Amazon’s ‘The Boys’ Season 2 Is Reviewing Even Better Than Season 1

While a huge host of shows have been delayed because of the pandemic, some of them managed to finish up new seasons before all the shutdowns happened, which thankfully, includes The Boys season 2, set to debut on September 4, just over a week from now.

Amazon seems to have found its first real megahit with The Boys, the R-rated non-Marvel, non-DC superhero series (based on a Dynamite comic) that imagines a demented type of Justice League, and season 1 was a big hit for fans and critics alike.

Well, Amazon was confident enough to have a very early embargo for season 2, and so far, it’s being reviewed even better than season 1.

Season 1 of The Boys had an 89% on Rotten Tomatoes with a 93% audience score. So far (albeit with 20 reviews in versus 99 for season 1), The Boys season 2 has increased to a 95%, with only a single negative-skewing review in so far.

The show is being praised for going beyond just gratuitous violence and sex (though it still has those) and actually being about something this season, as the show dives into some real world themes. Here are some review excerpts:

Awards Watch: “The Boys finally finds its momentum and goes even deeper into more real-life issues such as white nationalism, systemic racism, and xenophobia.”

ComicBook: “Kripke once said that The Boys season 2 didn’t want to go bigger, but deeper, and in that regard it is a magnificent success. The action and shock value is there, but it’s the real people that will leave you feeling every emotion under the sun.”

And some praise for Antony Starr’s Homelander, as ever:

Empire: “Appropriately enough, Starr remains the, er, star of the show, the very embodiment of its black-hole-dark comedy concept: with great power comes a complete disregard for any form of responsibility, accountability or morality.”

The one negative review tries to temper all the enthusiasm for the series, but even it calls it “highly entertaining.”

Observer: “Highly entertaining but grossly flawed, The Boys envisions itself as the bad boy of superhero stories. To a degree, it is. But let’s not act as if its the long-awaited mash-up of Shakespeare and Stan Lee.”

Amazon has quickly realized just what they have with The Boys, as season 2 is not only getting an after-air talk show like The Walking Dead, but season 3 has already been greenlit ahead of season 2’s release, and is adding cast members like Jensen Ackles for next year.

The Boys is also doing something different this time around. Rather than dropping all in one binge, it is airing its first three episodes on September 4, and then the next five will be released weekly after that. Presumably to keep the conversation going for at least a month and a half, so Amazon’s highest profile series doesn’t fade from conversation so quickly, as tends to happen with binged series. Netflix can get away with that when it has just so many damn shows, but Amazon wants to savor their most popular offering a bit. I believe these reviews above were crafted based on the first three episodes that had screeners go out.

Anyway, can’t wait for those three, and really, the rest of the whole season. Only about a week to go now.

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