The Boys Season 2 premiere recap: The Big Ride

Amazon Prime’s The Boys season 2 premiere is explosive!

In the season 1 finale of The Boys, it seemed nothing will remain quite the same for The Boys Season 2. The Boys’ leader, Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), learned that his missing wife, Becca (Shantel VanSanten), had a child named Ryan (Cameron Cravetti) with the sinister faux-superhero, Homelander (Antony Starr).

Also, Homelander murdered Vought International’s Madelyn Stillwell (Elisabeth Shue) and made sure it’d be pinned on Butcher, putting The Boys all on the run from the law and, ostensibly, the superhero organization called The Seven.

The season 2 premiere basically kicks off with The Seven’s Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) confronting the “super terrorist” known as Naqib (Krishan Dutt). Even though Naqib uses his explosive superpower against Black Noir, it has practically no effect, and Black Noir simply kills Naqib.

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Of course, season one revealed that Naqib and other terrorists were actually being manufactured by Homelander with the mysterious drug known as Compound V — which appears to be the source of all the “supe’s” powers.

The Boys Season 2:  Remembering Translucent

In season one, Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid) essentially proved himself to The Boys by killing The Seven’s Translucent (Alex Hassell). Now he is being photogenically mourned by Homelander and The Seven, falsely claiming that Translucent fell to “el diablo” superterrorists.

Homelander then brazenly promises to save America, followed by a stirring tribute song to Translucent sung by Starlight (Erin Moriarty). We also get reacquainted with The Deep (Chace Crawford), whose feelings are hurt because he was cut out of the tribute photo.

After a brief moment where Starlight visits A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) in the hospital after his heart attack. Then Starlight / Annie secretly meet on a Subway about secret information on a SIM card, and they both act like they are disinterested in each other.

Meanwhile, in another amusing moment for his character, The Deep has a mental and very public breakdown at the “Splashzone” water park, resulting in a brief stint in jail.   Fortunately for The Deep, another supe named Eagle the Archer (Langston Kerman) bails him out and later introduces him to a unique group called “Church of the Collective.”

The Boys Season 2: The Boys are wanted men

Dateline NBC’s Chris Hansen makes a surprise cameo, discussing William “Billy” Butcher supposedly killing Madelyn Stillwell, complete with a delightfully cheesy re-enactment sequence. In other words, yes, we’re reminded that he and his organization are on the run. Hughie. of course, wants to use Compound V to sink Vought International and to avenge the careless death of his former girlfriend, Robin (Jess Salgueiro).

Meanwhile, we learn Stillwell has been replaced by Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie), and she’s eager to introduce Homelander to a prospective member of The Seven, Blindspot (Chris Mark). However, Homelander is unimpressed by Blindspot’s inability to prevent him from crushing his head, so Blindspot’s left on the floor, bleeding profusely.

So yes, we have another classic “Homelander is bad” moment. As Homelander ignores his suffering and a possibly fatal injury, he commands Ashley to spy on him, adding that he must have final approval on new members of The Seven.

The  Boys Season 2: Meeting Gecko

We are soon also introduced to a new character, Gecko (David Thompson), a man who uses his regenerative powers to make money from torture/amputee fetishists like Ted (Jeff Sinasac). Starlight uses the images she’s captured of Gecko’s “side job” to blackmail Gecko into acquiring Compound V for The Boys. Meanwhile, we are reminded that The Boys’ Frenchie (Tomer Capon) makes iffy decisions, as they are sharing headquarters with some human traffickers.

The Boys Season 2: Saving America, one slogan at a time.

Next, we see Homelander and Vought testing their brand with a focus group. Among other questions, they ask participants if “Saving the World” is preferable to “Saving America.” Behind the scenes, Homelander makes it abundantly (that is, threateningly) clear to Ashley Barrett that “Saving America” is the slogan they’re going with. It’s yet another suggestion that he’s the one running the show, and not to get too confident in his presence.

However, the series introduces another new character who threatens to do just that: Stormfront (Aya Cash), the newest official member of The Seven. As she threatens to interrupt Homelander and Queen Maeve’s (Dominique McElligott) military propaganda, Homelander storms off to confront CEO of Vought International Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito).

Though Homelander offers thinly veiled threats to leave, or do worse, Mr. Edgar threatens to blackmail him about testing Compound V on inmates. Edgar also informs him that the original Vought had been a chief physician at the Dachau concentration camp, suggesting that the company might have no remorse in dealing even with someone like him.

The question is, does Vought have insight into some Achille’s heel on Homelander? In any case, Homelander quickly flies away to visit his son, much to the surprise of Becca Butcher.

The Boys Season 2: Where’s Billy?

This episode is rather light on Billy Butcher, focusing mostly on the other characters (though, to be fair, season one focused rather heavily on Butcher’s story). As Butcher’s away, Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) makes clear that he’s irate at Hughie for coordinating with Starlight, knowing they could be caught by The Seven, who could be monitoring them already.

He also warns Hughie that he’s putting Starlight in danger. Sure enough, the danger becomes apparent when the CIA’s leader, Susan Raynor (Jennifer Esposito), has her head mysteriously explode. That’s when The Boys call Billy Butcher back, and he seems ready for anything.

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