Author Topic: Netflix Recommendations  (Read 22372 times)

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Offline kimmy

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Re: Netflix Recommendations
« Reply #135 on: September 20, 2019, 01:42:34 am »
We've finished watching the first two seasons of American Gods-- loved it-- and tonight started on another Amazon series we've been looking forward to: "The Boys".

This show centers around a world where superheroes exist, but it's a dark and cynical look at the premise, much closer to "The Watchmen" than the Marvel movies.

In this setting, superheroes are real and immensely popular. And they're managed by an incredibly lucrative and powerful "talent agency" called Vought International.   Vought has a roster of over 200 superheroes, and leases them to cities to battle crime-- at exorbitant rates.  Vought also makes money from movies, merchandising, and other activities that leverage the popularity of Vought's heroes.  People love the warm, safe feeling of knowing the "supes" are out there protecting them, one of the characters explains.  The biggest stars in Vought's stable are The Seven, a group of powerful and iconic heroes who we meet in the opening scene as they foil a robbery and save a couple of boys from a careening armored car.  Children saved, bad guys captured, robbery stopped. Everybody cheers.

But it turns out that once the cameras stop rolling, most of these heroes... aren't all that heroic.  Like star athletes or celebrities, they have an aura of entitlement, the knowledge they can do whatever they want, the sense that they're just better than everybody else.  Most of them are pretty awful, it turns out.  And that's where our story takes off.

The main character is Hughie, a regular shmoe whose girlfriend is-- rather horrifically-- killed right before his eyes, accidentally, by one of The Seven.  And he's crushed, not just that she's gone, but that nobody even seems to care about Robin's death. There's regrets and condolences offered, there's an inaccurate explanation of what happened on the news, and that's it. Vought's corporate handlers deal with the situation, smooth everything over... Hughie is offered some money if he'll just sign a non-disclosure agreement. No justice.

Hughie is contacted by a shady character-- Billy Butcher, played by Karl Urban.  Butcher explains that what happened to Robin happens to hundreds of people every year-- the superheroes actually cause a lot of collateral damage. And Vought International makes sure that none of it ever comes to light.   Butcher offers Hughie the chance to help him get justice for Robin, and for others like her.

Another storyline follows Annie, a young and idealistic heroine known as Starlight, as she is recruited to join The Seven, and discovers that her new coworkers are scum.  While Robin's death was probably the most startling moment of the first episode, Annie's private encounter with one of her new team-mates is incredibly difficult to watch, one of the most unsettling things I've seen on TV in quite a while. 

The first episode was brilliant and I can hardly wait to see what happens going forward.


 -k
Paris - London - New York - Kim City