"The Innocents"
The Boys episode
Episode no.Season 1
Episode 6
Directed byJennifer Phang
Written byRebecca Sonnenshine
Produced byHartley Gorenstein
Featured music
Cinematography byEvans Brown
Editing byDavid Kaldor
Original release dateJuly 26, 2019 (2019-07-26)
Running time60 minutes
Guest appearances

"The Innocents" is the sixth episode of the first season of the American superhero television series The Boys, based on the comic book series of the same name by Garth Ennis. It is set in a universe where most of the superpowered individuals are portrayed as corrupt individuals instead of being the heroes that the general public believe they are. The episode was written by Rebecca Sonnenshine and directed by Jennifer Phang.

The episode follows the Boys now aware of the truth about the Compound-V and how Supes are created, two of them Frenchie and Mother's Milk deciding to take the Female to a telepath and ruined Supe Mesmer in order to explore more about the Female's past where they learn that her name is Kimiko and find out that Vought might be distributing Compound-V to create superpowered terrorists. Meanwhile, Billy Butcher finally opens to Hughie Campbell about his past and the reason of why he despises superheroes, with the latter about to face consequences of dating Annie January, who has finally started to become more confident about herself after her speech at the Believe Expo in the previous episode.

"The Innocents" was released on the streaming service Amazon Prime Video on July 26, 2019. The episode received positive reviews from critics with praise for Karl Urban's performance and the exploration of his character, as well as the episode's themes and exploration about the post-traumatic stress disorder. The Female's tragic backstory and the revelation of her real name "Kimiko" was also singled out of praise.

Plot

The episode opens with a Vought employee named Courtney viewing a promotional video of the Seven titled "Super in America", deeming it to be too kind and insisting that they don't want to portray this given that they need to support their allegiance with the army. She soon asks for Starlight's whereabouts given that she had not filmed her part yet. Two weeks after her controversial speech at the Believe Expo,[lower-alpha 1] Annie January and Hughie Campbell are on a date in a pub, where an old friend of the latter named Anthony recognizes him. While discussing alone, Anthony admits that he has been worried about Hughie after the death of Robin, though the latter assures him being fine and that he wanted a fresh start.

Having recovered the enough information and evidence of the Compound-V, Mother's Milk tells the rest of the Boys about the Compound-V. It is revealed that a company named Samaritans Embrace led by Ezekiel but bankrolled by Vought, has been shipping the Compound-V to multiple hospitals since 1971 through charities under the disguise of polio vaccine, confirming that every Supe is actually not born with powers but dosed with the drug since they're infants. However, Frenchie suspects that Vought might be also involved in something else given that the Female was also subjected to Compound-V though as an adult and was not tested in a hospital, though the rest of the Boys dismisses it.

Due to the controversy surrounding Starlight's speech at the Believe Expo,[lower-alpha 1] Madeleine Stillwell fires her assistant Ashley Barrett but not before she confesses to Annie that it was her idea for the latter to allow her to assist to the festival. Annie meets Stillwell at the latter's office, with the latter visibly angered that the former is not following the rules and when the former demands to be allowed to save people and follow her own rules, Stillwell considers firing her. However, Annie warns her that firing her just after she confessed being sexually[lower-alpha 2] assaulted will damage Vought's image and threatens to reveal the truth. She also deduces that Stilwell already knows who is the responsible being aware that she's not the first victim of to be sexually assaulted by the Deep, due to Stilwell having covered his actions for a long time. With no other choice, Stillwell allows Annie to leave without taking action against her. Assuming that the Deep was indeed the responsible one, Stillwell decides to send him to Sandusky, Ohio for a "sabbatical" though not before being forced to film a video where he apologizes for his actions. Later that night while he is filling gas for his car, an angered fan of Starlight throws a rock to the Deep's car.

Meanwhile, Frenchie tells MM to take read the Female to Mesmer, a Supe with the ability of reading minds and former child star to get more information. MM initially refuses but later agrees. MM goes to a comic convention where he meets with Mesmer who is signing the autographs from fans of his show The Mesmerizer. MM takes him at the orphan so he can met his estranged daughter Cleo to which in exchange for having supervised meetings with her once a month, Mesmer will have to read the Female's mind. Mesmer agrees.

During the filming of a promotional video about revisiting his supposed farm home where he grew up, Homelander recognizes a towel from his real childhood, causing him to react in anger against the production team who are left confused for what happened. Stilwell later visits him at the farm, where Homelander expresses his disgust over having to promote his fake childhood and pretend that he has visiting the house he grew up. However, Stillwell seduces him and convinces him to finish the promotional video.

