"The Name of the Game" – The Boys S01E01 Review

And so it's here. We lose The Tick on Amazon Prime, and we get another superhero show: The Boys. Based on the Garth Ennis comic book about "real world" superheroes. Yes, the Garth Ennis who created Preacher, and the TV version of that starts up season 4 this weekend. And it's also EP'd by Seth Rogen, same as The Boys.

The premise of "The Boys" is superheroes are real, and exist in a "real world" like ours. Instead of fighting super-villains and saving the world, the "Supes" primarily merchandise themselves, make movies, and live as super-celebrities. "The Boys" are a group of non-powered secret agents led by Billy Butcher (Karl Urban). Other members are Mother's Milk (Laz Alonso), Frenchie (Tomer Kapon), and The Female (Karen Fukuhara).

So far the Supes are based in the U.S. and all work for Vought Corporation. The superhero branch is run by CEO Madelyn Stillwell (Elizabeth Shue), and the primary hero group are The Seven. Which are basically the Justice League: Homelander (Antony Starr), Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott), A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), The Deep (Chase Crawford), Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell), and Translucent (Alex Hassell). Who are expys of Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, Batman, and J'onn J'onzz. The latter, sort of, but they can both turn invisible.

Rounding out the cast is Annie January (Erin Moriarty), who has light control powers which makes her a vague expy for Green Lantern. She replaces Lamplight, who could be more of a Green Lantern expy than Annie, and she uses the name "Starlight".

The show starts when the last main character, electronics store clerk Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid) is walking down the sidewalk with his girlfriend Robin. Robin steps off the curb, and A-Train speeds through Robin, leaving nothing but a cloud of blood and the hands Hughie was holding at the time. A-Train later claims he was after bank robbers and Robin was all the way in the street. Vought offers Hughie $45,000 if he'll sign a NDA. Hughie isn't too thrilled about that, and his father (Simon Pegg) tells him he isn't a fighter and can't win the case, and should just take the money.

Billy recruits Hughie and wants him to agree to sign the NDA so he can get into the Seven's tower and plant a bug. Meanwhile, Annie wins what is presumably some kind of talent contest and becomes the newest member of the Seven. The Deep tells her to give him a blowjob or he'll get her tossed out of the Seven and discredited. Annie goes along with it, and she discovers the same thing Billy has shown Hughie: Supes are basically a bunch of sex maniacs who do whatever they want, whenever they want. Vought covers it up because Vought makes billions off of the movie and merchandising rights. There are also hints Vought "created" the Supes using Compound V. If you've read the comics, you'll find out there's a lot more to Compound V. In the first episode, it just gets some ominous name checks.

I've heard some reviewers compare The Boys to Watchmen. Both take a more realistic approach to superheroes, yes, but one thing to keep in mind is Watchmen doesn't have any superpowered types (except Dr. Manhattan, who is more a walking atom bomb than a "hero"), and none of them are particularly famous or well-known. The Boys is more like the late not-so-lamented Powers: there's lots of merchandising involved with people who have superpowers in the "real world", and not all of those people are particularly reputable.

The main character Christian Walker in Powers also didn't display any present-day superpowers, which puts it closer to The Boys. The concept also puts it closer to Brandon Sanderson's "Reckoners" series of books, where (mostly) non-powered humans take on the superpowered Epics, and most of the latter are evil bastards. If you're a fan of Batman in the comics where he regularly outfights and outsmarts super-powered types, The Boys is probably for you, too.

Also, The Boys is EP'd by Eric Kripke. The man who brought you Supernatural, which when you think about is much the same as The Boys concept-wise. You've got (typically) normal humans up against enemies with superhuman powers,

The Boys also seems to borrow a bit from the Wild Card anthology series George R.R. Martin edited before he moved on to Game of Thrones. That series also had a highly-trained human going up against the super-powered Wild Card "Aces".

As for the show itself, first be warned that if the first episode is any example, there's plenty of blood, guts, sex, and nudity. We start with electronics store clerk Hughie meeting up with his girlfriend Robin. As they talk on the street, she gets superspeed ripped apart by A-Train, who is vague and stumbling and says he can't stop. Whether he means he has to be somewhere, or he can't stop running, isn't clear.

We then cut to Annie, who is practicing to be a superhero in her hometown of Des Moines. She soon gets recruited to join the Seven and flies to Baltimore, the city where the show is set. Despite the fact Billy and Mr. Campbell hang out there, and the former's actor is from New Zealand and the latter's from the U.K. Billy is presumably not a native, but what's Mr. Campbell's excuse.

