Cherry (The Boys)

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"Cherry" is the second 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 believes they are. The episode was written by the series showrunner Eric Kripke and directed by Matt Shakman.

The episode follows Billy Butcher and Hughie Campbell reuniting with the former's old partner Frenchie in order to find a way to kill Translucent before Vought can find him, much to the shock of Hughie, who continues to struggle with the death of his girlfriend Robin. Meanwhile, the Seven's leader, Homelander starts an investigation of his own to find Translucent after Vought's vice president, Madelyn Stillwell, dismisses the latter's disappearance.

"Cherry" was released on the streaming service Amazon Prime Video on July 26, 2019. The episode received positive reviews from critics, with praise for the visual style, direction, performances, black humor, its faithfulness to the comics, and Frenchie's introduction, but criticism for its writing, which was viewed as repetitive and overwritten.

Plot

Hughie and Billy escape with Transluscent's body. Billy approaches his former partner, Frenchie, and tricks him into revealing his face to a now-conscious Transluscent. Forced to help Billy, Frenchie locks Transluscent in an electrified cage while finding a way to kill him, and Hughie manages to block the Supe's tracker. Meanwhile, at the Vought Tower, Stillwell deduces the Mayor's death was caused by Homelander and forces him to search for Transluscent.

Frenchie creates a bullet similar to Transluscent's carbon skin, but the plan backfires, resulting in Vought being able to narrow down Translucent's tracker signal. Billy requests Transluscent's files from CIA member Susan Reynor, to no avail. Later that night, Annie January is forced to partner with The Deep on a drug smuggling case. Annie confronts The Deep, threatening to kill him if he forces himself on her again. Annie stops the criminals but finds out Vought staged the crime for publicity, to her dismay. She later rescues a woman from rape, but accidentally exposes her identity.

Stillwell approaches Senator Calhoun to introduce Supes into the army, but Calhoun refuses for financial reasons. Stillwell then recruits the Supe Doppelganger to blackmail Calhoun. Despite this, Calhoun stands by his decision to reject Supes from the military. Hughie approaches Transluscent about Robin's death and A-Train's plans, but Transluscent resists. Frenchie finds a way to kill Transluscent and inserts C-4 explosives into his colon. Now afraid, Transluscent reveals A-Train was visiting his girlfriend Popclaw when he killed Robin. Homelander arrives at the hideout, but Frenchie diverts him away. Translucent uses his urine to cut the cage's electricity, but his escape is interrupted by Hughie. Transluscent attempts to manipulate Hughie into leaving, but Hughie detonates the C-4, killing Transluscent and covering a shocked Hughie in the Supe's remains.

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.^[1] 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 head writer, alongside Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen who would serve as the executive producers of the series.^[2] In November 2017, Amazon acquired the rights to develop the show, announcing that they would be producing over eight episodes for the first season^[3] while confirming that the previously announced creative team would still be attached to the series.^[4][5] The episode, titled "Cherry," was written by Kripke and directed by Matt Shakman.^[6][7] The episode is titled with the name of issues #3–6 of the comic book series of the same name.^[8]

Writing

Kripke considered that the character Jack from Jupiter's alien-looking design was too fantastic for the world that he and his crew were creating in the series, and that would mess with the mythology of the human characters being born with powers. Intending to keep the realism of the TV series, Kripke decided to replace it with a more human-like character created exclusively for the TV series known as Translucent, though he retains the same powers of having an indestructible skin.^[9] For the character's death by being blowing up from the inside, Kripke admitted that this wouldn't be probable to do in real life due to the strength of the skin that would have contained the blast, accepted it was a conscious decision he took, and commented, "Yes, you're absolutely right, the skin should have contained the blast, but then we'd have missed out on that amazing bloody explosion of 'blood and meat. Keep Your Rules in Mind, but Never Logic Yourself Out Of Entertainment."^[10]

The episode also made a pivotal and major change from the comics, where Hughie kills for the first time. While the part where Hughie murders a Supe remains the same, the way the character did it is changed, as in the comics, he accidentally killed a Supe under the name of Blarney Cock in self-defense as the latter attacked him. In the TV series, however, Hughie decides to kill him on purpose after initially intending to let him go by blowing up the bomb that was inside Translucent. This major change was released by Kripke, as he and the production crew intended to increase the level violence and gore instead of keeping the same one from the original comic book series and without any intention of toning it down.^[11][12]

Casting

The episode main cast includes

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.^[17] In order to recreate the exterior of the Vought International company headquarters known as the Seven Tower, the filming took place at the exterior of the Roy Thomson Hall while the tower being created digitally. For the interior of the tower which include some of the rooms and the modern lobby where the company makes the fundraiser event in the episode, the filming for such scenes would take place inside the Roy Thomson Hall. The scenes that took place at the fictional in-universe Tony Cicero's restaurant where The Boys kept Translucent imprisoned, the crew actually filmed in a real restaurant at the district of Etobicoke in the province of Ontario.^[18][19]

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.^{[20][15]: 58:36–58:42} It was announced that visual effects supervisor Stephan Fleet would be in charge of overseeing the development for the visual effects.^[21] A scene where Translucent is dumped into the back of a car, Fleet decided to keep the actor in a grey suit that he used for the fight scene in the previous episode in order to keep him invisible, as he considered that it was important to maintain the character's human weight.^[22] For the creation of the series one of the most violent and gory scenes where Translucent explodes, the visual effects team decided to make the scene entirely practical without using CGI in order to capture the realism of the scene.^[23]

Music

The episode features the following songs which are "Dans Ma Ruche" by

"Cherry" premiered on Amazon Prime Video in the United States on July 26, 2019.^[25] It was released alongside all the episodes from the season which were released the same date the episode was released.^[26] The episode, along with the rest of The Boys' first season, was released on Blu-ray on May 31, 2022.^[27]

Reception

"Cherry" received positive reviews from critics. Brian Tallerico from Vulture rated the episode with 3 stars out of 5, praising it for the episode design and performances but stated that the episode suffers from the talky superhero-philosophy dialogue which sometimes feels overwritten and repetitive and also criticizing the episode's story which he deemed that he didn't add nothing new to the series plot. However, despite the episode flaws he still considered that there is still enough hope for the television series to continue.^[28] Greg Wheeler from The Review Geek rated the episode with 4 stars out of 5 by stating that "With the facade of the Seven chipping away, it'll be interesting to see what direction the show takes from here but for now, The Boys delivers another progressive and well written episode."^[29] Darryl Jasper from ScienceFiction.com gave a positive review to the episode and commented that the episode continues expanding the world and considered that the character's Billy Butcher past would be something interesting to follow and explore in the upcoming episodes for the series.^[30]

While writing a review from Tilt Magazine, Randy Dankievitch stated that the episode takes a deft turn for The Boys with an interesting deconstruction of the classic "villain captures hero" trope. There's also a lot of intriguing other ideas brought into play, be it the power hierarchy inside the Seven, or Madelyn's larger goals of getting some of that good American defense spending money injected into Vought International.^[31] Martin Carr from the Flickering Myth gave the episode a positive response to the episode to which he commented "In many respects The Boys is still getting warmed up, stretching its collective legs and establishing tone. Some have come for the guns, gore and censorship baiting excess, while most will stay for the depth, breadth and social commentary."^[32]

References

External links

• "Cherry" at
  IMDb