The Boys Season 4 - How To Destroy Your Audience

one of the questions that comes up pretty regularly on open bar these days is Drinker you tough talking charismatic Gunslinger with a dark past when are you going to review the boys season 4 ah the boys now that's a name I've not heard in a long time you know I used to be a real fan of that show to the point where I actually gave the first season a drinker recommends award and truly what higher Accolade can one bestow upon a work of art these days anyway way at a time when the superhero genre was already becoming kind of stale and played out the boys came along to completely tear up the rule book funny violent irreverent and wickedly subversive with a complex and well-written cast of heroes and villains plus a whole lot of other characters in between and a story that brutally skewered everything from fake corporate activism to our obsession with celebrity culture media manipulation and cultural Warfare it was really everything you could look for in a show like this I kind of checked out after season 3 partly because I was pretty burned out with superhero stories in general even shows that subverted the genre and partly because I could see the way the boys was heading as a creative property the complex nuanced and multifaceted characters were slowly morphing into simplified parodies of themselves the central storyline was becoming trit and predictable and the bitingly witty satire was becoming more overt and partisan with every season parting the same predictable talking points as every other Hollywood product basically the boys just wasn't cool or interesting anymore it wasn't fighting the power it was the power it wasn't raging Against the Machine it was part of it what was once rebellious subversive and irreverent had become just another mouthpiece for the safe corporatized Hollow and performative activism that it once so brutally mocked so I wasn't exactly briming with excitement at the prospect of sacrificing another eight hours of my increasingly limited lifespan for the new season frankly I've got better things to do with my time but hey maybe they managed to turn things around I mean stranger things was drinking at The Last Chance Saloon for me after a disastrously Bad season 3 only for the showrunners to listen to Fan complaints and come back with an absolute Banger of season 4 maybe we'd actually get something similar here so it was off to Rotten Tomatoes for me to check out the reviews not the critic reviews of course because nobody in their right mind gives a [ __ ] what those [ __ ] shells I've got to say about anything anymore I'm talking about the audience reviews which is the only semi-reliable barometer for Quality these days and oh oh I mean the audience scores had been gradually declining from an all-time high of 90% in season 1 to 75% by season 3 but that's kind of in line with most shows to be fair but there's no denying that season 4 absolutely fell off a cliff good Lord I don't think I've seen a fan base turn so hard on any show since Game of Thrones look through the reviews and you'll see page after page of absolutely brutal rops all saying basically the same thing the general consensus is that the show seems to have sacrificed writing quality and smart characterization in favor of simplistic shock value and cheap political Point scoring in short the writers have become more interested in getting their own personal ideology across and owning the chuds rather than actually telling a good story and well that sort of strategy never really pays off naturally I was curious to get the other side of the story so I took a look at a recent interview with showrunner Eric kpy and The Hollywood Reporter and he had this to say about accusations that the show had become two partisan I clearly have a perspective and I'm not shy about putting that perspective in the show anyone who wants to call the show walk or whatever that's okay go watch something else but I'm certainly not going to pull any punches or apologize for what we're doing some people who watch it think homelander is the hero what do you say to that this shows many things subtle isn't one of them so if that's the message you're getting from it I just throw at my hands you know why do I feel like this is rapidly becoming a tale as old as time as show gets popular and goes mainstream the writers get a little too overconfident and think they can use it as a platform for their own personal Hang-Ups the fans start to push back against them and instead of taking that criticism on board and responding in a constructive manner they just say [ __ ] it go watch something else you dicks kind of reminds me of this idiot who did her level best to tank the American comic book industry and then had the balls to berate her own customers for not loving what she was doing and if you don't like my politics don't buy my book right was me told do girls enjoy yourself it's the entertainment equivalent of that [ __ ] kid who takes his ball and flounces off home because everyone else won't play the game the way he wants them to it's this weird narcissistic sense of entitlement amongst creatives these days that everyone should just unconditionally support and agree with you because you're such a paragon of wisdom that there's no possibility you could ever be wrong about anything the problem Eric is that other people don't always think exactly the same way we do they don't always share our beliefs par our opinions mirror our viewpoints on every topic and that's okay because people are allowed to have different points of view a smart humble and creative writer finds ways to bridge the gap between all these different groups through the unifying concept of good storytelling a bad writer on the other hand tries to hammer home his opinions on his audience with sheer brute force and then gets angry and resentful when they push back against it I'll let you decide which one you used to be and which one you are now also it's interesting watching the discourse around the boys on social media which I can best summarize as the boys used to be smart and fun now it's all about pushing politics and nothing else cry harder chuds don't you know this show was always making fun of people like you sheer [ __ ] hus okay let's get this over with yes most people with functioning brain cells knew exactly what this show was and where its political sympathies lay nobody in their right mind looked at homelander as a misunderstood hero that represented the voice of the masses nobody looked at Stormfront and thought you know what she's got a point there nobody clapped and cheered when the Deep forced himself on Starlight and it's complete gaslighting to suggest otherwise the show was never particularly subtle about its politics or what it expected its audience to take from it the difference though is that for the first couple of Seasons at least it was actually fun and entertaining because the creative Focus was still on the story and characters and believe it or not people can be surprisingly receptive to your political ideas when they're smartly presented and wrapped up inside an entertaining products people can empathize with characters that embody ideas they don't normally support as long as those characters are well written and likable people are even capable of laughing at themselves when you point out the more absurd or extreme elements of their worldview provided you do it in a way that's actually funny and insightful in each of these cases though the primary focus should always be on entertaining your audience instead of lecturing or pandering to them and I think this is where the boys has finally come on stock the more strident and blatant your messaging becomes the less entertained people are going to be and the more of your audience you end up pushing away instead of uniting them with entertainment you end up dividing and alienating them with politics and well I hope it was all worth it Eric I hope it was worth tanking your franchise tarnishing your legacy and turning your own customers against you all for the sake of some cheap political theater that's going to be forgotten as soon as your show's over I hope all those pats on the back that you and your fellow writers have given yourselves make you feel better when the show inevitably gets cancelled I know I don't think I will be watching season 4 of the boys after all quite frankly I've got better things to do and I suspect you do as well anyway that's all I've got for today go away now

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 610,307

Keywords: critical drinker, review, funny, best, feminism, feminist

Id: N1ubB8tjL04

Length: 8min 9sec (489 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 23 2024