Spoilers ahead for the first season.
The second season of "The Boys" is a different beast than the first. The show is now a proven success and trying to pace itself, setting up storylines and conflicts that we're going to see play out over a longer timeline. This means that the show is less about exploring the disturbing world of "The Boys," and more about getting the show's various factions to fight with each other - with mixed results. Sure, we still get plenty of blood and guts and gore, but there are fewer truly nasty shocks, and the writing has a tendency to maintain the status quo. The good guys and baddies are pretty well sorted out now, and though certain characters flirt with crossing the line, in the end everybody does the right (or wrong) thing.
For instance, the unlikely romance and alliance between Hughie and Starlight continues, despite the constant threat of death or capture hanging over them. The Boys are wanted fugitives, and Starlight has a Vought tracking chip in her, but the lovebirds keep hanging out in public places together and somehow keep getting away with it. There are some good arcs for Billy Butcher and Queen Maeve, who both have to wrestle with big moral questions, but most of the other characters' subplots are pretty unsatisfying. There's a lot of Homelander this year, for instance, but we see very little new from him, despite so much time spent on the discovery of his son, Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), being raised in secret by Billy's wife Becca (Shantel VanSanten). He gets a couple of good scenes trying to bond with the kid, but in the end he's exactly the monster we already know he is. We learn more backstory for characters like Kimiko and Frenchie, but it doesn't really illuminate much or change anything for them.
However, this season does feature one great new character, Stormfront (Aya Cash), who joins the Seven's roster. Initially she seems very likeable, not letting Homelnder steamroller her, and rolling her eyes at the Vought marketing efforts. Learning more and more about her over the course of the season is very rewarding and includes some great reveals. We also get to meet an ex-Seven member, Lamplighter (Shawn Ashmore), a pyrokinetic with a long history of problematic behavior. Among the normies, the people with the real power behind the scenes are becoming more visible: Vought CEO Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) and the Scientology-like Church of the Collective leader Adana (Goran Visnijc). The Deep spends a lot of time with the Church of the Collective trying to reform himself, which yields some good comedy. However, the show's best comic relief is the neurotic Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie), who becomes the Seven's handler. I hope the show gives her more to do next season.
And really, what I think put more of a damper on this year was the certainty that there was going to be a next season. Suddenly, the stakes were so much smaller and the wild swings turned out to be not so wild after all. Now that the shock of watching superheroes behaving like psychopaths has worn off, the show is slowly finding its way into the groove of a more typical action adventure program. Nobody important is going to die. Vought can never truly be brought down. Butcher and Homelander are destined to hate each other, but we're never going to see them truly fight to the death the way they want to. However, along the way there are still some absurdly violent R-rated fights, plenty of pitch-black satire (did someone say superhero porn?), and not-so-subtle commentary on current events.
And this is all very enjoyable on its own terms. There are some great action set pieces, some truly disgusting stunts, and I like that the show keeps pushing at boundaries big and small. Stormfront explaining the power of internet fanatics, and Maeve's sexuality being co-opted for a marketing campaign strike a nerve in a good way. I highly doubt that "The Boys" is ever going to be as good as its first season again, but it's good enough that I'll keep watching for the foreseeable future.
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