The Boys Review: Girls Get It Done! (Season 2 Episodes 1-3)

The Boys is back and makes the wise decision to release its first three out of eight episodes in one go, bypassing the frustrating wait-time between the introductory act of the season, and creating the perfect amount of hype for the streaming series. 

Switching from dropping all the episodes at a single time to the weekly model isn’t easy, and yet this hybrid model works well to blend the two. But this is only successful with entertaining content, and The Boys is entertaining, if anything.

From milk obsession, to gruesome whale guts, to psychedelic discovery, to heartbreaking stories of family trauma, The Boys has something for everyone, if you can stomach the rest. 

Like The Seven’s new marketing scheme, The Boys sees the girls get it done. Maeve takes a step to open up, Annie exposes Vought, Stormfront presents herself as a challenger to Homelander for dominance, and Kimiko is the key to the super-terrorist, scratch that, super-villain, situation. 

Of course, the boys move forward, too, but so far, the girls shine during the second season.

For a show titled The Boys, the women of the show provide much of its heart, anchoring the more outlandish stories with the more relatable ones: a woman grieving a loss so sudden after a reunion, a woman fighting for her son from the grips of his abusive father, and a queer woman sacrificing her happiness in order to protect the woman she loves. 

These stories are real and ground The Boys to our reality, threading the characters to the audience. 

While the first three episodes of the second season serve as the first act, the episodes also nicely divide this act into three themselves. 

The Boys Season 2 Episode 1, “The Big Ride,” is a surprisingly quiet episode, creating the new status quo for the season.

The Boys Season 2 Episode 2, “Proper Preparation and Planning,” enlightens the audience to missed gaps and the new motivations.

The Boys Season 2 Episode 3, “Over the Hill with the Swords of a Thousand Men,” combines all these elements, closing a clear chapter for the characters while foreshadowing the next one. 

The Boys‘ distribution pays the pacing many favors with this strategy, leaving viewers both intrigued by the future but fulfilled by the story that has already unfolded, the perfect balance. 

The Seven is breaking down, and much of that is due to the manipulative power dynamics existing at Vought. Even though Homelander instigates most of this, it perhaps affects him the most out of the Supes. 

After Homelander bites the hand that feeds him, his need for control is ever-increasing, possibly manifesting itself in milk sessions that somehow feel NSFW.

So after butting heads with nearly everybody at the tower trying to assert himself as the top dog, he instead returns to Becca to exert his control in her life, deciding to parent his son the way he desires, without any concern for his actual son.

This is likely to wreak havoc on Becca’s life, and while she doesn’t seem like the type to roll over, she likely wouldn’t have this to this degree if not for her boy.

The threat that Stormfront brings to Homelander’s power will definitely exasperate both situations, ultimately putting Becca more at risk more than anyone at this point, and that’s not even considering her connection to Butcher. 

Becca actually finds herself stuck between two manipulative men driven by vengeance and anger, and the opening episodes of The Boys draw the similarities between Homelander and Butcher with more clarity than before.

Of course, Butcher does have more humanity than the leader of the Seven, but it’s hard to ignore the tendencies Butcher has to use when he bullies the people, even friends, around him when his priorities call for it. 

Even with the knowledge of his wife’s circumstances, the suffering of all of The Boys makes Butcher almost insufferable on the two episodes he primarily appears in.

The fracturing of The Boys mirrors The Supes in certain ways, both Stormfront and Hughie creating dissent and conflict among their respective groups.

While this is more entertaining in the lense of The Seven, Hughie’s story is much more relatable and emotional, as he’s lost practically everything except the cause. In fact, The Boys’ loyalty to Butcher begins to falter, presenting the opportunity for them to leave him as he’s done to them before. 

Butcher, however, feels like he’s on the path to be less of an asshole as he’s behaved so far.

During  a moment where Homelander almost forces Starlight to kill Hughie, Butcher steps in when it feels like he just may not have. And a heart to heart with Mother’s Milk also seems to reach Butcher, if anything, opening his eyes just a tad. 

Otherwise, it won’t be easy to hold back from hoping that Billy gets kicked out of the band at some point. 

What makes for the most interesting contrast moving forward on season two of The Boys is the newfound contrast between Kimiko and the rest of her found-family.

After a long-awaited reunion with her brother, he’s the key for The Boys to seek what they are after. But after his death, they’re all at ground zero. 

However, this drastically changes the motives, which will undoubtedly alter their dynamic going forward. In the opening episodes this season, they’re all working for something they could get back.

Hughie has his will, Mother’s Milk and Butcher have their families, but Kimiko has lost this ability. 

While the others still will try to make it back to their families and loved ones, Kimiko, arguably the most erratic of the group, will be the one seeking revenge, upsetting the balance, and making their mission undoubtedly more complicated moving forward.

But maybe they can use this to their advantage. They have landed a blow to Vought thanks to Starlight (and Hughie), after all. 

