User Reviews

I knew this show was going to be great, just based on the premise and what I've heard.

It's such an intelligent way to tackle the theme of superheroes. We are so sick of seeing the same types of stories over and over again, so this is totally refreshing.

I love how it starts with the brutal misting of his girlfriend in the street! It's like a bucket of cold blood in the face and it really wakes you up to what kind of a show this is going to be.

Strikes a great balance between action and humour and intrigue and superhero tropes and sexual gags.

I knew that Homelander was going to be left for that final sweet reveal at the end - you could just tell he was majorly sinister.

I love that we get a look at the Seven from the outside & the inside (with Starlight).

The acting is solid and I enjoyed spending time with every single character.

Can't wait to see where the story goes from here!

The first scene sets the tone. We quickly see two young teenagers debate and swear about their favorite superheroes. Honestly, I was expecting a serie for a larger audience but it's clearly adult material because of the graphic violence, gore and sex scenes. The pitch of the TV series (adapted from a comic book) mixing superhero and showbiz world is a very original idea. It's clearly condemning the class inequality and the showbiz world excesses. To present superheroes as corrupted divas is clearly a change for the genre. From what I have seen, there's a clearly a bias and we can consider this show as a pamphlet. It's well illustrated and the orgy scene in the private club is quite amazing. The second strong point of the show is its visual effects. The first scene is a jaw-dropping pursuit scene, with a symbolic sequence among dollar bills. It's blockbuster level so it couldn't be expected to be frequent. The action scenes are also quite convincing, the final fight against Translucent was even creative. But, there is a weak point which is the characters' personality. Aside from Starlight (Erin Moriarty) which is interesting because she looks real and has a feminine duality, strong and fragile at the same time, the other characters are rather bland, Hughie (Jack Quaid) in particular despite he is a tortured soul. Karl Urban who plays a pseudo-Morpheus (nice reference to Matrix though) struggles to stand out of the sort, but anyhow he provokes our curiosity of knowing his past. Finally, the superheroes are too much one dimensional for the moment and demonized, particularly in the final sequence. As a conclusion, this pilot has some tedious moments but we can't be indifferent to all the concepts and visual effects. This show clearly has potential and could be fantastic if the characters are better developed.

This episode felt like a 2 hour movie, it got me hooked straight away from Hughies tragedy. Special effects are great. Homelander and Stillwell are interesting. Deep is harassing Starlight sexually, what a creep. All the characters got me going forward to look the next episode. Another character they nailed was Billy Butcher, left me wondering what are his motivations and hate towards Vought. There are bunch of faces from every other TV show as well.

Just now watching this episode it is horribly terrible. They're promoting everything that is going on in the real world right now that is wrong & evil like making Starlight do sexual favors immediately to keep her job position & killing a girl & completely & totally lying about it. Whomever thought of this & wrote it is really sick. This is definitely something you should NOT let anybody 18 & under watch.

I'm a huge fan of Marvel, but not so much of DC. But I'm loving this series already and was very pleasantly surprise at how good it turned out to be.

This concept takes super-powered individuals who are mostly just horrible people and put them on the face of every single pop culture reference, merchandise and social media outlet. In one of the very first scenes, A Train, a super fast "supe" litterarly makes the girlfriend of the hero Hughie explode into bloody pieces by running into her. Not only does A Train refuse to take responsibility for his messy actions, he also brags and laughs about it to a friend.

The episode also has an excellent portrayal of sexual assault when a hopeful new member of the super hero team Starlight is forced to perform oral sex on another douchy supe. It's not shown, and it's not put in there just for shock value as it did in the comics. Instead this version of the scene focuses on the fact that even strong women, both in independence and physical powers - can suffer these types of sexual violence.

Pretty much every single member of the team The Seven apart from Starlight is an asshole in one way or another. And reason mostly being is that the company backing them lets them get away with bad behaviour and are more interested in profits and popularity rather than actually helping people. Such is the way with many companies today, unfortunately.

