Hello, my name is Jason Concepcion and I'm Rosey Night and welcome back to X Revision, the podcast where we dive deep your favorite shows, movies, comics of pop culture, coming to you from my Heart podcast where we're bringing you two episodes a week, every Tuesday and Thursday. Two. That's two Tuesday and Thursday to tease three tea's in that sense.
In this episode, it's all about the superpowered kids in the airlock.
We're gonna be talking about Osha and May and everything.
Acolyte episode three, which has been a very controversial episode in the previously on, we're going to be recapping season three of The Boys as we prepare for a fourth season following quite a few spin offs. That is not quick though, it's not a quick previously on, Get your popcorn out and get ready to relive all the mistakes of all the adults in The Boys.
Add in Who's Who. It's our favorite weird deaths in pop culture. But first the Acolyte. Okay, Acolyte episode three, Destiny Insane, Wild episode just completely bonkers.
I loved it, but it's just a total game changer.
I loved it, but there is so much to talk about and we've been, in fact talking intensely about it. Okay, we open on Brendoc. This is the home planet of Osha and May. It is sixteen years before our story. This wild planet is mostly unhabited except for a coven of witches who, as we will see, our adept with the force, which they call the Thread. It's very very the fates, very the Greek fates.
They can manipulate the thread, and they believe in sharing it with others rather than just using it as a singular force user.
The coven, perhaps by agreement with the Jedi, also says some kind of rule right, are supposed to not train children in the ways of the Thread or the Force or whatever, which is a problem because ocean May are here and we meet them running around in the woods, and Osha has a little butterfly perched on her finger, and then May comes over and they're having a nice time, and then May holds the butterfly with the force for a little too long, And that is our first inkling
that these kids are really different, very different from each other.
But I do love that we have here the blue butterflies, which have become a really important part of kind of force law and force redemption. And also it's been a while since we really got some kids who can talk to animals, which is a big part of the Expanded Universe. Also good to know that anyone who is good at that, especially in the Expanded Universe, like Jason Solo who was Hannen and Laya's son, usually ends up tanning towards the dark side. It's a bit of a dark side, uh
you know, hint. So I thought this was a very interesting open.
So the Coven's not supposed to have children force users, and it's certainly not supposed to be training them. So this is a problem because Saul Young Saul, part of a Jedi party investigating a planet, has been following these twin sisters and has spotted them out in the woods. Mother an Assayu is the leader of the Coven of Witches. Her partner, Mother Coral, are together the parents of the girls, and as we shall see, in a way even more than being their parents, there the creators of these girls
in a real force kind of way. Coral tells Annasau that the girls have snuck out of the hideout where they might have been seen by the Jedi. We learn that Osha in particular, is very independent minded and is fond of sneaking out and running away and running through the woods, which worries Mother Coral, who thinks that Mother Anasayu needs to run the coven and parent the twins with a firmer hand. In a training session run by Mother anasay You, we see how important multiple thread users
are to the Coven's philosophy. We see them use the power of two so two, which is very interesting phrasing is we see two thread users rather easily rebuff a force attack by Mother and I say you. And it's very clear from this that the coven is adept at cooling all of their force power together to do things that we can only dream about what they do.
Yes, And it does seem like this could be seen as a threat towards the Jedi, because the Jedi do not really train that way, you know, the Jed it is about channeling the force through one singular person in general, and this seems like a more like a like a force commune basically, which I think the Jedi are probably a little scatter.
Well, certainly the Jedi are interested, which is why they are on the planet. That said, more about the differences between the tins oshed May. During this training session, they just start bickering. They start bickering and wrestling with each other, and they're constantly going at each other. During this training session, there's a there's a really interesting moment where we see the generators of the Fortress and something weird about them. Mother Kral looks at them and gets kind of a
weird vibe about them. After training, Osha admits to Mother and say that she doesn't want to do the ascension ceremony which they're to do tonight, which will be their official welcome into the coven. May really wants to do it. On the other hand, Mother Anasayu has the girls hold hands. She lectures them on the importance of the ascension and doing all of this together and being part of the community, and she says the galaxy is not place for women
like us. And you know, it's really interesting because it's clear that in this relationship, either May or Osha will get their way and there's no other way about it.
Yeah, and it's also interesting for us to get our first look at what's it well really since the last Jedi, because we did get a teaser of that, but what does it look like if you can use the Force, but you don't want to go to the Jedi academy or you're.
Not chosen, Like, what does that look like?
And this is a very interesting thing because Mother Anasayah obviously sees the Jedi and the outside world and other force uses as a threat to the country, So it's very interesting to kind of see that dichotomy.
Later, while preparing for the ascension ceremony, oh May argue again. Osha again says she doesn't want to swear she doesn't want to go through that. May is like, well, if you have to, because we're gonna stay here forever and I don't want you to leave, and you're not leaving. The ceremony begins, we learned that the coven has been persecuted, likely by the Jedi, for delving into the dark side of the forest. Well, the Jedi see is the doctors. What the Jedi see is the dark side of the force.
At one point they were on the brink of extinction, and then they discovered how to create light. This is our first hint that the Sisters were created from the force. May undergoes the ceremony, vows to protect the secrets of the Coven and continue its legacy. Osha is like begrudgingly gonna swear she really doesn't want to do it, but she will probably do it for the good of the
coven and so her sister won't be mad. But then the Jedi just flat out break into the futures, break, like just straight up breaking, which is one hundred percent not cool. No, the best way to deal with it not the best way to deal with it. Feel like they're.
