SPOILERS

I have not been as big of a fan of season two of The Boys as I was of season one, but last episode was a real step up for me and then episode 6, “Down the Road and Back Again” may have been my favorite episode of the entire series so far, dating back to season 1.

In the episode, we got a Frenchie flashback to the night where he was supposed to be following Lamplighter, but the fiery hero ended up burning children alive. Along the way, we meet Lamplighter in the form of Sean Ashmore (from X-Men movies and The Rookie). Once again, the show takes us in a different, unexpected path by showing us how Lamplighter was being tormented by the memories of that night, how he was not intending to kill the children, and how Frenchie fit into the narrative of the evening. It was exceptionally well done introducing this character and not just making him the evil flamethrower that a lot of series would have done. It even seems that Lamplighter is going to be with the Boys for now.

All of this happening inside the Sage Grove Center, an experimental lab where humans were being given Compound-V and were being tested on how they reacted. Some adjusted well, some were going crazy while others still were exploding. Inside here, we meet Cindy whose powers are terrifying. Cindy escapes too, providing another potential foil for either our heroes or the Seven to face eventually.

This episode also brought more of a connection between Butcher and Annie. I loved how Annie started off with a confrontation with Butcher, laying down some truth that I 100% agree with when it comes to Karl Urban’s character. It was an important scene that may help Butcher eventually be able to accept Ryan, Becca’s son.

There were some tough moments too, as when Annie killed Lt. Randy Disher (from Monk) to get his car in order to try and save Hughie, who had been injured terribly earlier in the show. It showed how Annie and Butcher had more in common than either were comfortable with and that they both have real feelings for Hughie. Hughie was bringing them together while he was unconscious.

There was perhaps the funniest moment of the entire series too as, during the riot at the Sage Grove Center, MM was attacked by the guy whose penis grew and wrapped around his neck.

Stormfront came clean with Homelander, who had been upset prior when he realized that she had been lying to him. She told him about her past as a Nazi and that she had been born in 1919. She laid out her plan to start a race war and how she wanted him to be front and center as the leader. Homelander kissed her after this, but there may still be more to this. Homelander is absolutely still deteriorating mentally. Perhaps this is the recognition his ego requires to keep from losing his mind, but we’ll have to see. He is certainly unstable.

The Deep brought a cell phone to Maeve that contained a video about the plane crash, taken aboard the plane. She planned on blackmailing Homelander to leave her and Elena alone, but Elena found the phone and it may have tainted her opinions toward Maeve.

This was a great episode and I am excited to see where this season goes.

SPOILERS

I feel like this episode was more like it. I was not as much of a fan of The Boys S2 E4 but I believe this one was much more enjoyable.

The emotional downturn of Homelander continued as he accidentally killed an innocent while killing one of the super-terrorist. The nation’s public opinion began to drop, causing Homelander to become even more upset than he was. So upset that he pictured himself frying a group of protesters with his laser beam eyes before he left the area. He also had a violent sexual encounter with the apparently masochistic Stormfront. Homelander’s mental status will be huge for the rest of the season, I am sure.

This episode helped with my dislike of Billy Butcher. I have not liked this character much over the first 12 episodes of this series, but the episode does a good job of making him more relatable for me. A big part of it is the bulldog and the “taffy-making” aunt.

I want more of Black Noir, and he showed up this week. This guy is something special. I want him to face off with Homelander, but it sure seems as if he is totally loyal to Vought. Still, more of Black Noir.

Vought continued to film the movie of the origin of the Seven, albeit of the current roster instead of the originals. The three women of the Seven had their share of moments.

SPOILERS

Not sure how I felt about this episode.

Homelander is certainly one sick puppy.

Billy Butcher is still one big jerk. I don’t care if he is right in his opinion on Vought pursuing Ryan if Billy and Becca went on the run with the boy, he is still one big a-hole. I just do not like Billy Butcher. He only cares about himself. I hope the show changes my mind sooner or later because I love Karl Urban, but as of right now, I could not like this guy less.

