#14 〰 Season 2 Premiere! Common Side Effects and The Boys Series Finale

This week, I’m talking about two finales that were trying to do a lot of the same things, but landed in completely different ways: Common Side Effects and The Boys.For me, Common Side Effects worked because the ending felt earned. The show knew what it was building toward, it trusted its premise, and the finale paid off the themes it had been setting up around medicine, power, desperation, and who gets to decide what counts as justice.The Boys, on the other hand, had plenty of big moments, but the ending didn’t feel earned to me. It felt like the show wanted the emotional weight and political horror of a major turning point without fully doing the work to get there. So instead of feeling devastating or inevitable, it felt more like the show was forcing itself into the next chapter.So this episode is me unpacking why one finale stuck the landing, why the other didn’t, and why “dark,” “shocking,” and “political” only really work when the story earns the punch.