The Boys Season 2 Premiere Review: All Kinds of Crazy
Carissa Pavlica
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The Boys are back and better than ever.
The opening scenes of The Boys Season 2 Episode 1 were off the wall
Incredibly gory and funny as hell, those scenes wasted no time dunking you right back into the deep end of these crazy mofos.
Citizens may still have their heads in the sand, but as the suits discussed admitting The Seven as another branch of the Department of Defense, the reality of their brand of terrorism was washing over those who were left holding the proverbial bag of poo with the new addition.
Just so you know, a 34% casualty rate is astronomical. It is clearly not worth the time or effort to promote The Seven, but thanks to a top-notch marketing team at Vought, they're all in nonetheless.
That the discussion played out over Black Noir's actions was just precious, even with the icing on top that he left a poor kid to live after watching his hero march off with his dad's severed head.
And heaven help us if we're ever in so deep to the superhero world that we could watch and not practically die laughing over the Translucent memorial. From lying in state to his baby pictures to Starlight belting out a song honoring the fallen Supe, it was all aces.
Butcher was missing for the whole first hour, giving the others a chance to shine in his absence. Well, shine probably isn't the right word. Hughie was living in a hovel, meeting Starlight in secret as they tried to plan their next move.
At least A-Train was temporarily out of commission. Starlight has grown up quite a bit since she joined The Seven. She's digging deep into her nasty side to keep up with those who are trying to tear everything down, and it's bound to affect her.
She was already slammed by Hughie's lies and finding herself falling into similar patterns can't be easy.
But it should make it easier for her to forgive him eventually. She's getting another taste of the bad business Vought runs, and fighting an evil that big requires you to make some unfortunate decisions.
The lengths she's going to get dirt on them, though, is quite impressive. She has quite a network of Supes thanks to her bible thumping days, and Gecko is quite the find.
Gecko: For an extra grand, I'll let you chop off my dick.
Man: Where's the closest ATM?
She catches him between a rock and a hard place, and that hard place involves helping a businessman get his rocks off by chopping off body parts including, ahem, that hard place since they'll all grow back. Uh, yuck.
A-Train didn't last in his coma forever, of course, and he seems to be as big of an ass as ever if perhaps a little more tempered. Maybe I just think that because Starlight isn't allowing him to get the better of her.
Butcher returned spectacularly just after Deputy Director Raynor's head exploded, reminding his posse that it isn't easy going up against Vought and the Supes. Of course, all of the blame falls on Hughie, and the pressure to bring them down from the outside is worse than ever.
When it comes to Hughie and Starlight, it's hard to understand, from my perspective, why the Boys are so against Hughie reuniting with the Supe.
Hell, the Boys are pretty much against anything Hughie, and even when Mother's Milk gives him kudos for exposing that Supes are created and not born, Butcher still won't give Hughie the win.
But I loved how Mother's Milk eventually pointed out to Butcher his connection with Hughie in The Boys Season 2 Episode 3.
MM: He's your canary.
Butcher: My canary?
MM: You let your canary die, how you gonna know when you've gone too far?
Butcher is a very cool guy, and sometimes having someone around who's pulling you back to earth is as much of a buzzkill as it is a relief knowing that someone has your back.
And geez. After Hughie's speech about wanting to be the person that nobody thinks is awesome but turns out to be frickin' awesome, how could anyone not fall a little more in love with Hughie?
But what on earth is with Hughie's Billy Joel obsession? It doesn't really matter, as it's little quirks like that which make the show so damned enjoyable. Does anyone else have a similar obsession?
Stormfront packed quite a punch with her arrival, threatening Homelander, much to his chagrin. His Seven tryouts were downright brutal! For those of you who youngin's who think that only someone like Homelander can do damage by boxing ears like that, it happened to a reporter on TV in 1984.
Dr. D David Schultz, a professional wrestler with the WWF, boxed John Stossel's ears during a report for 20/20 after Stossel said the sport wasn't real. Crazy!
Anyway, Homelander wanted tough, but he didn't want Stormfront tough. He wanted someone he could push around, manipulate, and humiliate.
Homelander, of course, has no idea how weak he's become. A lot of his power was the result of Madeline's coddling, and once he killed her, his power diminished, even if just a bit.
Starlight is trying to topple Voughts, Maeve just wants to get a little slice of her normal life back, but Stormfront's presence has put the spotlight on them. I
Initially, Stormfront has some great points on The Boys Season 2 Episode 3. She's not about female power; she's about power in general. Why do people feel the need to categorize it?
Reporter: Do girls make better heroes than boys?
