temp v

butcher's finger pulling away from the trigger just before he was shot was such a gut punching, beautiful, tragic, bittersweet end to his arc and it is exactly what I wanted.

these past two seasons have been mid, but underneath it all they maintained a lock on what butcher and hughie's story was, and how it was going to end, and most importantly what it all fucking means.

that glimmer of a chance to choose a different path, too late, when you're already destined to bleed out in your canary's arms, it hurts and it's terrible and it's 100% true to life

it's how so many people never break out of the generational trauma that leads them down the same path their fathers walked, until someone is killing them or arresting them or running from them because someone chose not to burn for them anymore

it had to be hughie, too.

some initial thoughts:

I didn't particularly like the direction with Cipher/Godolkin in the final episode. I think Hamish gave us a certain perception of the character as genre savvy, and they stepped slightly out of the established characterization in order to push him into making poor choices.

I still think you can square the circle of his fall from grace without forcing him to be stupid. But rather than spend the time to establish the ways his thinking would have led him to his downfall, they instead had him completely write off everything Sage was trying to say.

The direction with Sage still interests me. As a trans man who's suffered a lot of stupidity at the hands of obliviously confident cis men, I deeply understand how she got to this point.

There's a bone deep desperation for human connection that you feel when you struggle to connect with people on an intellectual level. For all his flaws, Godolkin was close to matching her—or at least, close enough for her to connect with him.

The writing has taken a downturn. On both shows. I don't know if it's permanent, but I do think the impending finale of The Boys and deeper interest in expanding the IP of the series has led to an unfortunate shift. I'm curious to see if any of the writers or executive story editors changed after season 3.

I guess we'll see how it goes.

Godolkin is blonde, but he's a beanpole, and we know he's hated himself for being useless before.

That's what Hamish Linklater brings to the screen. Doug was weeping that he didn't want to die when Cipher was finally out of his head, and I immediately wanted to see what 15 plus years of that kind of control does to a person.

I don't want to assume that Ethan is going to be completely outclassed by Hamish, but just from the initial few minutes at the end of the last episode, I have some doubts.

It would also be good to see some human involvement in gen v beyond their complete oppression at the hands of supes. Doug knew that there was no Cipher. He could know more; he could even know Sage's plans altogether.