Get Ready for Everything from Ewww to Awww with The Boys: Diabolical – Releasing Today!

I reviewed the first episode of Diabolical earlier this week, with a teaser about what the new animated series is all about and how it kicks off. Today all eight episodes are available to watch on Prime Video, so here are some thoughts on the other seven episodes of this innovative show. They’re ‘fun sized’ episodes so you can watch as many as you’re up for – and it’s a welcome fix of The Boys universe for fans waiting impatiently for Season 3 to finally release in June.

Episode 2 Introduces Supes with some Weird Powers

Weird is actually an understatement. Again switching the perspective from “the boys” who are fighting against Vought to the supes themselves, this episode is all about some of the children whose parents sold their chance at a normal life for money in exchange for doping them with Compound V and making them into lab rats. When the parents find out that their kids didn’t get any of the really cool powers and won’t be joining The Seven any time soon, they returned them to Vought instead of dealing with the challenges. That in itself is incredibly disturbing – I can’t even deal with the thought of ‘returning’ a pet adopted from the SPCA let alone a child!

Vought houses the kids at an orphanage of sorts for kids with “shit powers.”

The emotional punch of this episode is in the sense of betrayal that the kids feel when they learn that their parents adopted them for a chance to get rich and then abandoned them, complaining that they wanted their lives back. The fun of the episode is that the writers got to go totally off the rails and create the most outrageous super powers they could think of. I can imagine them sitting in the writers’ room just giggling as they try to outdo each other.

Sometimes the humor makes me eyeroll even as I snicker. There’s Picante Balls, who can melt anything with his testicles and walks around with more bowlegs than Jensen Ackles.

Exhibit A.

Anyway…

There’s Boobie Face, with giant swinging boobs in place of eyes. Some of the failed supes are funny only until you think about it, like the supe that turns into various animals but his cognitive ability transforms too, or Ghost, who can’t touch anything or be touched by anything and stares forlornly at the food she can’t eat.

The abandoned supes, now adolescents mostly, decide to take revenge on their parents, all set to Hootie and the Blowfish’s ‘I Only Wanna Be With You’. Have to admit, I loved the poetic justice of some of the (bloody gory disgusting) ways the supe kids went after their parents.  (I mean, you can imagine what Picante Balls does, right?)

Favorite part of this episode? It’s a meta episode! Narrated by one of the failed supes, whose power is that he always tells people what’s going on.

Supe: That’s right, I’m the Narrator.

Title card 3 minutes in: Shrug, we can do whatever we want.

As a long time Supernatural fan, I love the little bits of fourth wall breaking that executive producer Eric Kripke made an integral part of that show too. That is literally a big part of the point of The Boys and Diabolical – doing whatever the hell they want!

Episode 3 ‘I’m Your Pusher’ – Written by Garth Ennis!

Episode 3 of opens with another bit of meta. A comic book is grabbed from the racks – ‘The Boys’ written by Garth Ennis! This episode is also written by Ennis, ripped from the pages of the original comic and featuring Billy Butcher and Hughie – voiced by Simon Pegg!  Simon was how the character of Hughie was originally conceived, but wasn’t right to play him in the live series by the time it aired – but he gets to here.  There’s also some original cover art by Darick Robertson. This episode is more directly tied to the canon of the original series, and also to the truly original comics.

Butcher confronts the pusher for information about a supe he supplies known as the Great Wide Wonder. Not only do we get to hear about his heroin enemas, we get to see some of that too. Yay? Butcher intimidates the pusher into adding a substance Frenchie has mixed up to the next treatment. He does, so when Homelander and Queen Maeve host a rally to recognize the Great Wide Wonder, he arrives looking totally tweaked out after his special treatment. His super power is that he flies fast, like around the world, but this time he goes so fast he starts running into buildings and destroying things on his way.

Homelander (who clearly doesn’t like him and with purposeful irony): How high he has flown…

Antony Starr voices Homelander here too and made me laugh out loud at that delivery.

