It’s not often that I find shows that grab me, and really elicit a must-see response. A lot of the time, I spend an inordinate amount of my evenings watching a lot of things that are okay, enjoyable to differing degrees, but when the day is over, they’re not things that I genuinely think I could probably watch again, or be willing to tell people to watch, and let me know when you watch it so that I can watch it with you, kind of shows. I watch a lot of slice of life types of television, because they’re often times quick, simple, and are enjoyable to a degree where I can spend 30-60 minutes, and then walk away and not feel like I’ve wasted too much of my time.
Out of the blue, my brother texts me and asks if I’ve seen The Boys. Nope, never heard of it. But the timing was good, because I had just finished season 2 of Kakegurui, the gambling anime, which I had watched as something of a pallet-cleanser after the fairly lackluster Jessica Jones season 3. So since all the stars were aligned for me to start something new, I gave it a whirl.
At the very first inkling of the plot coming together, revolving primarily around the corruption of superheroes backed by corporate, I was pretty much engaged. My brother said it took him about five episodes to really get into it, but it latched its hooks into me after just one. The sheer idea of compromised superheroes who are just as much shitheads as the vast majority of the population is an intriguing plot, and I was committed to watching more of it.
I have to say that I’m kind of impressed with Amazon’s batting average, as it pertains to shows its released. Granted, I’ve really only delved into stuff like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Electric Dreams but as far as I’m concerned, for a network that is trying to shake itself out of the shadows of Netflix, The Boys is a solid contributor to helping them achieve such lofty ambitions.