‘The Boys’ Season 3 Lays Waste to Gun Nuts and the Alt-Right

Prime VideoThe Boys isn’t subtle, and that’s key to its gonzo charm. Coming on like an off-the-rails freight train operated by a manic speed freak, it delivers degenerate superhero and sociopolitical satire with profane humor, grisly violence, and twisted psychosexual neuroses. As with its second season storyline about a neo-Nazi supe named Stormfront (Aya Cash) who pitch-perfectly embodied the spirit of this country’s white-nationalist MAGA hordes, it’s so pointed and true as to cut like a knife—or, in this case, like the laser beams blasting out of the eyes of all-American lunatic Homelander (Antony Starr), a blond-haired, blue-eyed man of steel defined by his grotesque mommy issues, corrosive insecurities, and terrifying fury.Pent-up rage continues to be omnipresent in Season 3 (June 3) of Eric Kripke’s hit Amazon adaptation of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s comic books. Be they normal humans or those bestowed with extraordinary abilities by Vought International’s Compound-V drug, just about every character is on the verge of exploding due to their simmering anger over being marginalized and manipulated by puppet masters, or because of long-buried trauma and the regret and self-loathing it’s begat. Dysfunction is the name of The Boys’ game, infecting good and bad guys alike until the boundary between the two is difficult to discern. What is clear, however, is the show’s overarching outlook on superheroes, here exemplified by a debauched super-orgy known as Herogasm, and earlier articulated in typically florid R-rated fashion by anti-supe renegade Billy Butcher (Karl Urban): “With great power comes the absolute certainty that you’ll turn into a right cunt.”Butcher and his mates remain intent on wiping out Vought’s commercially manufactured superhero squad The Seven at the start of this latest eight-episode run, especially now that Butcher blames Homelander for killing his wife Becca (Shantel VanSanten), who was previously raped and knocked up by Homelander, thereby resulting in her super-son Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), whom Butcher has sworn to protect. Hughie (Jack Quaid) is working for AOC-esque congresswoman Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) and her superhero-regulating government agency, all while unaware that she’s the head-exploding killer who caused so much mayhem during Season 2. The rest of the Boys are scattered about as well, with Frenchie (Tomer Capone) and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) eager to leave behind their Compound-V-enhanced lives for peace and quiet, and Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) similarly concentrating on reconnecting with his daughter, who’s currently living with her mom Monique (Alvina August) and Monique’s new boyfriend Todd.Read more at The Daily Beast.