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[COLUMN] A Deep Dive on The Boys' Most Pathetic Hero | by Darren Mooney
🕑 Added 2024-07-21 14:00:10 +0000 UTC
The Deep (Chace Crawford) isn’t necessarily the most compelling of the lead characters on The Boys.
Unlike Hughie (Jack Quaid), he isn’t functionally the lead. Unlike Starlight (Erin Moriarty), he isn’t the most sympathetic superpowered character. Unlike Homelander (Antony Starr) or William ‘Billy’ Butcher (Karl Urban), he isn’t the head of either of the show’s two rival factions. Unlike A-Train (Jesse T. Usher), the Deep has also refused to demonstrate any meaningful personal growth or development over the course of the show’s four seasons.
Instead, the Deep is transparently a parody of the classic superhero Aquaman, a comics character who has served as a pop culture punchline dating back to his role on the show Superfriends. The jokes write themselves. On a team with Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, what’s the point of a guy whose main superpower is the ability to talk to fish? Indeed, a significant amount of Aquaman comics since the 1980s have been about grappling with the fact the character is a joke.
Over the course of the first four seasons of The Boys, the Deep has bounced from one set of humiliations to another. In the show’s first episode, he sexually assaults Starlight. He becomes embroiled in a #metoo scandal that sees him demoted and marginalized. He joins a celebrity cult in an effort to rebuild his image. He has repeated sexual relationships with fish – particularly octopi – to the point that it’s openly joked that PETA has him “on their bestiality watchlist.”
While the other characters on The Boys have been afforded extended character arcs that invite them to change and evolve over the course of the series, the Deep has largely served as an extended punchline. No matter how dark the show gets, there is always something fundamentally absurd happening to the Deep. No matter how easily Homelander escapes the consequences of his own actions, the Deep is inevitably suffering some embarrassment or failure, as he stumbles on.
To be fair, there is something of a point to all this. The Boys is a relentlessly cynical show. The Deep’s arc is in its own grim way a commentary on the general uselessness of what might be termed “cancel culture” or “accountability culture.” The Deep is exposed as a sexual predator, and he faces consequences in the moment, but he inevitably works his way back to fame and fortune, albeit with greatly diminished cachet. It’s a depressingly realistic take on how this cycle tends to work.
In the penultimate episode of the fourth season, the Deep comes face-to-face with Starlight. “#metoo’s over sweetheart,” he taunts. “It didn’t work.” He mocks the language of the rote celebrity apology, “I do not respect your truth. I do not honor and cherish your story. And I do not fucking apologize.” As such, the Deep offers a pointed commentary on the #metoo moment, which coincided with the launch of the show, but has since arguably been subject to a cultural retrenchment.
Still, allowing for all of this, one of the more interesting aspects of the fourth season – which wrapped up this week - has been the way that the show has incorporated the character’s listlessness into its overarching themes. The fourth season of The Boys is, to some extent, an argument that the show needs to end. It’s also a show about the frustration of continuing to fight the good fight against a system that never improves.
Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) acknowledges his anger with the lack of meaningful progress in the struggle against oppression. “This fight that we’re in?” he laments. “This never fucking ends. It killed my father. It killed his father. And look at what it’s doing to me. It’s tearing me the fuck apart, just like it did them.” While Homelander stands as an active embodiment of that sort of evil, propping the system up, the Deep’s perseverance is a more passive expression of that injustice.
The Boys suggests that the Deep doesn’t really need to do anything to be protected by the system. He might be humiliated and embarrassed. He might have to subject himself to some rituals of public contrition. However, he can just passively bounce around from one dangling plot thread to the next. He doesn’t need to plan or scheme like Homelander. He doesn’t need to carefully manipulate the board like a master chess player. The system is designed to protect its own, and so he is protected.
However, towards the end of the fourth season, The Boys bring the Deep into sharper focus. As one of the three longest-serving members of the Seven, the flagship superhero team of Vought Industries headed by Homelander, the fourth season contrasts the Deep with A-Train. Over the four seasons of the show, A-Train has demonstrated the capacity to grow as a human being, to feel guilt, shame and remorse. He can engage in introspection. He can become something close to a good person.
Indeed, for all the show’s cynicism, there is a compelling humanism to its handling of A-Train. After all, A-Train was responsible for the series’ inciting incident, the death of Hughie’s girlfriend, Robin (Jess Salgueiro). It’s that accident that motivates Hughie to join Butcher, and to pledge to take down the superheroes. Logically, if Butcher and Homelander are positioned as arch-enemies, then Hughie and A-Train seem to be hurtling towards an inevitable confrontation.
Instead, the fourth season finds Hughie forgiving A-Train. On some level, A-Train wants to be a better person. He tries to prove his heroism to his nephews (Isaac Murray and Zayn Maloney), and ultimately uses his powers to save Mother’s Milk in the middle of a panic attack. It’s a refreshingly earnest arc in a show that often offers a relentlessly bleak view of human nature. A-Train’s willingness to look inside himself is contrasted with the Deep’s relative shallowness.
That said, the Deep doesn’t solely exist as a counterpoint to A-Train. As the season progresses, the Deep offers a surprisingly incisive commentary on a particular form of violence. In the season’s sixth episode, while the more important heroes attend an elaborate dinner party hosted by billionaire Tek Knight (Derek Wilson), the Deep is left hanging around Vought Tower with the newly-recruited replacement for Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell), who is angry at how he has been made to feel useless.
