Plot
A-Train arrives in La Havana, Cuba, where he is hiding Popclaw for telling Billy Butcher information about the source of the compound V. A-Train tells her that Stillwell has allowed their relationship to become public, but in exchange, he asks her to tell him who she told him about Compound V. Popclaw finally tells him about the men who blackmailed her, though she admits that she doesn't know their names. A-Train then proceeds to inject her with multiple syringes of heroin, which kills her from an overdose. When A-Train returns to the Seven Tower, he confirms Popclaw's death to Homelander, revealing that the latter ordered him to kill her. When Homelander suspects A-Train's addiction to Compound-V, A-Train assures him that he is not using it and promises to find the Female.
Butcher, Mother's Milk, and Hughie Campbell attend the Believe Expo to get more information about Compound-V, while Frenchie stays behind to watch over the Female whom the boys have recaptured. [lower-alpha 1] Billy tasks Hughie with asking Annie January, who is also at the event under Vought orders, to give him a VIP experience with Ezekiel. This way, Hughie can blackmail Ezekiel with a video of him kissing men in exchange for information about Compound V. Hughie and MM are uncomfortable with the idea, given the former's lack of experience in blackmailing someone. Due to Butcher's insistence, however, Hughie reluctantly agrees to proceed and asks Annie to give him access to meet Ezekiel to which she agrees.
Meanwhile, Homelander gives a speech during a memorial to the Flight 37 victims. Queen Maeve who is distraught and feels guilty for abandoning the passengers to die, [lower-alpha 1] leaves the memorial early out of anger at Homelander's lies. Though he tries to assure her that they did what they could do, Maeve refuses to believe this and is hesitant to agree. She later visits her ex-girlfriend Elena in a drunken state in the hopes of finding some consolation. Elena, though not happy to see her again, tries to listen when Maeve admits that she can no longer deal with the guilt. However, Maeve tries to kiss Elena but when she refuses, Maeve regrets having come and leaves before she can explain what happened.
Homelander arrives at the Expo and becomes annoyed by the script he was given and goes to see Madeline Stillwell, but instead finds Vought's publicist Ashley Barrett. Homelander then finds Stillwell taking her son to the pediatrician and complains about the speech. Stillwell tells Homelander that the speech is intended to convince the government to allow Supes to join the army, as his speech will be seen by millions across the country. Though Homelander reminds her of the flight incident, she dismisses it and tells Homelander to follow the speech much to his annoyance.
Butcher visits his wife's sister Rachel after learning that they purchased a headstone for Becca, even though they never found the body. Rachel says it's as because her mother is getting old and wants a place where she can talk with the deceased daughter. She reminds Butcher that it has been eight years since Becca went missing and was never found. Rachel tells Butcher to move on and accept that Becca is gone, though not before assuring that they miss her. Butcher arrives at the cemetery where the headstone is and proceeds to destroy it with a hammer.
During the Expo, Annie becomes uncomfortable with the festival after she is forced to lie about sex to some teenagers during a session. She expresses this to her mother, Donna, though she is not sure if it is because she has changed or the festival has changed. Donna dismisses it and reminds Annie that she is Starlight. During the meeting with Ezekiel, a baptism is held for all the guests, with Homelander being the one to baptize them. When it is Hughie's turn, Homelander holds Hughie underwater for a long period of time. While it seems that Homelander will drown Hughie, the baptism resumes normally, though Hughie's phone is damaged rendering him unable to use the video to blackmail Ezekiel. Despite this Hughie improvises, pretending to be a man who slept with Ezekiel, who initially denies it and attempts to choke him. However, Hughie reveals that there is a video of this that will be posted if he kills him. Hughie proceeds to blackmail Ezekiel into giving him information he knows about the Compound-V. He later calls MM to inform him of the information he obtained including the last shipment of the Compound-V and MM then gives this information to Butcher.
Homelander gives his speech to the audience but instead of following the one that was given to him, he strays from it by stating that he only follows a higher power and won't wait for the approval of Congress to protect America, much to Stilwell's dismay and anger. When it's Annie's turn to give a speech, she doesn't want to go to stage though her mother forces her as she has friends who are viewing the event. She initially follows her speech from the teleprompter, but then she becomes annoyed and also strays from the script, where she criticizes the extremist beliefs of Christianity and expresses her disillusionment over working for Vought and the reality of being a superhero, admitting she no longer knows what she does is right and wrong. She also admits to having been sexually assaulted [lower-alpha 2] much to Stillwell and the Deep's shock, though she doesn't reveal the identity of her assaulter. Hughie sympathizes with her, though Annie expresses some disgust toward him for using her to see Ezekiel. Hughie apologizes and finally confesses that his girlfriend died recently, leading Annie to also feel sympathy for him, and the two embrace.