Great Wide Wonder is supposed to fly through a flaming ring in the middle of the river in front of the gathered crowd, but instead he flies right into the hapless supe holding the ring, emerging with entrails around his neck as he lands in the water in a pool of blood.

Homelander: Oh Jesus Fucking Christ

Queen Maeve wearily spins the narrative, echoing what we’ve seen in the original series, and Homelander goes along, swearing to avenge the Great Wide Way. Butcher is triumphant, but Hughie looks around at the destruction and bystanders throwing up and isn’t so sure.

It’s an interesting addition to the canon of The Boys universe, with some nice treats for the comics fans too.

Episode 4 – Social Media On Steroids

Episode 4 is titled “Boyd in 3D” and it’s tragic – and one of my favorites. The original series has commented a great deal on the impact of social media on all of us and the way that we’re manipulated through it. While that focus has usually been on its use by an evil corporation like Vought, this episode is at its core more about its everyday impact on all of us.

Boyd, who lives in Apartment 3D (haha), is a relatable everyman, scrolling Instagram and walking dogs for a living, almost getting run over by a truck in the process. He’s got a crush on his attractive neighbor Cherry, who has an asshole boyfriend and an inferiority complex because she hates her freckles. (Every Jensen Ackles fan who’s now watching The Boys just scratched their head at that).

Exhibit B.

Anyway…

When Boyd gets a piece of her mail, he very much wants to give it to her, but is sure she won’t give him the time of day.

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The Last Con While Supernatural Is Still Filming (Maybe) – Vegas 2020!

This is a tough time for everyone. For fans of Supernatural, it’s also the countdown to the ending of the show that has gotten us through our toughest times for the past fifteen years. I’ve seen the fandom and the cast come together online to try and offer ways to help each other get through this, from posting adorable family home videos to organizing rewatch parties to Stage It shows to virtual cons. For our part, we’re really hoping that our new book, There’ll Be Peace When You Are Done, that celebrates the legacy of Supernatural will also be a help to this SPNFamily we love.

We planned the book because we knew this would be a hard time for Supernatural fans and cast – hoping that a book to hang onto that celebrates the legacy of the show and its importance would be a help getting through. But we had no idea just how hard this time would truly be. Our hope is that getting There’ll Be Peace When  You Are Done out in early May will be a bright spot for the SPNFamily both for the show’s ending and the painful position all of humanity is in right now. Preorder link is at the end – and you get some freebies right now to amuse you until the release date.

We’ll try to do our part here on the blog too, with more features from the new book and its authors – both cast and fans – in the coming weeks. Here’s our first offering of ‘bright spots’ to give Supernatural fans something positive to hang onto – our adventures at the last Supernatural convention for who knows how long, SPNVegas. And some pretty pictures.

Happy reading!

Everyone knew that this year’s Vegas Supernatural con was going to be an emotional one. For one thing, there hadn’t been a con since November, so cast and fans and vendors were all missing each other a great deal. Even more impactful, this was the last convention during which Jared, Jensen and Misha were still filming Supernatural. The last con at which they still *were* Sam, Dean and Cas. (Or at least that was the plan – who knows what’s going to happen now!)

As I boarded my flight on Wednesday morning – more than two weeks ago as I write this – (clutching my hand sanitizer and incredibly thankful that there was no one sitting next to me), I kept thinking that this was the last convention that would be the same as all the ones before it. I’ve been going to these cons for 13 years, since 2007, and all this time, Jared and Jensen have been Sam and Dean. If you know me at all, you know that my questions are always show questions. I am always dying to know what they thought about their character’s emotional reaction to whatever was happening on the show, or what their head canon is about the latest episode. This would be the last convention where I could ask those sort of questions and still have ongoing canon to spool out before us. The last one in which the Winchesters’ and Castiel’s stories are not yet over; not yet fully told. At this point as I post this, we don’t know when they will actually be able to film the last two episodes, but it will certainly be different, and not something that happened organically, with the crew that has been family for fifteen years, in a continuous season of filming. There will never be a convention quite like this one ever again.

