The Boys series finale spoiler discussion

0:08Welcome to Pilot Plus and our sudden impromptu spoiler chat for The Boys Season 5, which ended as we record this just a few short hours ago. So that didn't stop me jumping into the podcast booth with my fellow soup, Amon Warman, aka the only other person I know who is as invested in this show as I am. Boydie, lazy, lazy man that he is, is not up to date with this show. Yeah, yeah. He's given up on the boys. Now the question is, Amon, was he wise to do so? So, right, you're a boys fan, right? Yeah. You've liked it all the way through? Yeah. Pretty consistently? Mm-hmm. What were your hopes going into this fifth season?

0:49Did you think it was going to be good? Did you think it would go out on a high? What was your feeling? I thought it was going to be really good. The stage was set really well. I also really liked Gen B. So did I. And the final moments of Gen B season two teased a crossover between the characters of Gen B and the boys. That had me hyped. And also just knowing that this was the final season and knowing that in all likelihood, Homelander was finally going to die. I was just hyped to see that because my goodness, there have been many, many things in the boys. I'm like, this guy just needs to go. And I was looking forward to seeing that moment.

1:29So I was going into this feeling quite hyped. I come out of it feeling... Deflated? Deflated. It was fine. I think the final couple episodes were better than the middle of the season, which was very middling. um but yeah i just think back to what i felt all the way back in 2019 when the boys kicked off and it felt dangerous and it felt unpredictable and then i think about the finale of season five the finale of the show and it felt predictable and it felt inevitable and that took away from some of the satisfaction that i wanted to walk away from the show feeling yeah i know what you mean i mean i think ultimately it's one of these shows where it's a victim of its own success because to me it just outstayed its welcome like it didn't need to be five seasons four i think would have been a tight series you could have finished it there i think this first season it's just it's gone on too long and i feel like the homeland storyline just got away from them because he's been the villain for so long and you've been wanting to see him die for so long that they were just trying to how do we up the ante more and more and more and i think in this season for the first time when they were leaning so much into the authoritarianism he's basically the president oh now he's god and you're just like it's just a bit stupid at this point and it felt like they'd run out of things to say and run out of things to do now when i started watching this this season i was quite enjoying it i think partly was just that was having the boys back you know because it has a very distinct flavor a feeling to it it's gory it's crass it's rude it's crude you know it's outrageous and that's always been a bit fun and that's not normally my sense of humor but i've always enjoyed it in the boys and then we got towards the last two episodes of the season and i was just like at this point you have nothing left but dialogue about people's bumholes like that's basically we've got nothing else to say let's start talking about people's assholes or just saying something outrageous about exploding dicks and it's just like that is not a substitute for a plot line.

3:30And every episode of this season started with a mini kind of like montage of just exploding gore. And it's like, that feels like all they've got. And I know every season they've done something like had the giant cock explosion. They've had like hero gasm. They've always had like a set piece, which is shocking. But it feels like they just run out of fuel by this point. There was nothing left. Yeah, I would agree. And I think part of that is just because you're right in that this has gone on too long because there were many instances in this season particular but also i felt a little bit in season four where they have to make up these plot contrivances to keep certain characters alive where if that wasn't like like almost they knew that this was a tv show like if that wasn't a consideration then homelander or any the other villains, they would just take these boys out.

4:25The numerous opportunities they have to do that, and they don't because we have to wait for the finale. It just felt like that. And I felt that feeling creeping into the show more and more and more. Yeah, I agree with you. It's just been stretched out. I mean, we've just watched the final episode today. And I felt crushingly disappointed by that finale. I really did. I like everything from Homelander's death to the build-up to it, Butcher and the kind of the final face-off with Huey, it all just felt a bit forced. It didn't feel organic. It didn't feel satisfying. I'm mixed on it. I'm mixed on it because I think there are some really nice moments within the finale.

5:07I do think the Butcher-Huey final scene is actually really well done. I liked Frenchie the Force Ghost from Kimiko. Clearly he did not. I liked Frenchie's funeral. There's some really nice moments, but there's also some moments that are just really puzzlingly written from the lack of inclusion of the Gen V characters, which I mentioned. Like Marie Moreau is, you've built her up to be the second most powerful soup. And then you know that this is the final battle. Why wouldn't you want her to take, why wouldn't you take, why wouldn't you take her with you to the White House when you're doing it?