Butcher and MM find the location of the last shipment of Compound-V at a hospital, where they see several newborns being injected. The duo realizes that the Supes are created and engineered with the Compound-V to give them powers and manufacture them for the years to come, meaning that the Supes are not born naturally much to their shock. Before Butcher can take a sample of it, several guards start shooting at them, leading Butcher to use a baby with heat vision to kill them all. Then Butcher and MM place the baby back into his place and leave with the sample.
Distraught at Popclaw's death, A-Train starts watching her movies and switches to their sex tape, which he finds overwritten by footage of her accidentally killing the landlord, much to his shock. He also finds out that Butcher and Frenchie blackmailed her to give them information about the Compound-V. [lower-alpha 3] He takes the evidence of Frenchie's face to be analyzed, though they are unable to identify him due to his multiple aliases and addresses, while Black Noir goes to find and take care of him. Frenchie's friend Cherie calls him to warn him that Black Noir is looking for him and likely has all the addresses. Frenchie calls Butcher to tell him he has been exposed and Butcher orders him to run and leave the Female behind. However, Frenchie sympathizes with her and decides to free her from the chains and the Female runs away. Frenchie attempts to escape but is found by Black Noir. Before Black Noir can attack him, the Female returns to save Frenchie and allow him to escape. The Female fights Black Noir but is overpowered and apparently killed. Frenchie returns to find her lying on the ground, but suddenly she starts to breathe as her wounds start to heal immediately much to Frenchie's shock and fascination who can only tell her: "You're a miracle."
Production
Development
An adaptation of the comic book series The Boys was initially developed as a feature-length film in 2008. However, after several failed attempts to produce the film causing it to be in development hell for several years, the plans for a film were scrapped in favor of a television series. [1] On 2016, it was announced that the show would be developed by Cinemax, with Erick Kripke being hired to serve as the series showrunner and head writer, alongside Evan Goldberg, and Seth Rogen who would direct the pilot episode. [2] In November 2017, Amazon acquired the rights to develop the show, announcing that they would be producing over eight episodes for the first season, [3] while confirming that the previously announced creative team would still be attached to the series. [4] [5] The episode which is titled "Good for the Soul" was written by Anne Cofell Saunders and directed by Stefan Schwartz. [6] The episode is titled with the name of the Vol. 3 of the comic book series of the same name that covers issues #15–22. [7]
Writing
The episode explores the issue of the Christian right, with Vought being in charge of planning the Believe Expo to promote many of the heroes and make the public believe that the reason they have powers is because they were chosen by God as part of a superhero miracle. [8] The episode also criticizes the way Christianity spreads its idea in excess and how Vought only uses as profitable propaganda and the influence that has been scattered across the pop culture through the years. The writers consider that the myth of the superheroes being chosen by God represents the imposition of an idea scattered through the nation so Vought can appease the audience from the Supes behavior that justifies not only being celebrities and movie stars, but also their positions in the police, the military, and government. The episode is proof of how several companies impose the idea of toxic ideas that the companies impose for their own benefit, which the writers considered to be adequate as Donald Trump was the president of the United States at the time. [9]
Similarly to the previous episodes of the series, a major change was made with one of its characters being adapted differently from the comic book series for the television adaptation. The episode introduces Ezekiel which serves as the leader of the Believe Expo is based from the character Oh Father, who share similarly characteristics as both there are the leaders of the Christian Supe organization Capes for Christ and their religious hypocresy, though the difference is that the latter sexually abuse teenagers, while the former was tonered down into only becoming an hypocrytal homophobic. [10] [11] The writers decided to make this change to make a critic towards the hypocrisy about the homosexuality and the how the homophobic ideas continue to affect the community in the current time. [12]
Casting
