Last week I posted my review of season 1. The Boys provided a refreshing and dark take on superheroes in its first season. Let’s see if season 2 lived up to the hype!

After watching the first episode of season 2 I was disappointed. The episode showed all the traditional signs of decay after a successfull first season. Each episode turned out to be better than the previous one however, turning my initial disappointment into excitement, eventually culminating in two crazy episodes at the end.

The first episode and parts of the second episode were a huge waste. Considering the 8 episode format for both seasons so far, effectively wasting one and a half episode is pretty bad. This is my biggest grievance about the second season, because I wanted to see more of certain characters, especially The Deep and A-Train.

In my review of season 1 I mentioned that characters like The Deep and A-Train were left underdeveloped. Season 2 finally develops these characters, giving us an insight into how these heroes think. The Church of the Collective turns out to be quite interesting and is definitely here to stay from the looks of it. Furthermore, the political actors, especially Congresswoman Neumann, get more involved in the story. Finally, Stan Edgar, the CEO of Vought and a ruthless capitalist, gets more screen time. The dynamics between Edgar and Homelander are fascinating to watch and I’ll be waiting for how these incredibly ambitious men play their power games. It’s safe to say that there is plenty of character development in season 2.

After the first two episodes, the pacing is quite good. There were still some scenes that I felt were a bit too slow, mainly when it came to Kimiko and Frenchie. Their story gets a little better than season 1, but it’s still nothing exciting. Butcher and his crew are still up to their usual antics, but suffer from minor inconsistencies. I’m not sure if it’s the acting or writing, but Hughie’s emotions are all over the place and not always evoking the right emotional response in the viewer.

Despite the shortcomings I mentioned, season 2 of The Boys has plenty of interesting things going on. It’s still a small step down from season 1, but there is still a lot to look forward to in coming seasons. I may have slept on the first two, but I will be there to watch immediately when season 3 is released.

Rating: 8/10