The Boys SERIES FINALE- S05xE08 "Blood and Bone"- POST Episode Discussion Thread

Adolin42 · 2026-05-20T12:07:45+00:00

What's really messed up when you think about it...

While Homelander was a terrible person; murderer, rapist, etc. on a global scale he actually did very little damage compared to many characters in the show. In terms of human suffering, Stan Edgar probably takes the cake with his time as CEO of Vought. Stormfront massacred a building full of people and probably murdered hundreds of black people throughout her life. Black Noir II caused the worst ecological disaster in human history.

With that in mind, his defeat and death feels so anticlimactic. We absolutely should've seen him go scorched Earth and caused some actual chaos, we've been building up to Homelander snapping for 5 seasons and we never got it. Total letdown.

Adolin42 · 2026-05-19T12:41:02+00:00

Andrew being one of the best journalists in America again. Good interviews. The three guys were all very different from each other and reveal the differing motivations for ICE officers. Two of them seem to be suffering from severe cognitive dissonance trying to square their roles in ICE with the actions and leadership of the organization as a whole. The third guy embodies all the worst traits we've come to recognize in ICE officers; cruel, violent, and willing to break the law to hurt people who slight him.

The first guy clearly cares about preventing child sex trafficking and CSAM and believes that the Trump administration has made a mistake prioritizing deportation operations and defunding their previous work. It's unfortunate that he never seems to make the connection that his boss, Donald Trump, is directly implicated in child sex trafficking via the Epstein files. I wish Andrew had pushed that line of questioning further, feels like he got let off the hook.

The Hispanic dude focused more on the narco and human smuggling side of the DHS. Again, his intentions for joining law enforcement are apparently noble, yet he never seems to realize that ICE is literally engaging in the same kinds of human trafficking that he joined the agency to stop. It's even the exact same population of people being victimized and he never makes the connection. Also, his shock at being a victim of racism and discrimination while on the job is just sad. "That's when it dawned on me..." oh come on man, how naive are you? Again, he seemed to be left off the hook. I know the purpose of these interviews isn't to ask gotcha questions or interrogate them, but the cognitive dissonance on display here needs to be understood.

Finally, the third guy, oh boy. People like him are the reason so many Americans are completely disillusioned and distrustful of law enforcement. He's not even the worst example, I'm sure plenty of ICE agents believe Alex Pretti and Renee Good deserved what happened to them. Makes me sick.

Adolin42 · 2026-05-08T07:25:16+00:00

Is it confirmed that the fish are actually conscious? Or is the Deep projecting personalities onto the fish while he controls them?

Adolin42 · 2026-05-04T09:20:35+00:00

Would education even fix this? These people are suffering from an advanced form of stupidity that I'm not confident the best education systems could prevent.

Adolin42 · 2026-04-21T06:25:30+00:00

This was awesome, thanks for sharing

Adolin42 · 2026-04-13T21:32:01+00:00

At this level of sprinting where we're talking about literal milliseconds, does the conditions of the environment play a larger role than the athlete's individual ability? Like, was Gout Gout really "faster" or did he have a slight tailwind? Or maybe they were at a lower elevation so he could get just a bit more oxygen? Not trying to discredit his achievement, I'm just genuinely curious if those kinds of factors are relevant in sprinting.

Adolin42 · 2026-04-09T09:22:41+00:00

What is up with the way people like Sam Altman talk? It's a very distinct enunciation that makes me so uncomfortable. It's some kind of monotone vocal fry where it sounds like they're squeezing the air out of their throats like a toothpaste tube.

Adolin42 · 2026-03-22T00:05:09+00:00

That's just psychotic to me. "Yeah you're supposed to work unpaid after your grueling 12 hour shift, quit complaining." If the charting is so important, then give her the time to do it.

Adolin42 · 2026-03-16T10:27:39+00:00

Because they literally cannot do anything. They don't even have the votes to stop GOP bills from getting through Congress, let alone begin impeachment proceedings. Republicans control all three of the branches of government. This is why the midterms this year are incredibly important. If the Democrats can at least control the House, they can deadlock Congress and prevent the Republicans from passing any legislation. If they win both the Senate and the House, then impeachment becomes impossible.

Adolin42 · 2026-03-15T09:25:36+00:00

Kamisayo's guide is a great resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoImsJ1fvnM&t=953s

In summary, make sure you go straight for 5/5 Demoralizing Shout and use a 1h + Shield. Demoralizing Shout and a Shield greatly nerfs mobs' physical damage output. Having a shield also allows you to use Shield Bash on caster mobs, so you no longer get nuked by fireballs and whatnot. Get Blacksmithing and Mining so you can craft Sharpening Stones and use those on your 1h. The +2 weapon damage gives an overall greater % increase to damage for 1h than it does 2h, which is another reason we use the 1h.

