The world needs heroes (❌) The world needs choices (✔)

The second season is finally over.

In fact, the second season is far from the impact of the first season. The first season tells a fast-paced world that is out of control. From the perspective of Huey, an ordinary person's life that is gradually out of control, he cuts into this dark, noisy and chaotic. In the superhero world, the resistance of BOYS even brought the classical heroism like Kangji Cod.

In the second season, the sense of surprise in the setting is much less. The feeling of being out of control at any time in the first season has disappeared. When you watch BOYS's actions, it is like playing a step-by-step RPG. The predicament and the breaking of the game actually seem too smooth. There is no turbulence, except for the unexpected behind-the-scenes mastermind at the end, there are basically no surprises in other parts.

This kind of treatment caused BOYS to become a tool man in the second season. They were caught in the game of several major forces. For the sake of life and freedom, fortunately, the butcher's obsession remained, so that the team would not fall apart. In the end, the predicament was resolved, BOYS got what he wanted, some people were able to return to their long-lost ordinary life, some people said goodbye to the past, some people found new goals, and even the butcher got a moment of peace.

But thinking about it carefully, under this superficial tranquility, no substantive problems have been solved at all, and the world is still fucked.

Of course you can see this as yet another realist satire from the writers.

BOYS finally strips away the anti-hero color, they choose to compromise, and compromise allows life to go on.

The dragon slayers did not become dragons in the end. They stopped before the abyss, put down their weapons, and turned to leave.

BOYS

However, as the second season, there are still a lot of things explained in the plot,

The first is the past of BOYS,

We learned that the butcher's violent tendencies stemmed from a trash father who beats and scolds at every turn, abused alcohol and neglected his family, so he developed the habit of using violence to solve problems since he was a child. Only his younger brother could stop the angry butcher, but in the end he was kind and weak. The younger brother committed suicide after the butcher fled his family to join the army, which became an eternal void in the butcher's heart.

The relationship between Huey and the butcher is derived from this past. To a certain extent, Huey is a replica of his younger brother. This kind and somewhat clumsy boy who has not had blood on his hands has replaced the role of his younger brother. He is the butcher's. Conscience and console are also the glue of BOYS.

This also tells us that, as Homelander said to the butcher, they are a type of people who grew up in a lack of love and can only protect themselves with anger. Others are more afraid of them, but the butcher's luck is really It's a lot better, he has a kind brother, a wife who loves him, and met Huey when he lost everything but hatred.

By the way, the butcher is still the spiritual leader of BOYS. Although the team members think he is a complete asshole, the BOYS without the butcher is probably similar to the Westward Journey team without Teacher Tang.

The French used to be a member of the Butcher's CIA team. They found Torch Man's sore foot, a former SEVEN member, and threatened him to become an informant. The Butcher's BOSS sent the French to monitor Torch Man, but the French was going to rescue a friend who had overdosed on drugs. After losing the target, the BOSS family was burned to death, and the rest of the team felt that the French were deserters. That was the first time the BOYS team split. So the French have been living in self-blame, even in order to punish themselves without telling the butcher the real reason. He has been trying to help others to achieve self-redemption, subconsciously feeling that saving others is saving himself.

Miss Beast originally lived in the countryside of Vietnam, living a simple life with her brother, until Walter's poisonous hand reached out, they were artificially turned into superpowers, captive, abused, and then smuggled to the United States, Walter Try to use their anger to create a public enemy - super terrorist (Homelander: I think super villain is more catchy.) for the greater good. Fortunately, Miss Beast met BOYS and the French who never gave up on her; and her younger brother was not so lucky. Driven by anger, he destroyed everything in front of him and eventually himself.

The black brother also revealed the reason why he left his beloved family to join the BOYS desperate journey. He has an idealistic lawyer father, and his father gave everything to fight against Walter, but unfortunately such a struggle with disparity in power ultimately failed. He recalls the summer many years ago when his father took him for free ice cream, and he would do anything to save those days.

Starlight has also become a non-staff member of BOYS this season. Her problem is the fragmentation of her beliefs. The goddess who was favored and chosen by God is actually a tool made by the people of Walter. What is even more sad is that her mother always knew the truth; Through her own efforts, she finally reached the height of SEVEN, but she found that these superheroes who are on the top of the gods are essentially a group of lunatics and perverts. What changes the world, she is just a beautiful marionette displayed in Walter's window.

