“The Boys” Are Back in Our Season Two Review

When Amazon Prime Video dropped The Boys, it was billed as a subversive look at both the fictionalized world of superheroes and real-world celebrity culture. Based on the graphic novel series by Garth Ennis, the inaugural season proved to be a hit for a streaming service still struggling to find its footing against more established competitors like Netflix and Hulu. As such, Amazon made some changes to the show’s drop schedule, opting to release the first three episodes of season two at once, followed by new episodes every Friday. Those episodes were then paired with a new after-show hosted by actress/comedian Aisha Tyler. The new format seems to have worked, extending the popularity of one of the streamer’s most popular shows. But the real success in the work done by showrunner extraordinaire Eric Kripke (Supernatural, Timeless) and his team of writers, actors, and crew. Together, they’ve taken The Boys to new territory in ways that are even grittier and more heartwrenching than last year. You Can’t Stop the A-Train When we left A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) in the season one finale, we didn’t know if he was alive or dead after his showdown with Starlight and Hughie. In the season two premiere a recovered A-Train threatens to rat out Starlight for betraying The Seven. Thankfully she’s able to call his bluff by threatening to reveal that A-Train was the one to kill his girlfriend Popclaw (Brittany Allen) in season one. But A-Train’s Compound-V addiction catches up with him whe…