As part of today's virtual event to celebrate the return of Amazon's delightfully crass and grittyThe Boys, a major announcement was made — as opposed to Season 1, which debuted in its entirety on July 26, 2019, Season 2 will take a different strategy. On Friday, Sept. 4, the first three episodes will premiere, and then the rest of the eight-episode season will be released on a weekly basis.
Creator and executive producerEric Kripke, in the press release making the announcement, said:
“We cannot WAIT to show you season two. It’s crazier, stranger, more intense, more emotional. In fact, it’s too much — so the Surgeon General** has insisted we air the first three episodes on September 4, then air the remaining five episodes weekly after that. We wanted to give you time to freak out, digest, discuss, come down from the high, before we give you another dose. We only have your well-being in mind. Hope you love the season as much as we do.
**No, he didn’t."
Jokes about government officials aside, it's actually a pretty truthful encapsulation of what a weekly release will make possible forThe Boys. And we know this not just from decades of watercooler conversations about shows likeThe Sopranos andLost, but from even more recent examples. Two of 2019's most talked-about series wereWatchmen andThe Mandalorian, and both benefitted hugely from a weekly release structure.
As an HBO series,Watchmen was always destined to be part of the network's Sunday night line-up. But the intricate weirdness of every detail, not to mention the massive twists, made each episode infinitely discussable (shout-out to all the fans on Reddit who accurately guessed the true identity of Dr. Manhattan a few weeks in advance, but were called idiots by others) — it's a perfect example of why weekly releases are a smart approach.
As forThe Mandalorian, well, being released once a week gave America more and more time to obsess overBaby Yoda memes and appreciate the way in which directorsDave Filoni,Rick Famuyiwa,Bryce Dallas Howard,Deborah Chow, andTaika Waititi each brought their signature flair to their episodes.
While binge-viewing can be a wonderfully immersive way to sink into a TV show, details like those above tend to be lost to the experience. When Netflix first began dropping entire seasons of its original series at once, it felt like a game-changing move for television, one that even broadcast and cable networks began to experiment with using their own streaming platforms.
But in the years since, the downsides to this approach have made themselves apparent, especially when it comes to one of the things any show craves desperately: Buzz. Recent shows like Netflix'sHollywood or Hulu'sThe Great might have greatly benefitted from a weekly release schedule that would allow viewers to get more excited over the span of the ensuing weeks, with word-of-mouth helping to engage new viewers who might only have to catch up with a few episodes, rather than a full season.
When you also consider the fact that with traditional television production still shut down due to the pandemic, there simply is going to be less and less TV to roll out over the next few months, more and more shows may end up looking to a weekly release schedule — simply so that there's still some new content being released on a regular basis. All of this is to say that when September rolls around, it'll be exciting to have a fresh new show to distract and entertain us for more than just one weekend, especially ifThe Boys Season 2 is as wild as Season 1. In short: Thanks, Amazon.
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You can watch the opening scenes fromThe Boys season 2 byclicking here.
For more of Amazon's selection, check out our curated list of thebest TV shows available to stream on Amazon right now.
