Critics love The Boys season 2—Better satire, deeper characters, more blood

Critics have weighed in on the second season of The Boys on Amazon. What’s the verdict? Read on for the non-spoiler version:

The world is drowning in superheroes, and has been for a while. Between the Marvel movies from Disney and the DC movies from Warner Bros., you can’t take two steps without some superhero or other trying to save you from an invading intergalactic menace or whatever.

So how does a new superhero show stand out in this environment? If you can’t beat ’em, then mock them mercilessly, add in a lot of blood and guts, and join them. That seems to be the basic idea behind The Boys, Amazon’s show about corrupt decadently superheroes and the ground-level team of vigilantes — that would be “the Boys” determined to take them down.

The show found an audience with its first season, but if you listen to critics, it sounds like the second season really kicks things into high gear. “[T]he big question going into Season 2 is, can The Boys keep its edge keen and sustain the show’s previous levels of f***in’ diabolicality?” asks Dan Jolin of Empire. “The answer is, hell yes…Sustaining the first season’s peak levels of violence and dark comedy, Season 2 pulls none of its satirical jabs. Antony Starr’s Homelander, meanwhile, further proves himself the perfect superhero for our trash-fire times.”

Review: Four stars. Is that out of five? I don’t know, the point is he likes it.

Alex McLevy of The A.V. Club also dug what he’s seen of season 2 so far, giving it a grade of B+. “As a whole, the second season of The Boys is a solid improvement on the first,” he wrote. “Smarter, sharper, and more engaged with its stories and characters—not to mention [Aya] Cash swooping in and pulling off a sneak MVP performance with her devilishly dry turn as Stormfront.”

"But even Urban’s Butcher, so single-minded and reductive in season one, finally gets to start digging into some ambiguities with his grizzled antihero, teasing out the guy’s darker side while finding ways to reveal some weaknesses. If season one was mostly empty spectacle—a bunch of super-powered assholes unleashing heat-vision blasts and concrete-shattering punches—now we’ve got a reason to care, a retort to the bleak nihilism that previously drove things along. The supers may be the basis for this show, but it’s the humanity that powers it."

Aya Cash, by the way, got great reviews across the board, even from critics who were more split on the new season, like Brandon Katz of Observer. He said season 2 “vacillates between reveling in its graphic cruelty to the point of disgust and revitalizing the overly saturated superhero genre. You never know which you’re going to get from scene-to-scene as if it’s all the twisted luck of the draw.”

"The Boys delights as a stark departure from the expected norms of comic book content right up until the point it doesn’t. 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."

I dunno if anybody thought that’s what it was?

Charles Pulliam-Moore of Gizmodo was more positive, but did warn that there are certain things in the show you might want to avoid if you know they’re not for you. “The Boys’ sophomore season doesn’t try to pull its punches and really ends up feeling like something special. The imagery is every bit as messed up gore-wise as its predecessor and if blood isn’t really your thing, it might be something to skip or watch with the remote at the ready.”

Let’s end with David Griffin of IGN, who brings us back fully on board:

"Showrunner Eric Kripke (Supernatural) kicks off Season 2 with even more of the irreverent, gratuitous, and stylized drama that made us all fall in love with Season 1. And while the over-the-top action is a joy to behold, like The Boys ramming a high-speed boat through the belly of a whale, Kripke never forgets to take time to develop his characters. Where Season 1 focused a bit more on the profound effect superheroes have on ordinary people, Season 2 begins by lasering in on how having superpowers affects you as a person."

In short, critics are all over The Boys season 2! If you enjoyed the first outing, you’ll probably like this one, and if you didn’t, it might be worth another look.

The Boys season 2 premieres on Amazon on September 4!

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h/t SyFy Wire