The Boys Season 2 (2020) Review

The Boys are back, in town, on TV and in your home as the sensational super hero series sees its second season blasting onto Blu-ray.

For anyone not aware of the action packed satirical and topical swipe at the super hero genre The Boys comes from a comic of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. Premiering on Amazon Prime Video in 2019 the first series (reviewed right HERE) was a bat shit crazy ride full of blood, gore and tons of swearing that also managed to offer up a fascinating and ultra dark look at what would actually happen if super powered people populated the planet.

Set in a world very much like our own, the premise of the series sees hero’s with immense power operating in America under the command of the all reaching corporation Vought International who control and monetarise every aspect of the God like good guys.

The most famous super hero group is the Seven led by the narcissistic and sadistic Homelander (American Gothic’s Antony Starr) who craves praise and attention as much as he does dominance over his team members.

Set against Homelander and his heroes are The Boys a vigilante group made up of Frenchie (Tomer Capon), Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), Kimiko Miyashiro (Karen Fukuhara) and the unlikeliest covert operative you could ever meet, Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid from The Hunger Games).

Underground and on the run they are led by ball breaking potty mouth Billy Butcher (Star Trek’s Karl Urban) who along with the rest of the members has a very personal reason to hate supes and has dedicated his life to taking down the Seven and Vought using any and every means possible.

For anyone that didn’t see Season One and the revelations in its epic climax this review is now entering SPOILER territory so stop reading and go catch up!

Taking things in a different direction Season Two starts with the audience aware not only that Billy Butcher’s wife is very much alive but that she has been in hiding raising a super powered son spawned from Homelander who raped her several years ago.

Meanwhile on the brink of signing a major deal with the military to deploy supes across seas to fight super powered terrorists who are conveniently popping up in troubled countries and causing fear and panic across America, Vought and its CEO Stan Edgar (The Mandalorian and Breaking Bad star Giancarlo Esposito) must make moves to keep the Seven in line or risk financial ruin.

Vought’s first ploy is to bring in Stormfront (Aya Cash) to the Seven, a young hip straight taker who utilises social media to gain popularity and instantly puts Homelander’s neck out of joint when she starts gaining more attention than him.

Meanwhile Starlight (Erin Moriarty) secretly continues to subvert the Seven from within leaking information to The Boys and attempting to steal a sample of Compound V which was revealed to be the real reason super powered people existed. A patented formula kept hidden for decades the fact that humans are not born or gifted with powers from God but genetically altered as babies by Vought could take down the entire company but will Starlight and The Boys be able to share this shocking secret with the world before they are caught?

Having built such a complete and convincing world in the first series The Boys Season Two takes the story much further delving deeper into the motivations and back grounds of the main characters. Laying bare not only Frenchie and Mother’s Milk’s reason to hate heroes we also meet Butcher’s family and learn about the mute and mysterious Kimiko’s past which comes crashing back when her brother is unmasked as the latest supe terrorist.

Perhaps most interesting is the development of The Deep (Chace Crawford) who was exiled from the Seven after abusing Starlight. Hitting rock bottom he is contacted by the Church of the Collective, a sinister cult with far reaching influence who promise to not only turn his life around but get him back into the limelight.

The parallels with Scientology and their constant courting of Hollywood actors is excellently done all the way down to the church finding Deep a wife and trying to wipe his perverted past clean. The series also tries to dive into why Deep abused women in the first place uncovering his own self-hatred which is brought about by the gills he has in his stomach which give him his abilities but he actually despises.

In many ways the supes in The Boys can be seen as twisted or parallel versions of popular comic characters allowing the show to examine issues DC and Marvel would never touch on with their main roster. Deep is an alcoholic Aquaman ashamed of his own body, Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) is a bi-sexual Wonder Woman uncomfortable with her sexuality, A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) is what happens when The Flash or Quicksilver push their body too far and Homelander is a pure perversion of Captain America and Superman transforming the American dream into a nightmare.

That’s not to say its all serious super hero navel gazing as The Boys Season Two is just as full of foul language and extreme violence as ever before and it continues to push its audience to the edge with great gross out moments, fucked up fights and disturbing powers including a man with a telescopic penis.

Taking on racism, patriotism, commercialisation, cults and the unnerving unchallenged power corporations have over people and politics, The Boys Season Two is as much about the world we actually live in as the one on screen proving yet again that Sci-Fi and Horror series are such a powerful tool in holding a mirror up to our reality.

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