It has been genuinely interesting to watch how Prime Video’s flagship series The Boys has grown and diversified since its launch in 2019. Back then, the landscape between the big sluggers of streaming was slightly different: Netflix was easily on top, Prime Video kept making wrong-shaped stabs at doing what Netflix did but in blue instead of red, and Disney+ had barely been announced, let alone all the others. The first series was a fun-enough start – some good lore-making, the creation of a set of characters beloved enough to keep at least four seasons going, and now we all just have to accept that Jack Quaid is going to pop up in things for the rest of our lives – but it lacked a bit of conviction, a bit of bite. Watching season one felt as if the characters were constantly going to turn to camera and say: “Please don’t switch off and go back to Netflix. I promise we’ll make a penis explode in a minute if you can just be patient and sit through this exposition dump.”
Season two and three really found their feet, though. They leaned into their R-rating and stopped having to explain who every character was at all times (“Your mother really loved you, you know”, “I know dad. It’s a shame she left when I was 12”, “It’s been hard on all of us, son” – there, I just wrote the pilot episode). And with the superhero universe clearly defined, they were able to have fun with it. The Boys does well in presenting a new texture of the superhero genre without relentlessly lampooning it, but what The Boys does really well is it tells a story in that universe that reflects on our own: season three took on online Nazis, smug corporate virtue signalling and American patriotism. That’s pretty good going for a show that has a French character called – oh come on guys, you can’t call him Frenchie.
