well that was an ending,we got the homelander butcher fight from the comics. Marie however was basically "hey we did the cross over again" but I kind of get it,she wasn't ready for the fight they had in the oval office. Edgar still came out on top.
Survivors: Kimiko,Ryan,starlight,ashley,sage who finally got some peace,MM,hughie,
My thoughts:
In terms of an ending, pretty solid. We got resolution on the most important characters, and the two most important plot points:
1) The fate of Homelander
2) The fate of supes in general
I think the Butcher/Hughie fight was great to solidify the emotional weight of the ending. I like that Butcher actually decided not to do it at the end but told Hughie he would just to make him feel better. I appreciated that Ryan helped Butcher at the end but didn't follow his path. All and all the ending made sense and was pretty narratively satisfying. did it salvage this season?....no, it was still a pretty weak season overall but hey endings matter and in a world where shows keep missing the landing, I think the Boyz brought it home pretty well.
I do appreciate Butcher bringing the "Magneto was right" aspect to it at the end. Because ultimately...I do think Butcher maybe right. Yes they defeated Homelander but as long as people can have that amount of personal power it will be continue to be abused. Another Homelander will rise, and supes around the world will continue to abuse people. But the counterargument is always, how much evil can you do for good...before its just evil? There will always be new threats to the world, is the genocide of an entire class of people, of which there are innocents or ones that do good....right to stop that great threat from rising again? The debate is there and its real, and I appreciate that while Hughie "won" you can still argue if it was ultimately the right decision. Perhaps time will tell if they do another spinoff. Now of course the lingering question there is, who did Hughie get to clean out the virus from the sprinkler system. Was it the government, was it Vought? Because 100% gurrantee you they got a sample of that virus....JUUUUUUUST in case.
My nitpicks:
1) The Marie Monroe aspect was a bit forced. Again, no reason she could not have been a montrous help in that final fight even just to slow him down. But I get it, she's from the cancelled spinoff, a lot of people might not be invested in her to come in for the final hour might not sit well with those who haven't kept up with her story.
2) The entirety of White House security came down to a couple of steel plated doors and a couple of guys with machine guns....against bullet proof supes. Really......really?
3) Homelander's power scaling continues to be all over the place. We see him just a few minutes early go to Earth orbit and back in a fraction of a second, but he's not fast enough to escape from Butcher. But candidly that has always been the way with Speedsters in comics, if speedsteers operated at even a fraction of their realistic capabilities they would be 100% unstoppable, its just a completely over the top ability to have.
4) A very very minor nitpick. We have Starlight at the end talking about how she just puked twice and couldn't even make it to the bathroom to pee.....but now shoots off into the sky like its no big deal? I feel like they could have just left that part out, she's preganant but its not too bad, so she is able to storm off and kick ass. Nothing wrong with that, but again such a minor detail the story its not really a detraction.
