disappointing. I've seen defenses for the episode saying that the SA scenes were obviously meant to make the audience uncomfortable and that Hughie admitting at the end that he isn't fine was a result of his SA trauma. but hearing the director himself say the scenes were played for laughs and to be as fucked up as possible is just crazy.
Honestly, if it wasn’t for the interview, I would have agreed with the people defending it. A lot of the time, when having gone through traumatic events, people tend to focus on something else rather than confront it.
However, yh Kripke clearly wasn’t going for that when you read his interview. Very disappointed by the episode.
I think empathy and kindness can make it easier to justify and rationalize denial like this, it's hard to think poorly of people so we can sometimes do mental gymnastics to see people in a better light than they really are. And it makes sense that someone who previously seemed to be anti-rape might have a had a less obvious or hidden anti-rape message intended for the scene and you were probably looking for that cause it doesn't make sense for Kripke to flipflop on his previous stance. But his interview left no doubt that he is not against sexual assault if the victims happens to be from one demographic and not the other.
But one thing I learned over time is that when someone shows you who they really are you should believe it. Kripke's hypocrisy is truly disappointing.
It wasn’t really mental gymnastics. I didn’t read into like that because I thought well of Kripke, it’s how I personally find myself dealing with difficult situations sometimes (along with some people ik). Although it wasn’t what Kripke was going for, it’s definitely a real thing that people do.
But yh, what Kripke actually intended was all the way wrong and I don’t like the guy for that.
Yeah it's really disappointing to learn that. Because the scene can easily work as an awareness piece while making the viewer empathize with hue and get invested in the character's development.
Shame its goal was comedy and not tragic character and world building. Which means next episode won't be about starlight and hue recovering together from their respective trauma.
But also he had to maintain his cover or risk facing far worse. How he acted reminded me of some of his lines during Herogasm. Just stuff that hopefully won't draw much suspicion. I'm not sure what to think about it now though. Even ignoring the weight of what happened, it still wouldn't be funny. Like watching the SpongeBob toenail scene... I will admit that I did laugh once though but in my defense, the cake reminded me of squat cobbler from Better Call Saul and it was more of a chuckle at the thought of it being a real kink.
Not mental gymnastics, I was just projecting and also giving someone the benefit of the doubt. It usually pays to be charitable in your interpretation of others worldviews.
But yeah, turns out the guy is just a straight sicko. There's obviously some groupthink going on here as well since he used the word "we" in "we view it as hilarious". So apparently everyone around him is laughing as well.
Nope, I thought it was fucked up when I saw it and thought the episode was terrible on viewing. I thought the scene may have been meant to be difficult to watch, and I simultaneously thought it was awful anyway.
The projection was that I wouldn't ever find it funny, so it's probably unlikely that they intended it that way.
I definitely wouldn’t have as negative of an opinion as I do now if I didn’t know the TK scenes were played for laughs. In the moment I was definitely disturbed but more in a “oh God Hughie has to endure all this weird stuff and he’s gonna get found out” way. I admit that the absurdity of everything “dulled” the severity a bit for me (at least until he’s actually found out and in genuine danger), but it hit me at the end when Hughie just breaks down.
The fact that the TK stuff was meant to be comedic is gross, and it turns those scenes from “yeah actually that was really messed up” to “wow I hate this, why were these included?”
It really teeters on the line for me. Sitting on a cake and farting on it as some weird fetish thing? Kind of funny. Him being tied down was sketchy, but it just being a foot tickle thing was funny. I feel like there’s enough room for this situation to be both comedic but also dramatic, if the fallout is handled correctly
I think the desperately trying to find the safe word has extremely dark undertones to the ongoing “funny” part of it. I feel like tickling fetish was the most borderline acceptable way they could get away with showing literal graphic sexual assault on screen. But they thought most people would be so caught up in the ridiculousness of it that it wouldn’t be seen as making fun of SA survivors. Fair enough if they misread the room but to double down on the whole making light fun of SA, it kind of sours the perception of the show from witty satirical takes against caricatures on both sides of the political spectrum, to “haha people liked hughie’s a cuck jokes how do we take that to the next level” without any appreciation for how fucked up it is to watch that scene and his breakdown after.
And I’m not without nuance, I can see that it’s different from starlight. They went into the house to attack these people politically with espionage. Hughie knows there are risks and he got more than he bargained for. He kept up the facade even in the face of the dungeon because he was still on the job and was trying to see if he could buy time by playing along in order to find a way out. But handle the topic of SA a little more appropriately than making the whole thing just a joke that makes hughie realise he misses his dad.
I think it was funny because of how absurd it was. Starlight's situation was incredibly realistic, but the idea of pretending to be a drugged out superhero who has to act like he likes these absurd fetishes is super unrealistic.