On Hughie's side, there is a hero's journey type of scenario. He refuses the call from Billy, a vigilante determined to take down the terrible supes and expose all of the injustices that they get up to. But soon Hughie agrees to help him, and along the way bonds with Starlight over the awful injustice done to both of them.

Often when a show begins, the trigger warnings will make me either delete the media rather than watch it, or, mindful of my girlfriend's triggers; compel me to watch with mindfulness to recommend if she should see it at all. For example: the remake of "I Spit On Your Grave" was utterly brutal and graphic cinematographically, but for myself having got past that, I deeply felt catharsis by proxy as she got her revenge, such that I could tell my girlfriend; "It was a well-done film for what it is, but don't watch it, it will be highly triggering." "The Boys' had for me an unexpected trigger very early on, but the manner in which it was handled set the stage for the (in my opinion) more severe trigger of rape later on. Firstly, my own unexpected trigger, which you will only understand if you're 'children' are beings that many refer to as 'pets': As a child, my first cat whom I deeply loved and who loved me too, was turned into a mess of blood and pieces before my eyes in a very similar manner to what I saw in this episode. Despite that I am crying through typing that some 42 years later, it is a matter I have dealt with and seeing it played out so similarly between two humans, while it did have a deep and sad emotional impact on me, I still, after a pause, laughed my ass off simultaneously holding back tears of grief, ass I believe the shows creators intended. The other trigger warning: "Rape", which I initially decided; "Look up the director" and; "So this is a show I'll watch by myself and probably recommend my girlfriend avoid.' has in fact been nullified my the excellent manner in which the writer, director and editor utilized the the tools of cinema to inform us of what occurred and its aftermath without actually showing us the event. The only element that was visually exposed was the impact the choices of a degenerate in a position of power had over his victim...there was no visual material for misogynistic titillation. If you're easily triggered by the set-up and manipulation to a sexual assault, then continue to avoid. If you have come to terms enough you are only triggered by graphic assault, then you won't find it here in episode one. I am going to watch the rest of it with my girlfriend (who will not watch any rape scene) and try to post a review again later as required. In the meantime; 11/10 for the manner in which a very sensitive matter was handled, and 9-10/10 for the acting, story, direction, and editing thus far after episode one.

This episode is great! However, upon rewatch it can feel quite slow in comparison to the other episodes. I feel like the show really starts getting good when Butcher comes on screen, but it is still a gripping first episode of TV. The way A-Train runs through Robin is shocking as it is darkly comedic. I love the first episode, but it just feels a bit... slow is all? Again, I love the pilot, and I could watch it over an love it the same, just figured I should mention that. From the first episode it establishes each character, their motivations, and where their arcs will be headed in future. The parallel of Annie joining the Seven to Hughie joining The Boys is quite interesting to see. It definitely makes the conflict between the two characters feel that much more personal. Half the episode is pretty much mourning Robin, and how Hughie can even live with himself. There's also Annie's plot, which is finding out that joining the Seven isn't as great as it was cracked up to be. She gets assaulted on her first day, and can't even tell her own mother about it because her mother is so narcissistic and is fulfilling her own dream through her daughter. However, the highlight of this episode is the second where Butcher comes in. He is just delightful, and I mean that in every sense of the word. He's funny, and he is unusually charming. And is definitely one of my favourite characters in the show. He then recruits Hughie to do a mission for him, and then when he's done pretty much plans on never seeing him again until that changes where Translucent finds out about the bug. After an epic fight, and a call back to a scene explaining that he has carbon skin. We then are left for the next episode to see what happens next. And with the final scene, Homelander mows down a plane, showing that no one in the Seven is good. Overall, a great introduction to a great show!

8/10.

**Does contain spoilers**, **does contain spoilers**.

Just seen Umbrella Academy season 1 and that was chock-full of 'AS IF's'. It was full of improbable events, in between the total fantasy parts. So I thought I'd give this 'The Boys' series a spin next, to check out its credibility, storyline & action. See if it was all about being hip & shocking/perverting the audience over and above any hard edged credibility.