Immediately setting up a confrontational situation.
That's right, And the Jedi party is in Dara, Young Saul, the Wookie, Jedi kil Knaka, and King Joffrey Barrathia I mean Young Torbn, Sorry Taubn. I was so happy to see him.
I was like, last time I saw you, you were jumping out of a window. I'm so sorry, Rip, You're a sweetet.
So the Jedi have come to investigate whether they or not the Covenant trading children, which is apparently against Republic law. Brendock is not in the Republic, but nonetheless, the Jedi, who have never heard of warrance or knocking or asking or whatever, believe that they have jurisdiction. And I will
say before we get into the deeper conversation. I think this episode does a really great job of showing how both sides both have a point, and both sides have very glaring weaknesses, the Cleven and the Jedi.
Yes, I would agree, especially because this does lean into our biggest critique of Yord, who I do know. I just want to say, look, a lot of our discord they love YOURD.
They're part of the hashtag.
Your so you know, I'm so happy for you guys.
I know you love YOURD.
But as we pointed out, he's a little bit of a space cop in our opinion, and I do think that this shows how he ended up that way, because these Jedi did just kick the door in like they were cops, like they had jurisdiction, even though Brendock isn't part of the Republic.
And while the Jedi, I assume.
Believe they are working under the impression that they don't want the dark Side to get out, They've got to control it. You know, it's not necessarily a fruitful and constructive way of behaving, and it's not perfect. It's not perfect, and neither is the way that the Covenant are run.
Because the idea.
Of kind of forcing the kid to have to be part of this assension, though I will say we do get a good moment with Mother Anasa later where she seems to be a bit more open to the options that are there for the kids.
But and similarly to the Jedi, we know that Osha left of her own accord and was able to leave the training program. So choice does play into it to a degree.
Did they let Ocean leave because they're guilty about what they did on Brendoc? Because I will say whatever happened on Brendoc was clearly bad, as we know, Master Torben was willing to kill himself over it for his guilt.
So let's see, Osha is fascinated by the Jedi. And here's like where I'm just like annoyed at the coven and the kids. The kids are supposed to be secret. Yes, the Jedi broke in, but like, let's do a little better than just like standing in front of them, right, bedroom, Yeah, do something coven, something like don't just like stand there and then let them walk out and go meet the Jedi. But that's what happens because OSHA's fascinated by the Jedi,
loves their robes, loves the lightsabers. She of course she loves the lightsaber like that's cool as hell. She comes out and is clearly fascinated, but also a little nervous around the Jedi, who she've heard from many people, including her sister, are bad Soul as a way to be like, we're we're very, very chill, and we're cool and cool we are. Let's her hold the lace of which is not insane. I'm sorry this is to do.
She killed everyone accidentally.
It's a child and Nun does so.
Like I will say, one thing I do think is really interesting about the sequence is I kind of like the idea that the Force works in mysterious ways. And the reason that the Coven didn't do a better job of hiding them is because May was supposed to, you know, Osha was supposed to walk out, and that's what the Force wanted. And I think there's something interesting that. But Soul, please don't give her that gun. Yeah, a fan, don't get ladies guns. I will pose this question to.
You, Yeah, discord. There's been quite a lot of anti Soul chatter.
There are people who believe that Soul is quite creepy, almost, that Soul is completely as complicit as the other Jedi, and I think in these moments where he hands her the light, say, but the training moments where they're kind of having these almost like secret conversations, I can see that I love Soul, But that just might because I'm a lead young jay Stan and I believe Saul is doing his best.
And this is sixteen years yeah, this is sixteen years in the past. So I think the Soul that we needed in the first two episodes is probably a different person. And clearly in the way he seems to be relating to trauma from his past feels different than the way the Jedi would teach, And so maybe this is just a Soul that is more fired up, less cynical, more of a true believer of the Jedi path because he's just a younger initiate, you know.
Yeah, I think.
That's part of what makes this show so engaging though, And it's two cults. It's like, you know, it's two cults.
But I love the fact that, like everyone's having these conversations in the way that Leslie Hedlund kind of pieced together this show. You've got a situation where people like Usk and be like, you're the cop he's a space cop, and you have the Oordhard who love him.
Then you've got Soul who we think.
I'm like, wow, this is such an empathetic, more holistic version of the Jedi. And other people are like, no, he's a groomer and he doesn't have boundaries and that's why he does nostalgia and that's why he wants the kids.
And I'm like, well, Leslie, you are doing.
Some true like gray Jedi kind of both sides are bad, but who is doing anything right kind of conversation that's really really interesting.
So solid's Ohsha, hold the lightsaber. He's like, you'd make a great Jedi the Jedi test if you want. And Osha really wants to take the Jedi test with mother Onna Sayu and the Coven are strongly, strongly, strongly against it, as is May. However, she agrees to bring the girls for testing the following day to the Jedi camp. Later, the coven discussed this problem. Coral is of the opinion
of just wipe the Jedi out. Why don't we just go and murder the Jedi And who's gonna know, Like we're out here in the middle of nowhere, like no one's gonna know, h Elder, which I you know, that's a way to go. I know.
