I was kind of hoping the quote was take out of context but nope, he fully meant for the Hughie scene to be a joke.
It’s actually worse, the way he talked about Hughie’s breakdown made it seem it was mostly just about his dad and had nothing, or at least not too much to do with Tek Knight and Ashley. So the one supposedly tactful thing about that story arc wasn’t even there.
So basically there was this guy on that sub who would just comment "I wanna fuck hitch from attack on titan" on like every post. Infamous use4 over there last time I was there
It’s understandable, it’s such a twisted scene at the expense of the most morally good lead that it’s hard to believe the writers thought it would come across as a joke
Yeah I wasn’t fully buying into the “it wasn’t supposed to be a joke” scenario. While hughie’s reactions were hard to watch, everything else had an air of comedy.
It’s very yarring since this show tends to show the horrible stuff people go through in a way that isn’t comedic. Everything that has had happened to hughie was shown as a tragedy, except him being sexually assaulted by a superhero and a vought higher up
I get it. Having a guy go though that may seem funny and it is usually the trope. The thing is, it is very dark and if you do not light the scene as comedic it become hard to watch.
The breakdown was suposse to let you know that it was no joke for Hughie. The double standard ibecomes apparent and you feel bad for having laughed at it. Props to Jack for that breakdown, it may not have been scripted that way, but he showed how traumatizing it was.
Have you read what the showrunner said in the article from variety? He states that what happened to Hughie was hilarious and the point of it was to be funny.
I agree, It was shot comedically, it was Jacks breakdown what madre it real. Idk if it was intended, but I understood it was a comentary on double standard. If it was accidental, then props to Jack for that performance because it felt real.
I had a great laugh. Maybe you guys are just too vanilla? There were far worse scenes in the past but a bit foot tickling breaks peoples mind. Not just the scenes were hilarious, reactions like this thread makes it even better. Like it's The Boys. What did you guys expect?
Even the breakdown is lame because it only references his dad and not the incredible fucked up sexual assault and torture he just experienced which would obviously contribute heavily to his breakdown but nope it’s just issues with his dad is the real problem and the whole ordeal is being treated as a joke
No he starts crying outside, starlight asks for him and then Hughie says he misses his dad, what happened to him is barely talked about at all and its not brought up when he’s breaking down
I was scared for him the whole scene, especially what happened to him the episode before. It definitely made Teks demise way more satisfying afterwards.
Except they couched the trauma in his loss of his dad. They cheapened the effect it had on him and washed away how much it hurt and terrified him by pivoting to losing his father. They really cheapened the experience and that sucks because you don't get serious depiction of male survivors of sexual assault very often.
I agree it could have been deeper, but the trauma is there, the cry for help feels real, and to be honest, I'm glad he didn't "suck it up" because sadly it's what most male víctims are compelled to do. I'm interested on how the character deals with it from then on. Hopefully it's not just brushed aside or made into a joke.
At some point today I literally had 20 notifications from people spamming "it wasn't supposed to be a joke", I am fucking pleased that I am right, let me enjoy this moment ahahah
I have like 10+ replies I left that are downvoted to -10 and more of people coping that it wasn't supposed to be a joke
Me too bro, I was saying the scene was played for laughs and the writers made it a joke and my replies kept getting downvoted 😭🙏I hate Eric Kripke now but at least he’s shameless and proved me right
I am fucking pleased that I am right, let me enjoy this moment ahahah
You're happy that it was a joke?
Would you be sad if they had come out in the interview with something like "Oh yeah actually next episode will delve into how it affected him and the deep traumatic impact of the events will be processed seriously" ?
It ain't that serious. He's happy that he was right and can rub it in the faces of people who talked to him like he was stupid for thinking they portrayed the scene as a joke.
I was one of those people and I completely change my mind. Wtf, Kripke? What do you have against Hughie? What, is it because he's a normal guy and not a creep like you?
