'The Boys' season 1: Billy Butcher being denied vengeance in finale sets up what could be an extraordinary follow-up
This article contains spoilers for 'The Boys' season 1
Amazon Prime Video's 'The Boys' season 1 is a rollercoaster ride that will have you gasping in shock and marvelling at its audacity for portraying something so raw and real. It is a superhero show, but not all superheroes wear suits.
In fact, the ones that do, dubbed the Super 7, are not all that great either. Homelander (Antony Starr), The Deep (Chase Crawford), Maeve (Dominique McElligot), A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), Translucent (Alex Hassell), Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) and the most recent member Starlight (Erin Moriarty) have a lot of baggage that comes with being controlled by a corporate company for political and financial gain, losing everything good about themselves in the process.
This is why The Boys' fight is more complex than what we are used to seeing on superhero shows. 'Jessica Jones' and 'Cloak and Dagger' do deal with the dark side of being a superhero, but in the face of the things that the Boys - Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid), Mother's Milk (Laz Alonso), Frenchie (Tomer Kapon) and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) - go through, the former are just dabbling. The show dives into the psyche of superheroes who are conflicted ethically and morally.
Let's take for instance, Hughie's mission to bug Annie aka Starlight's phone. This is against what he believes in personally because he considers her a good person. Billy Butcher, on the other hand, doesn't care. All he sees is the fact that she is part of the Super 7, and so she is someone that the Boys needs to stay aware of.
For Billy, the supes (superheroes) are all manipulators who are having a laugh at the expense of folks who do not have superpowers. In fact, Billy's hangup about the supes also comes in the way of Frenchie rescuing Kimiko who is kept hostage underground by A-Train and Homeland. All Billy sees is a woman with superpowers and he doesn't care about who she is as a person until the others force him to try and understand.
In the fight between The Boys and the Super 7, we realize none of them are innocent, they are all killers who believe they have a cause. Sometimes, its vengeance and sometimes it is just their belief in the greater good. As a result, there is not one character that you can idolize in this show. However, at some level, you can connect with all of their insecurities.
With every new episode, we see these main characters unravel over violence, drugs and death and all of that is a build-up to the most exciting finale. Not so much because it was completely unexpected, but mostly because it showed how sometimes it is not enough to see two sides of a coin.
For instance, Homelander, the leader of the Super 7 is a bad guy. He is the stuff that nightmares are made of and he proves it when he abandons a flight full of people not because he couldn't save them, but because he was worried about his brand.
How can he remain the most powerful of supes if he doesn't care to save people? If his image gets tarnished, his brand value goes down and that will directly hit the business that manages him, Vought's, stocks. Above being selfish, he narcissistic, vain and a heartless creature. He is in Billy's words "diabolical". He has no second thoughts whatsoever before he burns people into a crisp with his laser eyes.
There is no redemption for this character and until the very end of the season, he is evil. Evil enough to kill the one woman - Madelyn Stillwell (Elisabeth Shue) - he has loved because she lied to him. This action leads to Billy Butcher's endgame - to see Homelander tortured after killing his loved one - going wrong.
All Billy has wanted since the beginning of the show was revenge. He believes Homelander raped his wife Rebecca and killed her or it led to her suicide. Of course, it turns out that was never the case. Rebecca is alive and well with Homelander's son and Billy who learns the truth in the finale is shocked and so are we, because what will the Boys do without its crusader.
If Billy has no one to rage against, how will he lead the fight against Homelander? This transition has the potential for an extraordinary follow up that we cannot wait to see in 'The Boys' season 2.