Suspecting that Hughie might be falling in love with Annie, Billy Butcher takes him to a superhuman survivors' support group where a meeting with people that experienced collateral-damage incidents with Supes reunites. During the session Butcher is angered that the victims justify the Supes and do nothing to get real justice and leaves. Later at a park, Butcher tells Hughie about his wife where he reveals that eight years ago Homelander raped his wife Becca and she hasn't been seen since then. Butcher theorizes that either Homelander killed her or she killed herself. Butcher then reminds Hughie of who are his friends and who are his enemies.

Mesmer takes the Boys to his house in order to try to read the Female's mind, however she soon starts a panic attack and accidentally brokes his hand. Mesmer angrily tries to tell the Boys to leave but MM forces him to continue, while Frenchie manages to calm the Female down. Butcher calls MM to ask about their whereabouts and realize that he is lying due to a tracker on his phone. Butcher arrives at Mesmer and is angered that they made a deal with a Supe and suggest to kill him, but MM refuses and Butcher reluctantly allows the Boys to continue the session. Mesmer soon continues the session and realizes that the female is a member of the terrorist group the Shining Light Liberation Army. The Boys deduces that Vought is giving the Compound-V to terrorists in order to allow Supes join the military, given that superheroes would be the only ones to manage to stop them. They also learn that the Female's real name is Kimiko and that she and her brother were kidnapped by the terrorist group and forced them to be soldiers after her parents were killed. He also reveals that she wants to go home to save her brother. After the session, Butcher warns Mesmer that if he betrays them or tell anyone about the session, he will kill him. Now aware of her story, Frenchie offers the Female to take her to the airport so she can return home if she wants to do it, however he also tells them that they could use their help in order to prevent from Vought experimenting with terrorists ever again. She only holds Frenchie hand, revealing that she indeed wants to stay.

Butcher takes the Compound-V to Raynor as evidence and makes a list of demands with some of them being that his team receive salary, an office, and the prosecution of Homelander. Raynor agrees to make the demands required with the exception of prosecuting Homelander. Even though she is aware of the things Homelander has done and sympathises with Butcher, she is terrified that Homelander will kill thousand if they push him to hard. Butcher leaves with the evidence calling off the deal. He returns with the Boys and lies to them about Raynor refusing to agree the deal and assures the rest of the team that they can bring Vought down by themselves.

Mesmer makes a deal with Homelander of giving him photos of the Boys in exchange for being allowed to return to Vought. Mesmer gives Homelander the evidence but the latter leaves without giving him a word of anything. That same night while in a bar, Hughie and Annie share their first kiss, only for Butcher to later arrive and introduce himself to Annie. When Annie leaves for a moment, Butcher angrily confronts Hughie for dating a Supe. Hughie attemos to convince him that Annie is not like the rest of the Seven and that they could use their help. However, Butcher warns him that Annie perception of him will change once she finds out that Hughie killed Translucent.[lower-alpha 3] Butcher leaves while Hughie is visibly left uncomfortable.

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 "The Innocents" was written by Rebecca Sonnenshine and directed by Jennifer Phang,[6] The episode is titled with the name of the Vol. 7 of the comic book series of the same name that covers the issues #39–47.[7]

Writing

Similarly to the previous episodes of the series, the episode brings a new Supe character by introducing the character of Mesmer, which is a parody of the Marvel character Professor X from the X-Men.[8] However the character is not based in any of the Supes from the comics and was created exclusively for the television series.[9] The writers wanted to portray in the series over how several child actors while initially have successful carreras soon they start to lose popularity and fail to capture the success they once had. The episode portrays this by making the character to serve as a metà parody of the actor who portrays the character Haley Joel Osment who was very popular as a child but has failed to repeat the success he had as an adult. The episode also parodies the television series Law and Order with a fictional show within the series where Mesmer interprets the main character.[10]

The series also makes a major change from the comics with the character of Female. While the character's powers, muteness, and her relationship with Frenchie remains untouched for the television adaptation, her backstory and origins are changed for the show. In the comics the character get her powers as a baby after accidentally consuming the Compound-V and become a killing machine who also works part-time as a mafia assassin. Sonnenshine considered that the character in the comics had no real motivation and development, to which they decided to change the character backstory intending to humanize and make her more sympathetic, while also giving her a motivation for her actions during the series. Another change is that while the character from the comics doesn't have a name and is only known as the "Female of the Species", her television adaptation counterpart was given one which is Kimiko.[11][9]