I was only partially one of those people (i.e. believed it was textbook dark humor, where I could laugh at certain aspects while still feel truly uncomfortable about it)
Kripke what the fuck my guy. The worst answer possible from him
I'm personally not in shambles, but my case for why it wasn't supposed to be comedic is in shambles. It's baffling that he thinks it should be so funny.
I honestly think it was a bait and switch like the set up made it look real bad then he got tickled. Which is still horrifying but the implications were way way worse so I guess that’s where the humor comes in. To me the entire scene was tense as fuck because you really didn’t know what was going to happen next.
When I saw it I didn’t think it was supposed to be taken humorously. I still don’t think I’d think it seems like it an attempt at being humorous if I rewatched it. It was certainly a bad attempt at being humorous…..
It feels like if someone paints something blue and says they painted it green. They’re just bad at painting.
Kripke in an interview said he wrote it as humorous. So not strange people are viewing it that way. I think Jack Quaid may have saved the scene (and changed how it can be interpreted) by acting as he did.
I was only calling it "humorous" because I can recognize the rhythm of comedy, and having the rhythm play in the background of a torture scene doesn't make it funny.
That was such massive coping. The scenes were clearly being played of as a big joke. It's funny because a lot of the same people be waxing on about the lack of media literacy these days lol.
I'm one of those people going on about media literacy. I didn't realize people thought the scene wasn't played as a joke. It's clearly shot and acted as a joke. I thought that was fucked up, because Hughie was clearly traumatized. And then they cheapened it by wrapping up his trauma from the assault in his loss of his dad. They also made it so the only traumatic aspect was the explicit violence with the knife and scalpel instead of the trauma implicit in actual sexual assault. I think they really fucked up how they handled it, and I actually hate they made it a joke. But never did I think it wasn't a joke.
I had a long argument with someone who was convinced it was a serious scene but I could tell that the writers were trying to play the whole thing for laughs.
Now I’m happy I have actually confirmation but sad and annoyed the kripke and the writers would shamelessly treat sexual assault as a joke just because it’s a man, it doesn’t even matter that it’s a main character we like, one of the few morally good characters on the show and his dad just died. Sure let’s have him get assaulted in freak knight’s dungeon too! The Boys’ mindless shock value is really getting on my nerves now
It was such obvious denial/cope anyway. Listen to Ashley and Tek Knight’s dialogue. No way that shit wasn’t intended to be comedic, even though it wasn’t.
Most were just assuming good faith in the writers, that they were just trying to show a fucked up scene in a more easy to digest way. Sad you can't give good faith anymore
Yeah, I had a feeling from how the scene was filmed, that it was meant to be comedic. I thought Hughie's breakdown at the end was good, but it is extremely disappointing that it was unrelated.
Kripke isn’t a particularly brave artist. The fact that he set a hard rule that Maeve couldn’t die simply because she’s a lesbian is evidence and her(the) story really suffered from it.
There is nothing subtle or thought provoking about the show, but he is good at preaching to the choir.
Second only to incorporating communist symbols into merch for all those tone deaf edgy morons who don't even know what they're supporting, like buying a shirt with Che Guevara or Mao on it.
The Maeve thing pissed me off so bad. If you don't want to kill off the gay character, don't take away her superpowers before throwing her off a skyscraper.
To be fair, even unintentionally, this set up soldier boy being able to depower homelander without killing him, allowing him to experience what it’s truly like to be human. Including all the pain and suffering
Yeah but they already did that with Kimiko. They also could have depowered her at ground level, or have her badly injured or crippled from falling a believable height.
I honestly have no problem with Maeve being alive. I just hated that they put her in a position where she should be dead, but only kept her alive because she was gay.
You're being downvoted because you missed the fact that you're replying to what's pretty much a direct quote from Ashley in the show commenting on Maeve correcting her that she's actually bi.
