Discuss and Rate the Last Thing You Watched (non-movies)

[gorfias]

The Boys: S5:Ep6: Oh Boy... / Great

Welp, here we go....

Lotta wheel spinning. About a 1/3 of the episode asking people about asking people. And

Spoiler

Isn't the reason they stopped using V1 is due to a very, very high mortality rate? When trying to make it and a guy dies bleeding out the butt trying it: isn't that normal for most people? How do they know it was wrong. Why shouldn't Homelander have expected to explode upon taking it? And with time running out, we needed to spend what little we have watching clouds? And the entire "church" scene?

But finally, story has moved forward and we actually got some action in the last 15 min. or so.

They've got me. They know I have to watch just to see this play out. Though, Soldier Boy is still worth taking the time to watch. To the powers that be, please don't take that as an excuse to give him his own spin off series. Fonzie is a lot of fun till you make Happy Days all about him.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Lotta wheel spinning. About a 1/3 of the episode asking people about asking people. And

Spoiler

Isn't the reason they stopped using V1 is due to a very, very high mortality rate? When trying to make it and a guy dies bleeding out the butt trying it: isn't that normal for most people? How do they know it was wrong. Why shouldn't Homelander have expected to explode upon taking it? And with time running out, we needed to spend what little we have watching clouds? And the entire "church" scene?

But finally, story has moved forward and we actually got some action in the last 15 min. or so.

They've got me. They know I have to watch just to see this play out. Though, Soldier Boy is still worth taking the time to watch. To the powers that be, please don't take that as an excuse to give him his own spin off series. Fonzie is a lot of fun till you make Happy Days all about him.

The Boys reminds me of that cold open from the episode of The Office where Michael Scott has everyone who typically drowns him out absolutely rapt with an interesting story for once, and he drags the storytelling process out as long as he can just for the attention. It's painful, but they have my attention, and as long as Homelander is around, I personally feel the tension that anything could happen even at the slowest of foot-dragging moments is carrying me through this.

I'm not sure about the history of V1, but I imagine someone of Homelander's level of narcissistic pride would easily bank on his invulnerability to risk a chance at immortality. Now we have to wonder how he didn't hear "the boys" and the traitor Sister Sage in the woods only a few dozen yards away at the end. I'm not even sure running would be an option at this point. I'd personally have sat still and waited for Homelander to fly away to go jerk off in a bath of breastmilk before making the sound of several people running for their lives.

And Soldier Boy lost a tenuous fan today. I don't think you need to worry about any sort of spinoff treatment; irredeemable shitbags don't tend to merit the expense of a solo affair. He's shown today that he's not a hero, so nobody wants to see episodic content about a bad guy. (I say that then immediately recall loving The Penguin, so what the hell do I know?)

 

[thebobmaster]

To be fair, The Penguin was a very interesting case where it seemed like they kept hinting that there might be something redeemable to Oz, only to subvert every single one of them by the end of the season. It was a really fascinating show where you kept being reminded that not only are you following a mobster, but one with fewer scruples than the opposition.

 

[FakeSympathy]

IDK, I personally am starting to like Soldier Boy more...kind of.

He is still an asshole, but he still seems to hold some semblance of honor. Clearly he and bombsite didn't get along, but from the dialog it sounds like it was more of a friendemy situation rather than actual hate or disgust.

I definitely think he loves his son in his own crazy way, enough to do THAT at the end of the episode.

That being said, while I enjoyed this episode. I also felt it had zero focus; Like, it kept switching between 3-4 subplots, and while they all resulted in the overall plot moving forward, I was a bit taken back on the direction that they led to.

 

[Xprimentyl]

IDK, I personally am starting to like Soldier Boy more...kind of.

He is still an asshole, but he still seems to hold some semblance of honor. Clearly he and bombsite didn't get along, but from the dialog it sounds like it was more of a friendemy situation rather than actual hate or disgust.

I definitely think he loves his son in his own crazy way, enough to do THAT at the end of the episode.

Soldier Boy lost me with what he did at the end of the episode and WHY he did it. He's madly enough in love with the idea of a Nazi terrorist that he hands immortality to an extremely dangerous individual with a literal God (<-- note the capital "G") complex. You can't come back from that in my eyes; you're not a likeable, hedonistic anti-hero anymore; you're just a villain at that point.

 

[FakeSympathy]

Soldier Boy lost me with what he did at the end of the episode and WHY he did it. He's madly enough in love with the idea of a Nazi terrorist that he hands immortality to an extremely dangerous individual with a literal God (<-- note the capital "G") complex. You can't come back from that in my eyes; you're not a likeable, hedonistic anti-hero anymore; you're just a villain at that point.

Maybe he is continuing to lose his sanity? I mean back in season 3 he was already hearing voices. Or it could be all part of a masterplan that we haven't even thought of.

Also, we are in 6 out of 8 episodes of the final season. So probably a 2-parter (well technically a 3-parter if we count this one)?