Mother Coral is obviously like the more what's the word, like militaristic of the two. I will say, we do know that they were persecuted by the Jedi, and they are some of them were probably wiped out.
So I'm like, look, I wouldn't go that way. We did break into the fortress. I mean again, I think we want to mindset. Yeah, I don't know if you go that far, but like, that is a way to go. So the coven discuss this problem. Elder Nassa comes out and she suggests, okay, listen, it's a binary, right, She says, it's either passed or they were you know, pass and they leave us, or fail and they stay with us. So what if we find a third way? We convince
the girls to fail on purpose. May instantly agrees she doesn't want to go anywhere. She wants to stay here with Mother and to say you and Mother Coral and never leave the coven. And she says if the Jedi try to take Osha away, she will stop it, says, very concerningly forcefully. Osha, meanwhile, wants to take the test and has a real problem, like a moral problem with lying about her abilities and her specialness at the Jedi
camp may fails easily. Osha, who is you know, bonding with Wookie Jedi kil Naka because it's a cute big dog, goes in, has her blood taken, which Master Torbin pad Torb, I think you got it. I think you got to say, hey, can I take it? I'm about to take a blood sample?
Is now I'm saying the Jedi still just going around stealing people's blood. This is why I feel like I am on the side of the coven, because I'm like, these motherfuckers just have no boundaries, and I'm.
On nobody's side. I like that, You're like nobody's side. I think the Coven are being very irresponsible. We'll get into that. So Osha goes in, she takes the test, she tries to fail. She tries to fail, but then the Jedi realized you've been told to fail, haven't you? And she's like yeah. And Saul tells Osha that you know you're special like I am. And and this is the thing that I think really connects to Osha and is a thing that here's a real weakness the coven
have these are the only kids. Ocean May is fine with that because she's a little bit. She's not a little bit, She's the more selfish one. She likes being the only kid, and she sees Osha as an extension of herself in a way, who she intends to make all the decisions for like a little kid would do, in a selfish way that little kids are often selfish. Osha wants more, wants to be around other kids, wants
to see other kids. Has talked about how lonely it is here, and so when she hears it there's thousands of other kids training at the Jedi temple. That is something that really interests her. Osha is, you know, again, really lonely. On Brendoc and Osha passes the test, May is absolutely fucking furious. Osha tells the mothers that she wants her own life, she wants to go out into the galaxy, and they're really it seems as if they're going to let her go. She's backing her things.
You know, She's like, if you want to do this, like you do have the choice, We'll never see you again and we will go to the Is that true?
Though? She can leave, she can leave and lay look up with a coven later.
But you know what, maybe nobody knows the Jedi that you can leave the Jedi, you know, because Osha is one of the only people we've ever met who's done that.
Yeah. Uh. Now May flips out like furious, like absolutely Red missed rage and has to be like carried away. Later, as Osha is praying to leave, May locks Oshit in her room and says, I'm not gonna let you leave. You try to leave, I'm gonna kill you. She literally says, like I will kill you. She then sets the little Jedi like welcome pamphlet on fire, and this seems to spark a fire that spreads rapidly. Because I think we
all agree that there is more going on here. The Generators, which were foreshadowed earlier in the episode, just like explode, and mothers Coral and Anna say, and probably the rest of the Covenant can die completely off screen. How in this fire that's spread in two seconds, we don't know.
The sisters face down each other across a broken bridge, incredibly thematic, and there's a huge explosion that seems to kill May and throws ocean into an abyss Saul rescues her and carries her away to safety on the Jedi ship, where she's taken for training, but we see at the end of the episode that May has survived. Yeah. What a fascinating episode.
Yeah, just completely fascinating, really expands what we know of the Jedi. I know, look, I know people, some people don't like this episode. That's you know, whatever that's there. I think, I think this is great. This is exactly the kind of stuff that I want from Star Wars. This is very much that expanded universe version of Star Wars where we get to learn about all different kinds of force users, all different kinds of people who can
wield it. And I think it's really interesting as a regular Jedi critic to kind of see the mistakes that the Jedi can make on their own terms, because I think something that is really interesting about this episode is this is like a little group of four Jedi who, as far as we know, are not being sent by any greater Jedi counsel or anything, who are just like, oh, here's something we need to stop, or here's some kids
that we can you know, train. And I think that's really interesting because that's the real truth about any society is that human error is always like the worst thing that can happen to it, and I think in this case they make mistakes. I mean, I have a lot of issues here. I don't think you should let an eight year old choose what they're going to do with their whole life when it comes to like, well, are you going to become a space cop or are you going to become a witch?
Both sides are asking eight year old children to swear that they will stay with them forever. Yes, I think that's a realty. Again, I think this there's a real weakness on both sides. I actually think that this is the episode that despite the okay, the breaking into the fortress, bad, the probably starting the fire and maybe killing everybody, absolutely
awful and don't do that. At the same time, I think that the Jedi in this one respect come off looking okay, and that is in having an actual respect for the force and the power behind it and what it's able to do. Like the Coven. Here's my real critique of the Coven, and it's it's that they're playing with things that they clearly don't understand, and they've created a child in May who is angry who can't deal
with their anger. They disagree amongst themselves to how to handle parenting May and Osha, and she's using her power by tap into that anger, and nobody is checking her at any point in time and saying, hey, don't do that, don't threaten to kill your sister, don't attack your sister all the time, don't like kill you know, kill butterflies. And so in that sense, I understand the Jedi going
uh oh, like here we go again. Like they're gonna whatever the the goodness of their decision makings are, whatever they're the whatever they're intending to do, they're going to create somebody that's extremely powerful that that might do evil. It does not forgive them breaking into the place. Now, I'll say this, you somebody before we start a recording, you were like, you sound like somebody who's like pro mutant registration. This is I've talked about this on our
cod before on Bingemo. Before I was talking about this. When we were talking on Bingebo, we were talking about Captain America's war right in the fictional reality of Civil War on pro cap. Because I completely trust the moral compass of Captain America and the heroes to do the right thing at every turn, and not oppress people, not use their power for evil in real life. If that was a real life situation and Captain America existed, in Iron Man existed, I'd be pro registration in a heartbeat.