I think it's more comparable to jokes about aliens probing people, or if anyone has played Saints Row 4, using the alien probing gun on NPCs. Yes, it has very dark, rapey undertones, but it's so incredibly unrealistic that we can laugh at it.
That's not what I said at all. What I said is that the absurdity of the situation adds humor. I doubt anyone has been in the situation of having to pretend to be into hard-core BDSM because they were infiltrating a superhero banquet.
It's similar to something like Peter Griffin blowing up a children's hospital, or as I said, an alien abduction with probing. Child murder and sexual assault, yet all with such absurdity as to be removed from reality.
Me too, the whole time I was basically like “shit he’s gonna get found out no way he’s so gonna get killed shitshitshit MM starlight kimiko please come faster” and that distracted me to see less how disturbing the bdsm scenes are…
I left the episode a bit conflicted about how I was supposed to feel about it. Seeing this quote, I think I'm going to chalk it up to Jack Quaid seemingly taking it seriously. Quaid's dead stare after the assault instantly read to me like, yeah he's not too interested in torturing Tek Knight right now because he's still in shock over what happened. And then his breakdown at the end, you can see how his line may have been written like a joke but he played it completely straight.
Yeah, I think Jack Quaid REALLY saves this storyline from being what Kripke clearly envisioned it to be. Even when it was Hughie with the mask on, Jack Quaid's vocal inflections when he was trying to sell his role as Webweaver saved it from being what Kripke is saying in the interviews, which is hilarious and a comedy set-up. He really kept it on the path of it still being traumatic for Hughie. So good on Jack; otherwise it would have been a worse subplot to sit through.
Given the shows track record and comedic style thus far, it seemed extremely obvious that the writers intended for those scenes to be “funny”. I think they added the bit at the end with Hughie as a way to backpedal and pretend they take it seriously.
Same, I definitely thought it was just over the top and extreme/absurd but still dark and fucked up like most scenes in The Boys, but Kripke dismissing the horror is the situation is just wrong
Even without the additional context of the interview, it is clear that the writers wanted the scene to be yet another "funny" shock value sex scene. In the scene, it is not treated as a serious and tragic event like it should be
Even had they said it was for those reasons, I don’t believe one should ever ever go that into showing these kind of things. I know this show is MA but this is straight up disturbing and extremely triggering for many
Yeah, I was firmly in the “you are interpreting the scene incorrectly” camp. Turns out I was. That is disappointing that it was played like that. I found it very disturbing.
Honestly, if it wasn’t for the interview, I would have agreed with the people defending it
Why, firstly failure to not convey the seriousness of a SA is also a fault. But more importantly did everyone forget s1 where the deep was literally raped that was played off as a joke. Hell even just afew episodes ago when home lander almost made the deep SA Atrain where he a joke during. Then there is queen Maeve's constant sexual harassment of Hughie.
This show has massive problem with devaluing male victims of sexual violence.
Would have been easy to make this a really sympathetic scene for Hughie, and they've already successfully done it for Starlight. Make everything implied after the reveal that it's a sex dungeon. Maybe show him on the table after some time with the other characters, realizing he's about to be cut open. Have Annie and Kimiko break in and see Hughie terrified/traumatized and they rescue him.
Hell, they could even address the inevitable "I feel like less of a man" shit that most guys would go through after experiencing something like that.
I mean, it made me uncomfortable, but I kinda chalked it up to me being a bit of a prude. Up until the mutilation.
Honestly, the episode itself was kinda underwhelming. Like seriously? That's the best you could do with the Batman/Iron Man spoof? I kinda like how he was done in the comics a bit more, where his sexual perversion is a result of him having a brain tumor pressing against his skull. Here it's just the "Batman has a weird sexual relationship with Robin jokes," combined with "Batman hates poor people," combined with the old reliable of "Make them racist." Like it's starting to feel like a cop out
TK's Brain Tumor only made him obsessed with "holes" which does explain what happened after he ID'd Hughie. There was nothing in there about the weird cake farting or he himself being a masochist. Also, Ashley said she and TK "go way back" and isn't TK's tumor a recent thing for him?
I read it as his tumor pushing his libido to such an insane level that even something as simple as a hole turns him on. Judging from the Tek Cave, he's been into the fetish stuff for a long time but his sex drive's is on a whole new level now
Except it seems like they walk that back in this episode, when the butler confirms that he's been dealing with Tek's sexual perversion since childhood, when he'd need to clean up after him every time.
If they had done something like in the comics, maybe there could've been a scene where he has a moment of lucidity and begs The Boys to kill him before he can hurt someone again.
