Blaine: I watched season 2 of my favorite show on Prime Video, “The Boys”. It’s good to have the Boys back in town again, especially during COVID. What a ride this season has been! As I mentioned on the first review I did of “The Boys", Prime Video already renewed the show for another season before it actually aired. Season 2 was already filming by the time the world was being introduced to show.
I’ll try to explain things as spoiler free as I can.
Feels like there was bigger things happening in this season compared to the last.
On the last season, The Boys ensemble were coming together and working undercover to expose the true nature of superheroes. A lot of the Sups let power get to them and they act like it’s just a job instead of their purpose. Someone ratted out The Boys and the Sups were aware that people were after them. Even the public knows them now and they are thought of as the bad guys, so they had to go into hiding. Billy Butcher, who is the leader of the group, went after Homelander, the Superman of the show, and ended up being framed for murder.
The only thing that brings out the good in Billy Butcher is the love of his life, Becca, and he believed Homelander had killed her after she went missing. It was also believed that Becca had an affair with Homelander, but the truth is he raped her and got pregnant with his child. Vought, the company that creates the supers, hid both Becca and the child from both Butcher and Homelander. Homelander is wanting to get close with his son, Ryan, but he’s an unfit parent.
Butcher can’t be a father to Ryan either because children aren’t his thing and he likes to play things rough. Ryan doesn’t meet Billy until the last episode of the season and Ryan looks deep within Butcher and can tell he cares for Becca just as much as him. Butcher may not be the fatherly type, but he’s more carrying, where as Homelander is whacked out of his mind.
Season 2 felt like it started off slow, but that’s because The Boys had to figure out how to get back in the game. Things got more interesting and entertaining as the season went on.
In the past I explained that the superhero group known as The Seven are a reference to the Justice League. In season 2, The Seven’s new logo is a reference to the 2013 Superman film, “Man of Steel”. There’s a guy wanting to make a movie about them and he calls it “Dawn of the Seven”, and I think the title is another reference to the film that came after “Man of Steel”, “Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice”.
The Boys have a Sup on their team, Kimiko. They broke her out of a underground prison and she was the only female on the team, until now. Annie January/Starlight is apart of the team now. She helped The Boys escape when they were prisoners. She is one of the Seven, but she has her own way of what it means to be a superhero, instead of being a celebrity.
Annie is also in a romantic relationship with one of The Boys, Hughie, and in season 2 we see them getting closer in their relationship and bonding more as they work as a team to expose the secret ingredient in making someone super.
The Seven have a new member added to the team, Stormfront, who has an electrical power, and like Annie, she speaks her mind and is not afraid to be herself. Homelander is not fond of Stormfront at first, but then he realizes the two of them have a lot in common. They are both threatening, dangerous and like to damage a person really badly. Homelander has done it with a lot of women, but he doesn’t have to do that anymore because now he has found his perfect match.
Every time Stormfront is killing a victim she’ll look at them in the eye and say “I want to see the light go out”. It’s a line that really suits her.
Queen Maeve, the Wonder Woman of the show, was going through some difficult things in the first season and that’s because Homelander was messing with her head. She wasn’t proud of letting a plane full of innocent people crash. She wanted to save them and she knew Homelander could just land the plane to safety, but he was too lazy and stubborn to do anything. Queen Maeve feels threatened by Homelander and he is treating her like a bad husband would treat his wife.
Homelander feels like he’s in control of everything because he’s the most powerful superhero of all time. I always say every superhero has it’s weakness. For Queen Maeve it’s losing her girlfriend. Homelander must have some kind of weakness. Black Noir, the mysterious black ninja of The Seven, we learn what his weakness is. You can’t use kryptonite on Homelander because he was born on Earth and made in a lab. Homelander may be as powerful and resemble Superman, but they do have their differences.
For someone who has the strength to lift a truck as if it were a volley ball, it’s hard for Queen Maeve to find the strength to let out her feelings and face her fears. She was trying to tell her girlfriend about the plane crash, but it was hard to confess. But now Queen Maeve is starting to let it out in this season. Annie is brave enough to be herself and I think Queen Maeve is starting to look at her as an inspiration.
Aquaman has been made fun of in the past on animated shows like “South Park” and “Robot Chicken”. That changed when Jason Momoa took on the character and made him bad ass. The Aquaman of “The Boys” is The Deep, and he’s made to look like a joke. In this season he’s trying to get back into the Seven after making stupid and clumsy mistakes.
Shawn Ashmore guest stars this season as someone working at a clinic where Sups are made. He’s also Sup. His power is controlling fire. He carries a lighter around because he needs it to create the fire sense he can’t do it himself. It’s funny because Shawn is best known for playing Iceman in the “X-Men” movies and his character in “The Boys” resembles Pyro, Iceman’s enemy in “X2” and “X-Men: The Last Stand”.
Wolverine’s dead, but there’s a little bit of him in everyone. For Stormfront, it’s the power of immortality. She’s been around since the early 1900s. For Kimiko, it’s the power to heal.
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the guys behind “Superbad” and “This is the End”, developed the show and they like to make dick jokes every now and then. They did it for “The Boys” on episode 6 of season 2.
Hughie Campall, for a man who is not a big fan of murder he always manages to get blood on himself. It started off with his girlfriend getting run over by A Train, The Flash of the show, and her blood splattering all over him. Then he blew up an Invisible man and the blood really did a paint job on him. An agents head exploded like a water balloon in front of Hughie and the blood got on his face. And finally, he gets covered in whale blood.
The most memorable scene on this season is where The Boys crash a boat through a whale. I know it’s against saving the Whales, but I can’t help it if it’s funny. Another scene is at the season finale when Annie January, Kimiko and Queen Maeve are working as a team to beat the shit out of Stormfront and showing what girl power is all about. That was an awesome scene and so badass!
Once again Prime Video thought ahead and renewed “The Boys” for another season before the second season premiered. Looking forward to seeing what happens next.