Most people have two reactions when they encounter this situation. One is to fall into complete nihilism, no longer believe in anything, to live like a dead body, or to die directly (such as Maeve). One is to go to the other extreme of cynicism and destroy everything, including yourself (like the butcher).

Starlight chose to fight, she chose to risk her life against Walter with BOYS. (There is an interesting interaction with the butcher, who smiles like an old father when he sees Starlight finally getting his hands dirty.) Starlight, in plain clothes, ends up sitting in Central Park with Huey talking about the future At that time, Xingguang said that she still wanted to stay in Walter, this was not easy way, but someone had to do it.

The camera gave Starlight's advertisement, the dazzling, scantily clad superhero girl, and felt the writer's irony all the time.

As for Huey, if the motives of other people's actions are kidnapped by the past, Huey has come out of hatred. He wants to do the right thing. Although this insistence has some axes, the way of doing things also seems childish and immature. Torch People (and many people's first impressions of him) are "you are pussy", but this Pussy has done what the butcher did not. His sense of morality represented the lower limit of BOYS, so that BOYS did not become another victim of violence, which Walter used to pretend to be the headline news.

He also represents a rare and even unreal true heroism in this fucking world - the courage of an ordinary man,

When you know that choosing the right path means fighting against the whole world, you still have to go all the way to the dark.

By the way, he and Starlight contributed the most dog food in the second season.

(Wait and talk about Walter's side = =)

THE SEVEN

Looking at THE SEVEN, their life is also difficult,

Deep Sea is still the funny person in the show. He was expelled from SEVEN and fell into complete self-defeating until the church found him. These gangsters said that they had a reemployment project for unemployed heroes. He is back on the SEVEN list.

These collaborations include, but are not limited to, a psychic therapy called reconciliation with yourself (talk to your gills~), marrying someone who has no emotional foundation at all, and has a bad sex relationship, but it is in line with church values ​​and can be accepted by believers. Wife, become the spokesperson of the church, attend various events and shoot promotional videos, and stand in line without reservation. When you are a loyal dog of the church, you will bite whoever you want, and you will turn your face if you need to, even if that person is in your worst time. helped you.

All in all, there is no difference in what the church and Walter do at all, and the deep sea just chose another fire pit.

Of course, this character is set up specifically for Black Chaoying, cowardly, selfish and unprincipled, misogyny caused by inferiority, and his brain is not very smart.

He represents the commonality of the false gods of this world

——Empty has the power of God, but only a weak and twisted spirit.

By the way, the deep sea killed a bunch of marine creatures again this season,

The next-door DC home, Seahorse King, cried and fainted in Atlantis.

The locomotive is also very bad. Last season, he did not hesitate to take drugs to maintain his status. The direct result was that his heart was overloaded. Then Walter said, the company thanked you for your hard work for so many years and decided to give you a decent retirement. Of course you also You can choose to be indecent, in short, you won't be going to work tomorrow.

Of course, the locomotive didn't do it at first. It's probably because I worked hard for Walter, and I bleed for Walter. You can't treat me like this. Of course, this dissatisfaction disappeared when Homelander came forward and patted the locomotive kindly on the shoulder. Walter has also arranged a retirement scene for Locomotive in the latest film, played by himself, full of emotion.

Fortunately, people who run fast are at least more powerful than ordinary people. It is also deliberately wanting to return to SEVEN, Shen Hai chose to be the mascot of the church, and Locomotive chose to create opportunities for himself.

Maeve still lives in the shadow of Homelander's PUA, and Homelander's new girlfriend was also dug up and stabbed directly to the media. Walter immediately seized the new selling point of LES, and movies, interviews, and various shows were launched immediately. In order to protect her girlfriend, Maeve had to endure the pain to show off, but even so, her girlfriend left her because of fear and anxiety. Maeve returned to the degenerate life of smoking and promiscuous sex. Fortunately, she finally chose to help Xingguang and completely torn Homelander's face. I don't know if she saw her past self from Xingguang, or decided to say goodbye to this bunch of shit.

This old man, Xuan Se, finally got a role, but the setting is really disappointing (what I thought after watching the original work), I thought this man was the key character, but in the second season, it turned out that he was actually a captive raised by Walter The thug, directly under the command of Walter's new boss played by Uncle Fried Chicken, by the way, his weakness is actually a nut allergy (screenwriter, you are really black = =).

As for HOMELANDER, who originally thought he would become the big BOSS, became the saddest character in the second season,

The mother-killing episode at the end of the first season (the female BOSS acts as his mother to some extent) did not make him grow up, instead he acted like a child who lost his beloved toy (the part of drinking milk is really = = physiological sexual discomfort).

