The Big Picture
- The Boys stands out for its compelling story, scathing criticism of superhero culture, and fascinating characters.
- The show’s use of graphic violence is a crucial part of its appeal and keeps viewers hooked.
- The violence in The Boys serves as a narrative tool and is crucial to conveying the show’s message about superhero culture and corporate greed.
Ever since the dawn of the superhero genre, there have been subversions of it. And over time, especially in the recent decade, the subversions have started getting almost as crowded as the original genre. Even so, Amazon’s The Boys still stands out amongst other dark, gritty superhero takes for its compelling story, scathing criticism of superhero culture, and fascinating characters. But we would be lying if we claimed that it’s just the high-brow stuff that has us binging the series — because the show’s notorious use of graphic violence plays just as important a part in keeping us hooked. Indeed, the spilled blood and guts are a crucial part of the show’s appeal.
‘The Boys’ Has Some of the Most Gruesome Deaths Seen on TV
The Boys isn’t too proud to admit that it has an appetite for grisly violence, and to the show’s credit, it has a knack for crafting scenes that are repulsive and at the same time impossible to take your eyes off of. Take, for instance, the second episode of Season 1 where Hughie (Jack Quaid) and Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) have captured the invisible superhero Translucent (Alex Hassell). They need to kill him to save their own skin, but Translucent has an impenetrable skin. So, they find the most creative solution and plant a C4 explosive right inside his colon, and when Hughie detonates the device, Translucent is blown into shreds from within, showering Hughie with the supe’s blood and tissues.
In Season 1, Episode 3, a small-time superhero, Popclaw (Brittany Allen), injects herself with some Compound V and gets an intense burst of energy. Unfortunately, her landlord happens to walk into her flat right at this moment, and Popclaw decides to get intimate with him. Soon we see the landlord laying down on the floor, with Popclaw sitting on his face, and as she orgasms from the fellatio, she squeezes the landlord’s face with her thighs so tight that his head actually explodes, letting his brain fluid spill all over the floor.
And who could forget Season 1, Episode 5, when Billy and Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) come across a Compound V-infused infant, and wield the baby like a weapon as it shoots lasers out of its eyes and decapitates security personnel? The Boys has a demonstrated history of portraying the most gruesome deaths in the most inventive manner possible. And yet, five years and three seasons later, it’s still the show’s very first violent death that’s still engraved in the fandom’s collective memory.
This Was the Most Diabolical Death on ‘The Boys’
The Boys is now seamlessly associated with graphic violence, but a show of this nature has to establish its tone effectively and early on, lest the viewers start feeling alienated. And the show couldn’t have chosen a better moment than the death of Hughie’s girlfriend, Robin (Jess Salgueiro). As a result, fans of The Boys can point back to one precise moment when they realized that it wasn’t going to be another generic superhero show, that The Boys was something fresh and original.
A mere few minutes into the very first episode, we see Hughie sharing a sweet moment with his girlfriend Robin, holding hands and bantering in the way only loving couples do. Robin is talking about taking their relationship to the next stage by moving in, and playfully mocks Hughie’s lack of initiative, about how she had to ask him out. She says she’s tired of sneakily having sex in Hughie’s dad’s home, staring at the “that dumb Billy Joel poster.” Hughie gives her a gentle kiss and says, “Don’t you besmirch Billy….” when BAM! Before Hughie knows it, a speeding A-train (Jessie T. Usher) has swooshed not by, but through his girlfriend. In a slow motion shot, we see blood splatter over Hughie’s face, and then from his point of view, we see scatters of Robin’s gut, ribs, and intestines suspended in mid-air. The show really wants to savor the twisted moment, and it wants you to stop, stare, and internalize the tone of the show. Meanwhile, Hughie can’t even process what’s happened, even after feeling the blood on his face. And when he looks down, he sees he’s still holding Robin’s hands, though they’re detached from her body, which is now all liquidy and jellied. Needless to say, the scene was excellent at inducing shock, but it wasn’t just that. It served as a narrative tool — a formative, traumatizing event which prompted Hughie to join Billy Butcher.
How ‘The Boys’ Uses Violence To Tell a Story
Grotesque scenes of violence, when rightly done, are always a spectacle that attracts a ton of people into viewing a show. But if the show is just that — an unending series of brutality — it rings hollow and the entire structure collapses for the lack of any substantial foundations. And as absurd and unrestrained as the violence is depicted in The Boys, the blood and gore is absolutely vital to the story and the message that the show is trying to convey. The Boys is a blatant parody on the superhero culture that has become the bread and butter of present day mainstream entertainment. The show satirizes everything about the said culture, from celebrity worship to exploitation of social causes to importance placed on ratings. But the show is most vicious with its criticism of corporate greed that seems to know no bounds.
And one of the ways it makes subtle commentaries on the superhero genre is through depiction of violence. Marvel movies enthusiastically ask, “what if superheroes were real?” and The Boys asks the same question, but with a hint of sober cynicism — “No, but what if superheroes were actually real?” Most superhero movies, apart from a few R-rated deviations, are entirely devoid of gore, and while this PG rating is extremely efficient at attracting a large number of viewers, it’s not just advantageous but also necessary.
For instance, Marvel superheroes wield immense power, but rarely, if ever, do they have to face the consequence of the collateral damage resulting from their heroics. If the movies were to actually show us the practical implication of their powers interacting with the normal world, the result would be unbearably devastating. You just can’t imagine the charming, beautiful blonde Thor smashing bad guys’ skulls, allowing us to see their mushy inner organs. This just wouldn’t align with the Marvel hero’s carefully crafted persona. And this absence of their power’s consequence keeps the Marvel superheroes likable, and works great at selling tickets and merchandise. But The Boys doesn’t want you to like its superheroes. It doesn’t even want you to like its protagonists, for that matter. The Boys doesn’t care about the pretense of civility that hides the gnarly impact of superhuman punches and laser beams. Instead, it uses the violence to hold a mirror up to the superhero genre and show you what the actual consequence of superpowers would look like in our world.
Denial of responsibility! TechCodex is an automatic aggregator of the all world’s media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, and all materials to their authors. For any complaint, please reach us at – [email protected]. We will take necessary action within 24 hours.
Khushi Patel is a science fiction author who lives in Austin, Texas. She has published three novels, and her work has been praised for its originality and imagination. Khushi is a graduate of Rice University, and she has worked as a software engineer. She is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, and her books have been nominated for several awards.
