All 3 seasons of The Boys ranked from worst to best
By Bryce Olin
1. The Boys season 1
How did I end up with The Boys season 1 as the top season of the series so far? Well, it’s about the vibes.
I don’t know if this is insane or not, but bear with me. The Boys season 2 and season 3 are much better than The Boys season 1 from several different perspectives. The story packs more of a punch in the later seasons, and the action sequences are better. It’s way more ridiculous (in a good way!), and there’s so much to love about the show moving forward.
But, The Boys season 1 is still better because, well, it just is! I’m judging The Boys season 1 on the feeling I had when I watched it for the first time in the summer of 2019. The show had a huge presence at San Diego Comic-Con, but it was still unclear what and how they were going to pull this off. Was there a market for a satirical take on the superhero genre that dominated global box offices for the last decade? The answer was a clear, all-caps “YES!”
There’s just something about season 1 that feels unreplicable. This was the summer after Avengers: Endgame, and this little show dropped on Amazon Prime Video and turned the whole genre on its head. It’s magnificent, and it’s only gotten bigger since that first season.
In The Boys season 1, fans are introduced to “the boys.” After Hughie’s girlfriend is killed by A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), Hughie joins up with Billy Butcher and his band of misfits to try to take down Homelander (Antony Starr), the supes known as “The Seven,” and the company that funds them, Vought.
This is where the story begins, and it’s an incredible entry point into one of the best TV shows of the last decade.
- Release Date: July 26, 2019
- Cast: Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Dominique McElligott, Jessie T. Usher, Laz Alonso, Chace Crawford, Tomer Kapon, Karen Fukuhara, Nathan Mitchell, and Elisabeth Shue
The Boys season 4 is — hopefully!!! — coming soon! We’ll add the new season to the ranking as soon as it’s released.