The Bloody Doors Off (The Boys episode)

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"The Bloody Doors Off"
The Boys episode
Episode no.Season 2
Episode 6
Directed bySarah Boyd
Written byAnslem Richardson
Produced by
  • Hartley Gorenstein
  • Gabriel Garcia
Featured music
Cinematography byDylan Macleod
Editing byCedric Nairn-Smith
Original release dateSeptember 25, 2020 (2020-09-25)
Running time65 minutes
Guest appearances
Episode chronology
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"We Gotta Go Now" 		Next →
"Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker"
The Boys season 2
List of episodes

"The Bloody Doors Off" is the sixth episode of the second season and fourtenth episode overall 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 "Supes" (superpowered individuals) are portrayed as corrupt individuals instead of the heroes the general public believes they are. The episode was written by Anslem Richardson and directed by Sarah Boyd.

The episode follows the Boys infiltrating the Sage Grove Center after Annie January discovers the lead from Stormfront, while also joining them to avoid repercussions as the latter has started to suspect about her actions. During the mission, Frenchie meets Lamplighter once again after five years with the two of them being forced to relieve their past when the latter murdered Mallory's grandchildren. Meanwhile, Homelander and Stormfront get in a relationship with the latter opening about her secret past and her true motives behind her actions.

"The Bloody Doors Off" was released on the streaming service Amazon Prime Video on September 25, 2020. The episode received critical acclaim from critics with praise for the storyline, sense of tension, character development, Shawn Ashmore's perfomance, the revelation of Stormfront as a Nazi, and the exploration of Frenchie's and Lamplighter's past.

Plot

In flashbacks, starting eight years ago, Frenchie is seen with his friends Cherie and Jay preparing to rob a bank. After some time, Frenchie was arrested for multiple robbery charges and approached by Grace Mallory, who offered to drop all his charges if he started to work for her. While Frenchie initially refuses, he ultimately agrees after Mallory threatens to have Cherie and Jay imprisoned. After three years of working with the Boys, Lamplighter meets with them where he is blackmailed by Mallory into working as a spy for them. Suspicious of him, Mallory orders Frenchie to follow Lamplighter. Arriving at a party, Frenchie is forced to abandon his position after Cherie called him to warn him that Jay was suffering an overdose. Frenchie saves Jay's life but when he returns to the party, Lamplighter is already gone.[a] In the present, Annie January has her tracking chip removed by Frenchie, fearing repercussions of Stormfront who is now convinced that she exposed Compound-V. Annie approaches the Boys to help them infiltrate the Sage Grove Center, having saw dozens of e-mailed between Stormfront and Stan Edgar about a series of experiments happening there.[b]

Meanwhile, Homelander and Stormfront are now in a relationship and while working together to catch a thief, the former kills him by crushing his head before the two had sex in the alley. The Deep delivers to Queen Maeve a camera that includes footage of Homelander and the latter abandoning the passengers of the flight Transoceanic Flight 37 to death.[c] The Deep crosses path with A-Train, whom he offers to help him rejoin the Seven via persuading him to join the Church of the Collective.

Frenchie, Mother's Milk, and Kimiko infiltrate the Sage Grove Center with the help of Annie, while she stays behind with Billy Butcher and Hughie Campbell. Butcher initially aims at Annie with his riffle intending to shoot her but decides not to. Still enraged for having shot her,[d] Annie condemns Butcher for his hate against Supes and states that he is no different to Homelander. However, before Butcher can respond, Stormfront arrives at the mental hospital to order a nurse to have an inmate killed. MM, Frenchie, and Kimiko watch this from the surveillance room, recognizing the nurse as Lamplighter. After Stormfront leaves, Hughie orders the trio to leave, but they cross path with Lamplighter who makes eye contact with Frenchie. Lamplighter attempts to burn them but Frenchie pushes him, causing to accidentally release an inmate named Cindy. Despite the Boys and Lamplighter's attempts to reason with her, they are forced to run and hide in the control room when Cindy she proceeds to release every inmate whom start to kill the doctors and guards leading to a massacre, forcing the building to go into lockdown.

