inside her shooting off laser eyes?