Especially when reality starts to slap in the face.

For example, he promoted the secretary of the former female BOSS as a puppet, and wanted to control Walter himself, but found that the new Walter Big BOSS Fried Chicken Uncle (Breakthrough series fans are ecstatic, by the way, Amway's Breaking Lawyer.) He didn't ignore him at all, just casually. Arrange a new role, Storm, to restrain him;

For example, because the video of indiscriminate killings fell into a public relations crisis and wanted to control the public opinion according to their own ideas, but they became the target of public criticism, and they could only resist the urge to kill everyone in abusive voices and leave in embarrassment;

For example, he wants everyone to love him, but finds that it is much more difficult to get love than to hate him, so he can only watch the gradually declining approval rate hide in the corner and cry and go crazy;

For example, he wants to gain the approval of his son, and he wants to obtain psychological compensation for the lack of fatherly love in his son, but he cannot give his son true love. After all, the only thing he knows is control (of course, this can also be regarded as distorted love.) ;

For example, he wants to kill BOYS, but the ants in his eyes can always slip through his fingers and stand on the opposite side of him time and time again.

In short, life is unsatisfactory nine times out of ten, and ordinary people have probably learned to accept and compromise.

But Homelander couldn't accept all this,

In his cognition, he is the leader of the gods standing at the apex of the world, and the world should operate according to his will,

He couldn't accept being out of control,

Loss of control is the flaw of mortals, and gods must be perfect,

But the reality is that he, like the deep sea,

There is nothing but the power of God, but only a weak and twisted spirit.

Worse yet, he actually knew this in his heart.

In the scene where the shapeshifter turned into Homelander to seduce him, the poor fat man probably didn't realize that the "god" in front of him was not an extreme narcissist when he was strangled by Homelander. He hated his own existence more than love. That's right.

In the end, the loss of control reached its peak, the new spirit relying on the storm was useless, and the son would not forgive himself because of the death of his mother. He thought that Maeve and Xingguang, who were in the palm of his hand, directly hit him in the face, and he had to be threatened under the threat. Watching ants BOYS leave in front of him.

In the end, Homelander pushed the sadness to the top by standing alone on the Empire State Building and jerking off.

If BOYS chose to rebel against the world because he was out of control, Homelander did not have the courage to be the enemy of the world at all, and even as a villain is unqualified.

GOD AMONG US (❌) Sad teenager whose mental age of lack of love stopped growing (✔)

Finally, there is the new character Storm~ I have to say that this product is the biggest highlight of the second season.

The opening acted like a heartless Teenager, good at using social media, taking an indifferent attitude to everything, ignoring or even directly challenging Homelander's authority, and showing ignorance to Walter, complaining about Walter The special feminist show, and even in public, he directly attacked with the rhythm of Walter. I have to say, this kind of character was very pleasing at first.

It wasn't until SEVEN was chasing down the beast siblings that this guy showed his true face.

It turns out that this guy is a complete racist. If Homelander still uses superpowers to divide ethnic groups, then in the eyes of the storm, all people of color except white people can't be called people. This kind of discrimination can't even be combined with the locomotive of SEVEN. spared.

When she killed the innocent black people in the whole building with a smile, even the children were spared, and then twisted the head of the little sister Beast and the younger brother, the storm pulled all the hatred in the second season without any suspense ( You see what Uncle Fried Chicken said, "Storm is good at mobilizing people's anger, and anger is what Walter needs."~~)

Then you know, it turns out that she is the earliest product of Walter, a close friend of Hitler, the incarnation of the Nazis, an old witch who has lived for a century, used other superhero identities during this period, and has a long history of killing black people, although She adapted to the new society very well, but she still had the madness of the Nazis in her body, the venom that wanted to contaminate the whole world, and tried to revive the Third Reich.

From this point of view, Baofeng really belongs to a qualified villain, at least she has her own behavioral purpose, and her actions are also in line with a damn villain. With only some small means of controlling public opinion and a wild sex, she gained the trust and dependence of Homelander who originally wanted to kill her. She was too smart to see that the god of Homelander was a child who lacked love and was easily manipulated. It's a pity she didn't expect that Homelander is too weak, and even if the world is very fucked, at least the Nazis have already been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

The only regret is that although the end of the storm was tragic, the expressiveness was really unsatisfactory. The scene of the women's day group beating was filmed like a women's school fight (of course, it can be understood that this is a deliberate mockery by the screenwriter.) In the end, it was cut without even giving a frontal shot, which is really not enough to relieve hatred!