One of the inmates escape and confronts Butcher, with the latter assuring him that they won't hurt him. Despite this, the inmate unleashes a powerful EMP wave and is ultimately killed by Butcher. While Butcher and Annie are unharmed, Hughie is badly injured with a shrapnel as he was inside the van they used to came. Being unable to use her powers to cauterize the wound due to the EMP wave destroying every electricity sources nearby, Annie alongside Butcher are forced to leave the others on their own to get Hughie to a hospital. Annie hails down a car and asks the driver for help. The driver threatens the duo with a gun, but Annie uses her powers to push him accidentally killing him, but manage to take the car to rush Hughie to a hospital. At the hospital Butcher and Annie start to show respect at each other and agree that none of them is good enough for Hughie.

Now on their own, Frenchie, MM, Kimiko are forced to work together to find a way to escape. Lamplighter reveals that they can escape by overriding the lockdown and while he initially refuses to help the Boys, he later agrees after Kimiko saves him from an Acid Vomit Patient. While Frenchie develops a gas to knock out Cyndi, he realizes that Lamplighter never told the Seven about the Boys. When he confronts him over killing Mallory's grandchildren, Lamplighter reveals that he didn't know that Mallory's grandchildren were there as he intended to kill Grace Mallory but not her grandchildren, expressing remorse and guilt for what he did. When he questions over why Frenchie didn't stop him, Frenchie finally reveals to the Boys and Lamplighter that he used to have a friend's named Jay and was forced to leave that night to save his life from drug overdose, but after that never saw him again as he died months after from another overdose.

Enraged by that Stormfront suddenly left and hasn't returned, Homelander burns his trailer which destroys most of the set. When Stormfront returns, Homelander accuses her of lying as he found out that she never went with her social team as she told him. Homelander attempts to chock her but ultimately decides not to. Elena find the camera where she sees the video of Homelander and Maeve abandoning the passengers of the Transoceanic Flight 37, disturbing her.[c] Maeve reveals her intentions of using the video to blackmail Homelander to leave them alone or otherwise she will make public the video.

Lamplighter reveals that the reason of Vought experimenting there, is to perfect the Compound-V so the adults can receive any powers without suffering any side effects. Soon MM is attacked by Love Sausage before being overpowered by Kimiko, though it catches the attention of Cindy. Frenchie attempts to throw her a gas to knock her out but is unsuccessful, until Stormfront arrives and overpowers Cindy. Lamplighter lies to her by stating that a doctor gave her a wrong dose that make her lose control, to which Stormfront believes and leaves. The Boys and Lamplighter escape from the hospital and while they wait for Mallory, Frenchie apologizes to Kimiko, admitting that he though that by trying to saver her he would redeem himself from all the things he had done in the past. Mallory arrives intending to kill Lamplighter to avenge her grandchildren, but Frenchie convinces her to spare him as he could serve as a witness against Vought.

Returning with Homelander, Stormfront decided to open herself about her past. She reveals that she actually was born in 1919 in Berlin and had a daughter who died of old age. She also reveals that she married Nazi scientist and Vought's founder Frederick Vought, while also revealing that he is did her first successful injection with Compound-V making her the first Supe in history. She also reveals to Homelander her intentions of having the Supes to dominate the world, proclaiming themselves as the superior race and offering Homelander to lead them. While Homelander is initially shocked by the revelation, he passes it off and kiss passionately Stormfront after she proclaims her love to him. The episode ends with Cindy having survived Stormfront's blast, being picked up by a car in the highway before finally driving away.

Production

Development

In July 2019, it was announced that the second season of The Boys was already in development during the San Diego Comic-Con a week before the series premiered.[1][2] The series showrunner and head writer Eric Kripke was already writing on the scripts for the season, having started to work on them during the 2018 United States elections in order to capture the topics and themes that it would be explored for the season accurately, which would be the white nationalism, white supremacy, systemic racism, and xenophobia.[3] On June 2020, it was announced that the episodes for the second season would be released in a weekly basis instead of dropping all of them in one day in order to make people discuss about the topics for a longer time.[4][5] The episode titled "The Bloody Doors Off" was written by Anslem Richardson and directed by Sarah Boyd.[6] The episode is titled with the name of the issues #66–71 of the comic book series of the same name as well as the Vol. 12 of the comic book series of the same name.[7][8]