Hughie is still shook up about Robin's death, and A-Train won't admit any guilt. Vought offers Hughie $45,000 to sign a NDA, and Mr. Campbell tells Hughie he's no fighter and they need the money. At this point, Billy shows up, shows Hughie a Supes sex club, explains that the Supes except for Homelander are jerks, and asks Hughie to take the NDA deal as an excuse to get into the Seven's tower and plant a bug.

While this is going on, Annie joins the Seven as Starlight. One member, the Deep, makes it clear she'll have to give him oral sex if she hopes to be on the team. Annie gives in, much to her disgust.

Hughie wants nothing to do with Billy's plan. In a rather awkward plot contrivance, Hughie and Annie end up on the same park bench together. Hughie has no idea who Annie is, even though she doesn't wear a mask and just had a big public announcement of her Seven membership. She talks about an asshole ruining the job she loves, and says she's not a fighter like she thought. Hughie, obviously inspired, assures her she is still a fighter even if she gets knocked down.

Our lead then tracks down Billy and says he's in. He goes through with the NDA deal, goes to a restroom to remove the bug from his phone, and then plants it. However, Translucent likes to hang out naked in restrooms. Billy has already dropped Hughie off with a "Don't call me, I'll call you", and drives away. Translucent beats Hughie for answers, and Billy drives through the front door of the store and rams the invisible Translucent through a number of shelves in a fairly impressive sequence.

That's not enough to stop Translucent, and Billy puts up a decent fight by spitting his own blood on Translucent, rendering him partially visible. Despite that, Translucent soon beats Billy up and prepares to kill him. However, Hughie grabs an electrical cable and with an assist from Billy, electrocutes Translucent. The two men grab Translucent's dead or unconscious body and drag him out.

At the end, Homelander destroys the private plane of Baltimore's mayor, who has been threatening Madelyn with the revelation Vought manufactures Compound V.

Overall, "The Name of the Game" does a good job of introducing us to this strange new world and the Supes that live in it. I like the concept of normal people going up against super-powered bad guys and I'm apparently not the only one: Supernatural has been on the air for fourteen years going on fifteen in 2019-2020.

Billy and Hughie take down Translucent, which doesn't seem that hard. Yes, he's invisible (not translucent, as Billy points out), but that's not that great a combat advantage. One could easily see Billy and his Boys taking out the Deep. He's Aquaman, for pete's sake! How they fare against the equivalents of Superman and Wonder Woman and the Flash remains to be seen. But that's part of the fun of comic book fandom: figuring out how the non-powered characters like Batman can take out the superpowered ones.

A disclaimer: I haven't read the comic books so I don't know how/when the Boys take out Homelander, Queen Maeve, A-Train, and all the other various superheroes of that setting.

We don't get to see Mother's Milk, Frenchie, or The Female this episode. But it is a pretty busy episode, what with introducing the whole super-merchandising, and Hughie, and Billy, and setting the stage with the sinister Compound V conspiracy. There's enough mystery here to pique one's interest: what was going on with A-Train when he accidentally killed Robin? Homelander seems onboard with the whole "Protect Vought" conspiracy, although Translucent stumbling across Hughie is probably just coincidental. But Billy describes Homelander as the only Supe who isn't a hypocritical pervert partier. Yes, I know there are revelations about Homelander later in the series and in the comics. Shhh. I'll get through the remaining seven episodes pretty soon.

Billy, Hughie, and Annie are the only ones who really get much to do, and Urban, Quaid, and Moriarty all do well with them. Urban seems to be having a ball as the sarcastic Batman-type not-so-secret agent who varies between being threatening, competent, sarcastic, exasperated, and dedicated to his cause of "spanking" Supes. The Supes range between being smug bastards (Homelander) to smug hard-partying bastards (The Deep, A-Train). The Deep does get a little development later on, and Queen Maeve and A-Train have hints they could be something more. Black Noir sits and reads a book, so it's hard to tell how much he can contribute.

Overall, The Boys is a world I'm quite comfortable sitting down to watch for two seasons. Because The Boys was picked up for a second season even before the first one aired. Whether you like it or not depends on how much you're into comic books. The Boys mucks around with a lot of the tropes, like an Aquaman expy who thinks he's a lot more important than he actually is.

Whether you like it depends on whether you like the whole "normal men in a world of superheroes" setup. It's cheap since the creative team can focus on the special effects-less normal people. Look at Powerless from a few years ago. And even Powers tended to skimp on flashy special effects. So far, The Boys doesn't seem to be going that route. There's an impressive "Queen Maeve stops an armored car" sequence at the beginning, and the fight between Billy and Translucent is well done. Even the brief bit with Homelander destroying the plane at the end looks movie caliber.

So overall, I'd say stick with The Boys. I plan to. Whether I'll keep reviewing them, we'll see. I've got seven more episodes to go: I'll probably review them in two, three, or four batches.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?