The Boy 4, the review of the series: the nightmare of Trumpism is reality

Imagine an America hurtling toward a fascist destiny while the elections. Imagine billionaires who, in cahoots with politicians corrupt to the core and lying and dishonest media, usurp the rules of democracy and law to achieve oligarchic dystopia And Christian nationalist much desired by them. Is it fun to spend time thinking about these things right now? The new season of The BoysAmazon’s dark and bloody superhero satire, certainly hopes so.

There fourth season (out June 13) is a not-so-veiled analogy for our troubled times, a dark and almost desperate race towards oblivion. The Boysby the showrunner Eric Kripkehas always parodied the pernicious US nonsense in the era of Trumpism, but its message has never seemed more urgent than in this new batch of episodes. The final season of the series seems at least in part inspired by the insidious threat posed by Project 2025, a real-life conservative proposal for the total reform of the federal government, which would centralize the presidential power and would tighten the grip on dissent (among other scary things) in case a Republican (so Trump) was elected in November. In season four, the alarm bells are ringing, as they should ring for us too.

But The Boys it’s also a loud and bloody comedy, full of shocking pessimism as well as sincere political convictions: which creates a somewhat clumsy mix, especially in the fourth season. Towards the end of the season, the series seems to encourage the viewer to emerge from political despair, urging him to continue fight for a just cause even though the land is eroding more and more. But this message is a little hard to accept amid the series’ relentless onslaught of terrible people doing terrible things. The Boys she is too in love with suffering to stand against it convincingly.

The gist of the season is that the fearsome sociopathic superhero Patriot (Antony Starr) got tired of feigning benevolence and decided that it was necessary to establish a new national order. So he rallies his forces and puts a plan into action, led by Sister Sage (Susan Heyward), who is said to be the smartest person in the world. Played convincingly by Hewyard, Sage is a chilling stand-in for the many strategists and unscrupulous experts who treat politics and power as mere theory or an experiment in acumen above all else.

Fighting against this organized and stubbornly motivated clique are the avengers botched of the title, afflicted by internal strife and hindered by moral determination not to be as bad as the enemy (reminds you of something?). Their mission is scattered and the characters often show signs of exasperation at having to fight on so many fronts. A character began to suffer from panic attacks; another became the target of a media campaign aimed at provoking them, thus proving the correctness of the propaganda. Theirs is one exhausting causeif not completely impossible, and this is where The Boys tries to extend his empathy to the audience. Policing is difficult, especially in the face of such ruthless and implacable opposition. How do we appeal to the humanity of those who consider sensitivity a weakness and are so good at using the languages ​​of identity and care as a weapon? How do you fight something that seems to have no ethical basis?

Ultimately, the fourth season of The Boys has no answers to these questions and leaves the real-life United States to fend for itself as November approaches. This could be a loophole; but then again, who really watches this series for inspiration or salvation? We watch The Boys especially for the hilarious violence and the crude images. Even if the series continues to focus too much on this aspect (there are so many violations of taboos that it all begins to seem strangely banal), we guiltily enjoy many of its excesses. You watch the series anxiously waiting for the next gruesome event.

It is precisely these expectations that make up for the fragmentary plot of the fourth season. There are myriads of tangled narrative threads among them, longer arcs and shorter digressions that, in their abundance, test patience. That’s why we long for the swirling punctuation of some unpleasant image to bring us back to attention. Interpretations also help in this regard. During the years, Jack Quaid he well developed the unfortunate human Hughie, who became more and more tired and cynical as each small victory generated, like a hydra, an ever greater number of obstacles. Starr manages to make Homelander more than a one-note villain, aided this season by the complications of fatherhood. Colby Minifie he is another extraordinary actor, very good at playing the tremulous and vaguely empathetic person who hides under the cloak of power of a CEO.

Even if it struggles to wring real meaning out of its nihilistic revolt, the fourth season hits the spot pleasant (assuming that anything in this series can be defined as pleasant). However, there is a fear of what season five will have to reflect on should we find ourselves in the era prophesied by these eight episodes. Instead, we hope (against all hope) that the next season will focus on something milder, or at least less relevant to our times. The ideal would be to watch The Boys to have fun rather than to have a frightening and desperate confirmation of how hopelessly screwed we are.