The Boys is back for Season 2, and it’s going to be bigger and better than before. BGN got a chance to sit with Chase Crawford (The Deep) and Jessie T. Usher (A-Train) to discuss what it was like rolling off of the success of Season 1 and what we can expect in Season 2 of the Amazon Prime show. Season 2 hits the streaming platform on September 4.
Based on the comic book series of the same name, The Boys is about a group of powerless, heroic misfits who are trying to expose the truth about the Seven, a collection of superheroes who often abuse and misuse their powers. Managing the superheroes is a conglomerate powerhouse by the name of Vought who covers up all the dirty little secrets. It’s up to The Boys to show the world the truth.
Why do you think The Boys is such a big hit with audiences right now?
Jessie: It’s kind of what we’ve always wanted to see when it comes to the superhero genre. It’s the fantasy that everyone loves to think about when you’re watching a superhero always do the right thing, be noble, and be honest all the time. You just know that wouldn’t be how it is in today’s society. Corruption is very interesting to watch play out from a righteous person, and the narrative of this show is different than anything that has ever come before it. It’s very real. It’s very deep. It’s a lot of things that I felt were missing in this genre, and now we have it.
Chase: I think there’s a certain timely aspect. There is a saturation and popularity of superheroes right now. You get used to seeing that certain narrative arc going in a certain formula. I think people are so hungry for the superhero stuff, and they love it done well. The streaming platform is such a great place to do a hard R-rated, no holds barred, intense show on superheroes but flipping it on its head. We can also show all these real-world issues through the lens of these characters, where you expect them to do one thing and they’re just clearly not doing the right thing. All that combined and the source material is what’s good. I think it was floating around for a while, the concept of the show, doing it set in today’s political world-on-fire type of a climate. Eric Kripke [creator/writer] always says that he gets, unfortunately, a lot of good material from what’s going on in the news every day.
How has it been with the fans, and just being a part of this show?
Chase: It’s been great. Doing the promotion stuff like this is a little bittersweet because it’d be fun to be out at Comic-Con this summer. Right after the show came out last year, I feel like it was pretty instant. It was a lot of fun to get to understand physically, that people are watching it. They’re excited about it, and we got a lot of good feedback. A lot of friends and family feel obligated to watch, but they did not understand what it was going to be, at all. Most of them loved it.
Jessie: That’s true. The unlikely or the unforeseen fan bases, that’s pretty exciting too. I was asking a cop for directions when I was out in Toronto one time, and he stopped in the middle of a sentence just to be like, “Are you…are you on that show The Boys? Are you A-Train?” He was so excited, like, “I’m talking to A-train right now!” This was the last person, the last moment that I thought this would be happening. Also, just to be appreciated by your peers in Hollywood from other sets and stuff, and hearing them talk about the show and the things that they like about. It’s a pretty good feeling.
What was it like coming back to set for Season 2?
Chase: Man, it was great. That feeling with the crew, there was an excitement. Especially since you could tell the crew are fans of the show. We’re excited to be back and to be working on this show, because they saw what they did and what we all did round one. There was just a great energy to it. It was cool to be a part of that and be back in with your people doing it again.
Jessie: Heck yeah, it was a well-deserved feeling. The show was received so well. We put so much into it. It was nice to come back to the crew and be able to say congratulations in person. That carried us through the second season, because the hours are long, the show is difficult, and there’s a lot involved with it. There are a lot of moving parts. All of it came together so well in the first season and now everyone just trusts that process. We’re so happy to be back, be a part of it, and be able to do it again. Seeing the first season come out during the filming of the second season was huge for us. We came back from Comic-Con while we were in the second season, and we could just tell everybody liked us. It was a great feeling.
How do you think viewers will feel about Season 2 and the situations your characters have put themselves in?
Chase: As far as The Deep goes, I think it’s a question of, can he ever actually be redeemed. I think you’ll enjoy the season. He’s in a very pathetic place now. Seeing him squirm and try to weasel his way out, but also be sort of tortured by his own self-loathing and self-hatred, and struggling to get back to the Seven, hopefully, is a source of some entertainment.
Jessie: What’s nice about this storyline for A-Train in Season 2 is that the route that you think he’s going to take is not the route he goes at all. His mentality and his psyche are so far gone that things that make sense to him don’t make sense to anyone else. I enjoy playing that out. He’s lost it. He hasn’t quite hit his rock bottom yet, so he doesn’t really know what redemption looks like. But that’s something that we will discover alongside him in Season 2. He will see what the bottom really feels like, and then he can begin that path that The Deep is already on. But for A-Train, it’s just beginning.
Is there anything you’d like to tease or just let the fans know as we get ready to watch The Boys Season 2?
Jessie: I feel like Season 1 raised a lot of questions, and in Season 2 you will get a lot of answers, but none of them are the answers that you’re looking for. They’re all the answers that you did not know that you needed. That’s how I felt reading the script, and I hope that’s how people feel when they watch the show.
Chase: Tease something? “You want a Fresca?” That’s all I got. It’s all going to be a very big shock and surprise, and I think people are going to be into it. I think now you’re wondering how they can push the envelope given what happened in Season 1. It left people wanting more. Season 2 does that as well.
The Boys Season 2 will be available on Amazon Prime September 4th.
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