Good for the Soul (The Boys episode)

"Good for the Soul"
The Boys episode
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 5
Directed by	Stefan Schwartz
Written by	Anne Cofell Saunders
Featured music	"A Lo Caliche" by Sr Ortegon (feat. Pana Black) "Raise It Up" by Extreme Music "Ain't No Sunshine" by Bill Withers
Cinematography by	Jeremy Benning
Editing by	Nona Khodai
Original release date	July 26, 2019 (2019-07-26)
Running time	60 minutes
Guest appearances
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 Nicola Correia-Damude as Elena

"Good for the Soul" is the fifth 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 Anne Cofell Saunders and directed by Stefan Schwartz.

The episode follows the Boys as they attend the Believe Expo in order to get more information about the Compound-V and uncover it's remaining secrets by blackmailing the festival's host Ezekiel, while Frenchie stays behind in order to watch over "The Female", one of the test subjects of the drug who was held captive in the previous episode. Annie and Hughie get to know each other more during the festival, while the former still struggles to follow Vought's rules and her mother's expectations. Meanwhile, Billy Butcher and Mother's Milk find a lead about the Compound-V that Vought had been hiding for several years that could unravel the true behind the creation of the Supes.

"Good for the Soul" was released on the streaming service Amazon Prime Video on July 26, 2019. The episode received positive reviews from critics with praise to it's religious themes and performances. Starlight's speech and confession was also subjected to strong praise with many lauding the episode for giving more depth to the character.

Plot

A-Train arrives at 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 to make their relationship to become public but in exchange he asks her to tell him to who he told about the Compound-V. Popclaw finally tells him about the men who blackmailed her though she admits that she doesn't know the names. A-Train then proceeds to inject her of multiple of heroin which kills her from overdose. When A-Train returns to the Seven tower, he confirms Popclaw's death to Homelander, revealing that the latter ordered the former to kill her. When Homelander suspects of A-Train's addiction to the Compund-V, the latter assures that he is not using it and promised to find the Female.

Butcher, Mother's Milk, and Hughie Campbell attend the Believe Expo to get more information about the Compound-V, while Frenchie stays behind to watch over the Female whom the Boys have recaptured. Billy tasks Hughie with asking Annie January who is also at the event under Vought orders, into giving him a VIP experience with Ezekiel so he can blackmail the latter with a video of him kissing man in exchange of information about the Compound-V. Hughie and MM are discomforted with the idea given's the former's lack of experience in blackmailing someone. Due to Butcher's insistence however, Hughie reluctantly agrees to proceed and ask Annie for giving him access to met Ezekiel to which she agrees.

Meanwhile, Homelander gives a speech during a memorial to the Flight 37 victims. Queen Maeve whom is distraught and feels guilty for abandoning the passengers to die, leaves the memorial early out of anger of Homelander's lies. Though he tries to assure here 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 console. Elena though not happy of seeing her again, tries to listen to her when Maeve admits that she canot longer deal with the guilt. However due to her drunken state, Maeve tries to kiss Elena but when the latter refuses, Maeve regrets having come to Elena and leaves before she can explain what happened.

Homelander arrives at the Expo who becomes annoyed of the script he was given and goes to see her boss Madeline Stillwell, but insteads find her assistant Ashley Barrett. Homelander finds Stillwell taking her son to the pediatrician, to which the former complains about the speech. Stillwell tells Homelander that the speech is intended to convince the government into allowing 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 the latter's annoyance.

Butcher visits his wife sister's Rachel after learning that they purchased a headstone for Becca, even when they never found the body. Rachel admits it as her mother is becoming old and wants a place so she can talk with the deceased daughter. She reminds Butcher that it has been eight years since she went missing and was never found, to which she tells Butcher to move on and accept that she is gone, though not before assuring that they miss her. Butcher arrives at the cemetery where the headstone was placed and proceeds to destroy it with a hammer.