Writing

While the arc where Lamplighter killing Mallory's grandchildren remained intact, there were several changes done surrounding the storyline for the television adaptation. While in the original comics Lamplighter murdered Mallory's grandchildren on purpose with the intention of intimidating the Boys to keep them quiet about the 9/11 incident, his television counterpart did this accidentally confusing them with Mallory while also doing this under the orders of presumably Homelander, after the former blackmailed him into becoming a mole.[9] Lamplighter's characterization changed into a more sympathetic character in contrast to his comic book counterpart, as Kripke wanted to give the character more depth in order to make it more relatable to the audience by giving him more complexity, as he considered that the character from the comics to be a typical stereotyped villain from the superhero genre.[10] Another major change is that in the television series Mallory decides to spare Lamplighter despite initially intending to kill him to avenge her grandchildren, while his comic counterpart actually succeeds in killing him for the same reasons as her television counterpart.[11]

The episode also unveils another twist involving the character of Stormfront, with this one finally revealing the origins of her character. It is revealed that the character is actually a German woman with born in 1919 who was indoctrinated with the nazism ideologies, who married the scientist responsible for her powers while also being part of the Third Reich.[12] Kripke deliberately uses this twist as a way to show people with hateful ideas still exist as by today with many pretending to be sympathetic and likable people, allowing them to manipulate others through social media in order to further spread their ideologies and attract new followers.[13]

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, Colby Minifie as Ashley Barrett, and Aya Cash as Stormfront.[14] Also starring are Shawn Ashmore as Lamplighter, Andrew Jackson as Love Sausage, Jason Gray-Stanford as Dennis, Jordana Lajoie as Cherie, Nicola Correia-Damude as Elena, Laila Robins as Grace Mallory, and Goran Visnjic as Alastair Adana. Also starting are John Noble as Sam Butcher, Lesley Nicol as Connie Butcher, Shantel VanSanten as Becca Butcher, Shawn Ashmore as Lamplighter, Ann Cusack as Donna January, Claudia Doumit as Victoria Neuman, Langston Kerman as Eagle the Archer, Jessica Hecht as Carol Mannheim, Katy Breier as Cassandra Schwartz, Cameron Crovetti as Ryan Butcher, Nicola Correia-Damude as Elena, Charley Koontz as Tommy Peterson, Laila Robins as Grace Mallory, John Doman as Jonah Vogelbaum, and Goran Visnjic as Alastair Adana. [15]: 1:03:36–1:04:04 

Filming

The filming for the second season 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.[16] For the scenes that took place at the Sage Grove psychiatric hospital, filming took place at a building of Southwest Centre for Forensic Mental Health Care located at the city of St. Thomas, Ontario. The crew filmed at the Scottish Rite Club for the scenes that take place at the confines of Church of the Collective. The exterior of the TIFF Bell Lightbox was used for the scene where Lamplighter goes to party while Frenchie follows him in the flashback scenes.[17][18]

Visual effects

Visual effects for the episode were created by ILM, Rising Sun Pictures, Rocket Science VFX, Rodeo FX, Ollin VFX, Soho VFX, Rhythm & Hues, Method Studios, and Studio 8.[19][15]: 1:04:43–1:04:46  It was confirmed that the visual effects supervisor Stephan Fleet would be returning to oversee the development of the visual effects.[20] The crew captured multiple shots from several actors portraying the prisoners of the Sage Grove center, to later use the visual effects for the creation their respective superpowers. The effects of Acid Man were created with the crew using a vegan jell to create fake vomit, while using CG to capture the effects of the acid melting. For the superpowers of the girl that can make people explode, the crew created an effect named “blood lollipop,” which splatters fake blood at 360 degrees that are photographed, followed by using a stunt actor to be filmed with a green screen at the background, to later be scanned and manipulated to capture the effect of him exploding. To capture Love Sausage's 15-foot penis, a large tube was stuck in the actor's pants while it was enhanced with CG to transform it into a penis.[21] Fleet considered that the creation of the visual effects for the episode was the hardest and biggest to make, with multiple powers being already established in the script while other having been improvised. The creation of the episode's visual effects took over six months to create.[22]

