Season 2 of Amazon’s The Boys got underway this month…

With The Boys‘ first season having done the heavy lifting of introducing the eponymous gang of superhero-haters, as well as establishing the darkly comic cabal of the supes, the show’s second season free to shoot off in even more interesting directions, but viewers have been left confused by the decision to drop the first three episodes and then dish the rest out piecemeal on Amazon Prime Video.

The show’s creator, Eric Kripke, said the decision to stagger the release of Season 2 was theirs, and not Amazon’s, as some people thought:

“The airing schedule came actually when we were pretty close to being done – probably 3/4ths of the way through post-production. For the record, it didn’t come from Amazon. It came from the producers… we’re the ones who pitched them. A lot of people over there were actually reluctant because it was a new idea or they don’t do it that often. We really wanted it and Amazon ended up agreeing that they’d give it a try.

“Our feeling is that when it airs all eight at once, it becomes a sugar rush of a binge. People burn through it in a week or two. There’s an intense amount of activity and then it sort of fades. There’s so many great moments in season 2, we want to give it time to marinate so people can reflect on it and talk about it before they move on to the next thing and be in the conversation a little longer. I think a little anticipation for the fans is healthy.”

Trailers

Here was the first trailer for season 2:

Release Date

The Boys season 2 got underway on Amazon Prime Video on 4th September with three episodes being released. The five remaining instalments will arrive every Friday until 9th October.

Cast

A big new addition to the cast is Aya Cash as Stormfront, who will unsettle the Seven and challenge Homelander’s leadership.

“I think Stormfront is like a nuclear bomb that goes off in the Seven. Maybe nuclear bomb isn’t the right word. We’re in Chernobyl. There you go. It’s a Chernobyl thing,” Cash told EW. “I think she’s here to blow up Vought. She’s here to try to get Vought back to the original idea behind creating superheroes… And she can be quite the feminist. There’s a lot of, I wouldn’t say misdirect, but she also is a very empowered woman.

“She’s really social-media-savvy, where Homelander doesn’t really have anything to do with that. Someone else is always running his accounts. He’s almost like a Don Draper-era character and she’s very young and new and fresh, and that’s a massive challenge for him.

“There are quite a few times where you’ll identify with her as an audience member or agree with what she says. I think [those] are the most dangerous people.”

Story

Antony Starr, who plays Homelander in The Boys, was available to take questions with his fellow cast members at CCXP in Sao Paulo, Brazil recently, and teased a little of what we’re in for during Season 2.

“Season One for Homelander was about reconciling his past, dealing with his past, and one of the things that happens to all the characters [in Season 2], is whatever he had in Season One gets taken away,” he said. “It’s a very internal journey. It gets really fucking weird, and I can’t tell you what, but I’ve done some of the weirdest things I’ve ever done.”

And in an interview with Collider, co-creator Evan Goldberg teased that The Boys season 2 is “definitely better than the first season” saying “immediately, it just looks a bit better, feels bigger, the actors all know what they’re doing.”

His partner in crime, Seth Rogen, added: “They already have more resources for the second season. They’re adding more characters, the scope of the show organically grows as the show continues. We just watched, actually, the first episode of the second season this week. It was a wonderful thing as producers. This is way better than I ever could’ve hoped it would be.”