“The bloody doors off” lacks narrative momentum, exceeds in entertaining action

d378332745d5cafcef4bc7798204889c5c-the-boys.2x.rhorizontal.w700.jpg — 76/100 “sweet”

By: Keaton Marcus

It’s the last three episodes, c..ts (Butcher-style, right?) in the second season of The Boys, and while this sophomore year isn’t as good as its predecessor, I’m still reasonably invested, and hopeful for an epic finale. One issue: Where did all the climax go? The excitement? The big twists? This season is still in set-up mode and we’re more than 75% through the goddamn thing.

Don’t worry, though. Overall, it was an enjoyably fun ride, the performances are still very much intact, and the heist was blow-your-brains out awesome. In terms of the momentum issue, some of it was regained from last week’s painfully mediocre episode, but not enough to make you feel as excited for the upcoming episode eight. There is still plenty of heavy backstory and flashbacks, which could have seen shoved in there earlier, if the series wasn’t so focused on intoxicating several characters with pointless subplots that led to nowhere. Stormfront and Homelander are still batshit crazy and hilarious, and Karl Urban continues to one of the best actors on the show, it’s just that the whole thing lost a bit of its magical touch.

The majority of the action takes place at the Sage Grove Center, where Hughie, Butcher, Annie, Mother’s Milk, Frenche, and Kimiko end up stuck in a heist to find out what Stormfront and Vought are up to. Before everything goes to absolute shit, they find that Vought’s been pumping Compound V into people, creating an army of Supes. Basically, it’s a supe terrorist testing ground, and you don’t want to be caught in it. Then our favorite, and most charismatic Nazi arrives, Stormfront, who’s guiding this whole experimentation plan from the playbook of her buddies in World War II. What do I mean? It’s revealed she literally danced with Himmler. Oh, then there’s Lamplighter, played by Shawn Ashmore (are we really still introducing new characters?), who joins us in this week’s episode to be the Nurse Ratched to Stormfront, burning patients who get out of line.

Of course, we get some backstory and exposition dumps to justify the existence of Lamplighter. Apparently him and the Boys have an iffy history as audiences learn that he used to be in the pockets of Grace Mallory and her team (including Butcher, Milk and Frenchie), forced by blackmailing to tell them what the Seven and Vought were planning. Tragedy struck one night, however, a night when Frenchie wasn’t paying attention. I won’t get into spoilers, but let me just say that nothing ended well. Anyway, back in Charles Xavier’s school for maniacs, sorry Sage Grove, Mother’s Milk, Frenchie, Kimiko and Lamplighter seek safety from the psycho X-Men…Shoot, the “Supe Terrorists”, Butcher, Hughie, and Annie attempt to escape. It nearly ends awful, though.

One of the super assholes has some anxiety issues, and flips their van with his telekinetic powers. Inside it was Hughie, who’s nearly killed by the blast, and ends up with a nasty piece of shrapnel in his gut. Luckily, the charmer of the series survives, and Billy and Annie argue over how much they love the kid. Back in Sage Grove, things are getting more intense than sentimental. Doctors and guards are getting brutally killed by the patients left and right, and one even explodes heads for a living. The series does specialize in grossing you out, but in a few cases, it goes too far. There’s a patient who can spit acid (yeah, like in Alien), and he ends up spitting it all over his face, and the result is hideously grotesque. But then the disturbing imagery goes up a notch, and we get a patient literally called “Love Sausage”, and it’s for a good reason. Mother’s Milk and the rest of the gang are hiding out in a room jam-packed with medicine, and suddenly, Milk is attacked by…Umm…what I thought was a long tongue. Turns out it wasn’t, it was the guy’s pecker. Don’t ask.

The whole Sage Grove subplot is tons of fun, and a great success for the series, but it’s also an excuse to throw Lamplighter in there and introduce his history with the gang. It’s all good and innocent entertainment, though. The one subplot that doesn’t quite hit the bar was the Church of the Collective. The promise of brilliant satire on Scientology is wearing out a bit, and the series has been meandering on about it for some time. A-Train, disgraced and officially out of the Seven, is pulled into the Collective as well. I guess that’s an interesting choice. This new direction was supposed to be good for the character development of the Deep, but the guy still feels underdeveloped despite all the bonkers antics he gets into.

Homelander and Stormfront are the real talk of the town. In light of Stormfront running the Sage Grove center, a suspicious Homelander follows her around like a jealous boyfriend. His immature, whiney personality has always been a winner with me, and the series turns up the notches this time around. He also has no idea what Queen Maeve will do with the footage of him leaving an innocent child, and the rest of the passengers on a plane to die, proving that he’s a murderer. Like the literal child he is, Homelander heads to Vought to catch Stormfront in a lie, and blows up his trailer when she doesn’t come home on time. Finally, Cash’s character tells him what he needs to here, that she is the first Supe, injected by Frederick Vought himself, born in 1919. After a century, she’s found her perfect match. Who’s gonna stop them?

The final opinion is: The Boys’ “The Bloody Doors Off” makes up for what it lacks in narrative momentum with entertaining action, fearlessly disturbing imagery, and an interesting new backstory. I would say…BINGE IT

Rated: TV-MA

Genre: Action/Comedy

Runtime: 1 hour 5 minutes

Directed By: Sarah Boyd