Easily the best part of this episode was the “We Didn’t Start the Fire” bit in the car with Annie and Hughie singing and MM trying to put up with it. The road trip part of this story with these three characters was the most effective, character building section of the story.

Homelander is just on the edge. He’s going go on some gigantic killing spree soon. Everything in his life seems to be trying to push him over the edge… including our apparently immortal racist superhero Stormfront (or is it Liberty?).

The episode had a weird framing device talking about love that turned out to be the interviews by the Church of the Collective to find a wife for The Deep. That was all kind of creepy.

That seemed to be the theme of the episode.

SPOILERS

Remember when I said that episode two of season two was more of a character piece? Well, episode three just kicked the crap out of that episode and took its lunch money.

I had watched a season two trailer after I finished season one, and I damn sure wish I hadn’t because that trailer spoiled a whole bunch of shocking moments in this episode that would have been absolutely insane had I not knew they were coming.

For example, Billy Butcher in the speedboat ramming a whale that had been placed in the path by The Deep which sent the boat inside the whale like a giant missile. RIP Lucy the whale. We hardly knew ye.

I mean… holy crap.

That had to be some of the grossest filming that this cast ever had to go through. How much fake blood and intestines did they have to use?

Also, we saw Homelander ordering Starlight to kill a fairly defeated Hughie. Admittedly, there was a whole Billy Joel allusion that made this moment even more painful. I feel so bad for Hughie because he has been taking it in the rump this whole season.

Oh, and Homelander threw his son off the house roof to see if he could fly. It was another moment spoiled by that trailer. I can only assume the tension that might have been built had I not known that Homelander was tossing poor Ryan off the roof. I did enjoy Ryan’s response to his father here.

I am glad that the reveal to the world about Compound-V came here and didn’t carry on through the entire second season. As I said, I felt that this had played out in season 1 and getting it out of the way in season 2 was smart.

Kimiko’s brother having his hands ripped apart by Stormfront, who turned out to be dramatically racist apparently, was a horrible and Stormfront has set herself up for an eventual faceoff with Kimiko.

The Boys are absolutely falling apart. I feel so bad for Hughie, because he has been taking the brunt of the problems, but everyone has been taking their share. The show has truly been sending them down the low level, putting them at the worst possible moment.

I’m not sure where they go from here. With the Compound-V done, and Vought seemingly unfazed with the revelation (blaming it on the recently deceased Madalyn Stillwell), what do the Boys do now? Is it all a revenge season? Is there another path? There are only five more episodes in season 2 and they certainly can’t depend on harpooning a whale with a speedboat. I assume Stormfront will be front and center, but where do the Boys come in?

SPOILERS

The second episode of The Boys on Amazon Prime in season two was less violent than episode one was, but there were a bunch of tense scenes that were character driven.

I officially do not like Billy Butcher. He’s a hypocrite and selfish-as-hell and if I were Hughie, I would have left his ass when he punched me and threatened to murder me. Sure, Butcher just found out about Becca being alive (and Becca has some guts too standing up to Homelander as she did), but he still only gives a crap about his own life and he does not give a care to anyone else.

I love Karl Urban and his performance has been excellent, but I just cannot stand this character and I want him to get his just desserts.

Starlight’s confrontation with A-Train was epic. She came out of her own cocoon and put that jerk in his place. Bringing up A-Train’s murder of Popclaw was excellent and showed some real backbone. One wonders how much the new attitude came from the time Starlight spent with Stormfront, who sure seemed to not take anyone’s crap. I get a feeling that Starlight has been inspired by the latest female in the Seven.

Then, the most ridiculously wonderful thing happened. The Deep got stoned from the cult (with Fresca?) and sang a song with his gills (who were voiced by Patton Oswald). They sang “You are so Beautiful” together in the most bizarre thing I have seen on this show. The Deep is going deep into his soul to try and work out his personal issues and his body shame. This was a character that I never wanted to cheer for, but I am slowly coming around to a new way of thinking for our fish-talking superhero.