5:47She is more useful than buddy turning a key to take people to car people to canada come on like that irritated me and then also just me being the nerd i am but the power scaling is just so off in this show in this freaking episode alone you have homelander who can apparently take someone up to space and then return within three seconds yet he can't evade butch's tentacles quick enough he's almost as fast as a train but You can't do that. Like there's power scaling. Earlier in this season, he uses his laser eyes to basically cut Kimiko in half. Now he uses his laser eyes. It doesn't cut anybody in half.

6:29It just stops them a little bit. There's this power scaling off. It's so inconsistent. It's really inconsistent. That was really bothersome. Even Homelander, they're in the White House making all this noise as they try and make their way to the Oval. Homelander has X-ray vision and superhealing. And yet when Butcher comes into the Oval, Homelander Act Surprise. You couldn't hear these guys? When freaking Ashley betrays Homelander and goes to sort of rescue the boys, Homelander in another episode, in another season, he'll be able to hear that and would immediately, within five seconds, Ashley will be dead.

7:04What's going on? Yeah. There's just, there's so much stuff like that which just bothered me. It's lazy. It's kind of lazy plotting, isn't it? Because like you set out your own rules. Like rules are fine because let's be honest, there's about super-empowered humans. So you can suspend disbelief, but you've got to maintain an internal logic. You've got to be consistent. And you're absolutely right. This wasn't consistent at all. And that kind of stuff is quite unsatisfying, I think, as a viewer. Like the fact that when Ashley is talking to other Ashley, she's doing it in the room, as you say, with Homelander, who has super-powered hearing.

7:35Exactly. It's just, yeah, ever so slightly maddening. Did you think that the anti-soup virus storyline, Did you think that was where it was going? What did you think of the whole V1 plotline immortality nonsense? It irritated me. Because you have that to be the driving storyline for the first six episodes of this season. And then Homelander gets given the V1. And then for the final two episodes of the season, out of nowhere, all of a sudden, the big play is Kimiko give Kimiko Soldier Boy's power. If that was the final endgame all along, why hasn't that been the body of your season? And rather than chasing off this V1, that was how the V1 storyline was going to end.

8:17That felt very strange to me. It did. Again, it felt like, oh, yeah, we just had this in our back pocket all along. I didn't buy that. Although I quite like the theory that I read online that this whole thing with Sister Sage playing 4D chess, the whole plan was to become de-powered. So she manipulated them all into that situation where she could have her powers taken away. Even that Sage thing, I've got questions. Because I get that it's funny seeing, you know, know the world's smartest person becomes stupid and she did help the boys yes but her being the smartest person in the world is just an intellectual thing it doesn't change her belief system it doesn't change all the evil shit that she has tried to do that she has done and yet we're meant to be okay with her getting the happy ending that did not sit right with me at all no sage happiness for you no absolutely not all the evil stuff that she's done and i get that you know because this has gone on uh as long as it has and because you know sage for the last few episodes like she was quite fun and she was helping the boys like there's a tendency that we have we've forgotten all the stuff that she's tried to do but if you go back in the history of the boys and remember all the stuff that she tried to pull off with homelander that she was in cahoots with that she was trying to do that's not a character that deserves a happy ending i'm sorry she should be in jail or butcher and the crew should have taken her out once she becomes cheaper but I don't know.

9:39But it just did not sit right with me at all that she's now gone off to the Harry Potter world. Well, this isn't a show that really does much for accountability, does it? Because bear in mind, Butcher murdered Homelander on live television, which, and I know he's a bad guy, but again, checks the law. It is frowned upon, right? It is frowned upon. A little bit, but I think with Homelander, just, I guess, the internal logic of that world, like, it feels like that would be one of the few exceptions to the... They're like, yeah, you're right. you can kill him you can jack open his skull with a crowbar that's absolutely fine that sequence nice nod to the comics by the way oh is that so I was going to ask you this so how does the ending of the show differ from the ending of the comics there are more supers involved with the comics and also I believe in the comics it was Black Noir that raped Becca and he then made Homelander believe that he did it and then Homelander kills Black Noir and there's a whole thing But yeah, the comics are very different to what they do in the show.