The Deep tries to comfort the new Noir. “I know this is hard to imagine, but some people laugh at me,” the Deep admits. “Crazy, right?” However, he presses his argument. “But you know what I realized?” he asks his colleague rhetorically. “When I crush someone’s nose into the back of their skull or beat them so bad they’ll never walk again? They’re not laughing anymore. They show respect. Violence is power.” It’s a very revealing moment, in terms of character and theme.
Over the course of the season, the Deep is once again subjected to all manner of humiliations, including an affair with the super-smart hero Sister Sage (Susan Heyward), who lobotomizes herself to enjoy an affair with him. He becomes embroiled in a sexual affair with an octopus named Ambrosius (Tilda Swinton). He is constantly made to feel powerless and impotent. At one point, a bored Homelander humiliates the Deep by asking him to perform oral sex on A-Train.
During a heated argument with Ambrosius, the Deep smashes her water tank. Closing the door to the closet where he keeps her, he listens as she suffocates. It’s clearly an emotional moment for him, one that once again hinges on his inaction and relative passivity. The Deep lashed out in anger. He didn’t seem to intend to kill his octopodal lover. Indeed, he couldn’t even finish the job in person. However, there is some sense that this event hardens the Deep.
Rather than engaging in the introspection and the work necessary to become a better person, the Deep finds satisfaction in violence. Violence is, after all, easier. He uses physical force to compensate for how powerless he feels. At the climax of the season’s penultimate episode, he relishes the opportunity to physically assault Starlight, the woman that he blames for his fall from grace. In the finale, he eagerly participates in Homelander’s bloody purge of Vought staff with “dirt” on the team.
Cornering one victim (David Reale) in the corridors of Vought Tower, the Deep relishes the fear that he instils. As the writer begs for mercy, promising to “do anything”, the Deep takes a second to consider the possibilities. “Tell me that I’m the smartest superhero in the Seven,” the Deep instructs. “And that you respect me the most – besides Homelander, of course.” Of course, even the Deep isn’t dumb enough to believe his target’s clumsy attempts to beg for his life.
“You’re just saying that because you’re scared, aren’t you?” the Deep asks, in what feels like something close to a moment of revelation. However, he concedes, “But you know what, bro? That’s good enough for me.” And he immediately kills the writer on the spot. It’s a wonderful character beat that underscores how pathetic the Deep is, how desperate he is for validation and approval, and how that insecurity expresses itself through violence directed at those weaker than him.
Of course, this is also a large part of Homelander’s character, but Homelander is consistently portrayed as a genuine threat. He is the show’s primary antagonist. He even has a strong fandom online, with Starr talking about how certain viewers “idolize” Homelander, which may explain why they seem so shocked by the show’s politics. Homelander might be emotionally stunted, stupider than he thinks he is and – to quote showrunner Eric Kripke – “weird”, but he is also awe-inspiring.
In contrast, the Deep is a joke to everybody. More than that, he is aware that he is a joke. And so much of the character’s violence is rooted in his sense of impotence and powerlessness. He consistently refuses to take responsibility for his decisions and the consequences of his actions, and displaces that anger on to other people. Rather than trying to become a better person, the Deep lashes out to make himself feel significant and important.
This understanding of that feeling of (often white and often masculine) frustration as a source of violence and anger is one of the most insightful aspects of The Boys. Part of it is rooted in the show’s understanding of the superhero archetype, and the dark side of the “power fantasy” that powers the genre. Part of it is a broader commentary on this current political moment, finding expression through other characters on the show, like fawning Homelander fanboy Todd (Matthew Gorman). Horrific violence rooted in insecurity and entitlement.
The Deep isn’t the most complex or multifaceted character on The Boys, but he has quietly become one of the show’s most incisive pieces of commentary. It’s worth acknowledging the work that Crawford has done in the role, playing a character just self-aware enough to understand his failings but not mature enough to understand how he needs to address them. The title of The Boys implies a study of a stunted and immature masculinity, and the Deep is a perfect case study.
Comments
Darren Mooney
It is a hell of a line to type.
Beutimus
"He becomes embroiled in a sexual affair with an octopus named Ambrosius (Tilda Swinton)". I think that line may have finally sold me on watching The Boys.
Darren Mooney
Honestly, I don't really mind how Aquaman is portrayed. I think as long as there's an interesting "take" there, I can go along with it. Peter David, Ram V, Abnett, Kupperberg, "The Brave and the Bold" and - yes - even Snyder. All interesting takes on the guy. That said, I do think the version I like least is the one that is consciously over-compensating for being perceived as "lame." Geoff Johns' "Aquaman" has that sort of "take me seriously" vibe, and if you have to tell me to take you seriously, you aren't doing anything worthy of being taken seriously.
Zhon Lord
It always frustrates me to see Aquaman done dirty. The King of Atlantis is a powerhouse at his best. An Old One slaying, ocean ruling, built-like-a-rhino and able to take on Wonder Woman badass. The existence of the more superfriends-like iterations has always frustrated me, especially when I was first introduced to the character via the Justice League Animated Series. Still, at least the lame side can provide some sort of inspiration for good storytelling.