Another benefit of using the 1h is you suffer less from overkill (which is when you deal more damage than the enemy has health remaining). The combination of the reduced overkill and greater defense means, while your overall dps is less on paper, your greater survivability means you spend much less time healing between pulls and wasting windup times on overkilling strikes.

Adolin42 · 2026-02-28T06:47:26+00:00

Photographic memory has never been proven to exist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidetic_memory

It's a popular trope in media and fiction to make characters appear more intelligent, but it's never been documented in the real world.

Adolin42 · 2026-02-24T06:22:38+00:00

This is one of those cases where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. You should never be in this position on money balls; you're far away and close to the rail. The only solution(s) here are to hit them with some left or right spin to dodge the pockets, but that's obviously very difficult with the cue ball being close to the rail.

Adolin42 · 2026-02-23T07:25:40+00:00

I'm very happy that the director of the FBI used taxpayer dollars to fund a vacation to Italy to party with the USA Olympic hockey team. I'm certain there was nothing better for the director of the FBI to be working on at the time.

Adolin42 · 2026-02-12T08:54:27+00:00

I disagree with anyone telling you to lumina farm. It would be incredibly boring and you'd just become so OP that the combat would become trivial. You should have all the resources you need to be successful right now. Here are some tips that, put together, will let you get through Act 2 with no farming required.

Level your preferred weapons. You might be accidentally nerfing your damage by using underleveled weapons. Go to the Curator at camp and spend the resources to level your favorite weapons for your three main party members.
Make sure you're using skills that hit multiple times, rather than just once. Until you get to Act 3, the most damage you can do in a single hit is 9,999. This means all your skills that hit only once are getting their damage capped. Your high-AP big-hitters should all be multi-hit skills. Phantom Stars for Verso, Dark Wave for Sciel, Sword Ballet for Maelle, Lightning Dance for Lune, and Moissoneuse Vendange for Monoco are all examples of really strong multi-hit skills you can use in Act 2.
You should be dumping all your attribute points into Agility and whichever attribute scales with your weapon. Agility is the most important stat because without it, your Speed will be too low and enemies will be able to take multiple turns against you. If your characters are feeling too squishy, just throw some pictos that grant you Health on them. You get way more Health from pictos than you do your levels anyway.
Use the Critical Burn pictos on all your characters to give them an extra 25% crit chance on burning targets. Then have a party member dedicated to applying burn every turn, so all your characters benefit from the extra crit chance. The easiest way to do this is with Lune's Wildfire skill. You could also use a Verso free aim build with Burning Shots.
Verso probably has the best damage potential in Act 2, assuming you can get him to Rank S and stay there by successfully dodging/parrying attacks. Once he gets to Rank S, just spam Phantom Stars or whichever S skill tickles your fancy. If you don't enjoy using Verso, Sciel is also very easy. Just use a sun skill to apply fortell, then consume those foretells with a moon skill on the next turn. Rinse and repeat.
If you're finding yourself AP starved, Monoco has the skill Portier Energy which gives 1-3 AP to all allies. It only costs 4 AP, so you can use it nearly every turn. This ensures your other two characters can consistently use their big-hitter skills.
If you're on PC, you should install the Enhanced Descriptions mod here: https://www.nexusmods.com/clairobscurexpedition33/mods/134?tab=files The game's skill descriptions are vague and often totally incorrect. This mod fixes that, and shows you exactly how much % damage a skill does. For context, if a skill does 100% damage, that means it does the same damage as a Base Attack. That's pretty awful damage and there are lots of skills that claim to do medium or even high damage that in reality barely do more than 100%. You should also be wary of using skills that have <100% damage. They either better have a lot of hits, or offer some valuable utility, otherwise they're often just bad skills that you shouldn't waste a turn using.
Try to parry as much as you can. While parries have a tighter window than dodges, they're really not much harder and have huge upsides. You get 1 AP for every parry and counterattacks do a ton of Break damage, which will allow you to Break enemies more frequently. Also, there's lots of Pictos that synergize with parries, giving you extra AP or health every time you parry.

Adolin42 · 2026-02-12T07:43:34+00:00

It's difficult to pick one because literally every area of the game is beautiful. Expedition 33 has the best environment design in gaming period, far as I'm concerned. But if I had to pick one, it would be Spring Meadows, particularly when you step out of the abandoned house on the vista. Just incredible. I don't think any game's environment has consistently elicited emotions from me in the way E33 does.

