Backintown

• Published date: 07 June 2022
• Publication title: Signal

JUST one episode into the third season of The Boys, the diabolically black-hearted superhero satire based on the comic book of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, and it’s completely clear — the show is the undisputed Exploding People champion of television. Back for another round of corporate malevolence, unhinged villainy, and fighting fire with fire, The Boys has lost none of its apparent willingness to pull the sort of moves that can only really be described as Going There, as in you the audience member saying “I can’t believe they went there!”

For those unfamiliar with the basic premise of the show, it’s set in a world that very much resembles our own, right down to the name-dropping of our actual celebrities and a healthy appreciation for the unthreatening rock of Billy Joel. But there’s a twist; actual superheroes exist, and are kept in a stranglehold as a hugely profitable company asset by mega-corporation Vought, in much the same way as, uh, mega-corporations maintain a stranglehold on hugely profitable fictional superheroes in our own world.

Where our world’s superhero characters are mostly a noble, upstanding lot though, The Boys offers perhaps more of a depressingly realistic...