The Boys(Season 1 & 2): Review and Analysis



The Boys is an American Superhero action-comedy web series developed by Eric Kripke, based on the comic book of the same name.  
The series features a group of elite superheroes or supes(as referred to in the series) and a group of people who are a victim of the careless actions of the superheroes. 

Plot: 

'The Boys' at first seemed like a spoof of the justice league. Homelander is the leader of the elite superhero group known as the seven and also is the strongest among all the other superheroes. Homelander, The Deep, Queen Maeve and A-Train seem like the counterpart of Superman, Aquaman, Wonder-Woman and The Flash respectively as they possess very similar superpowers. But the series is not just a mare superhero parody, it has a satirical approach. 
From the very beginning, we see that the actions of the superheroes are not quite heroic. Countless numbers of people fall victim to their irresponsible actions and Hughie Campbell(played by Jack Quaid) is one of them. He comes across the main protagonist William 'Billy' Butcher(played by Karl Urban). Hughie joins Billy Butcher and Billy hires two other guys named Frenchie and Marvin Milk(or Mother's Milk) to ultimately form a team that would speak against the actions of the superheroes and expose them. 

On the undertone, the series tries to explore many relevant issues and has a big amount of pop culture reference. One of the things that the series talks about a lot is the corporate world. The superheroes are managed and funded by a multibillionaire company named 'Vought'. They would do anything to hide the catastrophes caused by their superheroes. The main reason for this is marketing. 'Vought' earns a big amount of money by selling stuffed toys, movies, merchandise and many other things. So, this I felt like a mocking of the celebrity culture. 

This series also does a mockery of extreme forms of conservatism. Superheroes(mainly Homelander) use people's faith and false patriotism to misguide them. The series also addresses the issues of the LGBTQ community. There is a scene where the pastor of a very conservative church is secretly gay but he also hosts many events like 'Pray the gay away' thus exposing the double standards. The corporate leaders are shown as very homophobic at the beginning but eventually, they promote a lesbian relationship to increase their ratings. This series also speaks against the nonconsensual sexualisation of women in popular culture. 

The series also has moments that leave an emotional impact on the audience. The backstory of the main characters are well established and the audience feels truly connected to the characters. 

  Performance : 

The performance that we see by the actors in this series is outstanding. Especially Karl Urban as William 'Billy' Butcher and Anthony Starr as The Homelander have done a great job in this series.
Other than these two, Jack Quaid as Hughie, Erin Moriarty as Annie AKA The Starlight, Tomar Kapon as Frenchie and Laz Alonso as Mother's Milk also did a great job. 

Verdict: 

Although the series is often get criticized for the violence it used, the series got mostly positive reviews on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. It has a rating of 8.7 in Imdb and 88% on rotten Tomatoes which indicates the appreciation of general audience.