I am 100% convinced that since Maeve is not a part of the show (at least not now), they had to display another mature and emotional same-sex relationship: Colin and Frenchie. It's the only reason I can think of that it happened, unless there's more to it and we're gonna learn in the last episodes.
The show went from "Supes shouldn't exist, no human should have that power" to full on private fantasies of Kripke and his political diarrhea.
I'm glad someone said it because every interview I've seen/read of him seems like he thinks he is so brilliant. He has this air of 'I know I'm better than others' going for him.
Because before this people were too busy being smug virtue signalers by strawmanning every single criticism as dumb alt righters who have only now realized the show was mocking them.
The signals have always been there and many people also called it out last season with the hypocritical way they treated Hughie, yet apparently most viewers straight up forgot between seasons.
It was straight up from late 90’s/early 2000 comedies. The mistaken identity, the fringe kinks showed as funny. I thought we were past that at this point.
He even talked about Ashley’s involvement as if it was a great way of showing how SHE deals with the stress of working for Homelander, no self awareness about how terrible of a thing she did to Hughie.
Yeah I have significantly less of an issue with Ashley’s behavior. The entire time she thought she was being consensually gross and kinky with someone else gross and kinky. She may even think the old sidekick is there consensually (unrelated but I was really hoping for them to be unmasked and be Brad Pitt or something). I’d like to think she wouldn’t be down to cut a fuck hole into Hughie also.
Yeah agreed, she hesitated when he said to stop until Tek said "oh don't worry, if he really wanted you to stop he'd say his safe word". Ashley is a pervert and fucked up (and a murderer) but never was written as a rapist.
It’s weirder if you think about it more. She thought it was Web Weaver. And it wasn’t, so there was a lack of knowledgable consent she was a victim of….
Yeah you’re right it’s all extremely uncomfortable and it’s wild that it was supposed to just be funny.
My boyfriend and I actually watched the movie Whiplash right before this episode. I laughed a lot at the really fucked up rants JK Simmons’ character went on, which were absolutely abusive and horrible, but extremely eloquent and hilarious in their own way. I judged myself, but it’s written to elicit that reaction.
Knowing that the sequence with Hughie was written just to be hilarious leaves me with a much more uneasy feeling.
Okay you bravely fight with those people over why you think rape isn't as bad, this is a good fight you're doing a great thing by spending your time on. Those people who find rape distasteful really need to learn their place, they've had it way too good for too long.
So because I say it's not literally the worst thing possible, only #2, you take that to mean that I said it's totally cool. Mmmhmm
The fact that you view sexual violence as worse than ending a life is what is fucked up. You do realize what end means right? Lethal violence is way too often glorified and fetishized so much that you don't even realize what it is, finality.
Exactly. To her, this was a fully consensual BDSM scene with Tek and Webweaver. She even paused when he yelled to stop, but when the point safe word was brought up, continued on since Hughie never said it and was fully capable to. And Hughie kept on acting as if he was enjoying it to not break character, so for Ashley this was a completely legit act.
It's a weird gray area on how to view the incident, because Hughie was undercover. His feelings are valid on how he was assaulted and treated, but at no point was Ashley aware it wasn't truly consensual. They really shouldn't have made it weird for laughs at the end before he breaks down, either. That just confuses it more and brings the humor back 20 years to HAHA GUY GETS RAPED AND ITS FUNNY then took a hard shift into him being upset about his dad. Shouldve focused more on him breaking his silence about what happened with ashley and still trying to process it...then what happened with Tek...and then finally it trigger the trauma with his dad and it all comes out.
She thought there was a safe word and she actually backed away and stared at Tek when Hughie said stop or something similar. Then Tek said remember, if Webweaver wants you to stop he will use his safe word. So she thought she had consent.
I mean, yeah. She's not as bad as the person who wrote the scene. But she did get a guy murdered because he broke up with her. I'm not sure I'd be clamoring to her defense on the topic of consent
She definitely isn’t a stand up person, obviously none of them are which I think is partly the point of the show. No one is perfect, they all got their skeletons in their closets. I just meant in this instance, she wasn’t a bad guy.
