(Spoilers for Season 3 of The Boys will be found below.)
Amazon’s The Boys is very clearly a satire of superhero culture (and a lot more), as originally conceived by Preacher creator Garth Ennis in the 1990s. In the comic and in the show, Homelander has always been pure evil, but it seems to have taken a long time for the truth to sink in with some far-right fans of the show (who should really dig Soldier Boy, who’s like a time-capsuled MAGA dream come true). Now, how they didn’t realize Homelander’s true nature is beyond me. He left an entire plane full of people to plunge to their deaths. He also rained “little Homelanders” all over unsuspecting civilians. And he’s a rapist and murderer.
This season, Homelander isn’t necessarily any worse, but what he does is a lot more blatant when it comes to the sheer evil inside of his little black heart. And showrunner Eric Kripke has revealed that Homelander will get even hairier, all after he forced a woman to commit suicide (in a very public way) on his birthday and then instructed The Deep to eat his friend, Timothy the Octopus (who was still alive). For some reason, these acts have made Homelander’s true nature (finally) hit home for far-righters who thought he was really cool and some idealistic symbol of patriotism or something.
Yes, that’s correct. According to Twitter user Ryan Broderick, a hot mess has been going on over at a subReddit about The Boys since the Season 3 premiere. “The Boys subreddit is chaos right now,” Broderick wrote. “Threads getting locked, users rage-deleting whole accounts. It’s amazing. Right-wing users are whining about ‘no politics,’ but it’s impossible to talk about the show without them now. Fans who thought Homelander was cool are in a meltdown.”
The Boys subreddit is chaos right now. Threads getting locked, users rage-deleting whole accounts. It’s amazing. Right-wing users are whining about “no politics,” but it’s impossible to talk about the show without them now. Fans who thought Homelander was cool are in a meltdown. pic.twitter.com/w4YyWVuWIW
— Ryan Broderick (@broderick) June 18, 2022
Those screencaps are too funny, and one can imagine that the mods are truly doing the work. And while all of this happens, people are tickled to death to see the tantrums happening, although it’s very strange because why on earth it didn’t matter that Homelander’s soulmate and girlfriend was an honest-to-god Nazi? Only the super public instance of homicidal sadism against a pretty blonde woman put them over the edge when he made her kill herself. And my goodness, Homelander’s regularly called out by other characters, including Queen Maeve, and it’s strange that they just didn’t get it until now.
Obviously, Twitter is tickled to death about the tantrums. Homelander ain’t the good guy! And he’s only gonna grow more off the hook.
So, I’m learning today that it took three seasons of @TheBoysTV for some people to figure out the murdering rapist with the mommy and daddy issues was the bad guy?https://t.co/m3Ki2D5BOd
— XLProfessor (@XLProfessor) June 18, 2022
Nearly every episode had a character explicitly saying that Homelander was a maniac (and sometimes to his face) but apparently this was too subtle a message for some people.
— Tom (@atnastown) June 18, 2022
Apparently there are people on Reddit who somehow still think Homelander on “The Boys” is supposed to be some kind of badass character. Some news for them from my interview with showrunner Eric Kripke: https://t.co/5dEWsD681N pic.twitter.com/w2WbG720qt
— Brian Hiatt (@hiattb) June 18, 2022
ttps://twitter.com/coil780/status/1538262929677553664
wait the people who talk about the boys on reddit thought homelander was the good guy https://t.co/Bxh8MHK0c3
— Schrödinger’s Sneetch Belly (@RTodKelly) June 18, 2022
I’m gonna be honest, I still don’t understand what Reddit is. But every time I hear or read about it it’s never positive. Not once have I heard good things about it and that’s so interesting.
#TheBoys https://t.co/BDSDJ6pi2o
— Woo-Ah! (@Randomly_RJ) June 19, 2022
A tweet about The Boys now as the Reddit page for the show has made it clear this needs to be clarified.
Homelander is a bad guy. He’s a villain. He’s evil.
— Daniel Wood (@JustDanWood) June 18, 2022
Reddit having to temporarily shut down #TheBoysTV subreddit because boys are big mad that Homelander is a villain—the perfect snapshot of American masculinity. Y’all—his last girlfriend was a literal Nazi and he tortures his child? Like—no sob backstory was redeeming him.
pic.twitter.com/TPP5xdBL21
— Martha Cecilia Ovadia (@MagdalenaOnFire) June 18, 2022
The Boys is currently releasing weekly Season 3 episodes on Amazon.
(Via WGA & Comic Book)