Music

The episode features the following songs which are "Çasquette à l'envers" by Sexion d'Assaut, "Galgal Mistovev (Spinning Wheel)" by Idan Raichel, "Happy Together" by The Turtles, "Give a Little Bit" by Extreme Music, "Orinoco Flow" by Enya, and "Thank You for Being a Friend" by Cynthia Fee.[23]

Release

"The Bloody Doors Off" premiered on Prime Video in the United States on September 25, 2020.[24] The episode, along with the rest of The Boys' second season, was released on Blu-ray on May 31, 2022.[25]

Reception

"The Bloody Doors Off" received critical acclaim from critics. Roxana Hadidi from The A.V. Club, praised the episode for Starr's performance as Homelander stating that while the character is a "fascist and a murderer and a xenophobe and, most unrelentingly, an asshole. But that need to be loved fuels it all: His desire to please Madelyn and his help creating supe terrorists to secure her adoration. His frustration with how utterly unimpressed Stan Edgar is by him and his desire to secure the Seven under his control as a personal dig against the boss."[26] For his review at Entertainment Weekly, Nick Schager praised Frenchie's character development by stating that he even "during a dark time in his life in New York City, he was saved by watching early morning episodes of The Golden Girls, which he loved because "those saucy ladies, they made their own family."[27] Brian Tallerico from the Vulture magazine rated the episode with 3 out of 5 stars, praised the episode for the character development of Frenchie and Lamplighter and considered that the Sage Grove Center plot, was the appropriate way to tell both histories and also considered the action sequences were well done for a television series. However, he was also critical of the Church of the Collective's storyline as he believed that it didn't fit for the episode and considered that what star as a promising story for the Deep's evolution as character now feels undeveloped.[28]

For his review at Collider, Liz Shannon Miller praised the episode's storyline in particular for the storyline focused on Frenchie and Lamplighter to which he considered that it successfully helps to develop Frenchie as a character and over how his tragedy has been haunting him and knows to hide his talent at killing Supes once he is recruited by the Boys.[29] Giving it a perfect score of 5 stars, Richard Edwards highlighted the episode for revealing Stormfront's origins as well as for finally revealing Frenchie's origins, though he also doubts that Homelander is a villain as he seems to be now a pawn from Stormfront but hoped to see what's will be coming in the upcoming two episodes.[30] For IGN the episode was rated with a score of 8 out of 10, where he praised Frenchie's backstory as Shawn Ashmore's performance as Lamplighter to which he considered that he did a "brilliant job of imbuing his character with a bit of menace and vulnerability, especially since we tend to remember him as that baby-faced version of Iceman from the X-Men film franchise." Though he criticized Queen Maeve's backstory to which he deemed it was lackluster and that it wasn't taking into anything for the storyline. Though he criticized Queen Maeve's storyline s he considered it to be lackluster and it doesn't take to anything.[31]

Notes

  1. ^ Frenchie's decision of disobeying Mallory's order is what led Lamplighter to murder Mallory's grandchildren as mentioned in the episode, "The Female of the Species".
  2. ^ As depicted in the previous episode, "We Gotta Go Now".
  3. ^ a b As depicted in "The Female of the Species".
  4. ^ As depicted in the previous episode, "The Self-Preservation Society".

