Genre: Action/ Comedy/ Crime
To Vought’s frustration, it’s been rumbling within The Seven for a while now. After they fell into disfavor in season one, A-Train and The Deep are eager to rejoin The Seven. The arrival of the unpredictable and mysterious new hero Stormfront gives the team new dynamic. However, her plans are not immediately clear. She behaves completely different from the good and seemingly incorruptible other members and that makes Vought and Homelander quite nervous.
Besides the fuss within The Seven and the rebellious behavior of Stormfront, the megalomaniac and physically invulnerable Homelander is especially busy with the sudden arrival of ‘super-terrorists’. He considers himself the leader of America, a protector of America. His own hypocritical interests and manipulative manners drive Homelander to murder all of them. His unstable behavior gets even worse when at the same time he decides to interfere more intensively with his son’s upbringing.
The counterbalance in the series is formed by the undercover fighters of the CIA, the titular Boys. The unstoppable Butcher has his own reasons for pushing his boys to the limit in their almost hopeless battle against the powerful, perhaps unbeatable superheroes. This season it will become more clear where his hatred of The Seven and Homelander in particular comes from. And Hughie tries to restore his relationship with Annie, also known as The Seven member Starlight. Something for which he regularly has a hard time with Butcher.
These and other storylines are key and interweave into one of the most original series of the year. The viewers won’t have difficulties in understanding the motivation for the different characters, although the methods used are doubtful. The main motive is clearly survival in a world where danger is almost ubiquitous. How do you successfully fight against demigods, especially when they dismiss murder and innocent victims as an afterthought without ethical objections? And not unimportantly, how do you preserve your humanity in this bloody battle?
The start of season 2 is a bit slow, but eventually the writers manage to deepen the story without stopping the progress of events. You get to know more about certain characters and new ones are introduces. MM was probably my favorite this season, since with Butcher being less present at the start, he unintentionally becomes the leading figure for the boys. I also loved the dynamic between Frenchie and Kimiko. I also realized that Queen Maeve is one of the best characters on the show. She is not pure evil, because she still knows the difference between good and bad. Maeve probably started out just like Starlight, but she is so deep into it all now, it’s hard to go back. The addition of two new characters Stormfront and Lamplighter was very welcome. Stormfront is a really well-written character and perfectly portrayed by Aya Cash. Lamplighter is only in a few episodes but Shawn Ashmore really impresses. And I wished he would be around longer. But the one that really stands out is Anthony Starr as Homelander. He was already a dick in season one, but he is even a bigger dick here. If that were possible. Starr really took in that role and he is a really good actor. Because I constantly want to slap him in the face, when he probably is a really nice guy in real life.
The only negative for me is probably the roles of The Deep and A-Train in this season. The Deep’s storyline isn’t all that interesting and A-Train doesn’t have a lot to do.
I was very pleased with season 2 of “The Boys” and the ending really looked promising. I’m glad I decided to watch this show, because it’s so good.
