A growing subgenre of paranoid conspiracy thriller has captured the imaginations of viewers more primed than ever to see signs of widescale corruption, manipulation, and surveillance

Call it “deep state TV”: a growing subgenre of paranoid conspiracy thriller that has captured the imaginations of viewers more primed than ever to see signs of widescale corruption, manipulation, and surveillance in nearly every facet of contemporary life, often rightly so.

With plenty of ill-gotten money, the unavoidable corporation can maintain a fortress of opacity around its real machinations.

With desperate, confused people out there unaware of how the world works but certain that their hapless lives should be something better than this, they’re tempted to become a foot soldier.

David Bianculli : Deep state TV is an exemplar of the current climate in the U.S. on both a global and local scale.

He says Trump , for all his superficially populist bluster, has consistently emboldened the deep state and D.C. swamp.

The relentless spate of global elections across 2024 had a consistent antiestablishment vibe, he says.

The Boys’ Hughie , whose girlfriend was killed by a superhero, falls in love with a different superhero, who wants to tear down the Vought -government complex from within.

Maybe that’s too optimistic a prospect for us viewers, caught in the webs of the real deep states all around us.

But it may just be the kind of motivation we could all use right now.