The Boys

The Boys is just flip and nihilistic enough to capture the full range of the suck, from the parasocial relationships we use to replace human connections to the active shooter drills with which we traumatize our children. As a result, it’s the first thing I’ve watched since the pandemic began that provided any meaningful catharsis. The Boys strikes a tone that Chaplin missed but the Stooges understood: If you want to satirize a sick culture, speeches about the brotherhood of man won’t cut it. Sometimes you’ve gotta unleash the lions.

A sharp, entertaining, eviscerating satire of superhero franchises and the culture that aggrandizes them. ... If Season 1 was great, Season 2 is even better, thanks to the expansion of the main characters’ back stories — which in turn throws the good-versus-evil, perfect folks-versus-regular slobs plot into even sharper relief. New twists and members of the ensemble are added judiciously, which is probably a strange word for a show that’s so wonderfully reckless.

The Boys quickly became Amazon's signature series, and the second season of this beyond-dark show outdoes the first -- offering a searing take on modern-day America that might be TV's most subversive program, camouflaged in superhero garb.

“The Boys” is still an imperfect beast, but it gets so many parts right — I haven’t even talked about the skilled stunt work or expertly staged action scenes — that you’re likely to get caught up in its gorging satire. Performances, moments, and specific lines will sneak up and level you. And most of the time, it’s when you’re in need of a good leveling.

Amazon series “The Boys,” which manages in its second season to be even more boisterously bleak than the first time around. ... But don’t worry, action fans, there are also plenty of exploding heads, super-battles and mountains of mayhem. This show rarely rests.

Season 2 shows a greater willingness to sit down with its characters, and its presumably bigger budget makes for more assured effects and a slightly wider scope than before. There’s plenty of fun to be had in the chunky crimson mess; that is, if you have the eight hours to spare to look for it.

As a whole, the second season of The Boys is a solid improvement on the first: Smarter, sharper, and more engaged with its stories and characters.

While the first season surprised with behind-the-scenes talk (and action) among the superheroes, it didn’t have the depth this one does.

The Boys isn’t nearly as subversive at it fancies itself. The idea that superheroes have a dark side has been part of the conversation about the medium for decades. Indeed it is the basis for many of Marvel and DC Comics’s most compelling storylines (Captain America: Civil War, for starters). But The Boys takes a cleaver to the cult of the caped crusader with genuine glee. If the gore feels non-stop – watch out for an exploding whale early on – so, too, does the show’s wicked sense of fun.

The Boys is so good at the specifically horrible contours of its awful superheroes and their corporate overlords Vought International, in fact, that its storytelling about the titular Boys is a tiny bit of a letdown.

The second season is even more shockingly ruthless than the first, demonstrating just how puny the Boys are in comparison to the flying, ultra-strong superheroes they’re up against. It might be more bloody to compensate for a season that is a little less sharp than the first, though it continues to unravel the central themes that make the show so compelling.

Amazing that “The Boys” juggles each of its storylines without fumbling most of them. Conceptually, the season’s a jumble. Practically, it works remarkably well, juvenile in the way everything producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg touch should be but smart enough to know when not to be dumb as rocks (or, at least, to know when to take itself seriously and when to burst heads like grapes).

TV's oddball superhero team-up genre is one that often coheres better in second seasons. DC's Legends of Tomorrow made a huge qualitative leap. Netflix's Umbrella Academy remained frustratingly uneven, but still tightened up its storytelling. The Boys, definitely better than either of those shows in its first season, didn't make that leap for me. It's still fun, quick-witted and, to its detriment, glib. But it's explodier than ever and you can take that to the bank.