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dealtgod

Thinking about Billy crying and how, really, that's his first gut response to being hurt or afraid. Canonically, Billy is a crier. As a child, he cries when he's on the phone with his mom after she left him. He cries when Neil is yelling at him and calling him derogatory language because he's afraid of getting hurt. He holds back tears when Neil abuses him for not knowing Max's whereabouts and then finally lets the tears fall once Neil leaves the room. His eyes are a bit glassy with tears after Max injects him with some unknown drug (read more here). Sometimes, when he yells at people, there's this crying crack in his voice. He cries in front of Max during the sauna test. He's crying on numerous occasions when the Mind Flayer makes him do things that he doesn't want to do. He's crying alone in his room before Jane comes to look into his memories. He cries when he's about to die, and Max is leaning over his body. And however you want to interpret that S4 scene in "Dear Billy," even Billy's memory cries over the things Vecna is making him say to Max. All of this is Billy crying around pain (whether physical pain or emotional/mental pain) and fear.

Now, Billy is somewhat able to mask this by leaning into anger, which I think is absolutely a fear and preservation response to the fact that Neil abuses Billy and regularly degrades him with homophobic language that all center on pointing out that Billy's femininity is weak (and therefore, by extension, crying is weak-- you can read more about Billy, crying, and gender non-conformity here). I do believe that if Billy didn't cover up the fact that he wants to cry with anger, we would be seeing him cry a lot more. Which also goes to say that in the canon-divergent world in which I write Billy surviving the Mind Flayer and getting out of Neil's grip to be in a space where he can heal, he's going to cry more often as part of his healing process from years of trauma and grappling with the persona versus the self.

But a point I want to make here is that Billy still cries in the series, even if Neil tries to beat the sensitivity and emotion out of him. He still cries. And when Billy cries, it's the crack in the persona he emulates to survive abuse. And this makes me think back to Dacre's point that in S3, he acted with intention that Billy was there in the eyes while the Mind Flayer was there in the body. Which I think we can extend that further into Billy's characterization as a whole, not just the Mind Flayer plot. That Billy crying is a reveal of the self behind that loud persona that exists as a protective shield.

emolander

younger homelander on his first mission

Final review of Blood and Bone - Finale of The Boys.

I know my opinion is likely just being thrown to the wind here but I wanted to do a little review of the finale of the series because I absolutely loved the show and I feel like it’s a good time before the buzz dies down. In general, the finale was pretty underwhelming to me, and while I’d rather underwhelming than flat out bad, let’s go over what I think they did well and what they could’ve improved upon.

1.) Kimiko’s ending - bad. this isn’t technically about the finale, but I definitely think Kimiko should’ve had more time to process Frenchie’s death. I have to admit I was NOT a fan of her talking this season - not necessarily because of the actual character development of being able to talk (I loved that), but I feel like her entire personality changed once she could speak. The things she said just never matched with the things she signed and none of it really made sense. Anyway, I just feel like her and Frenchie deserved a more intense ending. She should’ve grieved him more. It should’ve affected her more. Idk.

2.) Finale title - bad. they had the perfect opportunity to call one of the last two episodes Scorched earth. Especially EP 7. I don’t think Blood and Bone was ultimately a bad choice especially considering Butcher’s final comments to Homelander, but they absolutely should’ve called episode 7 that - or even better, had an extra episode dedicated to Homelander’s violence towards his nonbelievers called that.

3.) Blood and gore levels - bad. WHERE WAS HOMELANDER’S DESTRUCTION? He barely got to do anything. He just kind of announced he was a god and then died. I understand they wanted to fit the virus plot into the last 20 minutes but everyone was looking forward to seeing HOMELANDER’s wrath unleashed. There was literally such minimal gore in the last few episodes. I was super disappointed we never actually got to see him completely unchecked, like killing the “nonbelievers” or whatever his original plan was.