Kimiko, portrayed by Karen Fukuhara, stands out primarily as she goes through an emotional rollercoaster. Fukuhara doesn’t only stand out, but her scene on the boat with her brother (Abraham Lim) stands out among the first three episodes as well, as the two siblings attempt to reach each other.

The concept that the two share a desire to protect each other while their memories as children co-exist reveal how the stark difference of perspective reigns powerful, especially knowing that Kimiko only has limited time with her brother. 

As Kimiko, Butcher, and Hughie make waves within The Boys, there is plenty of tension to go around on the other side. 

Annie’s grown a great deal since her inauguration into The Seven, and with a loud voice, she seizes more power than she has before.

Not only is she declarative about The Deep not rejoining the group, she’s able to blackmail two men on a single episode: Gecko for Compound-V and A-Train to keep his mouth shut about her possession of Compound-V. 

If Annie is starting off this strong, she could be a powerful asset for The Boys in The Seven, if they give her a chance. Her leaking Compound-V is a good note on her record.

But Annie’s empowerment isn’t the only timely and emotional story introduced or continued within The Seven. 

While Maeve’s story in The Boys is incredibly timely and a story that all too many people in the LGBT have known, Homelander’s need for control isn’t driven by Maeve’s queerness.

However, there are too many LGBT women who are forced to hide their identity or their relationships/partners due to homophobic family or views in society, so the outcome of the story still hits close to home. 

The fact that she cares for a woman is not the root of Maeve’s severe actions and the fear she holds: a manipulative man is at the center of this, which is not unlike similar situations where the nature of the relationship is the root of abuse from men or fear caused by them. 

Maeve is an incredibly relatable character for the LGBT community, and with the cruel world that The Boys presents. Maeve, and even more so Elena, are probably in the greatest amount of danger right now.

But regardless of whether something happens to Elena or not by way of Homelander, Maeve is also most likely to turn against The Seven or more specifically Homelander. 

Could that play into Stormfront’s hands? Let’s hope not. 

Speaking of the racist, Stormfront, however, is a different story. 

At first, she presents herself as funny, sarcastic, and honest. But through episode three, she reveals herself to be so much worse, loudly calling Kimiko’s brother an Asian slur after she grotesquely murders him. 

Perhaps Stormfront is the character most timely to the biggest portion of the population, but perhaps not the portion who will tune into this show. She’s pretty on the outside, but raging inside is sure to reveal herself as a racist, and who knows what else. 

The Boys is not shy as it attempts to speak on American sensationalism and capitalism, but season two, perhaps, doubles down as it presents another dramatic opportunist and manipulator underneath a mask, as if Homelander isn’t enough. 

If there is one thing The Deep succeeds at so far on The Boys, it’s making Butcher and Mother’s Milk a little less likeable for shooting dolphins. 

RIP Lucy. 

The Deep is a character who has been removed from the main arcs until now but has been conveniently brought back in after taking up a new faith. As The Deep is still pretty much useless, this plot convergence can only bring this faith into the main locations. 

However, the nefarious plots of Eagle the Archer and Carol are bound to pop up soon. After all, their entrances are fishy (like The Deep) from the start. 

Regardless of how useless The Deep is, it’s difficult to argue that he isn’t one of the most entertaining aspects of The Boys, thanks to Chace Crawford’s impressive ability to convincingly be so funny and pathetic at the same time. Not to mention the joy of Patton Oswalt’s voiceover over The Deep’s gills during his hallucinogenic journey. 

And while The Deep undoubtedly draws laughs of pity and amusement every time he fails, it’s also interesting to note the exploration of the root of his toxic masculinity, without the pressure to actually forgive him for the awful way he’s treated people.

Not many characters are given the opportunity to explicitly state the root of his problematic behavior like these. 

Noting this, many plots exploring men who are abusive to women involve some type of forgiveness, and while it’s important to assess the root of these behaviors, women viewers are also treated respectfully in the way the women on The Boys react to The Deep. 

Amazon Prime’s The Boys starts out solid, aided by its hybrid release schedule and powerful performances from Karen Fukuhara and Aya Cash.

While shows of this genre can have a tendency to start out slow, the first three episodes of The Boys still could get rolling faster. But the flexibility of having three episodes to shake up the dynamics and introduce new elements works well, even if some of these come across as sudden. 

The Boys, through its quirkiness and unexplained bits, remains a smart and digestible statement on the state of America today, even as the stakes increase with new deaths and news of characters’ falsified fates.

The addition of Stormfront intensifies these satirical motifs, all the while furthering the conflict within the systemic power, a concept pushed even further to the forefront of American’s brains as the 2020 General Election approaches. 

The Boys may not be for everyone, but whether you want to have a discussion about the corruption and systemic operations of power structures within America or whether you just want to watch some gore and violence, The Boys is available for streaming now on Amazon Prime Video. 

 

What did you think of the first three episodes of The Boys? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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The Boys airs Fridays on Amazon Prime Video.

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