“The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.”
— Gustave Le Bon
Marvel’s unscrupulous heroes, who have dominated the big screen for 20 years, introduced us to the superhero business as comedian patriots. Characters who are rich, handsome, charismatic, and always defeat the bad guys with the power of love and friendship at the end of the day. They’re fictitious, and they’re obvious from 1000 miles away. However, The Boys managed to win the hearts of the audience by striking this false hero image. Ironically, The Boys’ heroes were far more fake than Marvel’s heroes. The Boys, which gave the most realistic answer after Watchmen to the question of what it would be like if superheroes existed, continues to fascinate with its third season. We can even say that every season it grows and becomes a cult. And, of course, they will put their name among the legends when The Boys is over.
In the first season of the series, we witnessed the real faces of the heroes in the post-truth universe established by the media. We saw how disgusting the heroes, who are the favorites of the people and the irreplaceable names of the brands, are behind the camera. The second season was a season of confrontation. A dissolution began as the lies piled up on each other, and the characters’ egos began to collide. Also, Butcher’s team managed to pose a threat to some superheroes. At the beginning of this dissolution was the Homelander, which was everyone’s nightmare. Everyone was curiously waiting when Homelander, whom almost everyone feared to death, would go crazy.
The third season was the season of this madness and dissolution. Chaos has officially taken over the show. Although the team who set out to find Soldier Boy, the only weapon in their hands against Homelander, who is now on the verge of insanity. They managed to find him, but the person they met did not turn out to be the person they imagined. This year’s resolution of the series is actually proceeding from here. The series, which focuses on the responsibility of having power and the question of who has power, reveals that power is always in people with bad character. However, the most beautiful detail in the Soldier Boy story is that the phenomenon called patriotism consists of fraud in the background. Thinking of himself as America’s hero, Soldier Boy was just a pawn of the media change that started with the advent of cinema, especially television. He was just a puppet with the strings of “people.” Though he didn’t have the intelligence to understand it. Throughout the series, most of the superheroes move as long as their strings allow, and they live by obeying the people they can kill in a fury. But Homelander was the first to cut those strings this year. And he officially admitted that he is a being that is much more than humans.
The series is essentially a media critique. While we thought that as technology developed, ignorance and problems would decrease over time, but we were wrong all along. Because malicious people have also started using technology, and they are pretty good at it. Unfortunately, this period, which we call Post-Truth, pushes people to a hazardous point. In particular, a specific age group has become the puppet of significant names who uses technology for their own evil intentions. A vast mass that is lazy to search for the truth, immediately believes what they see, and has no knowledge of what’s behind the camera, is being seriously manipulated by some media outlets. And unfortunately, these baited people pose a grave threat to the modern world of the future.
Vaught has spectacularly used the media for three seasons to make its corrupt heroes look sweet as butterflies. However, we only see what is happening behind us as spectators with a third eye. The people living in the universe do not know anything. And what makes The Boys successful is its proximity to reality. These people are not fictional products of a show. There are millions of these people today, and we live with them together. The season finale touches on this problem. Despite everything that has happened, thousands of people still support Homelander. And even though Homelander killed someone in front of their eyes, they cheered that. Like I said, they reflect the dangerous future I was talking about by supporting it. In a world where gun violence, oppressive regimes and being driven into poverty are increasing day by day, Homelander is a metaphor for these. Call him a dictator, NRA, or Trump if you want. He’s a symbol. And what’s worse, which is the most crucial point of the finale that everyone missed, support for Homelander despite the man he killed surprised even him. The acting in that few seconds was truly priceless. Although we found an answer in the last seconds to the question “when will he lose himself” that we have been waiting for, for three seasons, it ended with much worse than we expected: They supported him. Even he thought in his dreams that people would hate him.
The new season, on which the screenwriters must be congratulated, will have a similar consistency to today’s world. The new season, which we can also call The Boys vs. Ignorant People, will wage war against the conservatism raised by the media, which we have not yet found a solution. But I’m looking forward to how they will solve it because we haven’t been able to find an answer to this question in real life yet. We are still struggling with the decisions that conservative authorities make. Hundreds of thousands of face-painted supporters of these people still create terror on the street for those conservatives and their dusty and sick ideas left from the 1900s.
“A crowd is not merely impulsive and mobile. Like a savage, it is not prepared to admit that anything can come between its desire and the realisation of its desire.”
— Gustave Le Bon
The Boys, especially with its action scenes, is a show far superior than many movies and series. This year’s Herogasm and the face-off in the finale were good enough to qualify as epic. However, no matter how much action we expect, this series has never been a series that focuses on the superheroes being superheroes. Instead, the series has been showing how easily the public can be manipulated by the media for 3 seasons and that no matter who you are, you can be promoted as a hero when dressed in a latex costume. Worst of all, The Boys are not fighting for us on the streets in real life.
Bottom line… The Boys season three started with a battle against Homelander. The team, who wanted to confront Homelander and destroy him forever by using Soldier Boy, unfortunately, fought for life and death by being stuck between 2 perverted-mind characters. The season, in which we saw the dark side of the media, the perverted inner worlds of the heroes, and even the strongest of all can fear, turned the subject back to the main problem, the manipulable audience. Homelander is no longer the protagonist: the people themselves. For this reason, I think the fourth season will be much more bloody and will be a season that pushes the limits of the mind. Especially when a notorious maniac running for the presidency.
Cast & Crew
creator: Eric Kripke
starring: Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Tomer Capone, Karen Fukuhara, Jensen Ackles
USA | 2022 | 8 EPISODES |