I don't want a billionaire trillionaire owning like billions of dollars of high tech military hardware like and just having it in his house in Malibui. I don't want super soldiers running around like. I don't want like, you know, witches who are able to take over people's minds, like applying their power. I think we need a way to like keep that in check. Similarly with the Jedi and the Coven in this world, I trust certain members of the Jedi slash Force user community to be completely morally
correct at all times. Ben you know Obi Wan Kenobi Luke Skywalker, Yoda made a lot of mistakes, but he's his heart's in the right place, like those kind of things, right if it was if I was in that world, if that was real, I'd be like wipe out every Force user all of like they're a danger to the entire galaxy, like it whatever, you know, when the Jedi fuck up, when the coven fuck up. They create this superpowered evil person who is capable, very capable of twisting
everyone's minds to their will and taking over the galaxy. Like, we can't trust being around them. They can play with your mind, they can do all these things, and you just have to trust that they're not doing it. That's not safe for anybody. So that's how I feel. I
feel like I feel about it. How there's a fictional distance that I maintain, and I think one of the cool things about this episode is it shows you the weaknesses and the strengths of both sides, and what you'd really love to happen is like these two communities come together and talk about their philosophies and how better to train kids so that they don't abuse their force powers, which I don't think either side is doing.
No, neither of them is doing that. Okay, so let's talk about the big question here. Did the Jedi do something to I think they did something to make the explosion happen, Like.
Whether whether on accident or on purpose, they did something. They did something, because why is Torbin this guilty? That either yeah?
And why did they Why do they all keep saying to May like we thought we were doing the right thing, Like what did you think was right? Like what was the thing that was right, like taking Osha, because that wouldn't have caused this problem.
Maybe it was going there now. There's been lots.
Of chatter in the discord, which I love about the idea that May and Osha are a diad, or that May and Osha were, as we were talking about before, potentially one child that was split into two as almost like manifestations, and the Jedi knew about that, they could sense it, and they were sent there to you know, imprison May or try and stop May. I'm very interested to see where it goes.
Next week.
We're at are halfway points, so I think we're probably gonna get This was.
A lot of law building.
I'm sure that we're going to probably end up back in the present and maybe get a little bit more insight into what's going on with May and her master and stuff. But yeah, I thought this episode was so great. I love this expansion of the force, and I like that, as you say, they didn't come in and be like, here's this matriarchal, peaceful organization who just have done nothing wrong.
They were like, here's other people who are trying to deal with the fact that there's this life changing, galaxy altering power that certain people can use.
And how does that impact you when you're trying to do that. Yeah, and it's just very interesting. I'm not sure that training kids to be superpowered like balls of Anger is necessarily the right thing to do on either side, And I don't know what the answer is, but I think that's what is so fascinating about this episode in this show. Is it really like asks you to explore,
like what would you do? Like what is how do you deal with something like this where where you're training kids to be to use a power that is, uh, you know, connects all living beings but can also like twist the lives of other beings and is really really dangerous. Very interesting.
Yeah, it's very interesting and also as well, you know, the fact that we're saying like these kids were you know, force created. Then it leads to the big question of who taught mother Anasaya that are we going to get some big connection to like a Darth Plagis or something like that, or is this going to be more that the Witches realized that they could utilize both sides of the force to create something, I'm very interested to see
where that goes. I'm also interested because it never this has been canon since you know, Revenge of the Sith that you can create like a force life, but it's never We've never seen it outside of the kind of elite idea of like a Jedi bloodline. So I'm interested to see kind of where this goes and what it means for the biggest Star Wars universe.
Also interesting considering that the previous to this, the only person that we know of who was created from the force out of whole cloth who's Anakin Skywalker, which leads us to the question of whether Shmi was a witch or was a kind of thread user and untrained thread you know who somehow instinctively did this.
That would actually be very interesting, right because it was kind of one of the biggest critiques we always had have of the Jedi is like they just come that they leave all the slaves behind, They don't save anyone, They just take the force us. But if they if they knew or set that Shmi was kind of this unregulated force use, so that could also explain why they didn't have any interest in saving her, because they would
almost see her as kind of a rule break. Even though Qui gon Jin is kind of in the gray Jedi like less binary Jedi space, that would be an interesting addition to that canon.
What are your thoughts on what the Jedi are up to? What did they do?
I my gut does say I think the Jedi purposefully went there to kind of destroy the covern, not necessarily kill them, but you know, the generators make it so they couldn't live on Brendoc.
I do.
I also wonder if Venestra had some kind of knowledge or has since found.