Like so many things I’m emotional about that have to do with my favorite show ending, it sounds silly to be so worked up about this kind of ‘never again’ – but it’s not. This show, these conventions, these actors, have been a big part of my life and the lives of most Supernatural fans – whether you’re there in person or not, everyone enjoys the panels and getting to know the cast of our favorite show better. And while some things won’t entirely change going forward, some most definitely will. There are cons planned throughout 2020 (assuming COVID19 allows any), but they will still be different. And now that the entire world is on the brink of apocalypse, I need the healthy escape and inspiration of my favorite fictional characters more than ever!

So let’s just say I arrived in Vegas already a bit teary eyed. It seems weird to write this now, only two weeks later, but at the time we didn’t know just how serious and widespread COVID19 would be. Nevertheless, I followed an air hugs only rule at the con, washed my hands constantly, and kept a bottle of hand sanitizer at my vendor table throughout the con. I’m now very glad I did!

Luckily my good friend Laurena met me at the airport so we could share this entire experience, and ensure that neither of us totally decompensated from being emotionally overwhelmed at some point. We caught an Uber and consoled each other with a plan of an afternoon lounging in the sun beneath the palm trees at the Rio’s beautiful pool. Ahhh, just what two people escaping from Philly and Chicago needed in early March!

I have a love/hate relationship with the Rio. It’s always where the Vegas con is, and that makes me fond of it in that nostalgic way I have of being fond of everything that’s familiar in my life and can anchor me to the good stuff. On the other hand, there was that year the entire bathroom overflowed with sewage in the middle of the night – literally bubbling up out of our sink and tub and toilet – that sent me and my roommates out onto the casino floor in our PJ’s with a luggage cart of all our hurriedly stacked up belongings to move rooms at 3 am. Not one of my best memories.

So when Laurena and I arrived and were informed that the pool was CLOSED, it was like a flashback to that earlier trauma. Closed??? For the entire time we’d be here? What’s worse, it wasn’t just the pool – it was the entire outside area. There was literally nowhere to sit outside and enjoy the Vegas warmth. We ended up sitting at the shuttle stop on a metal bench, feeling pretty forlorn, just to get some fresh air for a little while.

First it was the announcement that this would be a “no-touch” con, thanks to COVID19, which was upsetting to many fans who were looking forward to hugging their faves in a photo op, even if everyone was starting to understand that it was probably very necessary. Then no pool??

Late lunch at Hash House, which is always a treat, made us feel a bit better. Then it was time to open our table in the vendor room, and to reunite with all the awesome vendor squad people I hadn’t seen in way too long. I was so exhausted from the time change and travel that I almost crashed right after, but luckily I decided to join my friend Lisa and a bunch of her friends – all of them writers – for a late dinner. Well, really for some delicious milkshakes. YUM! And writing talk, which I always enjoy.

 

Thursday the convention itself kicked off. Vegas is four days long (five if you count Wednesday evening vending and events), so it’s really more like an endurance marathon. The walk to the convention area of the Rio is approximately ten miles long, so endurance really is the right word. My knees have still not recovered.

There were SO many friends at this con, and I’m so grateful I had the chance to catch up with so many people since I have no clue when we’ll all be together again. HR was there with his newest awesome sculptures – I’m always blown away by the talent in this fandom!

Can’t you just hear Jack saying “Hello…”?

Thursday kicked off the con itself. After an intro by Rob and the band, first up was a panel by DJ Qualls, who hasn’t been to a con in a while. It was wonderful to see him, and heartwarming to hear the SPNFamily’s enthusiastic support of DJ, who had recently come out as gay.

DJ: Everyone knows I came out, right? I really was never in to anyone who knew me. But I learned at the time I started in this business that Hollywood wanted you to be quiet about it.

He shared the whole story to lots of cheers.

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