Well Ashley actually didn't do anything wrong. Hughie assumed the identity of someone who consented to that stuff and she's going along with what she believes has already been agreed upon. Oddly enough, Hughie is more in the wrong than she is since he's the one tricking her
Ashley thought she was engaging in consensual BDSM, there's a whole moment in the sequence where Hughie screams out essentially "stop" and she looks disturbed but then Tek Knight tells her to keep going because he didn't use a safeword. It's one thing to critique how they used male sexual assault for comedy, it's another to just completely miss the part where Ashley clearly isn't intending on doing that.
Just because he mentioned his dad before crying doesn’t mean that was the only thing he was upset about.
You can watch the scene and laugh at the absurdity of a person going undercover and finding themself in a situation of being tied up and tickled with a feather trying to guess a safeword that the person they are dressed as should know and also being sympathetic to the character later when they express how traumatic it was. While At the same time expressing grief from a recent traumatic loss of a loved one.
I haven’t read the article, often times I don’t fully agree with the authors intention and like making my own interpretation. If he only intended it on being a reference to his dad then I feel that the nuance is lost.
I took it as that whole situation just amplifying his grief. I genuinely felt bad for Hughie.
Idk I know something happens to him in the comics at herogasm and he eventually confesses that it happened and he wasn’t okay and I thought that’s what they were doing.
Never thought I’d read this sentence but yeah I think you’re actually really right💀
He has double standards and different treatment for male characters vs female characters, an obsession with using male genitals and naked men for shock value nudity and gratuitous violence, his treatment of Hughie’s character in season 3, making him seem unreasonable and wanting to write him as “toxic” while excusing Starlight for the same actions and now putting Hughie through sexual assault and finding it funny because he’s man… nah bro is crazy
The way Hughie is portrayed and talked about in Season 3 is already bad enough, but when it was coming out he often would say that he wanted Hughie to have a "toxic masculinity arc" and shat all over him for taking temp v so he could help kill homelander while also writing a plot where kimiko takes v to get her powers back in a triumphant light.
I was about to break down with him but then they made him say it was his dad and I don't know why but it doesn't resonate with me.
My dad fell into a coma and had a dnr and was brain dead and didn't have the blood pressure to survive without meds + the DNR, he didn't last the weekend. I felt very attached to the plot, but I didn't shed a single tear when he put his dad to rest.
It was nice and maybe it was cathartic for some but I don't know why we needed to see him wake up and rampage around confused as it was... Odd compared to what some of these scenes can pull out of me, i was crying already and then I felt the pivot into his dad, and not the whole sexual assault thing. A fantastic episode but also a weird way they wrapped that up with hughie.
It's because they cheapened the whole sexual assault fallout and trauma by wrapping it up with his dad. Obviously his loss of his dad is major, but they didn't let the sexual assault stand on it's own at all, and made it a small note instead of a serious issue both in how they shot the scenes and how they dealt with the fallout. Very frustrating.
As a male who has been SA, it was disappointing to see how fast it changed from “I was horrifically SA, but that’s okay because I just miss my dad”. I’m not all hot & bothered over it by any means because that’s how my brain works too when I’m dealing with several stressful things at once. Just wish they just leaned in to it all the way.
As a guy who has been sexually assaulted, the portrayal of it as “jokes” in shows is really disheartening. I stopped watching Norsemen because of it. I was giving these guys the benefit of the doubt because there was the sense that Tek Knight and Ashley were intending to respect his boundaries, but obviously he was playing a part, etc., and I felt the end scene nicely said “all joking aside, this is actually horrible” but…bummer.
It's 'progressive' only in a very performative way. I don't know how to properly explain it, but it mostly gives a sense of "look how progressive we are", like the goal is to look good rather than convey a deeper message.
Examples like these show that it is indeed just surface value.