In the Jedi archives, because she keeps telling Soul.
Like keep it a secret, Like she's like she knows that there's something that they shouldn't admit here. So I'm very interested to know what it is and kind of what the choices that they made.
Mike God, I can't help it. I just think.
I do think that the Jedi are inherently like almost hoarding the Force.
I've always felt that way. It's why I love the last Jedi so much.
So I do see them in a negative light in this space, and I do believe that they had some kind of knowledge of a diad or an extremely powerful force user, and they were basically sent there to deal with that problem in whatever way they chose to.
You know, I think that that is probably right. I think that they came here probably to kill May. Yeah, and we're hoping to I don't know if they were. I think if you're going to take on the Coven overtly, you send more than three Jedi, because I think what we saw is the Coven could easily defend themselves against against that smaller force. So I think they came here to do something ominous and probably kill May, who they suspect of being dark on her way to being a dark Force usar.
I also wonder if the other option is that they found out that there were kids who were force created and they were messing wipe them out because they're not really humans, so the Jedi don't see them that way. They're just manifestations of the force. You've got to release that force back into the galaxy or whatever. And the reason that Soul got Osha to join the Jedi is
because he wanted to. He saw a potential to like save a life, and he was kind of like, come, come, just join the Jedi, like, and if you're in our team, then we're not gonna, you know, destroy you, but because he couldn't do the same for May that I think.
I don't know about destroy, but I think they certainly want to study. I mean, this is a huge deal, right, creating life from the force that is unheard of at this preculiar time and is unheard of later. So I think that they certainly want to study this, and I think they probably want to steal whatever method of doing this the coven hair exactly. Yes, that's a good point. Okay, up next, we're talking about the Boys. Yeah.
When we last left The Boys, Homelander had transformed from a closeted racist, sexist, unchecked dog to a nationally celebrated, unapologetic sexist racist training the next generation of assholes.
Hue took up a job at the Bureau of.
Superhero Affairs, but quickly learned that Congressman Victoria Newman, who by the way, was the one we saw blowing up everyone's heads, is actually the adopted daughter of CEO Stan Edgar Shocking twist Billy Butcher. He's working with Queen May to find our way to destroy Homelander, and this time he is not fucking around.
He becomes addicted to Compound V.
Very bad, very bad drugs are bad kids, which gives him a similar power set as his enemy Homelander with laser eyes and bulletproof skin. We learn the Russians killed Soldier Boy in a CIA sting operation gone wrong.
Rip French.
She uses his old Bosses connections to get the boys into Russia, but doing so begins to see how similar the butcher is to Little Nina. In exchange for the crew getting into Russia, Kimiko must kill a gang rival for Nina, and she chooses to do it with a bunch of dildos. However, Kimiko does not want to be a matter anymore, so she makes a deal with French she to stop using her powers after this mission. Oh that's that's what we call that growth.
Will it stick? I don't know.
While the team thinks they're looking for a superhero killing weapon in Russia, they discover Soldier Boy is not only alive.
Bomb juiced with radiation, his new bomb like.
Powers not only killed but also neutralized powers. This means Kimiko can't heal her wounds, and Huey learns Billy as taking Compound V and decides he's gonna start taking it.
Come on, come on, huie, this.
Is actually such an un real season for like, toxic masculinity like they do with the boys is like so fucking.
Deep and an interesting too, Like, uh so, much of the show to this point has been about like, the Soups are bad, we must take them down. So how do you transition into a world in which your two protagonists are now soups, drug addicted soups? Meanwhile, exactly what they've been fighting, that's right. Meanwhile, at Vought, Starlight is hosting a superhero reality show to determine the newest member
of the Seven. It should have been Supersonic, Starlight's dreamy boy band X, who would have sided with her in her struggling Homelander. But Homelander. Homelander is not just a misogynistic, racist, mass murdering superpowered superhero. He's also very very adept at political infighting. He yes, I wish he was worse at something, but unfortunately he's really good at everything, which is why
he's such an incredibly scary villain. He lets Sonic onto the team, but surprise viewers and Starlight by bringing back Aqua, I mean, the deep everybody's favorite compromised guy who is in love with various deep sea creatures the deep to prove his power, Homelander forces Kevin to consume this was really sad to consume Franklin the Octopus, one of his very closest companion creatures, in one of the most truly one of the most disturbing scenes this offered by this
series or any series to date. A Train So Awful, Really Bad. A Train struggles with the complexities of being the only man of color on the team, with a defective heart that will soon see him removed from the seven. For now, he plays the shill, pretending to solve issues of racial inequality with popular commercials shades of the Kardashians,
but you can see it like really bothering him. Determined to do some real good, he forces Blue Hawk, who has multiple street issues in which he has killed people of color on the street, forces Blue Hawk to apologize. The apology, which takes place at a community center that's run by A Tran's brother, is half asked and the community fights back, giving Blue Hawk the opening to do the thing that he loves to do, which is murder
black people. A Train's brother is paralyzed in the attack and blue Hawk walks away with zero consequences, just like a train walked away after he ran through Hughey's girlfriend and evaporated her. So A Trains got to get street justice using his super speedy drags blue Hawk until blue Hawk just turns into like a stump. This triggers a train's massively damaged heart to give him a heart attack. And while a train did kill blue Hawk, there was enough of him left to give a train a new heart.
