Having the same villain for 5 entire seasons doesn't work (The Boys + Daredevil)
With Daredevil: Born Again S2 finished and The Boys almost coming to an end, I thought of what I think is the most glaring problem with both of these shows, which is how they’ve treated their main villain. As the title states, I don’t think it works for a long-running show to have the same antagonist for its entire duration, and these two series are evident of that.
Since it’s pretty safe to say that The Boys is trash now, I think we can agree much of that is due to how the writers treated Homelander. A villain who used to feel threatening, calculating, and believable has honestly just gotten boring at this point, carried entirely by Antony Starr’s performance. While much of this is due to bad writing, I also think the central problem is keeping Homelander as the main villain for five entire seasons of television, and keeping the same level of hateability and intimidation from S1 Homelander was always gonna be near impossible.
If the show had ended at S3 like a lot of people wished, his character possibly could’ve ended on a better note. But if they were to continue, the whole solution would be to pass the mantle of the main antagonist to a new villain, which felt like what they were doing with Soldier Boy in S3. However, Soldier Boy is also nowhere near hateable or intimidating enough to replace Homelander, and ended up being much more likable than he otherwise should’ve been. It seemed like they were setting up Butcher as a villain in S4, but look how that turned out. As great as a villain Homelander used to be, I just think his reputation would’ve stayed intact had his character ended sooner. But now the show is drawn out for no other reason than Kripke wanted five seasons.
I know a lot of people on this sub like Born Again, but just hear me out. Fisk being the main villain of the show was always a bad idea. He was well utilized in the original show. He was the villain of S1, but was also built up over time and wasn’t even in every single episode. Then it was The Hand and Punisher in S2, with Fisk making a brief effective appearance. He was back as the main antagonist in S3, but it was balanced out with Bullseye as the secondary antagonist. The season gave him good closure and it seemed like that was the end of his story for now. But of course the future of Daredevil became complicated. Disney was finally able to bring the Netflix characters into the MCU without Netflix’s involvement, and their initial plan for Born Again was to make it a soft reboot with Cox and D’Onofrio reprising their roles, but with a new continuity, which would explain why Fisk is no longer in prison. Now even Marvel themselves eventually realized this was a terrible idea, but I also don’t think reworking the show to be a canon continuation of the original series was a much better idea either. Now there’s no reason given as to why Fisk is out of prison, much less how he’s able to run for mayor. It’s a sequel to the original show but without any of the same world logic or grounded realism.
Believe me, I know why they did this. D’Onofrio’s Kingpin was just too iconic. There was no way Marvel would continue Daredevil without bringing back one of the greatest live action depictions of a comic book villain. As much as I love S3 of the original show, they also wrote themselves into a corner with the ending, as there was no way they could bring him back without undoing the sacrifices made to put him back into prison. But it doesn’t change the fact that, just like Homelander, Fisk’s character has gotten repetitive and is nowhere near as scary and intelligent as he used to be. It doesn’t help that they get more screentime with each passing season and are basically their own protagonists at this point. I still would’ve loved to see a real S4 of Daredevil that featured new villains, and maybe they could’ve found a way to bring back Fisk eventually, but immediately bringing him back, now more powerful than ever with no explanation, killed Born Again for me before it even began.
To put things in perspective, here’s why I think not having the same villain for too long benefits television in the long run:
Breaking Bad >!had Tuco, Gus, and Jack’s gang, who spanned five seasons. Do you really think Gus would've been as good of a villain if he was there for the ENTIRE show?!<
Better Call Saul >!had three seasons of Chuck, and three seasons of Lalo. Chuck left when he needed to, and Lalo still had plenty of time to make an impression despite showing up late in the series.!<
Game of Thrones >!had Joffrey for three seasons before killing him off. The show also had a vast amount of villains, so even Cercei lasting as long as she did didn’t feel repetitive because of how much was going on in the show.!<
As much as we might clown on Stranger Things>! and Vecna, I would still argue introducing him when they did was much better than keeping the Mind Flayer as the central antagonist the whole show. At least the show understood you needed to introduce new villains to keep the mystery going.!<
Not to mention, all the countless shows where each season has its own villain.
There’s a lot of shows I still haven't watched but my thoughts are based on the ones I’ve seen. If you can think of examples that disprove this, feel free to share, but in conclusion, villains are not meant to last forever. It’s like the Jaws dilemma. If they were to show the shark too much, it wouldn’t be as scary. The more time you spend with any villain, the less scary they become.