Here is our full review of season 2 of The Boys
The show stars Karl Urban, Anthony Starr, Aya Cash and more
The Boys Season 2 premiers on September 4 on Prime Video
As the market is saturated with more superhero TV shows and movies, up to now we’ve only got the heroic sides of these super-powered beings. From The Avengers to The Justice League, it’s always been about saving the world and doing the right thing. Well, Prime Video’s The Boys is anything but a straight-forward superhero TV show. We watched all 8 episodes of the second season, and we can definitely say that Season 2 of The Boys is some of the best and most thrilling television shows of 2020. Superheroes or not! That is great praise indeed but the show just is that good. It’s tighter than the first season and knows exactly where it’s going. The first season did falter in a few side plots but the second season is laser-focused in its goal. The one thing that we must warn fans of the comic book is that the show is completely different from the show to the point that apart from the names of the characters, everything has been changed to fit the smaller screen.
Just a refresher for anyone who has not watched the show, The Boys is about a band of misfits, led by the Machiavellian Billy Butcher who get together to take down a bunch of vile, obnoxious superheroes. As a part of the Vought corporation, these superheroes are essentially treated like rockstars and celebrities, with glamorous lives and personalities. But that is far from the truth as these ‘superheroes’ are psychotic and dangerous with a litany of mental issues. The worst of them being Homelander, the shows Superman archetype. Anthony Starr also delivers an incredible performance as the Homelander, playing the character as a god pushed to the edge of his limits and just waiting for chance to unleash hell on everyone. Based on the comic book of the same name, written by famed scribe Garth Ennis and illustrated by Darrick Robertson, The Boys was a gory, gruesome and in your face show that didn’t believe in subtlety and gave us the superhero violence that we’ll never get with a Marvel movie or even a DC film, as ‘dark’ as they might seem. The first season was a hit with fans and critics alike and a second season was green lit immediately.
The Boys is not your typical Superhero show
The season kicks off right where we left off at the conclusion of the final episode of season one. Butcher knows that his wife Becca is alive and in hiding. After having thought that she was murdered by the Homelander in season one, Butcher is desperate to get her back. But there’s one problem. She is also raising Homelander’s child. The rest of the team are lying low after the murder of Vought exec Madaline Stilwell. Branded as criminals, Hugie, Mother’s Milk, Frenchie and Kimiko are currently crashing in a drug den, always worried that they’ll incur the wrath of The Seven. Speaking of The Seven, the world’s premiere superhero team now has a new addition in the form of Stormfront. The character was a male Nazi sympathizer in the comics and was not as involved in the main team as much as this version of the character is. But, the sinister nature of a gender-swapped Stormfront adds a really intriguing twist to the character. The introduction of Giancarlo Esposito as the main man in charge of the Vought corporation was genius casting as his cold and calculating demeanour lends itself very well to the character he plays. Even The Deep has a hilarious and sometimes creepy secondary plot where he is coerced into joining a religious cult with the hope of getting his spot on The Seven back.
Even though The Boys has taken a U-turn from the comic books, it manages to carve out its own world and story. The setting of the show very much mirrors our own. It even goes as far as to introduce an Alexandria Ocasio Cortez-like politician, replete with catchy slogans and online dance routines. It also takes a page out of the current political climate to set up this world of superheroes but still grounding it in a very believable reality. Let’s be honest, if superheroes were real, they would be more like the characters found in the pages and 2 seasons of The Boys rather than The Justice League or The Avengers. With all that power must come a sort of God complex, which is exactly what the Homelander suffers from. To be fair, the show goes to great lengths to shows us that a crazed killer the Homelander isn't born but rather created through years of isolation and being treated like a loaded weapon rather than like a child. The Boys Season 2 shows us both sides of the coin and makes it very clear that the decisions taken with some of these superpowered individuals may have been the worst ones in history. Even though the violence is cartoonish and gruesome, it doesn’t take away from the clear good and evil story that The Boys Season 2 is trying to tell.
Why you should watch The Boys Season 2 on Prime Video
The many subplots and threads are also handled with care and almost everything has a payoff by the end of the show. Since this review is a spoiler free one, we will not be revealing any key scenes or set pieces in the show but rest assured that The Boys Season 2 is an important part of the superhero genre as it is one of the few pieces of media that applies a deconstructive lens to the superhero, much like Alan Moore did with The Watchmen (the comic book, not that god awful HBO show). Also, did we mention that the show was extremely violent? Well, just for the guys at the back, The Boys Season 2 features decapitations, burnings, hangings, people being split open, head-crushing, people exploding and so much more. If you have a passing interest in superheroes, you really should do yourself a favour and check out The Boys on Amazon Prime Video. And, for fans of season one, trust us, Season 2 makes the first look like a Disney movie by comparison.
The Boys Season 2 premiers on Prime Video on September 4. You will be able to stream the first 3 episodes of the show with subsequent episodes being released weekly.
If you're into superhero films, you may want to check out our list of the best superhero shows on Prime Video. Or, if you're more of a sci-fi kinda guy, we've got a list for you as well with the best sci-fi shows on Prime Video. And finally, if you're a glutton for fantasy shows like we are, you'll be glad to know that we've got you covered with the best fantasy shows on Prime Video as well.
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Andrew Lu
A geek and nerd at heart, I love comic books, horror movies and professional fighting. Yes, I know how insane that sounds. View Full Profile