But even so, the storm is still not the real cancer of this world.

It was Walter who had been protecting her, and the one who released this witch that should have been crushed by history long ago.

Therefore, in the second season, both BOYS and SEVEN eventually became sad tool people. Behind them, there is a game between Walter, the church, and the congresswoman.

water

Walter is still the biggest tumor in the world, and this season also reveals Walter's past, a business empire founded by Nazi scientists in order to mass-produce super soldiers for the Third Reich (Captain: Huh?! ), but this was not a parallel universe in which the Nazis triumphed, so Walter ultimately failed to realize Hitler's ambition to rule the world.

After the defeat, the founder of Walter was included in the American Empire as a high-level intellectual (this stalk was also used badly in the popular culture of the American Empire). Ironically, what Hitler did not do, Walter did with capital.

They have constructed a new world order to some extent by creating superheroes——

A world dominated by carefully wrapped super IP (the living superhero itself).

If the previous female BOSS still tried to control Homelander through human nature, the new big BOSS Fried Chicken is more like Walter's terminal, an indifferent and inhumane angel.

In the words of Uncle Fried Chicken, all of Walter's actions are just the numbers on the financial report.

Walter has no faith, it reshapes faith; Walter is not fanatical, it sets off fanaticism; Walter never stands in line, it creates disputes and seeks to maximize interests;

In a sense, Water is more like a god than their products,

A god who conforms to modern society, hides behind capital, uses numbers to determine everything, and does not have a shred of the fragile humanity of superheroes. Both superheroes and BOYS are just pawns to Walter. It uses influence and public opinion to control the former and use violence to crush the latter. (Walter is not benevolent, and uses heaven and earth as cud dogs.)

In front of this real god, superheroes are like clowns jumping from beams. (Homelander is impossible to reverse water ~ sad.)

church

It was also revealed that the church was actually in the same vein as Walter. Well, the storm told us that the earliest church was actually a cult that spread Aryan supremacy. After coming to the United States, the church, like Walter, adopted a localized operation strategy. When Walter mass-produced superheroes through chemical compounds, the church led public opinion to declare that this was God's choice and gave superheroes divinity. Remember the butcher's participation in the mutual aid meeting that was hurt by superheroes in the first season? Those who are hurt and still dare not resist have accepted this logic in their hearts. Chaoying is God, and it is God's will for mortals to be hurt.

So the interests of the church and Walter are tied together. Walter controls the public through business and entertainment, while the church uses faith. It is a pity that in modern society, the power of faith is gradually weakening, and even the once huge Catholic Church has to make certain compromises in the secular world (here Amway downloaded "Two Popes" on Netflix).

What's more, this fictional church can't even control the miracles it preaches. After all, those superheroes are Walter's property.

So this seemingly huge organization, a ghost of the past, indulged in the glorious fantasy of the past, but only saw the petty profits in front of him, and finally became the laughing stock of the second season.

By the way, lemonade is really hard to drink.jpg

congresswoman

However, in the second season, a new third-party force was added, the anti-Super British force represented by female congressmen.

I have to say that the screenwriter of this film really likes to reverse the routine. This party seems to be the weakest party. At the beginning, the congresswoman had nothing but a passionate and impassioned speech. She comforted those who had been hurt by superheroes. The people, under the sudden arrival of Homelander, can only show the terrified eyes of ordinary people when they see the beast.

But she did not give up, nor did she surrender to this straightforward threat,

Of course, our BOYS has joined the congresswoman. (For the subsequent process, please refer to any RPG, do quests and turn in quests to promote the plot.) Work together for a common goal - against Walter.

In the end, such efforts achieved a phased victory, and people finally realized that the waters of Walter were deep, and the government also allocated funds to set up a censorship agency against Walter.

Is it another story of ordinary people fighting against gods? Is there a kind of hero that still exists in this world?

The writer told us in the last episode (actually it felt a bit scattered), what are you idiots thinking, in fact, she has always been behind the scenes.

She is not an ordinary person at all. She has a more terrifying ability than Homelander to a certain extent. She killed the deputy director of the CIA, made BOYS cornered, and gradually became her own tool; she set off a massacre at the notary, In front of SEVEN, together with his deputy witness Chaoying passers-by, headshots (by the way, the whole performance is frightened, pitiful and helpless), and directly put the blame on Walter; colluded with the church and encouraged the locomotive (I know why the locomotive was replaced before) The product is headshot~) I got the Nazi black material of the storm, let the storm take away all the hatred and carry all the blame, and killed the church boss on the way to work. I don't know what she's going to do!