During the Expo, Annie becomes uncomfortable with the festival, which increases 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 dure because she has changed or the festival changed, though Donna dismisses it and reminds Annie that she is Starlight. During the meeting with Ezekiel, a baptizing is hold for all the guests with Homelander being the one to baptize them. When is Hughie's turn, Homelander holds Hughie under water for a longer period of time. While it is seemed that Homelander will drown Hughie, however the baptize resumes normally, though the latter's phone is damaged rendering him unable to use the video to blackmail Ezekiel. Despite this Hughie improvises, pretending to be a man to which he sleep with Ezekiel, though the latter initially denies it and attempts to chock him, however Hughie reveals that there is a video of this that will be posted if he kills him. Hughie proceds 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 the latter then gives this information to Butcher.

Homelander gives his speech to eh audience but instead of following the one that was given to him, he strays from it by stating the he only follows a higher power and won't wait for the approval of the congress to protect America, much to Stilwell dismay and anger. When it's the turn of Annie to give a speech, she doesn't want to go to stage though her mother forces him as the the friends of the latter are viewing the event. She initially follows her speech from the teleprompter, but the she becomes annoyed and strays from the script, where she criticizes the extremist beliefs of Christianity and express 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 having being sexually assaulted 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 to 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 found several newborns being injected with it with one of them having hest vision. The duo realize that the Supes are actually created and engineered with the Compound-V by Vought in order 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 the baby in order to get them all killed. Then Butcher and MM place the baby back into his place and leave with the sample.

Distraught at Popclaw's death, A-Train start 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 of the Compound-V. He takes the evidence of Frenchie 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 warm him that Black Noir is looking for him and likely have all the addresses. Frenchie calls Butcher to tell him he has been exposed and the latter orders him to run and left the Female behind. However, Frenchie sympathizing with her decides to free her from the chains and the Female runs away. Frenchie attempts to escape but is found by Black Noir but before the latter 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 by the latter. Frenchie returns to find her lying on the ground, but suddenly she starts to breath as her wounds start to heal immediately much to Frenchie 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. In 2016, it was announced that the show would be developed by Cinemax, with Erick Kripke being hired to serve as the series showrunner and writer, alongside Evan Goldberg, and Seth Rogen who would direct the pilot episode. In November 2017, Amazon acquired the rights to develop the show, announcing that they would be producing over eight episodes for the first season, while confirming that the previously announced creative team would still be attached to the series. The episode which is titled "Good for the Soul" was written by Anne Cofell Saunders and directed by Stefan Schwartz. The episode is titled with the name of the Vol. 3 of the comic book series of the same name that covers the issues #15–22.

Writing

The episode explores the issue of the Christian Right, with Vought being in charghe of planning the Believe Expo in order 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. The episode also criticizes the way christianity spreads it's idea in excess and how Vought only uses as a 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 a prove over how several companies impose the idea of toxic ideas that the companies impose for their own benefits, which the writers considered to be adequate as Donald Trump was the president of the United States at the time.

Similarly to the previous episodes of the series, a major change was done with one of it's characters being adapted from differently for 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 their 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. Saunders and the writers decided to make this change in order 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.

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 the Female, Nathan Mitchell as Black Noir, and Elisabeth Shue as Madelyn Stillwell. 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.

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. 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.

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. It was announced that visual effects supervisor Stephan Fleet would be in charge of overseeing the development for the visual effects.

Music

The episode features the following songs which are "A Lo Caliche" by Sr Ortegon feauring Pana Black, "Raise It Up" by Extreme Music, and "Ain't No Sunshine" by Bill Withers.

Release

"Good for the Soul" premiered on Amazon Prime Video in the United States on July 26, 2019. It was released alongside all the episodes from the season which were released the same date the episode was released.

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 a weaker writing though he praised it for finally starting to finally start risking for the political and social commentary, and considered that Homelander represents false hero that was being worshiped the same way they worship the modern politicians from today. For his review for the Review 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 onee found it o 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 religion 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." Randy Dankievitch from the Tilt Magazine, praised the episode for it's character development and the complexity of it's 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."

For a review from ScienceFiction.com, Darryl Jasper praised the episode for it's storyline, character development, and for connecting multiple storylines to the main one that it's related to the investigation of the mysterious Compund-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. Martin Carr for the Flyckering Myth, stated that the episode to be important given it's 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 which refuses to scrimp on anything. Comic book tongue in cheek it may be but 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."

External links

• "Good for the Soul" at IMDb