I am making a list of everyone who I think will die by the end:

• Butcher
• Homelander
• Soldier Boy
• Deep (probably in a hilariously embarassing way)
• Ashely
• Sage
• The preacher dude
• And so many other heroes who stood with Homelander
• The maybes:
  • Rest of the boys, save for Hughie and Annie
  • Stan Edgar
  • Ryan
  • The doctor and his daughter (Neuman's family, can't remember their names)

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

More gotta find the person to find the person to find the person to get the thing. In this episode the pipeline is: The Legend, Golden Geisha, Bombsight and the V1. It's impressive enough that The Boys actually pull through, for once, though of course they fumble it at the last minute and once again end up being no closer to their goal of killing Homelander. If anything they make things a little harder for themselves with every episode.

And you know what, I'm sick of Soldier Boy and Sage. Their goals and their motivations change every episode, often several times within the same episode, and I'm tired of them coolly rationalizing their wonky writing in dialogue. Ever since their respective introductions they've hijacked the plot of the show and steered it at the whim of the writers.

It is also two episodes in a row in which a member of The Seven is unceremoniously killed by one of their own merely by stabbing them on a whim. The Boys might be overthinking the whole genocidal virus thing. Try knives. It makes me wonder what even was the point of brining in a replacement for Noir in the first place.

I liked the scenes with Paul Reiser. Especially his send off. Finally, a scene the show hasn't done a million times before.

Oh Father is cool and should've been introduced earlier.

 

[thebobmaster]

Watched the finale of Daredevil: Born Again Season 2. Holy hell, this was a great season, and any concerns that I had about the ending somehow just restoring the status quo or barely changing anything were not only wrong, but I'm surprised just how much the finale irrevocably changed dynamics of characters.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Watched the finale of Daredevil: Born Again Season 2. Holy hell, this was a great season, and any concerns that I had about the ending somehow just restoring the status quo or barely changing anything were not only wrong, but I'm surprised just how much the finale irrevocably changed dynamics of characters.

Should I bother with Season 1 if I want to watch Season 2? My sister didn't like S1, so I never got around to it. But Season 2 seems to have been receieved much more positively.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I liked the scenes with Paul Reiser. Especially his send off. Finally, a scene the show hasn't done a million times before.

I had no idea that was Paul Reiser!!! But agreed, his scenes were good. Especially when his brutal honesty with Homelander actually solicited likely the last of any trace of humanity out of him.

 

[Bartholen]

Caught up on The Boys. It's just becoming more and more apparent that they didn't really have a long term plan as much as they had a general idea of where things were supposed to go in the final season. It just feels like an interminable fetchquest: we gotta find A to get to B to find C to get to D to gain leverage on E and so on. Killing Noir off in such a way almost makes me think there's a catch: there is no way someone like him goes out that easy, especially since The Deep is stupid enough to believe he can just strangle-stab a fellow supe. But I don't really have the faith in the writing anymore to believe there's some twist like that coming. As with every genius character written by people without the ability to write an actual genius, Sage's plans are all retroactively justified: that she's always five steps ahead and planned for every contingency. At this point I'm no longer hoping for a great finale, I just hope it doesn't suck. That it can wheeze and pant its way across the finish line with some dignity.

I still like some stuff in it: the unofficial Supernatural reunion, the multi-POV episode, the cringe AMC promo recreation, all the mock commercials, they're all still great. It's just a shame that they supersede the actual story to such a degree.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Should I bother with Season 1 if I want to watch Season 2? My sister didn't like S1, so I never got around to it. But Season 2 seems to have been receieved much more positively.

Season 1 is skippable.

Its problem is that they changed direction while making it. They wanted it be very different from the Netflix series so they kind of replaced some of the characters with new ones, but then started bringing them back anyway.

I finished season 2 last night and.. I dunno, I guess it got better, but I don't think it adds much to the story or characters. The constant putting up with Fisk is Daredevil (the show and person) spinning its wheels even more than the Boys, and the latter is getting criticized much for it.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Just finished Maul's new show, after giving up on it a few times.

It's such a nice looking show, with some of the best lightsaber sequences in the franchise. The show is also unfortunately kinda boring. We know what happens to Maul. We know what happens to the inquisitors chasing him. The new characters introduced basically have their fates written on their foreheads. The whole story could have been told as the first arc of a full season, or better yet, not told at all. They've already done so much of this already, the show is eerily similar to Maul's arc in Rebel. Trying to befriend a powerful padawan, the temporary alliance with a Jedi master and padawan, Maul's inevitably betraying the master to poach the apprentice, Vader showing and being a badass, people attempting to slow him down by bringing the roof down on him.

I've always hated people blaming Dave Filoni for the current state of Star Wars, but he also keeps making stuff like this. Why would you make this over continuing the Clone defector storyline from The Bad Batch?

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Season 1 is skippable.

Its problem is that they changed direction while making it. They wanted it be very different from the Netflix series so they kind of replaced some of the characters with new ones, but then started bringing them back anyway.

I finished season 2 last night and.. I dunno, I guess it got better, but I don't think it adds much to the story or characters. The constant putting up with Fisk is Daredevil (the show and person) spinning its wheels even more than the Boys, and the latter is getting criticized much for it.

