They are often the boys’ conscience, their heart (Frenchie literally calls Kimiko “my heart”, “mon coeur”) and their voice of reason. But where Frenchie gets mixed up in addiction and old grudges, Mother’s Milk struggles with his temper and tries to maintain good relationships with his ex and his daughter, Hughie abuses Compound-V because he feels emasculated by his relationship with Annie, and Butcher will go to nearly any extreme to get what he wants while fighting the temptation to behave like his abusive father, Kimiko and Annie are just too nice and too sensible. Sure, Kimiko worries about her violent nature and resists being used as Butcher’s “gun”, and Starlight maybe should have done a bit more to try to stop her friend Alex from joining the Seven. But Starlight and Kimiko are still a bit lacking in one core respect – they’re not flawed enough. This is story-telling that is genuinely interested in these characters, not just a visual attempt at a forced “girl power” moment like The Boys’ fantastic parodic in-universe “Girls Get It Done” sequence (which rightfully mocked the MCU’s cringe-inducing attempt to make up for 20 movies starring men followed by one starring a woman by trying to squeeze every surviving female character into one shot in Endgame). It’s great to see these female characters taking control in the story. And Queen Maeve, the most sympathetic of the Seven next to Starlight (not counting the short-lived Supersonic, RIP), also managed to escape what was becoming a pattern of victimisation by Homelander, who wanted to harvest her eggs by nearly sacrificing her life, which enabled her to fake her own death. Choosing to regain her superpowers after losing them, she explained to Annie how important it was that this time, it was her choice. She was a victim of child trafficking and her body was violated when she was injected with Compound-V against her will, which is why she resented her powers so much. Kimiko similarly took control in Season 3. Kimiko was initially known as The Female, but thankfully the TV-original character Mesmer revealed her name partway through the first season there are plenty of nicknames floating around the superhero world, and Frenchie’s birth name was only revealed in Season 3, but it’s still nice not to have a character identified solely by their gender. There are three main female characters in The Boys – Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott), one of the world’s most famous team of superheroes, the Seven Starlight/Annie (Erin Moriarty), who starts Season 1 as the newest addition to the Seven, and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), a former child soldier who was turned into a superhero against her will by a group of terrorists. But in season 4, we’d love to see just a little more in the way of character flaws for the two central comics-origin female characters: Annie and Kimiko Queen Maeve, Annie and Kimiko And thanks to a number of male characters from the comic book series who have been gender-flipped for the show, the TV version does have a decent roster of flawed or outright villainous female characters. Of course, every character in The Boys is flawed in some way, because it’s just that kind of world. But we have one request for The Boys season 4 – let the female characters be as flawed as the boys! We love The Boys, which is an outrageously gross and often hilarious take-down of celebrity culture, social media politics and even, occasionally, superhero stories. Warning: contains spoilers for The Boys Seasons 1- 3.
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