The Boys season 4 will drop the first 3 episodes at once — Do we like that?

Amazon Prime Video's iconoclastic superhero drama The Boys is coming back for a fourth season. Expect it to premiere on Thursday, June 13.

It will be a mondo-sized premiere. According to The Direct, Amazon will drop the first three episodes all at once, with each new episode to follow at a rate of one per week thereafter. That means the schedule for The Boys season 4 will look like this:

• Episode 1: June 13
• Episode 2: June 13
• Episode 3: June 13
• Episode 4: June 20
• Episode 5: June 27
• Episode 6: July 4
• Episode 7: July 11
• Episode 8: July 18

This has been a pretty common practice at Amazon. Netflix is famous for dropping all the episodes of a new season all at once, whereas network TV show usually airs episodes at a rate of one per week, starting with the premiere and going all the way to the finale. Amazon likes to split the baby, so to speak, often dropping several episodes up top and then getting on a more regular schedule.

The problem with dropping multiple episodes of The Boys at once

I'm as curious as anybody to check back in with Homelander, Billy Butcher, and the rest of the cast of The Boys, whether they be sociopathic supeheroes or the freedom fighters trying to take them down. But sometimes it can be a bit much to catch up with three episodes all at once. I feel pressure to gulp them all down quickly, which means I'm not enjoying them as much as I would if I watched them one at a time.

I also think dropping lots of episodes together reduces the time people have to pick over the details and discuss new episodes online. Especially with a show that has an established audience like The Boys, I've wondered why Amazon doesn't want the buzz over the show to continue as long as possible. Why have people talk about your show for six weeks when they could be talking about it for eight weeks?

Of course, this is just one guy's opinion, and Amazon may have reasons for doing this I don't know about. Maybe there's some huge twist in Episode 3 and Amazon wants to make sure we see it in the first week of release. What do you make of all this?

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