10:41Okay. Yeah. Fine. Going back to the Gen V thing. Gen V obviously was cancelled after a second season. There will never be a third season of this. And this had the hint of like a tip of the hat token crossover moment where, yeah, hey, you watch Gen V as well. So here are the characters and now they're going to fuck off again. And you'll get to see them again in Gen V. But of course you won't get to see them in Gen V. So the question is, why bring them in? Why have them in this literally at all if that's all you're going to do with them? The only thing I could think of is that that was initially the plan and then they rethought the plan and they were a casualty of the rethink.

11:20Because it doesn't make any sense that they literally, in the course of this entire season, have maybe four minutes of screen time. Oh, almost none, yeah. And that's just... I was really pumped watching the end of Gen B and seeing Starlight and A-Train pop up Welcome to Resistance. I was like, okay, let's go. and then seeing what maria just gone through in gen v basically a season of her leveling up her powers of her being able to control her powers which made that line that starlight has to marie i think episode seven really weird and that you know you need to learn to control your powers but have you not seen what i've been doing i can freaking bring people back to life that's basically what i did in gen v season two i can control my powers just fine thank you put me in front of lander let's see what's what it just it felt really weird and frustrating that that is the final moment we get to see of me of marie moreau uh played wonderfully by jazz sinclair um and that yeah was really bothersome because that was one of the reasons that i was so hyped for this final season yeah that was disappointing to me too i mean you talk about uh accountability and you talk about downforce sister sage does get away with it the deep does not i felt of all the characters kevin was definitely going to get a comeuppance and also it was always going to be starlight that brought it yes and i liked that it was starlight that brought it and the comeuppance felt very i mean it was inevitable and predictable and we could see it coming a mile away but it was good my question with that however is that if you're starlight you do not know that the deep and the fishes are not talking to each other.

13:00You don't, no. And you are bringing him to a beach. There is no electricity around. So there is none of your power source around. You're bringing the deep to a beach where his power source is everywhere. How does that logic work in this final fight that you're trying to do? Make that make sense. Yeah, it's true. Because Starlight doesn't know about the deep and the fishes. So that, again, felt very weird. and just thinking about stuff like that it almost feels like this is the star wars sequel trilogy but in tv land in that you know i just think of the the finales of this stranger things and game of thrones and i don't think this is as bad as game of thrones i'd say it's a little bit better than stranger things but i think they're all flawed in that there are plot holes and stuff like what I just mentioned that you can easily poke easily poke holes in what they're doing and I just think that when you're doing these seasons when you're doing shows like this you need to have a grand plan about how you're going to end it and have that be focused and have it built on with momentum that makes sense not just the plot but for the characters as well because if you don't and you have all these plot holes it not only makes the plot look silly but it makes your characters look dumb and that is what we're getting And obviously, I think the reason why I mentioned the Star Wars sequel trilogy is that the grand plan got messed up in between Force Awakens and Rise of Skywalker to the point where Rise of Skywalker felt like it was taken away from The Last Jedi.

14:33It felt like a little bit of, it felt like that was a little bit of what was going on with this season. I think there's an element of it's always difficult to tie up the threads in a way that will satisfy everyone. There are some great series finales out there, some all-time classics. But for every great one, there is a terrible one or one that people hate. I personally don't hate the Game of Thrones one as much as most people. I hate it. Yeah, I mean, I quite like it. I don't think it's perfect by any stretch. Who has the best story, James Dyer? I mean, look, I feel you. I feel you. And I kind of, it's not as bad as it could have been.

15:09It's definitely not as good as I hoped it would be. But it doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth, which I quite respect for it. But when I watch it, it doesn't make me sad. And when I did my Game of Thrones rewatch, I actually found it slightly more satisfying than I thought I would, certainly more than I did the first time around. Weirdly, this one, I felt more of a letdown. I wasn't as invested in this. I wasn't invested in the boys. This season had been disappointing as it went along, so I was kind of expecting the last episode to be a bit... The penultimate episode was fine. And I feel like it was on that trajectory.

