The Boys

Packed with fun-as-ever action, surprise cameos, and searingly salient commentary, The Boys season three ticks nearly all the boxes for those seeking on-screen catharsis amid real-world frustration, impatience, and grief.

“The Boys” serves notice immediately that its third season will be as ferociously gory and savagely satirical as the preceding two, racing through story at something approaching super-speed. While obviously not intended for every taste, the Amazon series remains a scathing examination of the superhero genre and society at large, threaded with warnings about the corrupting influence of power.

The Boys feels very much of this specific era, and the nihilism it inspires — the way it captures how futile the struggle to do and be good can feel sometimes, when the systems in place seem like they can never be fixed for the better, give it a certain relevance to today that frankly it’d be nice to ignore.

It’s heavily populated, extremely well cast — whoever found the chiseled Antony Starr deserves either a raise or an Emmy — and never boring. The third season has a lot of moving parts but the show wisely keeps its focus on Homelander. There are a lot of jerks here, but it’s the jerk at the top, the jerk with the most apocalyptic power (like that jerk in Russia), who’s scariest.

Of the plotlines this season, Kimiko and Frenchie (Tomer Capon) are the most compelling to watch. ... There is a lot to love about this season of The Boys, but there is also a lot left to be desired. Most of the characters have reached a point where they need new motivations and outside influence to propel them forward.

A howling satire of our real world and the superhero fictions we create, The Boys also features a ripping mean streak all its own. It’s brash. It’s bloody. And if the boys wanna fight, you better let ‘em.

Astute, slick, satirical fun, with enough brashness and spectacle to make it a great bang for your buck.

The series hasn’t lost its bitterness or its bite, and the chilling final shots of the finale should wipe out any fears to that effect. But as season three reminds us, the punches hit harder when there’s something worth fighting for.

Quibbles aside, I’m glad that as long as we must live in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, The Boys offers an oasis for everyone who wishes we didn’t.

The show manages—save for the occasional lull, usually having to do with Frenchie and Kimiko’s relationship—to keep things wild and ridiculous.

With its sharp satirical edge, The Boys season 3 often ends up an oddly therapeutic watch. ... The Boys is back, let us simply bask in its depraved glory.

The Boys’ third season doesn’t forget to deepen its characters, while delivering its requisite bloodbaths and ‘holy shit!’ moments.

The acting and characterization is top-notch, and the gory fight scenes remain thrilling. While the satire is a downgrade in sharpness from Season 2, the story remains worth watching. For all the attempts at topicality, this season’s most effective capturing of the zeitgeist is in the narrative’s celebration of standing by your friends when the world at large is unfathomably awful.

“The Boys” is a black comedy, an action extravaganza, and a vicious editorial all rolled under the same cape. Doing any one of these things half as well as what’s seen in Season 3 would be a challenge, and doing them all while maintaining its own distinct identity makes “The Boys” that much more impressive.

What gets lost, though, is the camaraderie of the dissidents. It’s still around, but so much time is spent showing Homelander railing at everyone, it doesn’t give them their due – at least not in the early episodes. ... But the beauty of “The Boys” is you just never know where it’s headed.

No season has fully cohered, including the third outing that debuted Friday, which feels a tad too earnest for its own good.

“The Boys” has grown up a bit, but it’s also grown outward, to the point where it becomes nearly impossible to truly keep track of its expansive cast of characters and the myriad politicking they have to navigate. ... “The Boys” is A Lot to take in, and the surface-level cracks in the façade of its superhero and social critiques become ever more visible.

“The Boys” is consistently entertaining, but it could be so much stronger. For the first time, it almost seems scared to really unleash its true power.