Casting

The episode main cast includes Karl Urban as Billy Butcher, Jack Quaid as Hughie Campell, Anthony Starr as Homelander, Erin Moriarty as Annie January, Dominique McElligott as Queen Maeve, Jessie T. Usher as A-Train, Laz Alonzo as Mother's Milk, Chance Crawford as The Deep, Tomer Capone as Frenchie, Karen Fukuhara as Kimiko, Nathan Mitchell as Black Noir, and Elisabeth Shue as Madelyn Stillwell.[12] Also starring are Haley Joel Osment as Mesmer, Jennifer Esposito as Susan Reynor, Billy Zane as Himself, Malcolm Barrett as Seth Reed, Jackie Tohn as Courtenay, Anna Khaja as Lydia Parker, Colby Minifie as Ashley Barret, Christian Keyes as Nathan Franklin, Nicola Correia-Damude as Elena, Da'Vinci as Anthony, Tara Reid as Herself, Jess Salgueiro as Robin, and John Doman as Jonah Vogelbaum.[13]: 58:37–59:09  Seth Rogen and Tara Reid made a cameo appearance as the alternate versions of themselves for the episode.[14]

Filming

The filming of the first season of the series took place at the city of Toronto, while using several locations across the city in order to seek to capture the New York City where the series took place.[15] For the scene where the Deep was refilling his Hummer and is attacked by a group of fans who support Starlight, took place at the Streetsville Gas Station whis is located at the north of the city of Mississauga. The group support scene takes place inside the St. Luke's United Church located at the city of Toronto, while the scene where Butcher talks about his late wife to Hughie while the two characters are seen sitting at a bench was filmed at the urban park Allan Gardens.[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][13]: 59:48–59:52  It was announced that visual effects supervisor Stephan Fleet would be in charge of overseeing the development for the visual effects.[19]

Music

The episode features the following songs which are "Big Shot" by Billy Joel, "Fame" by Irene Cara, "You've Got It All To Give" by Dan Gautreau and Wolfgang Black, "Ride of the Valkyries" by Richard Wagner, and "Roar" by Katy Perry.[20]

Release

"The Innocents" premiered on Amazon Prime Video in the United States on July 26, 2019.[21] It was released alongside all the episodes from the season which were released the same date the episode was released.[22] The episode, along with the rest of The Boys' first season, was released on Blu-ray on May 31, 2022.[23]

Reception

"The Innocents" received positive reviews from critics. Brian Tallerico from Vulture gave the episode 4 stars out of 5. He praised Urban's performance and his character backstory, which serves as the motivation of his actions. He also praised the episode's balance of plot and humor after what he deemed the previous episodes to be superficial and thin.[24] Martin Carr for the Flyckering Myth, praised the episode for its portrayal of the trauma and the meta commentary of the carter of Haley Joel Osment, as well as his portrayal in the episode. During a review, he commented "They perfectly counterpoint the #MeToo movement undertones of Starlight, awkward Homelander flashbacks and even soften Butcher’s harder edges. For any fan boy convention regulars the extended Mesmer cameo is not only a reminder of how good Haley Joel Osment can be, but also shows flashes of the vulnerability which caused Spielberg to cast him in AI."[25] Darryl Jasper from the ScienceFiction.com, praised the episode storyline, performances, and the revelation of Kimiko's past. He deemed that the episode manages to get the social commentary to the real world and that it serves that every group has their ideas and a reason of their behavior and that he deemed that the show can work for several if it does continue to replicate its formula.[26]

In his review for the Tilt Magazine, Randy Dankievitch praised the episode for finally revealing the backstories of some characters, to which he considers that the episode help it to make it important and develops the characters as it manages to understand the motive of their actions. He replied that the episode that "the more carries on, the more The Boys seems to wholeheartedly embrace the hollowness lying inside Butcher’s soul, applying the same characteristics to every character in its scope – and without those stories being grounded in some kind of philosophic exploration, or offering something to distinguish between this collection of violent misfits, anything not related to Starlight just feels, well, empty."[27] Greg Wheeler gave the episode 4 stars out of 5 for The Review Geek. Wheeler deemed that the episode successfully manages to develop its characters by showing their backstories and manages to successfully deliver a good mix of drama and some unexpected revelations to which he commented "Once again The Boys delivers another decent episode, one full of good drama and some pretty shocking revelations. Finding out what Homelander has done to Butcher’s wife adds an extra dimension to his character while Starlight and Hughie’s whirlwind romance is almost certain to end in doom."[28]

Notes

  1. 1 2 As depicted in the previous episode, "Good for the Soul".
  2. ↑ As depicted in "The Name of the Game".
  3. ↑ As depicted in "Cherry".

