ST. LOUIS — "Daddy is home."
One of the best shows of 2019 is returning at the end of the summer.
Consider the second season of Amazon's "The Boys" to be a welcome Fall opening treat. But this isn't your normal-sized snack. This invigorating twist on the superhero genre is the appetizer, main plate, and dessert all rolled into one. It arrives on Sept. 4, but let's talk about the first season real quick.
You can thank the twisted minds of Eric Kripke, Seth Rogen, and Evan Goldberg for this mash-up on superheroes living in a modern world. In this stained fairy tale land, the "heroes" are global superstars. Remember when Clark Kent didn't want people to know he was Superman. Well, Homelander (the brilliant Antony Starr) doesn't mind if you know who he is. Due to his boss (Elizabeth Shue) marketing him and his team: Dominique Elligott's Queen Maeve; Jessie T. Usher's A-Train, Chace Crawford's The Deep; Nathan Mitchell's Black Noir: Homelander has to be the all world's finest all the time.
What happens when that arrogance goes unchecked and leads to innocent murders? Chaos of the rebellion variety. After Hughie Campbell's girlfriend is murdered by A-Train, he is recruited into Billy Butcher's (the wonderful Karl Urban) superhero-hunting civilian club. From there, it's a battle of the regular and the extraordinary, with a subplot about a new super-powered young woman (Erin Moriarty) joining Homelander's team being a reoccurring complexity. Things get worse when she starts having feelings for Hughie.
Look, that's only the first couple hours, so rest assured I've spoiled very little. What makes this show great is how it takes an overcooked genre-heroes and their good and bad effects on the world-and turns it on its head. Here, the heroes aren't the good guys. They are bad people who take advantage of their status and DNA. So "The Boys," just ordinary souls, use their wits and ways to take them down. Do they have special powers of any kind? Possibly.
There's joy in watching Laz Alonso's Mother's Milk (yes, that's his name!) find a way to balance a family life while being lured back into the crime-fighting world by Billy. Quaid is a chip off the old block as a newbie stuck in the crossfire due to tragedy and ability. Does he have a power stuffed up his sleeve, or is he just innocence personified?
The story is rich here and extremely abnormal in the best way. Kripke, Rogen, and Goldberg lean into the fascinations people have with superheroes and the problems people have with them, and sprinkle in multiple kinds of mayhem. One of the scenes from the first season involved Homelander and Maeve attempting to save a full airplane from crashing, only for things go sideways rather quickly.
When you can mix dark humor into a drama that already involves enhanced individuals and few characters with a clean background, you are striking good old fashioned gold. I laughed so hard at this show that while I wanted more episodes in the end, I was also worn out and stuffed with good television.
Starr and Urban are the anchors. A couple New Zealand natives, these two make the show what it is. Starr, known to most for playing "Banshee's" tortured soul, the criminal turned sheriff named Lucas Hood, seems to be having the time of his life adding shades to Homelander. There are times when you love him and other moments where you despise him for using his powers for evil. Real evil.
Urban, so good in the cancelled too soon "Almost Human" and excellent in the newer "Star Trek" films, finally gets to carve out some space for his versatile abilities onscreen. Butcher is a mad, mad man, and Urban doesn't let him off the hook so easily for going about things the wrong way. Getting to use his native accent and create laughs with it (wait for the scene where Starr complements him on it), Urban excels.
So does the show. "The Boys" is for the people who don't like comic book movies as much as it is for the true comic geeks. There's something for both parties, including several moments where the superhero game is mocked big time. There's tongue-in-cheek goodness located here.
You can't beat the slow burn usage of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire" during the trailer. It adds just enough quirky humor and intellect to the main plot of the second season, which will see Homelander's broke-bad superheroes going after Butcher and his crew.
"The Boys" didn't start the fire in this case; that's the enhanced beings who took advantage of their power and image to do wrong. One thing is for sure: this show brings the heat. It's original, hilarious, action-packed, and smartly written.
Come get some, this September!
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