Has anyone else noticed a difference in tone in the new season of The Boys compared to the previous ones?
From the beginning of the new season, I see a desire from the writers to push "provocation" to the extreme, exemplified by increasingly extreme scenes of violence and gore, in which characters often seem completely indifferent. Personally, I was shocked by the scene with Homelander in the basement, as it's one of the most, not just harsh, but primarily cold-blooded things I've seen on screen. (I am not referring to the EXCEPTIONALLY OUTSTANDING performance of Anthony Starr, which is beside the point here). Obviously, this series always had gore, but whatever happened used to be driven by a necessity based on the plot, something I feel has now been sacrificed for a general desire to push things to the limit.
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As someone who really enjoyed the satirical direction of the first seasons, which fit perfectly in the post-Infinity War era and the beginning of the decline of the superhero genre on screen, and at the same time being somewhat disappointed by the tone of the new season, I made a small comparison with the previous seasons to observe the huge difference in the show's style.
Two points:
In the previous seasons, I believe that even someone not familiar with splatter-gore on screen could enjoy them just fine, because this element was somewhat balanced with the comedic/satirical aspect. This is by no means true for the new season, partly because the violence has reached another level, and partly because "comedic" now is the abuse of Hughie by a billionaire who is "funny" because he's... kinky. Seriously?
In the new season, apart from the style, the series has reached a limit, and here I refer to the thematic aspect: it is now blatantly obvious the extreme plot armor of the protagonists. Literally, IT'S IMPOSSIBLE THAT THEY ARE STILL ALIVE. In the beginning, they were living in some basements, etc., and now they face off against the Supes every day. In the episode with the sheep, the meta-referential, self-satirical comment made by Giancarlo Esposito's character "I don’t know how you people are still alive" from the writers' side is like saying, "We mentioned it, so we know it, therefore it can't be considered a plot hole and everything is fine." This plot armor goes hand in hand with a limit in the overall plot development: in the beginning, we knew that Billy Butcher was a badass guy who wanted to take revenge on the serial killer Superman of his world for what he did to his family, and everything served that purpose. Now we don't even know why the Boys exist or if they exist, if they want to take down just Homelander or all the Supes, etc.
Ultimately, without denying the absolutely existing value of the plot twists so far (which led to this point) and without considering that the series has nothing to say, however general and risky that may be,
I conclude that all this has dragged on too much, the script increasingly lacks direction, and I don't know how successfully it can conclude. And the breaking point of style, which started to concern me, and thematic, which is the problem, is that in the new season, the production seems much more interested in provoking far-right trolls (we are Amazon, the biggest multinational conglomerate on the planet, let's play a bit progressive in an internet war with Trump supporters) with satire against Trump supporters and pushing the spectacle to the extreme in the way sex and violence are presented, rather than writing something that harmoniously fits the plot and advances it.
*Caricature characters like Sage, whose "indicator of her immense intelligence" is her antisocial cynicism and the logic "everyone is stupid, that's why democracy goes nowhere" is the most cringe, thank you for your contribution, Amazon
*They don't even show us Giancarlo. That's what they're like
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