4.) Frenchie’s death - bad. SPEAKING of violence, why was Frenchie’s death so clean? From my understanding, we don’t even know exactly what kills him. We don’t see Homelander attack him and we can sure as hell assume that he wouldn’t give him a simple clean death after everything and how frustrated he obviously was. I know it was important for him to be alive to speak to Kimiko but he absolutely should’ve died bloody. It just wasn’t accurate to either of their characters. Homelander would’ve absolutely ripped him apart. I think Kimiko seems Frenchie in a horrible, graphic state would’ve made the scene much more interesting also. So much of this show is addressing real life consequences of violence and how death isn’t soft and quiet, so why did they kill Frenchie like that?

5.) Ryan’s decision - good. Despite everything Butcher and Ryan had been through and the audience assuming the two would end up together, I think Ryan’s decision and mini monologue to Butcher was actually very logical and a great character choice. Ryan is a lot like his mom, we know that already, and throughout the series it’s used against him as a “this is what Becca would want” type of way. But Ryan isn’t stupid, and he’s old enough to make his own decisions, and even knowing how much Becca loved Billy, he is fully aware of Billy’s instability and how far he’s strayed from the man his mother knew. So many people were upset that Ryan didn’t “choose” Billy but I genuinely think it was exactly what Becca would’ve done. She would’ve been able to see how much Billy had changed and how he’d become unfixable, and Ryan was also in-tune enough to know living with a man like that would not be what his mother would want for him. He recognizes the things Billy does and holds him accountable for them regardless of his blood ties.

6.) Homelander’s breakdown - mixed feelings. Homelander’s entire premise revolves around his need to be loved. Now, granted, nobody, Homelander included, have any idea how he might react to being in danger because he never actually has been, so judging his breakdown when Kimiko takes his powers is hard to do. However, I do think more important than his physical health, as we’re repeatedly shown and told by the lab doctors, Madelyn and Barbara. So his final crash out about losing his powers didn’t really feel right to me. Instead of focusing on the need to survive, I think he would’ve been so completely outsourced by the realization he’s lost everything and everyone he would’ve gone wild. The whole begging for mercy thing seemed a little misguided from Homelander’s standpoint. I guess we don’t actually know how he would’ve reacted being at the mercy of someone else without his powers because we’ve never seen him like that, so it was up to interpretation, but I think he’s smarter than he’s given credit for and would’ve quickly realized all hope is lost.

7.) The deep’s death - good. I really liked that they had starlight be the one to do it. I think a lot of people felt his character had really been dragged out but idk, it was funny and led to a lot of crucial moments in the show, plus a lot of important development for Annie AND a great commentary and how stupid, perverted men can get so far in life no matter how many bad, dumb decisions they make. I liked that she wasn’t given some other dumb distraction to get rid of her during the final standoff - I think the fight with her and Deep was important and a lot was leading up to it. It was a good way to boil the main fight down to Butcher and Homelander without writing her off for something pointless. I also liked that she didn’t directly kill him, I feel that would’ve been out of character for her. She wasn’t even aware that the water was a death sentence for him so tossing him onto the beach was literally giving him the upper hand, which didn’t make a lot of sense? But I liked to think of it as Annie rubbing it in his face that despite everything she would always be stronger than him.

8.) Vought aftermath - Bad. What the heck bro. What were all those posters about? Vought is still here? They’re just going to make another Homelander, just like Butcher says in his final monologue. Stan Edgar is still alive so genuinely I have no clue why they did anything they did. I think they should’ve had an episode between 7 and 8 where Homelander burns down Vought and everyone involved, ESPECIALLY Edgar, and then they could’ve killed him. It would’ve been a much better wrap up. I just don’t get it.

Final thoughts: It was a decent finale. They closed up a lot of loose ends, and hopefully we won’t have a terrible sequel that ruins all the characters because they killed most everyone interesting. There was a lot of things they could’ve done better. But I think in the end, it was a pretty good finale that wrapped up pretty much everything.

#homelander #the boys #billy butcher