References

  1. ^ Petski, Denise (July 19, 2019). "The Boys Renewed for Season 2 By Amazon; Aya Cash Closes Deal as Stormfront". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved July 19, 2019.
  2. ^ Otterson, Joe (2019-07-19). "'The Boys' Lands Early Season 2 Renewal at Amazon". Variety. Retrieved 2023-12-15.
  3. ^ "Interview: Eric Kripke spills details on The Boys season two!". The Beat. August 17, 2020. Retrieved April 22, 2022.
  4. ^ Miller, Liz Shannon (2020-06-26). "The Boys Season 2 Release Date Announced, Will Go Weekly". Collider. Retrieved 2023-12-30.
  5. ^ "The Boys boss wanted to avoid "sugar rush of a binge" with season 2's weekly release schedule". Digital Spy. 2020-09-10. Retrieved 2023-12-30.
  6. ^ "The Boys (2019–2023)". Writers Guild of America West. Archived from the original on July 28, 2019. Retrieved June 28, 2023.
  7. ^ "BOYS TP VOL 12 BLOODY DOORS OFF (MR)". Previews World. Retrieved 2024-06-22.
  8. ^ "The Boys (Volume)". Comic Vine. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-06-17.
  9. ^ Schedeen, Jesse (2020-09-26). "The Boys' Lamplighter Revealed: Shawn Ashmore on Playing the Exact Opposite of Iceman". IGN. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  10. ^ Rougeau, Michael (September 28, 2020). "The Boys Season 2: What Is Lamplighter Hiding?". GameSpot. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  11. ^ Greer, Elijah (2022-05-22). "The Boys: 10 Things The Series Changed From The Comics". Game Rant. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  12. ^ Travers, Ben (2020-09-25). "'The Boys': Aya Cash on Stormfront's 'Scary' Relevance — and Biggest Secret Yet". IndieWire. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  13. ^ McHenry, Jackson (2020-09-25). "The Boys's Aya Cash on the 'Complicated Decision' to Play Stormfront". Vulture. Archived from the original on October 1, 2020. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  14. ^ Elvy, Craig (2020-08-30). "The Boys: Season 2 New & Returning Cast Guide". Screen Rant. Retrieved 2023-12-30.
  15. ^ a b Richardson, Anslem (September 25, 2020). "The Bloody Doors Off". The Boys. Season 2. Episode 6. Amazon Prime Video. End credits begin at 1:03:11.
  16. ^ Scarnato, Ryden Scarnato (2019-10-17). "New Superhero For The Seven Spotted In 'The Boys' Season 2 Set Photos". Heroic Hollywood. Retrieved 2023-12-30.
  17. ^ "Where was The Boys Filmed? Guide to ALL the Filming Locations". Atlas of Wonders. Retrieved 2023-07-01.
  18. ^ Life, Toronto (2020-10-14). "Every Toronto location that shows up in the second season of Amazon's The Boys". Toronto Life. Retrieved 2024-01-07.
  19. ^ Frei, Vincent (August 5, 2020). "The Boys – Season 2". Art of VFX. Retrieved December 30, 2023.
  20. ^ Frei, Vincent (2019-11-04). "The Boys – Season 2: Stephan Fleet – Overall VFX Supervisor – Amazon Studios". The Art of VFX. Retrieved 2023-12-30.
  21. ^ Desowitz, Bill (2021-08-04). "'The Boys': Breaking Down the Grotesque VFX Spectacle in 'The Bloody Doors Off' Episode". IndieWire. Retrieved 2024-06-24.
  22. ^ Ordoña, Michael (2021-08-17). "How the Emmy-nominated VFX team of 'The Boys' let a host of damaged 'supes' run wild". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2024-06-24.
  23. ^ Milner, Sarah Bea (2020-09-05). "The Boys Soundtrack: Every Song In Season 2". ScreenRant. Retrieved 2023-12-30.
  24. ^ Fullerton, Huw. "The Boys Amazon season 2 release schedule: When are new episodes released?". Radio Times. Retrieved 2024-01-02.
  25. ^ 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.
  26. ^ Hadidi, Roxana (2020-09-25). "The Boys reveals Stormfront's and Frenchie's histories". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 2024-06-26.
  27. ^ Schager, Nick (September 25, 2020). "The Boys recap: The truth comes out". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2024-06-26.
  28. ^ Tallerico, Brian (2020-09-25). "The Boys Recap: Down the Road and Back Again". Vulture. Archived from the original on October 30, 2020. Retrieved 2024-06-26.
  29. ^ Miller, Liz Shannon (2020-09-25). "The Boys Season 2, Episode 6 Recap: A Really Big Dick". Collider. Retrieved 2024-06-26.
  30. ^ Edwards, Richard (2020-09-26). "The Boys season 2 episode 6 recap: a show going from strength to super-strength". TechRadar. Retrieved 2024-06-26.
  31. ^ Griffin, David (2020-09-25). "The Boys: Season 2, Episode 6 'The Bloody Doors Off' Review". IGN. Retrieved 2024-06-26.

External links

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