15:39It just felt a little, I guess, a little bit lazy. Like, it just didn't feel polished. It didn't feel particularly well thought through. And I didn't buy, honestly, the trajectory of any of the characters. So like the homeland of trajectory, this Messiah complex, this whole thing with, you know, Daveed Diggs as the mouth of God. Oh, Father. He's great. He is great. I didn't love the character. Okay. I thought he was great. But this idea that he was going to, he declared himself God, which he clearly actually believed while he talked himself into it. And he was going to kill everyone who didn't just accept that he was God.

16:13it's just like we know he's a bad guy i don't know why you need to keep dialing this up like we like there's only so much more you can add to this yeah that worked for me in part i think we need to talk about it but anthony freaking star is amazing what a performance like the only reason i can think as to why he's not been emmy nominated and awards nominated up the wazoo is that this character is so out there and weird that people just don't want to really engage with it. But he should be, because his performance is just that good. And I liked that in this final episode, we got the full two extremes of that performance from the tyrant who wants to kill everybody and thinks he's God, and then the pathetic weasel and bully that we see before his ultimate comeuppance.

17:05And that felt right, and it felt like that had been one of the few things that was seeded not just with this season but all the way through the show i remember that iconic scene with stan edgar dressing him down saying these bad products that you know people will eventually see you for what you are a train said a version of that to him frenchy you know people have been calling him out on you are just a pathetic little toad with this power and you know sooner or later you're going to get got so I liked that and I like the two extremes of that I think Anthony Starr my goodness put some flowers on him honestly he's fantastic and yeah people should be lauding his performance I think of this entire one yeah I loved him in Banshee I think he's fantastic and I really love him in this as well I think there was something extremely cathartic of seeing depowered Homelander getting his ass kicked by depowered Butcher.

18:04That was a lot of fun. And it was really great. But the whole like, oh, suck your dick, I'll eat your shit. I was like, again, too much. I don't think so. Too much. That is what he is. He's a pathetic little toad who just wants to beg for mercy. That is who he has always been. And the moment that, you know, he can't run away from a fight, the moment he fully sort of experiences pain for the first time, that is who he becomes? Like, that felt very Homeland-decoded to me. Yeah. And you're right, he's always had this massive insecurity, this huge streak of self-loathing. So it does make a certain amount of sense because he's invulnerable on the outside and he's an absolute weasel on the inside.

18:46So you're absolutely right that he's who he is. that he can't fight as well because he's just been spamming laser eyes all the time and now that he can't do that and the look that Butcher gives him when he realizes that all your powers are gone Oh, then you are mine, mate. I'm going to fuck you up, mate. Die. All right, cunt. I quite enjoyed the fact that Butcher's headstone just said, Oi, fuck off, cunts, at the bottom. That was awesome. Genuinely quite funny. You know, people rag on Karl Urban. I fucking love his performance as Billy Butcher. I know it's a terrible accent, but it's a brilliantly terrible accent, and I am here for it.

19:18Likewise. Yeah, he's great. And, you know, he had a tragic arc, because he, let's be honest, he's long since become a villain, really, Butcher. Yes, yes. And I like that we get the resolution that we did with Huey and Butcher. Because Huey has, his journey has been about, can he hold on to the hope and the innate goodness, even though he's been dragged through Butcher's world. And the fact that you get that side of things, and you also get the darkness. the darkness it felt like Butcher's storyline couldn't really end in any other way yeah I like that Hugh was the one to do it I like that we got the we got to see the cost in the aftermath of Homelander's death for Butcher you know he's lost not only terror which was very very sad poor terror but rightfully Ryan says like you are not a good person and we're not gonna sort of, you know...

20:25He's not wrong. Yeah, he's not wrong on that. And, yeah, I liked it. It felt like a different version of the show could take that resolution in a different path. And I'm glad that they stuck with this. I mean, they tried to walk the line, I think, between satire and sincerity all the way through this season. I would say with mixed success. I think they leaned quite heavily into the satire at certain points. I think towards the end, maybe the balance was slightly off. I think they thought there was maybe more sincerity to this finale than there actually was. And I think part of that for me landed on the final shot, you know, of Huey looking up to the sky and that kind of, I guess it's supposed to end on a note of hope.