So now his murder victim's heart so fucked inside of his chests. Meanwhile, the Deep scientology esque calls has gifted him a new wife slash manager who quickly begins taking over his life. Although she's very effective at rebranding him. Poor Kevin tries to fit in, but he needed some octopus loving and want to include his octopus girlfriend as a third in the relationship. So his wife left wrote a tell all book. I mean, who would stay? Who
would that? Said? The Deep needs therapy, very very very bad. Continue out. She wrote a tell all book called Into Deep, and once again the Deep has no one but himself to blame from where his life is ended up. But at least there are seven members on the team. Again. Oh no, Homelander has discovered that starlight and play against him, and he does what he does best, which is a caven supersonic's head. And then there were six. Wow.
While they're trying to kind of sort the seven out, CEO Stan Edgar wants his god back on her leash and asks Victoria to take down Homelander. But Victoria has been working with Homelander to get Compound V for her daughter, so instead she launches an investigation into her father's misconduct. You know what, Yeah, Victoria, she has no qualms. No, she is fucking over everybody.
She's fucking over her dad.
She's fucking over the soups like she's sucking over the boys. So in that investigation, Homelander becomes the head of War because of how bad it makes Stan Edgar look, and promptly fires all competent parties and replaces them with loyalists. So you can see where this is going. Anna Surprise Surprise quickly tanks the company.
Soldier Boy comes to America and, out for revenge, begins killing off his old team members, the ones who sold him to the Rush, where he endured years and years of experimentation. Butcher makes a deal to help Soldier Wore kill the rest of his former teammates. In exchange, Soldierboy will help the Boys kill Homelander Q. Disturbingly, it's happened. Hero gasm. Okay, herogasm happened. They made it. They actually
did it. One of the worst things to ever happen in the pages of a comic book has been adapted. Full of West Things, Full of a comic series, Lost Things. It really is. You want to talk about a show that the adaptation that is better than the than the comic version, it is The Boys the show because the comic book version it's it's truly like one of those comics that I couldn't even finish it. It was terrible.
Yeah, And the thing is, I think it's really funny is a lot of people love the show and then they're like, I'm gonna go read the comics, and I'm always like don't. I'm like, don't do man, Sila, I didn't. I interviewed Eric Kripkey, the show runner for the first season, and I interviewed him a Hollywood Report about how they were going to adapt the first issue because there's this horrific scene where the starlet gets like horribly abused and it's really played for laughs.
And the thought that.
Went into that writer's room and the amount of women he had come in, and I was so impressed, and that really set the tone for me on how this show was going to be. And even though The Boys is one of my most I'm not a fan of that comic, let's put it that way. I was going to say something more extreme, but it's just not for me. If it's for you, that's it's not for me either.
But the show, the show is unbelievable, and I think The Boys is a great example of the what you can do when you have people who understand the medium, understand the tropes, but aren't afraid to do something different.
Yeah, I would say I would put it the same way. If it's for you, If The Boys is for you, that that's fine. I would say the difference for people who want to know the difference is The Boys the comic is the tone is shock value, and yeah, it's
very edge lord, it's very edge lord. And to Rosie's point, none of the terrible things that happen in it are framed with any kind of thought to like lasting emotional impact or you know, Exploration doesn't even have like a the real this show that we're watching, and it plays very much like a zine, like like I exact if a kid made a zine and was kind of okay that they wanted to like shock their friends. Yes, and uh and it's just not for me. Yeah.
And the funny thing is The Boys the TV show still manage to have these shocking moments, but they're framed way more thoughtfully and way less just like, Oh, I'm gonna do something horrible to people of color or a woman or whatever, which is very much the.
Boys a superhero.
We want to talk about the superhero orgy because they did it in the show and it's fantastic they did.
It, so it's one of the notable events from the comic series is Heirogasm, the annual orgy hosted by a said of superhero twins and the various characters use their powers in ways that are shocking. You see a poenix explode, all kinds of stuff is gone, all kinds of stuff happening. So the twins are located, Soldier Boy loses his shit, he kills the twins. Then Butcher and Soldier Boy fight Homelander.
They overpower him, but they don't kill him. Annie, exhausted from the games, turns to social media to state how truly evil some of these superheroes are despite all the pr and the branding that frames them as America's heroes. Homelander predictably goes straight into intimidation mode, threatening Annie, but forgot to ensure that she wasn't live streaming what was happening with the old live stream for now everybody, the veil has dropped. Everybody can see how awful he really is.
But if you call it fake news, some like the man playing stepdaddy to mother mother's milk's daughter, will believe it. And now the fans have been radicalized by what they've seen there Like a butcher, Hue and Soldier Boy go after Mesmer, who traps Butcher in a nightmare of his abusive childhood, where we learned that Billy had to protect his younger brother who clearly he sees hueiye as his definitely is like a fill in. Mesmer has one secret.
It doesn't save his life, but it does open a can of worms, and the secret is that Soldier War is Homelander's father. Billy says, fuck that we've got killing to do, and Soldier Boy kind of agrees to go along with him. Okay, so we're back to now who I will say if I have a critique of the Boys, So we could always use more Kimiko.
But remember this is a character who in The Boys was just called the woman.
I think.