References

  1. ↑ Kit, Borys (February 10, 2012). "Columbia Pictures Drops Comic Book Adaptation 'The Boys' (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on February 15, 2012. Retrieved May 3, 2022.
  2. ↑ Andreeva, Nellie (2016-04-06). "'The Boys' Drama Based On Comic Book Set At Cinemax With Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Eric Kripke, Original Film & Sony". Deadline. Retrieved 2023-06-26.
  3. ↑ Andreeva, Nellie (2017-11-08). "Amazon Orders 'The Boys' Superhero Drama Series Based On Comic From Eric Kripke, Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen". Deadline. Retrieved 2023-06-26.
  4. ↑ Barsanti, Sam (2017-11-08). "Amazon picks up The Boys comic adaptation from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 2023-06-26.
  5. ↑ Turchiano, Danielle (2017-11-08). "Amazon Greenlights Eric Kripke's Superhero Drama 'The Boys'". Variety. Retrieved 2023-06-26.
  6. ↑ "The Boys (2019–2023)". Writers Guild of America West. Archived from the original on July 28, 2019. Retrieved June 28, 2023.
  7. ↑ "The Boys, Volume 7: The Innocents". Goodreads. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  8. ↑ Estrada, Elliott (2020-09-24). "The Boys: 10 Heroes From the Show & Their Marvel Equivalents". CBR. Retrieved 2023-12-07.
  9. 1 2 McCormick, Colin; Trinos, Angelo Delos (2019-07-30). "The Boys: 23 Differences Between The Comics & The Show". ScreenRant. Retrieved 2023-12-07.
  10. ↑ Sawyer, Sarah (2022-09-01). "The Boys: Every Pop Culture Reference The Series Has Parodied". ScreenRant. Retrieved 2023-12-07.
  11. ↑ Gilcrease, Grayson (2020-09-04). "Karen Fukuhara Really Brings Out the Heart and Humanity of The Female on The Boys". Popsugar. Retrieved 2023-12-07.
  12. ↑ Darwish, Meaghan (2019-07-25). "'The Boys' Cast and Showrunner Tease R-Rated Characters, Action & More (VIDEO)". TV Insider. Retrieved 2023-07-27.
  13. 1 2 Sonnenshine, Rebecca (July 26, 2019). "The Innocents". The Boys. Season 1. Episode 6. Amazon Prime Video. End credits begin at 58:14.
  14. ↑ Abdulbaki, Mae (2022-05-15). "The Boys: Seth Rogen's 2 Cameos Explained — Why They're Perfect". ScreenRant. Retrieved 2023-12-09.
  15. ↑ Watson, Fay (2019-07-26). "The Boys on Amazon location: Where is The Boys filmed?". Daily Express. Retrieved 2023-07-01.
  16. ↑ "Where was The Boys Filmed? Guide to ALL the Filming Locations". Atlas of Wonders. Retrieved 2023-07-01.
  17. ↑ "The Boys filming locations in Canada". Filipinosincanada.com. Archived from the original on October 28, 2020. Retrieved June 11, 2021.
  18. ↑ Frei, Vincent (July 24, 2019). "THE BOYS". Art of VFX. Retrieved April 25, 2022.
  19. ↑ Frei, Vincent (2019-08-27). "THE BOYS: Stephan Fleet - Overall VFX Supervisor". The Art of VFX. Retrieved 2023-07-02.
  20. ↑ Elvy, Craig (2019-07-26). "The Boys Season 1: Every Song On The Soundtrack". Screen Rant. Retrieved 2023-07-02.
  21. ↑ Gartenberg, Chaim (2019-04-17). "Amazon's The Boys gets a new, NSFW trailer and a July 26th release date". The Verge. Retrieved 2023-07-02.
  22. ↑ "'The Boys' Season 1 release date, trailer, cast, plot, renewal, and more". Inverse. 2021-05-09. Retrieved 2023-07-02.
  23. ↑ Zogbi, Emily (2022-04-05). "The Boys Seasons 1 and 2 Get Blu-ray Release With Deleted and Extended Scenes". Comic Book Resources. Retrieved 2023-12-31.
  24. ↑ Tallerico, Brian (2019-07-27). "The Boys Recap: Fallen Angels". Vulture. Retrieved 2023-12-08.
  25. ↑ Carr, Martin (2019-08-01). "The Boys Season 1 Episode 6 Review - 'The Innocents'". Flickering Myth. Retrieved 2023-12-08.
  26. ↑ Jasper, Darryl (2019-08-05). "'The Boys' Episode 6 Review : "The Innocents"". ScienceFiction.com. Retrieved 2023-12-08.
  27. ↑ Dankievitch, Randy (2019-07-30). "The Boys Season One Episode 6: "The Innocents" Is Cold and Empty". Tilt Magazine. Retrieved 2023-12-08.
  28. ↑ Wheeler, Greg (July 27, 2019). "The Boys – Season 1 Episode 6 "The Innocents" Recap & Review". The Review Geek. Retrieved December 8, 2023.
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