21:07I thought it was quite contrived that the president obviously calls him and offers him a position. But he's like, he's essentially, I guess what, the man in the chair for Starlight now while she goes out and does kind of low-level street vigilantism. Yeah. Yeah, I don't mind that. The thing that I do find a little bit weird is that annie and huey's kid is named after huey's dead ex-girlfriend um robin that's weird that's weird weird i do i don't think we need i know they're trying to do like a full circle thing but it's weird i think the full circle thing worked when it came to how they resolved a train story which was fantastic in episode one um you know a train starts off the entire series running through who he's girlfriend um he is obviously sort of changed for the better and is now on the boys aside and the reason why homelander ultimately kills him is that rather than run through another innocent woman he avoids her and stumbles that was great and honestly after that first episode i was like this is going to be a great season of the boys because it felt dangerous it felt unpredictable it felt like it had the momentum and you didn't really know what was going to happen next and then early on in episode two it's like we're back to the status quo it's billy and the boys versus homelander again trying to figure out a way to kill him again and it's just like we've we've had four seasons of this it shouldn't be this status quoting again it shouldn't be as wheels as wheel spinny as this season became and that's why the middling middle of the season i think is what turned a lot of fans off it long before the finale came because and i know you're gonna not like me saying this but i keep saying invincible season four fantastic season and that gave me what invincible season four was moving how i wanted the boys season five to move because i guess tonally they're not that different not that different but the invincible did feel dangerous did feel unbeatable and felt a lot more epic in a way that this season the boys never really felt and i know that big superhero action is not sort of fully what the boys does all the time but there have been battles that felt a lot bigger um than what we get in a lot of this season and yeah just having that invincible be so recent and would give me everything that I want in terms of just, you know, the unsettling, dangerous, like, I don't know what's going to happen, like, jump scares everywhere.

23:44Homelander has given me that in the past, and The Boys has given me that in the past. I didn't really feel that with this season. And I thought that I would, given how the season began. Yeah, I know what you mean. Has Invincible, I mean, let's assume, for the sake of argument, that I don't watch Invincible on account of it being a cartoon. but how are they for killing off major characters? Do they maintain the status quo or do they leave a hefty body count in their way? Well, this is the genius thing about the recent season of Invincible. Already regretting asking this. Welcome to the Invincible's world.

24:20Oh God. But this is the genius thing about the recent season. There have been no major character deaths but you still feel like at any point especially if you haven't read the comics and I stopped myself from reading the comics that didn't want to know what was going to happen in advance that it could happen there are multiple moments it's like oh shit at any moment this guy could take everyone out they actually do such a really good job of that in the final episode of the last season because they have the main character and spoilers for invincible guys um that the main character hallucinate the main baddie basically coming into his life and just killing everyone he cares about within two seconds and there is literally nothing he can do and then the final thing that closes out that um season that that episode is he actually comes across the main baddie and he closes his eyes because he thinks he's hallucinating again then he opens his up opens his eyes and he's actually there and so they give you that palpable dread dread that's what i wanted from this season and it just didn't really get me there and again i think that's partly because it's gone on too long yeah there's been too many contrivances and we still get contrivances all the way through this finale that just go against what we've seen in the show already there's even a line i think um it's episode three now um where soldier boy he's he's revived and he comes across butcher again and he shoots butcher and it's like oh it's true you're one of us it's like hold on in season three Butcher was fully a soup.

25:59You fought with Butcher against Homelander. But I get maybe he, like, because obviously that was Temp V. So presumably he knew that was Temp V. So he would have expected him to have reverted to his normal form. Okay. So I know what you're saying. There's a bit of hand waving there. We're going to assume that he knew it was Temp V. Okay. Okay. That's what I'm guessing. I didn't consider that. But yeah, it's just that there were things that was like, you've established this. Why are you not paying it off here? or why are you just forgetting about it? Even MM, earlier in the season, when he comes across Stan Edgar, he says, like, if you, you know, Stan Edgar has a plan, like, after all this is done, he's going to go back to Vought.

