‘The Boys’ Season 3 Reviews Are In, And They Are Stellar

Amazon has premiered the first three episodes of The Boys season 3 today, and it plans to launch the rest of them weekly to extend the conversation about the new season in its continued experimentation with release formatting.

Early reviews are rolling in and…The Boys has not lost its touch, it seems.

As of right now, here’s how season 3 of The Boys stacks up compared to the last two on Rotten Tomatoes:

• Season 1 – 85% critics score, 89% audience score
• Season 2 – 97% critics score, 79% audience score
• Season 3 – 97% critics score, 89% audience score

Where there’s a tiny bit of fluctuation (even since I’ve been writing this) for season 3, it’s clear that this is another stellar season for what has become Amazon’s flagship series, with an infinite greenlight ahead and space for one or more spin-offs we already know are coming.

Amazon Prime Video has had fewer hits than its high profile competitors, but they’ve landed a few knockout punches. Reacher was another record-setting success with similarly high scores (90% critics, 90% audience). The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel performed well across four seasons.

But The Boys has done something almost thought impossible, created a high profile superhero universe separate from DC (owned by Warner Bros. and HBO Max) and Marvel (owned by Sony, Disney and Disney Plus). They have much more limited source material to draw on, but with an immensely talented cast and apparently zero limits in how far they can push the adult content of the series, the show has blasted off the past three years with no signs of stopping.

I think the pivot to drop three episodes then release weekly is a good one. We have seen nearly every Netflix competitor do something like this with their shows now, barring Netflix itself, where something like Stranger Things will debut with massive numbers and then no one is talking about it even six days later. The Boys, meanwhile, will be the topic of conversation every Friday going forward, including episode six called “Herogasm” which uh, just wait for it. You’ll see. You’ll see.

For now, rest easy that The Boys has delivered yet again, and I expect to see Amazon riding this wave for as long as they possibly can, including hopefully crafting spin-offs that are up to the same standard, but we’ll have to wait and see on that.

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