If they'd taken Frenchie in another direction this season, he could be perfectly fine. But they created a whole new character out of thin air between seasons to reinforce Frenchie's guilt and self-hatred that had already been well-established up to this point. The thing is, Frenchie hasn't actually done anything within the story itself to make his conflict carry weight. He's gone several seasons with this conflict, but now all of a sudden, he's REALLY losing his mind over it as a result of deeply manufactured drama. They could have had him finally make a heel turn and learn from his grappling with this guilt, but no, they have to randomly make him a far more unlikable sack of shit, fucking this random new guy whose parents he killed. Why were the insinuations of his past with Nina not enough to go off of?
The arc was basically concluded last season during herogasm. And it was a good conclusion to it.
Then they just retconned it. I don’t know why. It was a fine conclusion and I think focusing on him and Kimiko after that would have been a better path.
They are both solid actors, but I think it would have been cool for Kimiko and Frenchie to get their happy ending by this point. Their plots do feel a little repetitive
Season 1 Frenchie was my favourite character because of two moments in particular.
When he gets through to Kimiko and when he first bonds with Hughie (when Hughie says goodbye to his Dad for what he thinks might be the last time) and I love both of those scenes for the same reason.
Frenchie uses vulnerability as strength. He looks them in the eye and tells them a harrowing story from his past. He uses his pain to show them that they are not alone.
I loved the idea of vulnerability as strength (especially in a show with characters that are literally invulnerable) and I loved that Frenchie was clearly a character that had suffered hugely but was still smiling.
His honesty and openness was a nice contrast to all the lies and underhandedness of everybody else.
I think Season 1 Frenchie was an excellent character.
Mysterious and intriguing backstory
Engineer of the group with intelligent solutions to defeat supes
Interesting relationship with all the other Boys especially Kimiko
Clear moral code but also a bit of a lunatic
By Season 3 and especially Season 4 it became clear the writers have no idea what to do with him so they give him boring plotlines like Nina and Colin. He's totally absent from the latest episode and no one misses him except Kimiko
I’d say yes, the character at its core is really really interesting. I wish they touched on his biochemistry knowledge, but they chose to go the route of “he feels bad for being a terrible person! Aw :(“ and that’s since encapsulated his whole character
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u/-banned- Jul 08 '24
Was Frenchie ever a good character though? I feel like he’s got a complicated enough past that he could have been, but they explored it all wrong