What is even more frightening is that even Huey believes that the congresswoman represents the courage to confront Walter, the procedural justice, and the right path.

When those who have resources and call for justice with lofty banners are just behind the scenes with false masks,

What should ordinary people believe? !

Of course, the second season is still full of irony,

First of all, he showed a lot of discriminatory content. HOMELANDER blinded the Asian guy of NETA Daredevil at the beginning, but he felt that HOMELANDER was more concerned about his physical defects (blind) than his Asian identity. In his opinion , THE SEVEN as a god must be perfect, no matter the spirit, at least your body must be perfect, he can't tolerate members with physical defects to be on the top of the gods (a Spartan king also thought so).

I personally think that this group of people should do more regular psychological counseling than the physical body.

And what the storm represents is not even disguised, she is a Nazi.

But the storm contributed the most gold sentences of the quarter.

"You don't need everyone to love you, you just need 100 angry fans."

"They just hate the word Nazi."

Although the storm is damned, it has to be said that she has seen and learned to use the Internet as a weapon.

When access to information became more convenient because of the existence of the Internet, when the circle of real life was broken because of the existence of the Internet, we once praised with joy that the Internet has reshaped the Tower of Babel, and it will lead us to a more inclusive and open world.

However, when we open any social media now, the reality will tell us in an instant that it is all bullshit. People have not become more tolerant, but more narrow and xenophobic, especially when people hide behind screens and Internet cables, good and evil will be magnified. Originally The complex human nature is easily divided into black and white. Humans are social animals. The Internet has brought us into contact with more people with different ideas and cultural backgrounds, but in the end, we still choose to accept only the same kind.

When we are only willing to believe what we want to believe, we can easily allow unconscious anger to override reason, then drown in slogans and doctrines, and attack what we don't know and don't want to know. source of discrimination. Those animations that can be done in half an hour and a few catchy slogans are the cheapest bullets in this era.

This unconscious discrimination and hatred from everyone scares even Homelander.

By the way, when people see the discriminatory clips, their first reaction is to curse the screenwriter, but if you think about it in reverse, show these real discriminations, so that more people will recognize the objective existence of discrimination, not change first step? !

Then continue to mock the world that is now biased by big data and traffic,

We have seen that when big data is mastered by capital giants like Walter, absurdity and political correctness have become routine.

Walter told us that human nature is unreliable, and even more unreliable is the human nature on the Internet, only numbers never lie.

The numbers say that the increase in ethnic minorities and LGBT in Seven will increase its influence. Well, let's find an Asian guy or announce to the world that Maeve is LGBT; what? People only accept LES and don't like bisexuals, well Maeve you can only be LES; eh? People are more accepting that one party in LES is neutral or even masculine, then Maeve, your girlfriend should go out in neutral clothes...

It is true that numbers do not lie, but the numbers themselves are built on lies. Everyone kidnaps each other and gets what they want.

By the way, in the second season Homelander perfectly demonstrated the horror of the character being kidnapped by fans. When he ignored Walter's data analysis and decided to deal with the PR crisis himself, he suddenly found that it seemed that people didn't love him at all, they What I love is the omnipotent Seven leader, a symbol, an idol, who was carefully packaged by Walter, standing on the top of superheroes.

This is the movement of creating gods in the new era. The real self is replaced by the incarnation of the ideal of the public. Who you are is no longer important, only the human design will live to the end of the world.

So in the end, BOYS is actually a realistic theme. It uses absurdity, black humor, violence and blood and ubiquitous irony to map, and it is basically the chaotic world itself. The world is a hell of a lot, and everyone is more or less involuntarily involved in varying degrees of out of control, and we are often caught up in lies, confusion, and unconscious anger.

But BOYS is also an adult fairy tale. It tells us that when daily life is kidnapped by superheroes, by supercapitals like Walter, by stubborn politicians, opinion leaders, and the various doctrines in their mouths,

People can still make choices,

Choose the right path, the hard one, the one that doesn't serve economic interests at all, and may even be the target of public criticism.

Choose to be a true hero.

Although most of the time, we are still attracted by the seemingly harmless and beautiful Easy way that is carefully packaged by isism and lies.

After all, everyone needs heroes, but in the end, few people choose to be heroes.