The Boys: Proper Preparation and Planning Show Only

September 6, 2020 7:50 PM - Season 2, Episode 2

Butcher is back with the Boys, but tensions flare with Hughie. Homelander spends quality time with his new "family." Starlight and Stormfront bond at a press junket and the Boys hunt down a supe terrorist, with a startling identity.

Director: Liz Friedlander
Writers: Rebecca Sonnenshine and Eric Kripke

Reviews and/or Recaps:
Vulture: The Boys Recap: God Complex
AV Club: The Boys considers questions of fatherhood and family in “Proper Preparation And Planning”

posted by Brandon Blatcher (10 comments total)

Still problematic as hell, but that's half the fun. The series knows it's problematic, learns into it and doesn't give a damn if object, so you might as well enjoy the ride. Still, it rankles at times, no doubt because of the current times.

Overall, things feel a little all over the place, but at least they're taking time to develop some of the others characters, such a Maeve and Kimiko. But we're there's also focus on The Deep which is both hilarious with the talking gills alal Patton Oswalt, yet incredibly tedious. He's not an interesting character at all, and there isn't much, um, depth, to him, so let's move on.

Starlight is an odd one and 4th wall breaking, with her excellent take down's of everything, but it's a public setting, so wouldn't those on the 82nd floor be upset about that? Wouldn't the general public? It's never really answered, so it hangs like an out of tune note.

The plan to publicly reveal Compound V and its effects makes total sense, but comes together too easily. I Would have thought this was going to a major plot point, but perhaps not if they're glossing it over. Is taking down Vought the big bad or something else?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:51 PM on September 6, 2020

I'm hoping they're blasting through some of the plot points - Compound V, specifically - to get past and into more of the inter-super-personal stuff. We kind of see it now with Homelander busting into his son's life, Kimiko's back story (a bit), the relationship between Corporate and the Supers, and how these people are finding their way through the world.

The Deep, too - instead of being a two-dimensional "he's just a misogynistic asshole" we are seeing some of his backstory and how Body dysmorphic disorder made him who he is. I don't necessarily expect to see the characters grow as people, but I like that they are becoming more than just flat comic book characters.
posted by jazon at 6:52 AM on September 8, 2020

Can somebody explain what exactly is problematic about this show ? Homelander is clearly the villain and the show isn't exactly subtle about it...
posted by Pendragon at 2:34 PM on September 8, 2020

I can't get enough of seeing a 100-story building grafted to the top of Roy Thompson Hall and all the interior shots thereof.
posted by GuyZero at 3:59 PM on September 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

The "problematic" is ok with me - because they show the problematic and shows it as problematic, instead of depicting the problematic as par-for-course and "just the way things are."

It's not calling bad behaviour out, but shows it and highlights it - and shows the fallout. For me, this is the opposite of cynicism and more as a whistleblower-without-teeth/protection.

Personally, I was working under the assumption that I had authority to shut down operations if it didn't meet my standards; through circumstances, I've been completely de-fanged and still have the burden of responsibility without the authority to hang my responsibility on.

That kind of bullshit and it's bullshittiness is addressed.

But the popular "problematic" is about gender and race; but that's also along the same lines as showing crap dynamics and sympathizing with the party with more structural power.

Power imbalanced occur in real life, power imbalances occur in this show. Show doesn't immediately punish characters who benefit from power imbalances.
posted by porpoise at 8:26 PM on September 8, 2020

And a lot of sex and gender and identity stuff.

Like the sexual predator The Deep feeling sorry for himself for suffering the consequences of being outed as a sexual predator - despite the trauma that that created an environment where he could become a sex predator.
posted by porpoise at 8:27 PM on September 8, 2020

Also this show just contains a lot of fucked-up stuff that most shows/movies would find too distasteful to address, let alone comic book shows, which tend toward the family friendly. Like, of course someone with the power and social status of Superman or the Flash would be able to get away with rape and murder scot free, but that’s too ugly to explore, outside of The Boys. Especially because it’s true in real life.

Also this is a show where someone charges $1,000 to let clients chop his dick off with a machete.
posted by ejs at 8:51 PM on September 8, 2020

Can somebody explain what exactly is problematic about this show ? Homelander is clearly the villain and the show isn't exactly subtle about it...

There is a lot of discussion about this in the Season 1 post, specifically the show is problematic on the subjects of sexual violence, violence against women, and womens' sexuality. There's also some discussion about how the comics were even worse.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 8:05 AM on September 9, 2020 [1 favorite]

I can't get enough of seeing a 100-story building grafted to the top of Roy Thompson Hall and all the interior shots thereof.

At about the ten-minute mark of this episode, when Maeve is getting the call about her family emergency, the building visible out the windows and across the street is Hannibal Lecter’s office from Hannibal. And she is just a few metres from where Charles and Erik first cross paths in X-Men.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:01 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

it's also the UN building in The Expanse! They even do the thing where they extend it upwards and put it in new york!
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 12:11 AM on October 24, 2020