美剧《黑袍纠察队第四季》归来：危机四伏，英雄再起

“The Boys” began with an intriguing question for our superhero-infused pop culture – namely, what would happen if extraordinary powers were wedded with corruption, neuroses and corporate greed. Yet that dark, satirical take on the genre has blossomed into TV’s most political drama, a quality even more overtly on display in its much-anticipated fourth season.

《黑袍纠察队》以我们充斥着超级英雄文化的流行文化中一个引人入胜的问题作为开篇——即，如果超凡力量与腐败、神经症和企业贪婪相结合，将会发生什么。然而，这种对该题材的黑暗讽刺已经发展成了电视界最具政治色彩的剧情，这一特质在备受期待的第四季中表现得更为明显。

Put more simply, don’t let the masks and capes fool you. The fact that the latest episodes drop as the US braces for a presidential campaign only magnifies elements that have existed throughout the show’s run on Amazon’s Prime Video, becoming the service’s signature series, including the spinoffs “Gen V” and “The Boys Presents: Diabolical.”

简而言之，不要被面具和披风所迷惑。最新几集在美国准备总统竞选之际播出，这只会放大该剧在亚马逊Prime Video平台播出期间一直存在的元素，使该剧成为该服务的标志性系列，包括衍生剧《V世代》和《黑袍纠察队:劣迹》。

The fourth season features the usual conflict between superheroes in the uneasy employ of Vought International and those who oppose them. The former cohort begins with the near-invincible, psychopathic Homelander (Antony Starr), whose Superman-like public persona is carefully manicured to hide those qualities, while the latter take their lead from Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), even if they frequently question his methods.

第四季继续展现了在沃特国际雇佣下不稳定的超级英雄与他们反对者之间的冲突。前者以近乎无敌的、心理变态的祖国人(由安东尼·斯塔尔饰演)为首，他像超人一样的公众形象被精心维护以掩盖这些特质，而后者则以比利·布彻(由卡尔·厄本饰演)为首，即使他们经常对他的方法提出质疑。

The Butcher-Homelander standoff is complicated by their battle for the soul of the latter’s biological son, Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), which itself encompasses consideration of the question of nature versus nature.

布彻和祖国人之间的对峙因他们对后者生物儿子瑞安(由卡梅伦·克罗维蒂饰演)灵魂的争夺而变得更加复杂，这场争夺本身也涵盖了自然与本性之间的思考。

More than any season before it, the new arc leans into the political realm thanks to the involvement of politician Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit), and efforts by Vought and Homelander to impact the political debate.

比以往任何一季都更加深入政治领域的是，政客维多利亚·纽曼(由克劳迪娅·多米特饰演)的参与，以及沃特和祖国人努力影响政治辩论的企图。

That includes thinly-veiled references to a group clearly intended to represent QAnon, the conspiracy-minded movement, and the use of propaganda tactics to manipulate the public and voters. At one point, the characters attend an event called Truthcon, where a banner that reads “There are no conspiracies – or coincidences” is prominently flown.

这包括一些薄纱般的暗示，显然是指代表阴谋论运动QAnon的团体，以及利用宣传策略来操纵公众和选民。在某个时刻，剧中人物参加了一个名为“真相大会”的活动，会上显眼地悬挂着一条横幅，上面写着“这里没有阴谋——也没有巧合”。

The show also reveals the private disdain of those in (and with) power toward their supporters, a point made in a uniquely “The Boys”-esque manner.

该剧还以一种独特的《黑袍纠察队》式的方式揭示了当权者及其同党对他们的支持者的私下蔑视。

To punctuate that, there’s a new hero, Firecracker (Valorie Curry), whose political leanings echo Vought News’ conservative commentators (she even gets her own show). As series creator Eric Kripke told entertainment Weekly, the character serves as a surrogate for “conspiracy-minded movements and the super extreme right-wing news media.”

为了强调这一点，剧中出现了一个新的英雄角色——爆竹女(由瓦莱瑞·卡瑞饰演)，她的政治倾向与沃特新闻的保守派评论员相呼应(她甚至拥有了自己的节目)。正如剧集创作者埃里克·克里普克告诉《娱乐周刊》的那样，这个角色是“阴谋论运动和极端右翼新闻媒体”的代名词。

Dispensing with subtlety, Kripke and company have surrounded that satire in violence and excess, qualities that feel organic to this world, where the traditional ideal of heroism is used to obscure brutal realities. Although the Deep (Chace Crawford), an Aquaman-like member of the Vought-backed superhero team known as the Seven, is often a semi-pathetic sources of derision, he sums that mentality up when he comes to the realization, as he puts it, “Violence is power.”

克里普克和他的团队摒弃了微妙的手法，将这种讽刺融入到暴力和过度中，这些特质在这个世界里感觉很自然，因为传统的英雄主义理想被用来掩盖残酷的现实。虽然深海(由切斯·克劳福饰演)是沃特支持的超级英雄团队“七巨头”中类似海王的成员，他常常是半可怜的嘲笑对象，但当他意识到“暴力就是力量”时，他总结出了这种心态。

Inevitably, the new season involves new, unexpected and uneasy alliances, as well as the thorny (and seemingly perennial) issue of finding ways to neutralize Homelander, which hardly feels like a fair fight.

不可避免地，新一季涉及到了新的、出乎意料和令人不安的联盟，以及如何找到中和祖国人的方法这一棘手(而且似乎是永恒的)问题，这几乎不是一场公平的战斗。

Having earned its reputation as the most gruesome and kinky show on television, “The Boys” grapples with a certain pressure to fulfill those expectations for the faithful. In its totality, the eight-episode season largely manages to clear that bar (or should one prefer, limbo under it), including a few explosively funny (and not incidentally, grisly) visual gags.

《黑袍纠察队》已经赢得了电视上最恐怖和古怪的节目的声誉，它面临着一定的压力来满足忠实观众的期望。总的来说，这八集的季节大体上成功地达到了这个标准(或者应该说是，在其下面弯腰而过)，包括一些爆炸性的有趣(并非偶然，也很恐怖)视觉噱头。

Success has also enabled “The Boys” to play a long game, meaning nobody should expect too much closure from this season when there’s a fifth and final season to come.

《黑袍纠察队》的成功也让它得以玩一场持久战，意味着在第五季也就是最后一季到来之前，大家不应该期望这一季会有太多的结局。

From that view, the series might have lost some of its freshness but not its ability to surprise and provoke, peeling back its mask a little further to issue a warning about the danger of brightly colored fascism, a message clearly intended to echo beyond its world and into ours.

从这个角度看，这部剧可能失去了一些新鲜感，但它仍然具有令人惊讶和挑逗的能力，进一步揭开它的面具，发出关于鲜艳法西斯主义危险的警告，这一信息显然旨在从剧中世界传达到我们的世界。

“The Boys” begins its fourth season June 13 on Amazon’s Prime Video.

《黑袍纠察队》第四季将于6月13日在亚马逊Prime Video上线。