Fair enough. I love D'nofrio's Kingpin but I am confused as to why he is still around. Surely they can steal some other Spider-man villain to replace him. Tombstone, Hammerhead, Big Wheel, Stiltman, etc.

 

[thebobmaster]

Fair enough. I love D'nofrio's Kingpin but I am confused as to why he is still around. Surely they can steal some other Spider-man villain to replace him. Tombstone, Hammerhead, Big Wheel, Stiltman, etc.

Without spoiling too much, let's just say Kingpin does not end the show in nearly the same position he starts it in.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Just finished Maul's new show, after giving up on it a few times.

It's such a nice looking show, with some of the best lightsaber sequences in the franchise. The show is also unfortunately kinda boring. We know what happens to Maul. We know what happens to the inquisitors chasing him. The new characters introduced basically have their fates written on their foreheads. The whole story could have been told as the first arc of a full season, or better yet, not told at all. They've already done so much of this already, the show is eerily similar to Maul's arc in Rebel. Trying to befriend a powerful padawan, the temporary alliance with a Jedi master and padawan, Maul's inevitably betraying the master to poach the apprentice, Vader showing and being a badass, people attempting to slow him down by bringing the roof down on him.

I've always hated people blaming Dave Filoni for the current state of Star Wars, but he also keeps making stuff like this. Why would you make this over continuing the Clone defector storyline from The Bad Batch?

Darth Maul is the perfect example/avatar of franchise fatigue.

In the movie where he was introduced, he was also killed. He was not intended to be a fully realized character, he's just an obstacle. He was supposed to look cool (that failed, he looks like a Chick tract rendering of Satan) and do cool lightsaber stuff (that part worked) then kill a dude then be killed by another dude THE END.

But no, the cartoons had to drag his ass back to life, make him talk, and give him a whole plot. Where he became... a gangster? Lol. So stupid.

And now there's more of it.

Though I guess Boba Fett was the original Star Wars guy invented for his looks and action turned into a character and done to death with no thematic, story, or characterization that was worthwhile.

(And no, I'm not counting comics or novels).

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Darth Maul is the perfect example/avatar of franchise fatigue.

In the movie where he was introduced, he was also killed. He was not intended to be a fully realized character, he's just an obstacle. He was supposed to look cool (that failed, he looks like a Chick tract rendering of Satan) and do cool lightsaber stuff (that part worked) then kill a dude then be killed by another dude THE END.

But no, the cartoons had to drag his ass back to life, make him talk, and give him a whole plot. Where he became... a gangster? Lol. So stupid.

And now there's more of it.

Though I guess Boba Fett was the original Star Wars guy invented for his looks and action turned into a character and done to death with no thematic, story, or characterization that was worthwhile.

(And no, I'm not counting comics or novels).

I hated it even as a child, although I did not actually watch his return until I was much older. Honestly I feel like a lot of what happened in the Clone Wars cartoon was excused because the fandom never thought we would get something live action for Star Wars ever again, so rule of cool reigned supreme. But now that we have to treat Star Wars as an on-going universe populated by flesh and blood characters again, the tolerance for silliness has decreased.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Adepta Sororitas: Penitence. A three episode miniseries about a novice Sister of Battle tasked with interning a sacred relic in a temple in the middle of hostile territory. It's a fairly good looking show. It's not very full of action, which is probably how they got away with such a high level of fidelity. It's also surprisingly grimdark, more than your average 40K story.

That said, I can't understand why anyone would want to pay to watch it. It's good looking, but there are fan animations or even just trailers that GW has put out that are more interesting visually. The characters and story are generic and forgettable as a result. I get that they are treating these animations as more of a side dish than the main course, but I really can't imagine anyone signed up to Warhammer+ really caring about it.

 

[Gordon_4]

Adepta Sororitas: Penitence. A three episode miniseries about a novice Sister of Battle tasked with interning a sacred relic in a temple in the middle of hostile territory. It's a fairly good looking show. It's not very full of action, which is probably how they got away with such a high level of fidelity. It's also surprisingly grimdark, more than your average 40K story.

That said, I can't understand why anyone would want to pay to watch it. It's good looking, but there are fan animations or even just trailers that GW has put out that are more interesting visually. The characters and story are generic and forgettable as a result. I get that they are treating these animations as more of a side dish than the main course, but I really can't imagine anyone signed up to Warhammer+ really caring about it.

See I'd happily buy blu-rays of the Pariah Nexus and Tithes mini-series because what I've seen of them on YouTube is really cool. Sa'kan is great, coming as close as the setting can allow to a gentle giant. And they've been surprisingly good at keeping whole episodes of their stuff OFF YouTube in anything other than small clips and haphazardly edited compilations that nearly make no sense. But I dont want a subscription I'm charitably going to use for one tenth of its available material since I don't play the game.

So I'd love to watch this stuff, but their asking price against what they have isn't worth it.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Hacks: S5:Ep7: Delightful / Great

Funniest episode of the show in a long time. Deborah and Ava are a lot closer than I presumed.