This Friday, July 8, the end of the third season of ‘The Boys’ arrived on Amazon, a long-awaited chapter after the tremendous cliffhanger that ‘A candle to accompany you to bed’ left us. I have already been able to see it and was not at all disappointed with the result, and that in the end it has ended up serving mainly to reaffirm the status quo of the series instead of making some essential progress for it.
‘The Boys’ has always played with extremes, poking fun at superheroes and real-life events without any mercy. That is something that has been gaining weight as the episodes and seasons have passed, thus helping his satire to expand beyond what he initially promised. In return, perhaps he did lack give him more noses when handling their characters.
To the extreme but without breaking anything
Let’s keep in mind that the end of the second season of ‘The Boys’ already left everything in a rather extreme situation that seemed doomed to explode in the third. And I’m not saying that strong emotions have been lacking, especially in ‘Herogasm’, or that some characters have evolved in a more or less clear way -I think that nobody surpasses that apparent journey to redemption by A-Train-, but in the end what is really vital remains in a similar situation.
What this third installment of the Amazon series has done very well has been take your characters to the extreme. For some there may still be time to put the brakes on before things get out of control, but with others it is becoming increasingly clear that they are doomed to be two sides of the same. I’m talking, obviously, about Patriot and Butcher.
From that curious alliance they seemed to forge, the characters played by Antony Starr and Karl Urban They undertook two different trips. The first initially to clean up his image and then simply to impose himself as a leader with a clear fascist vocation willing to do anything to be respected and who at the moment of truth is increasingly alone.
The last impulse is missing to unleash chaos
Throughout the eighth episode there is more than one moment pointing in that direction, but there is still that last brake so that everything explodes into the air. The same thing happens with Carnicero, who has increasingly shown that he is capable of anything to try to finish off Patriota. Plus, those superhero moments could end up costing you dearly. But, like Patriota, there is something that prevents everything that is not his objective from giving him the same.
All this is illustrated again in a generous season finale in violence, but without that becoming its only reason for being and always knowing how to combine fun, emotion and spectacle as the series has accustomed us. There is even a moment that I was waiting for to happen since the middle of the first season, a pity that it does not reach a definitive resolution.
It is in the latter where he leaves a slightly sour taste. Obviously, there will be a fourth installment and it remains to be seen if there are more, but the third seemed headed towards a great climax that has not been finalized. What has been achieved is an even greater radicalization of positions but without making big moves.
In short
Season 3 of ‘The Boys’ is a demonstration of how good a series it is. His cocktail in today’s audiovisual superhero world remains unique, but it’s coming at a time when there have to be irreversible repercussions beyond the death of some supporting character. For now that doesn’t stop a little stone in the shoebut be careful.