Princess Maeve got a great scene too with her secret ex-girlfriend and she admitted to her that she was afraid that Homelander would kill her if he knew the truth. When Maeve admitted that the reason she told her now was that she didn’t want her to keep hating her, well that was powerful.

Sadly, Kimiko’s brother turned out to be one of the super terrorists that the Boys were pursuing. More conflict from within the group.

This episode was a lot slower, but that was not a bad thing. Solid episode that developed characters instead of just exploding heads.

SPOILERS

After binging the first season yesterday, I started season two of The Boys tonight in what is going to be more extended of a time frame. The story continued with all of the favorite character from season one still around and stuck deep in their individual troubles,

The Boys, aka Hughie, Frenchie, MM and Kimiko are on the run, hiding out from a public that sees them as the most wanted fugitive in the country. We do not see Butcher at this time and they struggle to try an determine exactly what their next step will be.

Meanwhile, Homelander has started to assume more of an alpha male role at Vought since he killed Stillwater. The world at large believes that Butcher killed Stillwater with his bomb, even though we all know that Homelander was the actual killer. There was no mention of Becca Butcher and her son’s living status. We see her eight near the end, but we have no idea what has happened from the cliffhanger at the end of season 1 episode 8.

I’m just here to say… I want more Black Noir.

We see more of the downward spiral of The Deep, living in Ohio. The Deep had another minor breakdown at a water park and wound up in a jail cell. When he was bailed out by another minor hero, Eagle the Archer, who brought The Deep back to his place and introduced him to what looked to be a super hero cult, The Church of the Collective.

We meet our newest member of the Seven with Stormfront. That was after Homelander rejected a potential new member who was blind with super hearing. And rejected in a extremely vicious manner.

This show is incredibly violent as always, including another head exploding in this episode, and The Boys continue to be excellent. I do worry a little bit about the story continuing to be “we’ve got to find the Compound-V” again this year. It feels like this was played out by the end of season 1, but I am here to see what the series has in store for me.

Of course, the episode ended with Billy Butcher back and rejoining the Boys. What happened to him? Where has he been? He does not look any worse for the wear. I guess we’ll find out next episode.

Spoilers

Ah, Elisabeth Shue, we hardly knew ya.

The Boys have two sides to the same psychopathic coin in Homelander and Billy Butcher. Neither of them are heroes in this series. Butcher may have been with our protagonists, but he was more of a conflict among them than he was another protagonist. I love Karl Urban, but truthfully, I found myself tired of him by these episodes too.

Meanwhile, Hughie showed us what a character who was easy to root for, an underdog who was likeable and provided us with a heroic individual. He wouldn’t even leave A-Train to die on the ground after the heart attack. Even Starlight considered just leaving him there, but Hughie refused to just let him die.

I’m not sure I loved the ending of the series. It felt as if there was a huge switch between episode 7 and episode 8 without a lot of explanation.

I also guess my thought that Elisabeth Shue was Homelander’s mother was incorrect, since she had sex with him. I kept waiting for her to drop the incest angle, but it did not happen.

The whole “Butcher’s wife is still alive” twist at the end was interesting. It feels kind of cruel, but in the best way possible.

The Deep is truly paying the karma back over the last few episodes, including getting a feel of what it is like to be on the other end of the sexual assault.

I am looking forward to see where season two takes me. I will be starting that some time this week.

Spoilers

Episode 5 took a huge dive into religion, especially Christianity. Starlight went to speak to the Believe Expo in her home town and to see Ezekiel, a preacher (who we saw in a bar scene in a homosexual encounter) who is also a supe who can stretch. Starlight delivered a speech standing up for herself and making her points about how she did not believe in the messages that were being preached at the Believe Expo.

Hughie came to the Believe Expo as Starlight’s guest, but he had a separate assignment. He had to go to Ezekiel and blackmail him to reveal everything that he knew about Compound-V.

There is a ton of great character moments here too. We learn some info on Rebecca Saunders Butcher (Butcher’s missing, presumed dead wife), Maeve was having some problems, and we started seeing some signs of Homelander had some kind of issue with Madelyn Stillwell’s baby. It looked later in the episode that the answer is that Homelander was Stillwell’s son.