26:36If you go back to Vought, I'm going to be the one to put a bullet in your head. Where's that scene? Yeah. You know, Soldier Boy is still alive. MM has had a lifelong vendetta to end Soldier Boy, and he thinks he's done it, and then they reverse, they revert it back, which I did not like. but he knows that Soldier Boy is still alive why are we just forgetting about that lifelong vendetta that he's had to end Soldier Boy and now he's not doing anything with it? They kind of address this if memory serves like MM appears to have gone through a kind of zen transition where he's decided to put aside his hatred and his vendetta all his vengeance and he's decided to if not quite let it go focus on the existential threat to everyone, which is Homelander.

27:24And he's just like... So it feels like he's found some inner peace a little bit. So I can kind of accept that for the sake of his family, for the sake of everything, he's managed to actually rise above that vendetta and it doesn't consume him in the way that it did. I do, however, think, you know, taking Soldier Boy off the board, so he's not in the final episode at all. At all. That seemed like an odd choice. He's got vault rising. He does have vault rising. Yeah, I think, honestly, Soldier Boy was used too much in this season, and he felt quite one note. Not that there's much more to Soldier Boy.

28:01I think Vought Rising will be interesting to get more colors of that character that I don't think, beyond the father-son stuff, we really get much more of the Soldier Boy character. And they focus a lot on that, only to have it end with Homelander choking him out, putting him back on ice. It's like, again, it just didn't feel very satisfying or move anything forward in a really fully meaningful or new way. Are you excited for Vault Rising? Not right now. No, same. I feel a bit done, actually, at this point. I'm intrigued, but I'm not chomping at the bit for it. Yeah. It's a shame because there was a period of time where any boys spin off, I'd have been like, yes, give me more of this.

28:42Now I just feel a little bit let down by the whole thing, which is a shame. But what else should we talk about in here? Who have we not discussed? Kimiko obviously has this arc. Great character. Yes. But as you said, developing Soldier Boy's power for me just felt like a cop-out. And there was always, I don't think there was ever going to be a situation whereby it was always going to be losing his power. Like Homeland, it wasn't enough to kill Homelander. It was always going to have to end with him depowered. I think that was, for audience catharsis, I don't know that there was any way around that.

29:13So I guess this makes a certain amount of sense. but as you say it's all a bit hand wavy and oh yeah we just irradiated her a couple of times and oh look we now have a super weapon that just felt like it came so out of nowhere and I don't know why if that was your end game all along you cannot introduce that in season 5 episode 7 what are we doing? I just don't understand that but Karen Fukuhara is fantastic in that role she's doing so much excellent acting with zero dialogue at all. I love that the dialogue she did have, you know, she finally finds her voice in this season. And there's a lot of really great conversations that she has with Frenchie about the soup virus.

29:59Remember that? That was meant to be like a big old thing. But about the soup virus and the impact on them using it, not just for the baddies, but for the goodies. Like that was really sort of rich, interesting stuff. And I love that, you know, once the deed is done and Homelander is gone, she finds her voice again and she gets her happy ending, albeit not with Frenchie, but in France, that felt nice and right to me. How did you feel about Frenchie's death? And also, how did Frenchie die? Was he just bleeding out of orifices from radiation poisoning? Because I was unaware, oh, did Homelander do something to him?

30:35It was very unclear to me what happened there. That is an excellent point. And the fact that we don't see that is a very strange thing to me. I thought Frenchie's death was well done. I was bummed by it. I was bummed for Kimiko. I think the acting in that moment is very powerful and sweet. But yeah, the fact that we don't see that moment, given all the other gore and all the other shit this show has put us through, to not have the death of a significant character actually show us it happening, felt very weird. Yeah, as you say, an odd choice. so who's alive then at the end of show because let's assume that stuff may end up continuing beyond this particular timeline who's still on the board at this point Sister Sage is not really a character anymore she's just a stupid person so that's fine Annie, Huey Annie, Huey Stan Edgar we'll see who inevitably defrosts Soldier Boy

31:44Ashley yes Ashley so I quite enjoyed the whole Ashley Two-Face surprise I thought that was quite a fun thing to do with that character yeah that was good I like that she sort of developed a bit of a backbone in that sort of final episode and came to the boys' rescue even though Homelander should have heard it and immediately killed her indeed but that was good and the fact that she sort of doesn't leave and then is immediately booted from the position I thought that was also well done but yeah she's potentially still on the board as well yeah having gone full malignant yeah what did you think of the fact that again this is season five this is our final season yeah the starlight episode where she goes off to have an entire episode with her folks I mean like in another season, I'd be more partial to that.

