The Boys (Amazon Prime)

This original series starts off as anything but, well, original. Familiar looking and homogeneously named super folk start off doing heroic deeds. Within ten minutes you quickly realize this isn’t your typical superhero story. And by the end of the second episode you are dealt a healthy, fun does of WTF.

I really enjoyed this series.

Sadly, I can’t say too much about it without spoiling it. The things that are safe to say are nice and generalized – plot is a bit twisty with some very non-surprises – but even those reveals are still satisfying. If that makes sense to say. (You can see some of it from a mile away, but up close it looks real pretty!)

There are some periods of utter darkness. There is a specific scene that left me in deep thought about the decisions made at the time. I can’t spoil it but man, I was perplexed in thought on how that one went down. If you have seen the series I am guessing you have figured out what I am talking about.

Characters are fun. The main Four “good” guys – the confidence-less anti-hero, the Matrix Porn Star look alike, the French “Saboteur”, and the African American prison reformist family man are well acted and motivated – but there is some disappointment here as certain plots are revealed. The French guy for me especially who started off very interesting and ended up less so. Karl Urban is fun in his role although I think he bounces between several accents depending on the episode, but maybe that is on purpose?

If you like Superheros, and want to watch a series that explores what it would really be like if Superheroes existed and had awesome PR departments, and the shit that would go down in that case, and a group hell bent on exposing their antics, that is your setup.

Commit to the first two episodes. The rest gets wilder but the first two will probably give you enough to decide if you want to watch the whole thing. I was there within the first 10 minutes, when the first WTF just happened event happens.

I don’t watch a lot of TV. Barely any, really. And normally series I enjoy turn to crap as they try to stretch out new seasons that shouldn’t exist in the name of profit. Stop me if you heard me rant about this before. OK, stopping. But when it comes to series I typically don’t last more than three seasons, and am normally disappointed the longer I go on. Walking Dead Season 1 was amazing TV. Season two was solid. Three started the downhill slide. Same with Mr. Robot. Season one was a complete gem. Season two was ok, three was “meh”. American Gods Season one was good/great. Two was good/okay. Next up for me is the Dark Crystal, one of my favorite childhood movies.

The Boys is getting a second season and I have already set my expectations to “lower”. However, that doesn’t make what is great about the first season any worse – and they did set up a few plot arcs for some longevity. I’ll watch season two and go from there.

3 comments / Add your comment below

  1. I considered watching this since i watch a lot of superhero stuff, either on Prime or on DvD, but it looked very laddish and downmarket to me. Maybe it’s not what it seems from the promos. I might give it a look.

    Did you watch Cloak and Dagger? Only two seasons, didn;t get picked up for a third, possibly because one of the leads is giving up acting (at least for a while). It has about the least superheroing of any superhero show I’ve seen – the entire first season is pretty much an origin story – and so is most of the second. It’s not really until the very end when they finally begin to look as if they might be going into the hero business proper… and then it didn;t get the third series! Anyway, I recommend it.

  2. i very much enjoyed this series too!

    It sounds like you went into it without even the benefit of the trailer(s) which would be an interesting experience. The degree of WTF if you hadn’t seen those and also weren’t familiar with the source material would’ve been quite high indeed!

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