Right off the bat we have 2 kids in the street confronted by armed robbers in a van. Upon SEEING the automatic weapons do the kids flee?. NO they just stand around and wait around to be grabbed & taken hostage at the point of a gun.

EVEN when a firearm is held directly at one of the kids and is in the process of being melted by the Superman knock off, the kid just stands there, not bothering to move just in case the firearm isn't actually instantly incapacitated, that the robber doesn't fire a few rounds off and he needn't bother moving out the way. Cause he is secretly the LEAD BOOT kid, he can transform his foot attire into solid lead. Rooting himself to the spot.

Fantasy is fine in parts, BUT in between the fantasy everything else has to be something that is LIKELY to happen, by laws of chance & probability.

From that point on I knew it was going to be a SLOPPY script, an endless amount of improbable events, all to fit into the ill thought out script, all to actually make it work. Such being the limitations of the script writers.

We then had the sitting down in the park scene with the bereaved guy (son of Kelvin timeline Star Trek's 'Scotty', Simon Pegg with his totally laughable FAKE American accent), and just by chance, like the odds of few MILLION to one, Miss Flashlight was sitting there next to 'Richard Hendricks'.

In a city of millions he just happened to sit next to another prominent player in the series to spill his guts out & strike up a relationship with her before no doubt there is further relations between them & the gruff dark hair guy. It is SLOPPY and uncredible already, stunted minded script writing straight off the bat. Direct from a comic was it? Or all just dreamt up, written down on the back of a fag packet.

Like Miss Flashlight after being no doubt extensively instructed by corporate as to any problems at all, to go see them. Upon fish faces unwanted advances to her, she would have said, if you even attempt to try it I'll go straight to Corporate and it'll be YOU getting kicked out. And I'll blast it off on the spot as well. (whether she could direct her powers to one individual area, fish face would not be entirely sure on that). But no, with all her powers she has to be made the victim. To get our sympathy.

So that scene is as bogus as they come.

The most probable outcome just had to be kept out of the script as the script writers had to convey what a nasty individual fish face was, deserving of our HATE. Couldn't just leave it as him being a nasty bit of work who tried it on, though only with quick-wittedness was the dirty deed was avoided.

We all have to be conditioned from the start into hating these super types, (except her, the victim), then whatever happens to them we are rooting for their demise or even legal comeuppance.

Like we are to believe the new Miss Flashlight is about the only 'superhero' out of them all with any redeeming qualities. Not even a super-villain to be seen yet either. They all join up with that corporate outfit for the $$$, like some sort of WWE outfit on steroids, (in the proverbial sense... maybe not the other). We see as yet no super types who go it alone, doing their own thing, maybe later. NOT VERY LIKELY though is it if the only super-villains are those who break away from that corporate outfit.

Some of the material is far too rude & yes i agree it is vulgar, too excessive already so far. Luckily if it offends and the FF button can be pressed fast enough or even the stop button before we are purposely & deliberately targeted, some of it can be avoided. All of it can be.

Maybe the series is worth a spin, eight episodes for series 1, so it may have been condensed down from a 10 episode series. Good. The Umbrella Academy PADDED it out to 10 episodes, so at least some of the fluff & off tangent scenes that series had may have been cut out of this one, making it a tighter series, we'll see.

So far for the LACK of credibility in between the total fantasy parts and the outright improbabilities and the excessive perverse material, (that Amazon indeed do warn us of), it is barely worth a 3 star rating, for either ep1 & 2.

Have the fantasy parts, great!, but for the rest of it KEEP IT REAL. Got that script writers!!. Lucky to get 3 stars. Looks like this is another Sci-fi/fantasy series that could with better scripting been a far better series. Almost as if they don't want to produce really fine material in the genre, just having a stab at it appears to suffice.

Maybe they are just not up to it, have not got the imagination & ability needed out there in the industry. Such a shame, we'll see how it all progresses, but it could be from me a 6 star rating for the entire season. Intriguing enough so far to carry on.