The episode main cast includes Karl Urban as Billy Butcher, Jack Quaid as Hughie Campbell, Antony Starr as Homelander, Erin Moriarty as Annie January, Dominique McElligott as Queen Maeve, Jessie T. Usher as A-Train, Laz Alonso as Mother's Milk, Chace Crawford as The Deep, Tomer Capone as Frenchie, Karen Fukuhara as the Female, Nathan Mitchell as Black Noir, and Elisabeth Shue as Madelyn Stillwell. [13] Also starring are Billy Zane as Himself, Ann Cusack as Donna January, Shaun Benson as Ezekiel, Brit Morgan as Rachel Saunders, Colby Minifie as Ashley Barret, Jess Salgueiro as Robin Ward, Jordana Lajoie as Cherie, Brittany Allen as Charlotte / Popclaw, and Nicola Correia-Damude as Elena. [14] : 58:38–59:05
Filming
The filming of the first season of the series took place in the city of Toronto, while using several locations across the city to seek to capture the New York City where the series took place. [15] The scene for the funeral service that Vought held for the victims that died in the hijacked flight of the previous episode that Homelander and Queen Maeve failed to save with the former having refused to save them, the crew decided that this scene would be filmed at the scene at the zinc-clad pavilion which is part of the Sherbourne Common waterfront park. [16] [17]
Visual effects
Visual effects for the episode were created by DNEG TV, Framestore, Folks VFX, Mavericks VFX, Method Studios, Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies VFX, Mr. X, Pixomondo, Rocket Science VFX, Rodeo FX, and Soho VFX. [18] [14] : 59:46–59:51 It was announced that visual effects supervisor Stephan Fleet would be in charge of overseeing the development for the visual effects. [19] The elastic powers of Ezekiel were created through CGI, though a double stunt's arm was used to make the scene where Ezekiel attempts to chicken Hughie. The arm was animated and edited to get Ezekiel's elasticed arm. [20]
Music
The episode features the following songs which are "A Lo Caliche" by Sr Ortegon featuring Pana Black, "Raise It Up" by Extreme Music, and "Ain't No Sunshine" by Bill Withers. [21]
Reception
"Good for the Soul" received positive reviews from critics. received positive reviews from critics. Brian Tallerico from Vulture gave the episode 3 stars out of 5. He deemed that the episode had weaker writing though he praised it for finally starting to finally start risking for the political and social commentary, and considered that Homelander represents a false hero that was being worshiped the same way they worship the modern politicians from today. [25] For his review for TheReview Geek, Greg Wheeler gave the episode 4 stars out of 5. While he considered that the episode wasn't on the dramatic level of the previous one found it to be enjoyable and praised the portrayal of the religion and the moral questions that it can bring, while also praising the character development of Starlight, to which he commented "While not quite as dramatic as the previous episode, The Boys delivers another enjoyable episode nonetheless. The religious aspect of this whole debacle brings up some very interesting moral questions and seeing this play into the main narrative is certainly a welcome inclusion here. It helps to add some depth to Starlight’s character too, especially seeing her religious upbringing and how difficult that must have been for her." [26] Randy Dankievitch from the Tilt Magazine, praised the episode for its character development and the complexity of its characters. However, it also criticized the episode for not giving anything new to the storyline, to which he replied "The Boys doesn’t really have anything to say about the events taking place on-screen. Instead, it offers placeholders for moral complexities, character motivations, and personality, even in its most carefully constructed characters, like Madelyn or Starlight." [27]
For a review from ScienceFiction.com, Darryl Jasper praised the episode for its storyline, character development, and for connecting multiple storylines to the main one that it's related to the investigation of the mysterious Compound-V. He also praised the episode for the portrayal of a guilty-ridden Queen Maeve and her development over the dark paths that she had taken and Starlight is about to pass in the future. [28] Martin Carr for the Flyckering Myth, stated that the episode to be important given its take on the social commentary and trying the audience to be more conscious and aware of the real-life issues that the series treats. He wrote in his review "Rarely has a series come crashing into the public consciousness with such confidence and no small amount of bravado. From Karl Urban down there is a sense of belief in the material which adds an authenticity to the end product. Kripke, Rogen, and Goldberg have given us a hard R-rated social conscience dramedy that refuses to scrimp on anything. Comic book tongue in cheek it may be but the character drives this hybrid and never employs a heavy hand to make the point. No wonder Amazon greenlit a second season before showing us a frame of footage." [29]
