Fans of comic book superheroes, be warned. If Season One of Amazon Prime Video’s “The Boys” left you on the edge of the seat excitement with its ‘perils of hero worship’ theme; Season two is back with a denser plot that leaves you breathless with its darkly comic level of violence and some unexpected twists and turns.
Tapping cleverly into the superhero fatigue, the series had caught the imagination of viewers with its first season in 2019. The plot centres around American saviour super heroes who turn rogue and a group of boys who uncover their dirty deeds and develop a unique camaraderie amongst themselves. The theme may not be new for fans of super hero shows but the plot and execution won over the hearts of audiences across the globe. Season 2, which premiered with four episodes on Amazon Prime Video on September 4, ups the ante further.
Ready for more?
For diehard fans, there’s plenty of excitement, gore and action and humour to sink their teeth into. While the super-team The Seven, is in a state of flux, grappling with dysfunction inside its ranks and tensions with its overseeing corporation, Vought International, the Boys themselves are grappling with changing personal equations and their plans to expose Vought for cooking up superheroes in a lab. Their plans are put into overdrive with the arrival of a new member of The Seven: Stormfront, and the second season’s eight episodes are all about Billy Butcher who’s still in hiding, Hughie holed up in a makeshift hideout with the rest of the Boys, and the new boss at Vought, Stan Edgar trying to make money out of his star super’s screw up through the multibillion-dollar conglomerate that manages the superheroes and covers up their dirty secrets.
For those who came in late
‘The Boys’ made a name for itself last year when it premiered with season one, with its dark yet comic level of violence, it’s sharp take on America’s onscreen superhero stories and the ‘reality’ of what living with people endowed with super powers might be like. Audiences, fed on and tired of the squeaky clean nature of superheroes and their antics, loved it. Each supe has his own back story with a narrative that keeps you hooked, and the chemistry between the Boys with their patent brand of dark humour has survived through the first season to flourish even better in the second one.
Satire par excellence
True, there are gruesome injuries, deaths, and outright massacres in season two, enough to feed your hunger for excitement and edge of the seat action. But there’s more to this seemingly action oriented series than just mindless violence. The series’ second season uses real-world and pop-culture references, and is informed by cynicism of how citizens can be manipulated and led down the path of fascism. Never truer than today, The Boys offers a window into American society and global culture at large.
The second season of The Boys widens its scope beyond greedy corporations and trains its guns on relatable centres of corruption - social media, a fearful citizenry and power predators.
It’s exciting and unpredictable, and yes, it isn’t for the squeamish. But if you are up to examining the perils of hero worship while savouring some action packed, witty scenes, The Boys are just what you need to get the adrenaline flowing!