It’s not often that I find shows that grab me, and really elicit a must-see response. A lot of the time, I spend an inordinate amount of my evenings watching a lot of things that are okay, enjoyable to differing degrees, but when the day is over, they’re not things that I genuinely think I could probably watch again, or be willing to tell people to watch, and let me know when you watch it so that I can watch it with you, kind of shows. I watch a lot of slice of life types of television, because they’re often times quick, simple, and are enjoyable to a degree where I can spend 30-60 minutes, and then walk away and not feel like I’ve wasted too much of my time.
Out of the blue, my brother texts me and asks if I’ve seen The Boys. Nope, never heard of it. But the timing was good, because I had just finished season 2 of Kakegurui, the gambling anime, which I had watched as something of a pallet-cleanser after the fairly lackluster Jessica Jones season 3. So since all the stars were aligned for me to start something new, I gave it a whirl.
At the very first inkling of the plot coming together, revolving primarily around the corruption of superheroes backed by corporate, I was pretty much engaged. My brother said it took him about five episodes to really get into it, but it latched its hooks into me after just one. The sheer idea of compromised superheroes who are just as much shitheads as the vast majority of the population is an intriguing plot, and I was committed to watching more of it.
I have to say that I’m kind of impressed with Amazon’s batting average, as it pertains to shows its released. Granted, I’ve really only delved into stuff like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Electric Dreams but as far as I’m concerned, for a network that is trying to shake itself out of the shadows of Netflix, The Boys is a solid contributor to helping them achieve such lofty ambitions.
Frankly, I’ve found myself abandoning ship on more and more things on Netflix, thumbs downing, and removing from my list them, because they’re simply not worth the time watching all of them. Just the other night, I had abandoned ship on two different movies that I had saved because they seemed interesting, but weren’t worth watching more than 30 minutes into them, before they lost my interest outright. This isn’t that big of a surprise, given the growth of the service, and the constant need for more and more content, eventually, they were inevitably going to end up with some stinkers along the way, while they try to build their libraries.
But The Boys, now that was just a good damn show, through and through. The general plot of the show was captivating, and the performances of some of the actors is pretty good, in my amateur estimation. Like the people who played Hughie and Starlight seem a little green, but it was nice to see Elizabeth Shue for the first time since like, Hollow Man. But if there was anyone who stole the show and emerged as the show’s true hard carry, it would have to be none other than Antony Starr, the guy who played Homelander, the show’s equivalent to Superman.
Without question, Homelander was the best part of the entire show. From both a character and acting standpoint, Homelander dominated both the storyline and the camera with his compelling character arc, as well as his innate ability to portray a psychotic, disingenuous tool of a man who had to protect his public reputation, while hiding the fact that he was a deranged lunatic in private.
This isn’t to say everyone else was chopped liver though; Karl Urban is steady as a metronome as the vengeful Billy Butcher, and the guys playing the other Boys, Frenchie and Mother’s Milk also have strong showings as supporting characters.
Without spoiling anything, the season definitely ends on a pretty drastic cliffhanger, and there’s no mistake that there must be more The Boys in the future. This was one of the better shows that I’ve seen in recent months, and I really hope that there’s going to be more of it in the future. I feel like they’ve just scratched the surface with the show’s overall potential, and it would be in the best interests of Amazon if they quickly announce that more is on the way.