So they're building a lot on yes nothing, so she doesn't have powers, and she loves it so much that she has a full on musical dream sequence, which I feel like is really important because that definitely heavily influenced the way that they could behave in gen V where they did a lot more weird stuff. They had an episode that was all puppetry. Like, I feel like this is a great kind of creative moment. Little Nina is displeased with the chaos the Boys have caused in Russia. Honestly,
I don't blame her. They're always called They're like Jessica Fletcher from Murder. She wrote wherever they got killed. It's like if Charles Xavier comes to your house and it's like, can I stay at your house? I said no, I don't want you can't come in here. I don't want my family to die. We've seen what happens when you come to someone's house, So the blame is actually laid at Frenchie's feet. I love French, ye, I love FRENCHI and Kimiko so sorry about that.
She orders him to kill.
A man and his daughter to make up for the clients. Nina loss, do they do that anymore? Is that what the boys do?
Well?
When French she refuses, Nina kidnaps Kimiko and Frenchie, nearly killing.
Them both, but they escape.
That's good, and Kamiko decides she needs to have her powers to be safe.
Starlight has discovered.
Some notes on temp Vie and it turns out the stuff is deadly after three.
Five, very very very dangerous and very fast.
So we've been watching Billy fucking pound these things all season, so we know that's not good.
Billy decides that it's fine if I die.
But not baby brother Huey, so he knocks the kid out stores him in a closet as he goes to make his last stand against Homelander. Starlight finds Huey and he apologizes for being a dick, but I'm like, bro, it was a bit more than that. The team returns to stop Billy's last stand less. The collateral damage destroy the whole city. The insurance premiums are going up. Jason, that's right.
Homelander tragically killed his really his only friend, the only person that he can could fide in the strangers. He's at his back, the strange, the mysterious Black Black Noir who was black under the mask and didn't want to wear the mask in the comic. I believe Black Noir is just a clone of Homelander, or Homelander was a
clone of Black More. Yeah, Soldierberg beats him until he agrees to wear it, which means Black nor would have helped Homelander kill Soldier Boy, but Black Noir kept Homelander's lineage from him, and the deception proved too much for Homelander.
So now we're getting into the true family Shenanigans of the boys.
Homeland is opening move against his dad.
Soldier Boy is introducing his son and being like.
This is your grant and son. Maybe you'll love him.
But Soldier Boy is like fucking embarrassed because he's very toxic person who's been in stasis since like the twenties or some shit, and he's embarrassed by his son's sensitivity. It makes a move to kill him, but Ryan wants to protect the only parental figure he has.
Left, so we blost Soldier Boy.
Billy cannot let the love of his life's child die, So now Billy's fighting Soldier Boy. He's changing sides every second. Queen Mayve shows up to quit kit homeland as Booty and the rest of the.
Boys show up to duke it out Hugh.
He considers taking Compound V again, but instead turns on all the studio lights, which supercharges starlight. That's a better choice than taking Compound V. They pinned Soldier Boy down and gas him, but he's about as he's about to explode. May have sacrifices herself and toss his Soldier Boy out the window. Homelander doesn't want to kill anyone else in front of his son, so he and Billy land on a temporary truth.
Now that seems that seems great. It's definitely like a happy place to leave. Ah. Sorry, we haven't talked about the end yet. That's right, happy ending for at least one of our characters in this show. May have lived faked her death. The radioactive explosion generated by Soldier Boy did not do hour May if she's going off to live with her girlfriend happily ever after, and please let them go, Let go the lesbians live, come back, Let them go. Soldier Boy also survived somehow and is now
in American custody. Annie decides to leave Starlight and the Seven in your rearview mirror. She joins the Boys. The team is whole. They've got seven members again. They've decided to take God vice presidential nominee and serial killer head exploorder Victoria Newman. Homelander introduces his son to his fanatics. A counter protester throws a drink at his kids, which is, why would you Why would you do that to drink at the kids? I feel like truly one of the mist What are we doing?
Guy of course melts him in front of everyone live on TV and.
His fans fucking they loved it, and then eat that shit, and so what happens. You get the now classic meme of Homelander realizing that actually he could be as terrible as as he wants to be and everybody will love it. They will eat it up. And we move on to the next season of the Boys, which will which will premiere this week.
Ah that's so exciting. I just love this show so much. I never expected to be such a fan of it, but I always end up covering it every season.
I love it.
I've gotten to speak to the creative team like they're amazing. I think it's so interesting. I also watched all of Gen B, which I thought was like really fantastic.
Like for me, I probably liked it more.
Than the Core Boys season because I just love you know what one. It's great, the writing's great, like it has flaws, just like The Boys, but I just love those characters. And everyone who listens to this podcast knows if there is like a cute kid or like a team of kids trying to do what they do best, always in support of.
It, and jem V was very much like that. Also. I think something that The Boys.
Has going for it right now is they are doing a shared universe in a way that people care about and actually like. Because GMV, some of the characters they introduced from the school, they're gonna be in the next season of The Boys. Yeah, and they just did that like smooth. If you don't know them, they'll get introduced in season four. If you do know them, that's very exciting.
To see them there. I would say, if.
You are a Boys fan and you haven't watched gen V yet, I would watch it because I'm not gonna spoil it. But there are some key plot points that are gonna carry over to season four, and I've already seen in the trailer that they're kind of talking about it, So I'm really excited about it. I think every season of The Boys gets better. I think the third season was the best season so far, and I'm hoping we'll
continue with that. I'm very interested to see, like is Homeland are going to run for president?