32:43But we're literally, this is the final season. Shit is going down. Why are we taking an entire episode to do this now? What did you make of that? I know what you mean. I think sometimes something like that can rob a show of momentum. I think the reason why I didn't hate it in this season is because, honestly, there wasn't a lot of momentum anyway because it felt like they were treading water a lot. So weirdly, I'd almost rather they tread water with something genuinely new and interesting where you see her exploring that side of her family and actually I quite like the idea because all the local law enforcement are terrified and they've got to track down starlighters and look, a lot of this was done prior to the current political situation in America but there is a lot going on in this show which is uncomfortable to watch and I thought that particular episode really emphasized that so actually I quite liked it because it felt new and it felt actually even though it was like a side quest it felt like oh okay we're learning something we're doing something which is not how you felt watching a lot of these episodes so actually weirdly I quite enjoyed that one and I do like Starlight as a character I like the you know the idea of her background and the journey that she's been on I actually quite like that there is a lot of current political stuff embedded within the boys there always has been I think sometimes that's great like we haven't really talked about Valerie Curry's Firestarter or firecracker rather.

34:07Yes, oh my god, yeah. Impaled on an eagle's wing. Yes, which felt very true to life in that you try to curry favor with evil fascist people. It does not matter how loyal you think you are being. They will cast you aside very quickly. And that was the boys' version of that and that felt very good. I like that. That idea that appeasement is not the answer. It's really not. A hundred percent. And it's similar for O 'Father as well, right? Yes. It's like you make a deal with the devil, you know eventually the devil comes for his due so yeah i would have liked a little bit more of that character honestly because you could see that he was wavering um a little bit with the whole homelander god thing and what it you know what it in what it in reality is turning out to be and i would have liked a little bit more of that before his ultimate comeuppance um but david diggs is just he was the consistent highlight for me of the season and i sent you that link a couple of weeks ago but his uh uh raise him up that song yeah it's a banger i mean it was a banger it's a blasphemous banger is what it is and honestly it had me reaching for the hamilton soundtrack yet again i just i like that they gave the beat that showcase because they knew that he was that dude and he absolutely smashed it he did uh genuinely that's not the only link that you sent me though so one of the links you sent me was the fight between soldier boy butcher and Homelander from season three.

35:33Yeah. And you were like, this is where they should have ended the show. And thinking about it now, with the benefit of hindsight, I'm not sure I disagree with you. I think that was a fight for the ages. It was a really strong season. And while I liked the way season four ended, season four had its ups and downs, but when Superpower Butcher comes in, you know, I actually, it felt edgy. It felt different. Obviously, we just had flying killer sheep. A lot had gone on in that episode, but I felt, oh, this is exciting. I feel that this series was completely devoid of interesting wrinkles, newness, novelty, excitement.

36:07But yeah, you're right. If they had ended with that fight in season three, this would have gone out on a high. It would have been really tight, no filler, all killer. Yeah, I heavy agree with that. Yeah, yeah. What do you think of, again, it's because our current political life is so messed up. but you know in the earlier seasons it felt dangerous and unpredictable and it felt like it was a funhouse mirror almost of political stuff yes now the most outrageous things that they can do and try in the show the real world does weeks later that whole thing with homelander as a golden idol and then they do freaking trump as a like what i mean i feel for eric quickly a little bit because he's like what can I do like I didn't plan this but this is what the world is like I feel I feel bad for Eric with creating that regard I know what you mean and obviously we don't talk politics on this podcast but I will I do think it's true that anyone looking to satirize contemporary politics through fiction has got their fucking work cut out for them this is honestly but this is what saw the end of Veep this is what saw the end of House of Cards well there were other things that saw the end of House of Cards but right But because it gets to a point where how do you satirize something that is so beyond satire?