With a seemingly endless supply of superhero content to watch, it’s hard for a series to stand out from the crowd. That’s not a problem for Amazon’s The Boys, a hyper-violent, darkly funny allegory on superheroes behaving badly. Eric Kripke’s outrageous series returns for its third season, and if this new teaser is anything to go by, the series hasn’t lost its edge.
In a new installment of “Seven on 7 with Cameron Coleman”, the Tucker Carlson-like host of Vought News Network (played by Matthew Edison) covers the top seven news stories of the day. Coleman kicks off with Stormfront’s ardent fanbase, known as the Stormchasers, who have begun protesting for Stormfront’s release (they may have to keep waiting given Stormfront’s demise in the season 2 finale). Last season saw The Boys take on the rising threat of fascism via former Nazi Stormfront (Aya Cash) and her manipulation of social media. Stormfront used her celebrity as a superheroine to espouse fanatical beliefs, winning an ardent fanbase not unlike Donald Trump and his followers.
Coleman also covers Starlight’s (Erin Moriarty) return to her original costume, which is selling out just in time for Halloween. Edison ably captures Carlson’s facial expressions and patter throughout the segment, as he discusses The Deep doing press at Oceanland and Vought’s acquisition of Heaven’s Harvest, a “Christian-owned organic farm to shelf grocery chain.”
The segment breaks for commercial, where The Deep (Chace Crawford) appears in a PSA for Liquid Death Mountain Water, as the chain’s chief sustainability associate. The Deep cleans up the beach with local kids, pulling condoms out of the mouths of fish, littering, and starting a plastic bottle trash fire to promote environmentalism. It’s a hilarious parody of celebrity-led charity initiatives, complete with kids chocking on the plastic fumes.
When VNN returns, Coleman digs into some fearmongering around poisoned Halloween candy, and crows about the left’s “War on Halloween”. He also attacks the FBSA (Federal Bureau of Superhuman Affairs) for their overreach, going after Rep. Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) and her “soup-hating lapdog) Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid), who left the Boys to work for the congresswoman at the end of season two.
Coleman is an apt riff on Carlson, Hannity and the like, from the performative outrage to the mudslinging. But it still never reaches the heights (or lows) or stupidity, dishonesty, and cruelty that Fox News trafficks in. And while The Boys quickly captured audiences with its sex and violence, its real strength is in its vicious political satire.
Few shows (genre or not) are covering America’s rising fascist tide better than The Boys, while also being able to weave in dick jokes and gross out humor. Season 3 has finished filming, but a release date has yet to be announced. We can’t wait to see what Kripke and company have in store.
(image: screencap)
Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!
—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—