It feels like that's where they're going.
Yeah, so I'm very excited to see. I know that they've got The Boys Mexico spin off that they're gonna do that has like Diego Luna and Gail Garcia banelas producers. So if you like your Mama to Tambien, you're in luck. Hopefully there'll be some gay kissing in this movie, a little bit of a threesome action.
I believe it, and I think, you know, I think that The Boys has done something and Amazon has done something really interesting, which is kind of locked down this superhero space where they're asking, you know, Okay, what would people actually do if they were given this power? Knowing what we know about human nature? Right, what would happen if you gave twenty and thirty something people superpowers and made them really famous? What would happen is they become awful? Yeah,
like truly awful people. And it's really compelling.
I think as well, one of the greatest things that they've managed to do. I'm kind of surprised they've gotten away with it, but I think it's why the boys work so much. The very first season, they were basically like, well, the MCU exists, so let's just see what it would be like if it.
Wasn't just fictional. Yeah, Like, and I think people love that.
I think people love being able to see the analogies between like Soldier and Captain America and like Wonder Woman and Queen Mayve, and and seeing the way that these archetypes could be used in a real world scenario. And I actually love it because one of the things about the MCU is it was based on you know, the Ultimates comics, which we obviously you know know, and that was a huge moment in comics history, which means they're more grounded, but they never really ask like what would happen?
They try and present them in a grounded world that we love, and it makes you know, Robert Downey Junior iron Man is such an iconic reimagining of the character because of that.
But this is like, what if it happened in our world, not like six on six, not whatever fantasy movel world.
What if the same place where Trump said I could kill people in the street and like, yeah, people would still vote for me?
What if he had superpowers? That's basically where we're at. And also, yeah, well if you had laser eyes.
Also, we do have to say something really funny about this season, which was this season like sparked a lot of discourse with people who had watched this show.
And were like, wait, Homelanders the bad guy. Wait, hold on a set, They're like, he seems great. Wait a second, Homelander's bad Are you serious? Homelanders the villain of that? That was truly, honestly, I I I am not surprised by much anymore, but that was surprising to me that there was like a dedicated group of boys fans who were just like spun around all of a sudden. This is after this is after three seasons of the show.
This is after like the previous season where Homelander was like in love with like a super neo Nazi lady, like who was literally a Nazi from then the first like Nazi. Yeah, like a real one, and they were like, wait did they get is very so bad? He's the bad guy.
Bro am I gonna get to see him be even more bad next season of The Boys, which comes out this week. Okay, so every episode we like to finish with a fast paced little chat, and this one is gonna be Who's who And it's gonna be favorite weird death scenes, oh god, in any movie, TV, film, video game, anything, I will start with a this.
Look, this isn't some deep cut one. I'm sorry, guys. I know you're gonna be like Rosie, that wasn't deep guy enough. But I'm gonna go for the classic.
I'm gonna go for the babality, the Mortal Kombat babality. Everyone want to see it. When you become a baby. You know, that's some of the weirdest shit ever. And I'll never forget the first time I saw it and I was like, who a Baybaliti, Like, You're gonna turn into a baby that's like how you get killed.
I love it.
I'm a I'm a Babality super fan. I will also special mention for the Dark Knight Rises when Talia Algol dies and she's like this.
Oh and it's like one of the it's like one of the worst death scenes of all time, but I watch it over and over again because Marianne cots Yard is like legit, like fantastic actor, but for some reason she decided to do the silliest death acting of all time in that and I love it.
So I'm a dark I'm a Dark Knight Rises sup like super apologist. I think that movie is very fun and her death scene is up there for me.
My favorite death scene, gosh, weird death scene. This is not a weird one, but it's just one that sticks with me. I'm gonna go with Jeff Daniels Harry in nineteen ninety four Speed when he realizes that he's about to get blown up by the bomb. He makes an indescribable face that just felt like the face that I
would make. It just really for some reason stuck chord with me and continues to do so, where he just made a face that was like oh fuck, like fuck like I'm gonna get blown up, and and it just continued. I can see it in my mind's eye right now, and it continues to it continues to stick with me, and I think, you know what. The penis exploding. It was terrible and horrible, but also unforgettable. The penis exploding scene from Pugasm is truly terrible but also a thing that, yes,
you will never forget. It was caused by a superpower that allowed a character to shrink and dive and dive in to the member of another character, and of course then they grew large and this is what happened. So it was really just like the penis that exploded, but significant other pieces.
Yeah, okay, I have to give Joel has called out in the chat like an unbelievable one when Judge Doom gets dipped and steamrolled in who framed Roger Rabbit? And that we definitely have to talk more about. We mustn't say about that who framed Roger Rabbit? Ride at Disneyland still there. I thought they got rid of it, but it's still there and I got to go on it and it was so good and weird and ten out of ten never get rid of that weird asked dark Ride Disney because it's really good.
Next week, we're diving deep into the premiere episode of House of the Dragon on HBO Max and continuing our conversation about the Acolyte. That's it for this episode. Thanks for listening. Bye x ray Vision is hosted by Jason Kensumsion and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive producers are Joelle Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer is a Boo Zafar. Our producers are Carmen Laurent and Mia Taylor. Our theme song is by Brian Basquez.
Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Laude, Kenny Goodman and Heidi Our disco moderata