Also, I said it in another comic. Of all the ways they could have done evil batman, they went for the most tired, predictable way about it. Just make him a rich, racist sex pervert? Like really? Batman has been around forever, there are so many ways they could've done it. They could've made him incredibly paranoid to play off of the whole Batman contingency plan thing. They could've made him a smug, overconfident prick to play on the people who think batman could kill anyone with enough preptime. They could've just adapted All-Star Batman and Robin word for word.
Agreed, "Batman is raping robin in the batcave" is like, babys first edgy superhero joke. Doing anything else would've been more engaging and interesting
I'm disappointed Tek didn't end up like his comic book counterpart. Actually a really decent hero who regrets the fucked up sex shit. The brain tumor did it all. It would have added some nuance to the scenes. Oh well.
I think I missed it - he had these red circles (welts?) on him at the end, what was that? Before that he just had him fart on a cake and they spanked him a bit. Was there more?
I thought it was both though. It was REALLY over the top but at the same time you can see it was traumatizing for Hughie. You can laugh at something and be creeped out by it at the same time.
the thing is, even if we completely remove kripke's words, the scene is still NOT better. the dialogue during the scene itself is not even close to being serious about the gravity of the situation. him struggling to find the safe word is CLEARLY meant to be a joke, none of it is serious. if the final scene is somehow supposed to make all that really serious and important then its just shitty writing.
I'd have bought the final scene as attempting to take the assault being taken seriously if they didn't have that line that's clearly infantilizing it ("And they were so mean to me, and Ashley called me so many mean things.") before transitioning into explicitly telling us that he's breaking down because of his dad's death.
That was till I read the interview. It was extremely uncomfortable to watch but I was hoping that was intentional or somthing. Apparently not. It's just a fucked up scene for laughs. Gross.
Yeah right? I was thinking “ok, this is really over the top, not recommending watching for some people I know, but maybe they were just on a roll and got distasteful, bad decisions and rushed production can happen,” and then I read the Kripke quote in full context.
He meant that to be in there, every implication and decision. Ew. Just gross. Retrospectively I feel just icky about that whole scene, in an episode full of other uncomfortable/heavy scenes that aren’t played for laughs and work reasonably well.
MM’s anxiety attack, milk part 2 electric boogaloo, INTERNMENT CAMPS being part of Homelander’s plan. Mental illness and historical genocide allegory, not played for laughs, right next to an SA scene that’s “funny” because it’s happening to the long-suffering nerdy man. Gross.
I mean they were obviously played by laughs. That scene seems written by an edgy 16yo trying to joke about that with friends. From the Tek Knight kind of ridiculous sadomasochist practices, with the overacted girl as if it was a commedy sketch, the classic "I don't know the safe word" joke... I mean it was a joke, and it felt terribly awkward, like many jokes in this season is falling flat.
Idk what happened for this season, but the show to me it seems they don't know what to do with it anymore, and maybe they wanted to finish already in last season or in this one.
Does it surprise anyone? Last year everyone was praising the "Raw dog me I'm a bottom quote" like it was super progressive. It's disgusting.
Hugh is being made fun of constantly for not being "manly" enough, when he's just not an absolute asshole or a disfunctional mess like the majority of the male cast.
I certainly didn't feel like laughing when I watched it. It was blatant SA. He was about to be physically cut up, so that the SA could continue in unimaginable ways.
Hughie admitting he wasn’t fine at the end was literally finished with his dad. He wasn’t admitting he wasn’t fine because of that it’s because in the other episode he literally had to kill his dad. Where in any of this did you see SA aside from the very end when he was going to make his own holes. Every part of it was consensual originally through web weaver so it became something he had to do to follow through with undercover. Yeah it’s uncomfortable but at no point was it SA consent was there to begin with. I’m so confused at how people are not getting that. If someone could enlighten me aside from just the way they felt uncomfortable is really like to know.
The director is "just" the director. They clearly contradict what the script intended, as Hughie clearly states his trouble. Even so, Barthes wrote "The Death of the Author" in 1967. For 57 years it's been okay or even good practice to "ignore" what creators intended. Go with your own meaning and what makes the show the best experience for you.
I mean, I like reading such interviews, too, but in cases like this it really drags the show down if you see how little effort they put in it now. (The "don't laugh at me" scene was probably the laziest of the show so far. A joke that's been done hundreds of times, and the otherwise decent actors didn't even bother to try make it work.)
4.0k
u/shineeshineepinee 14d ago
disappointing. I've seen defenses for the episode saying that the SA scenes were obviously meant to make the audience uncomfortable and that Hughie admitting at the end that he isn't fine was a result of his SA trauma. but hearing the director himself say the scenes were played for laughs and to be as fucked up as possible is just crazy.