Season 2 of The Boys arrived on Amazon last Friday, and the streaming service altered the release model by only unveiling the first three episodes, with the next five set to drop on a weekly basis. The idea is to build anticipation for the next one and ensure that as many people as possible are turning in on a Friday to see what Billy Butcher and the gang will get up to, which has always served as the basis of the TV industry.
However, because this is the 21st Century and folks either have a much shorter attention span or a severe lack of patience, so-called ‘fans’ of the show started review bombing The Boys on Rotten Tomatoes based entirely on the fact that they didn’t get the whole season on day one, while others flocked to social media in a state of confusion to question whether or not the entire second run was made up of only three episodes.
One of the reasons why streaming services have become so popular is that subscribers can watch as much or as little as they want to in one sitting, but some folks seem to have an issue with The Boys taking that decision out of their hands. In a recent interview, showrunner Eric Kripke addressed the backlash and explained his reasoning behind the staggered release, saying:
“The airing schedule came actually when we were pretty close to being done, probably 3/4ths of the way through post-production. For the record, it didn’t come from Amazon. It came from the producers, we’re the ones who pitched them. A lot of people over there were actually reluctant because it was a new idea, or they don’t do it that often. We really wanted it and Amazon ended up agreeing that they’d give it a try. Our feeling is that when it airs all eight at once, it becomes a sugar rush of a binge. People burn through it in a week or two. There’s an intense amount of activity, and then it sort of fades. There’s so many great moments in season 2, we want to give it time to marinate, so people can reflect on it and talk about it before they move on to the next thing and be in the conversation a little longer. I think a little anticipation for the fans is healthy.”
Fans might no longer gather around the water cooler on a Monday morning to talk about the weekend’s biggest TV events, but based on his comments, it sounds as through Kripke is trying to replicate that feeling on a different forum, by letting the events of each episode sink in and be discussed and dissected before throwing another new installment of The Boys into the mix.