Amazon's The Boys is honestly not a very good show. While editing my video on season 4's problems, I had to revisit the previous seasons for footage, and oh my god, the cringe. The characters suck, the plot sucks, and though the writers can technically execute on seasonal arcs, the arcs themselves are terribly contrived and mechanical. Sometimes a show's cultural impact and relevance to real-world circumstances can cloud our judgment, but when you take the time to actually reflect on what you've watched, it becomes clear that this show is nothing more than manufactured drivel.
Funnily enough, I almost didn't even want to give the show a chance because from what I'd heard, I was under the assumption that it was basically about some vigilante superheroes who defeat bad guys. (I really don't know why I thought that.)
Plus, I was a former MCU fan who'd been off the Marvel train for many years due to what's commonly known as superhero fatigue but also a phenomenon I like to call "when you realize the only thing you liked about those movies was theorizing about the end credits teasing the next installment."
Then I found out what this show was really about: superheroes that were treated as celebrities, like Hollywood actors and sports stars. The Boys came into the overpopulated superhero genre with more of a cynical angle that satirized modern media and corporate structures. And conceptually, that's pretty interesting, right? But the premise can only carry itself for so long.
The cynicism of the show is definitely a big part of its downfall. It tries so hard to be edgy and subversive and it's so commentary-driven that it loses sight of authentic storytelling. The show only seemed fresh at first because it was positioning itself as a response to the standard superhero fare set by a decade of Marvel's massively impactful (and DC's on a lesser scale) blockbuster films and television spin-offs. The original Boys comic was also derivative of Marvel and DC comics, but ironically those Marvel and DC comics were already highly political and critical of society – they just managed to do it in a way that felt genuine rather than performative.
When I finally gave the show a chance in 2023, it wasn't because I felt deeply compelled to. It was because I got a new FireTV and access to Amazon Prime Video and felt like I should watch an Amazon show. But it's worth noting that lack of access never stopped me from watching and keeping up with The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel from when it came out to when it ended, and that's because the show was genuinely very good.
I'll admit I watched The Boys pretty passively, and I think I only cared so much about season 4 because I was starting this blog and the YouTube channel and figured I could talk about the new season since it was coming up.
However, I had already forgotten a lot of the show, so my impressions of seasons 1-3 were definitely colored by watching some reactors on YouTube as I tried to get a decent recap before season 4 came out. Because these people reacted positively to the show, it then affected my memory of those seasons. Then Season 4 came out and it was so horrendously bad that it made the previous seasons look better by comparison. But when you actually go back, you can see traces of the same manufactured, inorganic writing that plagued the latest season.
The truth is, this show has basically just been dragging things out for all of its seasons. There's no overall story arcs or character journeys that drive this thing forward.
Season 1 is pretty much just set up and commentary.
Season 2 tries to manufacture story by introducing Stormfront and drag things out by having Neuman ruin the boys' plan.
Season 3 was mostly filler punctuated by Homelander blowing up and the boys trying to figure out how to defeat him.
Season 4 is just a bunch of nonsense they made up to get them to the final season.
All the characters are just going through the motions, even Homelander. You think he'd be an active character, and maybe in season 1 he had his moments, but he's really so reactive and when he's not, it's just the writers trying to give him or the boys something to do. This show made the mistake of deriving its plot and character actions from real-world headlines rather than deeply rooting their characters in a world woven tightly with the themes, and then letting the story organically unfold from there.
That's why it feels so manufactured. They're not telling a story that exists within this world, they're fighting to come up with stuff to fill their episodes and seasons. Like can we talk about how there's SO MUCH BACKSTORY?? Every season it's like Butcher went through this and Kimiko went through this and Frenchie went through this and so on. Backstory isn't inherently a problem, but this show does it to magically give characters depth rather than showing that depth through the present day storyline, or to fill out the runtime and episode count.
