Watching season one felt as if the characters were constantly going to turn to camera and say: “Please don’t switch off and go back to Netflix. The first series was a fun-enough start – some good lore-making, the creation of a set of characters beloved enough to keep at least four seasons going, and now we all just have to accept that Jack Quaid is going to pop up in things for the rest of our lives – but it lacked a bit of conviction, a bit of bite.
Back then, the landscape between the big sluggers of streaming was slightly different: Netflix was easily on top, Prime Video kept making wrong-shaped stabs at doing what Netflix did but in blue instead of red, and Disney+ had barely been announced, let alone all the others.
It has been genuinely interesting to watch how Prime Video’s flagship series The Boys has grown and diversified since its launch in 2019.