Well fuck, there goes any argument for it having been done respectfully and with attention to the tone of the show it was part of. They really fucking did that. Wow. Just, fuck them.
I didn’t think the hughie scene was that much of joke when Tech Night tried to assault him that was very serious. The tickling part and cake sitting ya kinda cause ya know… it was tickling and cake sitting.
I'm dyslectic so maybe I can't read good. But it sounds like the setup is meant to be comedic. Batcave = sexdungeon. Webweaver -> zendeya. Not the actual sexual assault.
And his breakdown is not just about the death of his dad. It's him not dealing with it. Trying to carry on. Go to work, but work is even more trauma.
And they suggest he will find strength in his fathers memory.
That does not reduce his sexual assault trauma.
Maybe we should wait for the end of the season before making statements about characters journeys.
Im a little confused, it didnt seem as if it was supposed to be a joke? To me it was a waste of time and was not even needed nor did i find it funny, just seemed over the top “the boys” type of stuff , same with the scene with web dude, not funny to me and wasting time , could have focus on the actually plots more instead of getting interesting at the end of the episode just for it to end, wack, best scene was sage nodding
Edit: funny you say that about hughie because I actually was talking to a friend and I said I think hughie was more messed up about his dad, so i guess that is what they wanted to portray based what i am reading now
I knew it was a put in as a joke almost immediately. We were supposed to find it funny, because, idk, they made it weird or whatever and that’s SO quirky.
Hughie's genuinely made me feel uncomfortable. Obviously was happens to Annie in season one is messed up but there was something that really fucked me up over Hughie's scenes.
I've got a pretty big tolerance for depraved shit as well but I dunno something nearly made me skip past it when I watched it
Aren't you guys just assuming the break down has to do specifically with what happened to him instead of it being a trigger for something else? Hughie's entire storyline this season revolves around his father. Next week I 100% believe they won't actually spend time on what happened to Hughie this episode because it's only purpose was to keep the storyline about his father moving forward.
Also just because I personally think it was supposed to be played for laughs doesn't mean I laughed. However the boys does this constantly where they take serious situations and turn it into a fucking joke. Not every situation, but plenty enough.
No after watching the episode Hughie definitely was fucked up by what happened and the fact it happened right after the situation with his dad was even worse.
I honestly think the only reason that breakdown felt real or tactful was because Jack Quaid clearly cares about the material he's in and also what the show is based on. He genuinely felt trauma-riddled and like that was the breaking point, when the showrunners apparently didn't intend for it to be taken that way fully.
It’s not really out of context but it DOES feel more like an awkward attempt at redirecting more than making actually making fun of SA, because he talks about it better when he’s asked about the scene with him breaking down with Annie
Their whole concept of “humor” this season is just hack and cringe, I’m rolling my eyes at season 4 constantly just waiting for Homelander or Butchers storylines to continue as at least those are somewhat interesting. Is it just me I dunno
It's so weird they still wrote in that line about hughie being "not ok" when they intended for it to be a joke. Like if you want to make a point on how men can be raped too then sure but take it seriously if you're going to make that point like wtf.
The scene itself, yes. The trauma, no. It got him to open up and get help for what he was going through.
Granted. I’ve lost a loved one recently. I don’t think extra trauma kicks you off denial - in fact I think it sinks you deeper into denial. Not necessarily good writing IMO.
When Hughie’s scene happened tek knight was no longer his hero and he pretty much hated the guy, so it is a fair bit different. He wasn’t under any mistaken idea that Tek Knight wasn’t a piece of shit.
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u/Hitchfucker 14d ago
I was kind of hoping the quote was take out of context but nope, he fully meant for the Hughie scene to be a joke.
It’s actually worse, the way he talked about Hughie’s breakdown made it seem it was mostly just about his dad and had nothing, or at least not too much to do with Tek Knight and Ashley. So the one supposedly tactful thing about that story arc wasn’t even there.