Stormfront: Look, no offense. I get that you have your talking points. But why does it matter whether heroes have a dick or a vag? I mean, shouldn't we all just be competent at our jobs? I don't think girls do anything better. I think chicks and dicks are in it together.
And the stuff about Pippi Longstocking was effin' brilliant. I'm a little bit embarrassed to admit that I never read the books. Pippi never appealed to me. But after Stormfront's homage to the character, it seems that those of us who didn't read it might have been deceived about the books' true nature.
Pippi seems hella cool!
Stormfront: OK. Who's the greatest superhero of all time.
Starlight: [mulls it over] Homelander?
Stormfront: No. Pippi Longstocking. Pippi Longstocking. She's a nine-year-old girl, lives in a house all by herself. Pet monkey, could lift a horse all by herself. You, you haven't read Pippi Longstocking.
Starlight: I guess not.
Stormfront: Hmmm. Well, OK. I used to dress as her every Halloween, and all the girls dressed as Disney sluts would make fun of me, and you know what I thought? I thought who fucking cares? Pippi didn't care. She never cared about being polite or cute. Look. Fuck this world for confusing nice with good. Be a bitch if you want, be whatever. Just drop the mask once in a while. Feels good. You can finally breathe. Oh. And if someone sticks a dick in your mouth, bite it off. Pippi Longstocking would bite a d. That's for damn sure.
Homelander White nationalism and white supremacy are themes of The Boys Season 2, and nothing says it better than the reveal that the early iterations of Compound V were tested at Dachau.
Mr. Edgar says the product is Compound V as he gets a very unhappy Homelander in line. Homelander outed the whole kaboodle by drugging terrorists with the stuff to as their in to the DOD.
That makes what Starlight and Hughie did to expose Vought's horrors all the more impressive.
The Supes being created takes on an entirely different bent when you see the damage it did first hand to those who aren't in The Seven, which, let's face it, is everyone other than seven people at any given time.
Kimiko's past is getting explored with the addition of her Supe Terrorist brother. She's both happy to see him and said that he's become who he is, a situation she blames entirely on herself. It's not her fault, of course, as a little girl cannot fight against what they suffered.
Making matters worse was the fact that her brother had gone rogue, and Kimiko is one of the good guys. Their epic fight scene resulting in his death at Stormfront's hands was incredible. The FX were out of this world, and the whole "battle," if you will, was an edge of your seat stuff.
It was only after Stormfront let her bloodlust slip out that the reality of her addition to the team began to make some sense during. Well, at least I have hopes that this will be true.
As the newest popular hero and continuously usurping Homelander's power, it's entirely possible that The Seven and the Boys might have a common enemy in her.
The Deep's crisis at the Sandusky waterpark was the stuff of legends. The guy is at rock bottom, falling so far that he joined a Fresca-loving cult to try to get his mojo back.
His need for self-love and reconnecting with his gills makes sense and says a lot about the way he treated Starlight when she first joined The Seven.
He'd made up some distance in that area before being brought back to earth again. He thought he was saving the day by beaching a whale that the Boys then plowed straight into with a motorboat. It was his big attempt to get back into Homelander's good graces.
Homelander: Alright. You need to hang back a bit.
OK?
Deep: OK.
Homelander: Still got some work to do with the ladies, but it's gonna be OK. You'll be back in no time.
Deep: Really?
Homelander: Sure. One other thing. You, uh, you ripped your vest.
Deep: What?
Homelander: Your gill is showing. Cover it up. It's disgusting.
Man, that was so harsh! But it was also laugh-out-loud funny. What makes it funnier is knowing how jacked up Homelander is what with drinking breast milk out of the bottle and all. The guy is all kinds of demented.
The only thing that I like so far about Rebecca being alive is that Homelander gets to be such an ass with Ryan. He doesn't just want a mini-me with a future to adequately destroy; he wants the adoration he's missing since he killed Madeline.
Rebecca is going to fight him every step of the way, but she doesn't have much power or influence. Ryan is swinging wildly between his parents with the arrival of his father, so it will be fun watching how that plays out.
I'm not a fan of three-episode drops. It's so hard to cover everything that happened adequately. So, let's leave the rest to you.
What was your favorite part of the drop? What crazy action sequence got your blood flowing? What do you think of Stormfront? Who are you rooting for?
Hit the comments, and let's get this party started.
Carissa Pavlica is the managing editor and a staff writer and critic for TV Fanatic. She's a member of the Critic's Choice Association, enjoys mentoring writers, conversing with cats, and passionately discussing the nuances of television and film with anyone who will listen. Follow her on X and email her here at TV Fanatic.