This mechanical approach to storytelling is a massive issue. They're just trying to create random obstacles or hit specific plot points and social commentary beats. The characters don't feel like real people navigating a complex world – they feel like pieces being moved around a board, and if they get too close to the end, the chess master makes up a reason to push them back so they can get another season out.
The political commentary, while technically accurate, is pretty much just surface level, and that's because the writers themselves only have a surface level understanding of politics and society. Like the Blue Hawk storyline: having a violent supe stand in to represent violent cops and having some random people yell "Black Lives Matter" at him is not even close to criticizing police brutality. That scene was so corny and all it did was prove that the writers care more about checking off a box on a list of political topics.
The fascism angle honestly doesn't even work in tandem with the original premise. Showrunner Eric Kripke set out to make a show warning about the dangers of Trumpism, and fascism at large, but let's think about this for a second. This is a world where these figures run rampant and unchecked, based on comics that were more about bashing Hollywood to bits. While I don't have an issue with criticizing right-wing extremism and the rise of fascism, I think the initial story world doesn't really match up with what they're criticizing.
Given the premise, I would find it more logical to suggest that corporations are malleable enough to survive political shifts and powerful enough to have a heavy hand in shaping our world. There would be no need for crazy conspiracy-driven plotlines about a secret superhero serum, creating terrorists abroad, and later bringing in a literal Nazi. It's just pointless, and now that Homelander is literally in the White House after a boatload of ridiculous shenanigans, it just feels lame.
They should've shaped the show by focusing on Homelander as a true cult of personality, a genuinely threatening and intelligent figure, not one desperate for approval in order to delay his takeover for several seasons. His outburst at the end of The Only Man in The Sky remains one of the very few moments of the show that was truly impactful, but all the nonsense predating and succeeding it was a waste of time.
Furthermore, by focusing on telling the story of the rise of such a figure, the commentary would've come naturally, the oppositional character arcs would've come naturally, and even the world would've developed naturally if the writers would just see this character, and the others, as actual inhabitants of their own world, and not merely representative of ours.
What's really annoying is how the show is constantly patting itself on the back. The showrunner's claim that the series is "punk rock" is straight up nonsensical considering clinically the show is written. Instead of just expressing their outrage with the world by pouring their emotion into these characters, they care more about curating this punk rock image and throwing in a ton of degeneracy for shock value.
It's not enough to address important issues or subvert genre expectations or make your Superman-Captain America combo evil. Truly good television needs authentic characters and storytelling, great characters with immense depth that feel real and a world that feels lived-in, not made up for the screen. Don't try to make us care by throwing some real world topics at us. Make us care through the characters and story.
It's not impossible to do this, as demonstrated by the following shows:
Westworld season 1 crafted a compelling narrative about what it means to be human by following the journeys of androids.
The Last Kingdom followed genuine characters across difficult journeys to explore how hate, prejudice, and cultural/religious divisions perpetuate cyclical violence.
Black Sails navigated a changing colonial world by telling the stories of the people who lived in that world and were constantly affected by what happened.
The Blacklist, despite its limitations, did manage to create interesting episodic and seasonal story arcs that unveiled government and corporate corruption.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia proved that a show doesn't need to rely on commentary if the writers have created interesting characters through which they can explore social topics or not explore any topics at all.
At the end of the day, The Boys fails to really understand what good storytelling is. The fact that I have zero desire to rewatch the series speaks volumes because rewatching a show comes from the desire to relive these stories, revisit these worlds and characters, and even experience the same scenes over and over again.
But with The Boys, I honestly wish I hadn't even seen it the first time. The only rewatch desire this gives me is to go rewatch other shows, better shows, or even check out some superhero stories that aren't embarrassed of being enjoyable and deeply human. I've been wanting to revisit the origins of the MCU for a while now, evaluate it outside of the zeitgeist, and I really wanna try some of the new animated superhero shows because it's a format that seems to fit the genre quite well.
Maybe we're coming into a new era that's tired of all the cynical takes and just wants a good story. Being edgy can only get you so far, being current maybe a bit further, but in the end, only good stories will take you all the way.