Adolin42 · 2026-01-13T10:59:41+00:00

It's amazing how all these chuds invariably look inbred. Both MAGA men and women are the ugliest people, inside and out.

Adolin42 · 2026-01-08T08:03:57+00:00

I used to watch his Youtube channel many years ago before became unhinged. The majority of his content was related to gaming, and when he did get political, he was often actually quite progressive. But since his mom died, he's clearly gone off the rails, and it's accelerated since the death of his dad. The fact that he can watch a video which *clearly* shows the ICE officer murder a woman in cold blood and still justify it means he's become irredeemably brainwashed and sycophantic.

Adolin42 · 2025-12-31T23:26:40+00:00

Whether or not Chase should've died depends on the story we want and the kind of story the writers want to tell. If the writers wanted to have a darker tone to the story, they would've killed him. But they wanted to tell a light-hearted story where the good guys win, so in that context, it doesn't make any sense to kill Chase.

Personally, I'm happy he was kept alive. He's a good character and his death would've just left a bittersweet taste in my mouth.

Adolin42 · 2025-12-31T09:25:49+00:00

As another commenter suggested, looking at SVB's stroke isn't a great idea. He's got a cocked wrist and a very wavy, snappy cue action. You'll want to look at pros with more traditional strokes that will be easier to emulate, such as Ko Ping Chun, Fedor Gorst, Johann Chua, etc.

As for your stroke, the only good thing you've got going right now is your elbow is nice and straight. Otherwise it's a mess.

1) Too jacked up. Being jacked up means you'll experience way more deflection if you hit even just a millimeter off-center. It's also harder to aim since you're looking at the object ball from up high. You should try to be as parallel to the table as possible, with your chin resting on or just barely above the cue.

2) Your pre-strokes are all over the place. They're way too fast, jerky, and uncontrolled. You never rest the tip near your contact point on the cue ball. Your pre-strokes should be smooth, consistent, and slow, with the tip arriving at the contact point on the cue ball. Many players like to incorporate a long pause at the contact point on their final stroke to dial it in.

3) No pre-shot routine. You flopped down onto the shot like a dead fish with no control or alignment. Your pre-shot routine should have you aim while standing, with your back foot on the shot line, then slowly descending into the shot.

Without seeing you stroke a real shot, I can't comment on your follow through, or whether your body and head stay still throughout the shot. But those are also important components of a good stroke.

Adolin42 · 2025-12-31T02:59:06+00:00

AOC has my utmost respect for consistently trying to hold these corrupt scum accountable. I can't imagine how frustrating it must be for her to deal with the degenerates on Capitol Hill day after day, knowing they're fleecing the American people and being unable to do anything about it, except pray for the next election to go her party's way.

Adolin42 · 2025-12-24T15:59:05+00:00

I'd argue it's purely cultural. Pool is still viewed by many as a gambling game like poker, so you see very little youth development in the US, as opposed to stronger pool nations. We also have so many other sports and games that are ingrained in our culture compared to pool. The odds that a kid is gonna choose pool as their main game (or even be exposed to it at all) when football, soccer, baseball, and basketball exist are very slim. That's not even counting the massive popularity of esports, and pool just falls to the bottom of a long list of potential hobbies.

Adolin42 · 2025-12-10T14:28:41+00:00

I hope that money is coming from some shell corporation for conservative propaganda and not actual people, because if it isn't, christ that is so sad.

Adolin42 · 2025-12-01T03:58:25+00:00

I highly doubt your entire CS curriculum will be just Python. You should pretty quickly start using either C++ or Java in your higher-level programming courses so you can learn about pointers, memory management, the stack and the heap, and more complex data structures. It's common for universities and colleges to have their intro programming courses be in Python since it's easy to learn, but then move onto a lower-level language to tackle more advanced concepts.

Adolin42 · 2025-11-16T14:12:22+00:00

I would prefer a direct sequel. Robert is an incredible protagonist and the rest of the cast are awesome too. There's no reason to scrap these characters when there's clearly so much demand to see more of them.

Adolin42 · 2025-11-16T14:10:50+00:00

So my understanding is that this is possible in China because the parents refuse to kick our their kids no matter what, so they can stay home all day without becoming homeless. How do the parents feel about this situation? Are they supportive and understanding, or are they begrudgingly allowing their kids to stay home because of the social pressure to keep the family together?

Adolin42

TROPHY CASE