With the info from Ezekiel, Butcher and MM found their way to a hospital where they discovered that they were injecting babies with Compound-V to give them super powers. There was a ridiculous use of a baby with laser beam eyes.

Black Noir battled the Asian woman and left her dead…except she did not die. She healed. However, Popclaw did not heal since A-Train killed her by injecting her with heroin.

Episode 6 Vought began to attempt to revitalize the image of the Seven through a series of vignettes.

The episode had more wonderful character moments including

• Learning the Asian woman’s name (Kimiko) and her back story
• Mesmer, a psychic, helped reveal her past and then betrayed them to Homelander

• We learned what had happened to Becca Butcher
• The Deep was revealed as the sexual abuser of Starlight to the public
• Frenchie and Kimiko continued to bond
• Starlight dropped out of view, hiding out with Hughie
• Hughie and Annie bond, but Butcher played cockblocker
• Starlight stood up to Stillwell
• Vought is making Compound-V boosted terrorists to push militarization of supers

SPOILERS

There were some serious events that happened in these three episodes. It has been a great three episode arc so far. The capture and eventual murder of Translucent, the race for A-Train, the failed attempt to save the hijacked airplane, blackmail of a Senator by a shape shifter, Popclaw popping the head of her landlord with her vagina…

Yeah, that one was shocking.

The team of Butcher, Frenchie, Hughie gained a fourth member with Mother’s Milk. The four of them were investigating A-Train and his use of a performance enhancer called Compound-V. Meanwhile, Hughie is getting closer to Annie, aka Starlight while he was having guilt and flashes to some of the things that he had done.

This continues to be a fantastic deconstruction of the superhero genre and it is doing it with some excellent characterization and storytelling. Vought’s efforts to get superheroes allowed to join the military of the United States, all led by Elisabeth Shue keeps one wondering what is going to happen next. Hughie is getting further away from the supervillain that I thought he might become after episode one.

There is a new and mysterious woman involved heavily in episode 4. She was very brutal and violent, tied somehow to the Compound-V.

The Deep has gone from a horrible sexual predator in episode one to a comedic presence with one of the most unbelievably chaotic scenes of the series involving an attempted escape of a dolphin from a water park. I couldn’t believe what I was watching.

There really are a ton of irons in the fire. I haven’t even mentioned the continued behavior of Homelander, who feels as if he is heading toward big bad status of the series.

This has been excellent so far and I am excited to see where it goes next. There are a lot of storylines underway and I expect that they will intersect before too long.

SPOILERS

“The Name of the Game“

I have heard a lot of positives about The Boys on Amazon Prime. It has always sounded like a series that I would like, yet I have not gotten into it. Today, as I was working on the month banner for June, I came across the fact that Season Three of the Boys will be coming out in June this year. Going over to Prime, I saw that each of the first two seasons had 8 episodes around an hour-ish each. I figured that I could easily blow through those before the debut of season three so I decided to give it a chance.

Episode one grabbed me right away.

The set up was extremely intriguing, especially with Hughie and Robin and their shocking scene. I did not see that coming and my jaw dropped. I also loved how Hughie did not move forward as I expected him to. I saw this as the origin story of a supervillain (and it may yet be for all I know), but the fact that he is my protagonist, and the easiest character to cheer for in the show, that takes what seemed obvious and made it uncertain.

I enjoyed how this show seemed to be breaking down the superhero tropes and playing with the genre. The Seven, the group of heroes idolized by the public, are actually a group of self-centered, selfish, asshats.

The show smartly gives us Starlight, a new member of the Seven for the audience to follow. She has the general qualities that we look for in our heroes which makes the scene with The Deep all the more disturbing.

I am unfamiliar with the Dynamite comic book this show is based upon, which is great. I do not have to worry about expecting what is next and just enjoy the ride.

I also loved Karl Urban and his arrival on the scene. I have no idea the background of Billy Butcher, but I am excited to see.