The Boys Season 2 Release Date, Cast, Plot And Trailer

Love it or hate it, the superhero genre isn't going anywhere anytime soon. But that doesn't mean every piece of superhero lore to hit big and small screens has to buy into a sense of idol worship. For The Boys, the Amazon Prime series based on the comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, superheroes are anything but super. And, as it turns out, that's exactly the kind of portrayal people want to see.

Season 1 of The Boys premiered on Amazon Prime Video on July 26, 2019, but a week prior to its official release, the series had already gotten the green light for a second season. Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, The Boys was an instant hit with both viewers and critics, with the general consensus being that its "violent delights and willingness to engage in heavy, relevant themes" give audiences a new kind of hero to get behind: the anti-heroes of the Boys crew who expose the so-called "real" superheroes of the Seven.

It won't be long now before fans get an all-thriller, no-filler second dose of the Seven and the Boys, and there's plenty of information about the upcoming second season to help audiences prepare. Here's everything you need to know about The Boys season 2. Warning: Spoilers for season 1 are ahead!

Filming on The Boys season 2 began in the summer of 2019, and back then, it looked as though the series was on track to drop its second season right around the same time of year that the first season hit Amazon Prime Video. The Boys series creator Eric Kripke openly admitted that he wanted to deliver a fresh bundle of episodes to viewers in summer 2020, telling Collider in August 2019 that he hoped season 2 would "drop one full year after the first season" — meaning late July 2020. A few months later, series star Karl Urban (who plays Billy Butcher) teased in an Instagram post that the second season would arrive in "mid 2020."

As everyone knows, the coronavirus pandemic wound up shutting down virtually all film and television productions in early 2020 — but thankfully, The Boys had already wrapped filming on season 2 by that point in time. On the final day of shooting in November 2019, Kripke tweeted that season 2 was "coming summer 2020." However, while principal photography was complete, all the post-production work for season 2 still had to be done — and it could only be safely finished remotely due to health and safety restrictions put in place in response to the coronavirus. That threw a wrench in the much-discussed plan for The Boys season 2 to have a summer premiere. 

In May 2020, Kripke promised via a tweet that season 2 was nearly finished, and that a release date announcement was coming soon. He and the folks at Amazon Studios made good on that promise in late June 2020, when they announced that The Boys season 2 will premiere on September 4, 2020.

It's later than anticipated but not eons away from what both the series' team and the fanbase were originally planning for. Plus, viewers will be rewarded for waiting so patiently: The Boys season 2 will air its first three episodes on September 4, then one new episode per week for five more weeks. As Kripke noted on Twitter, "The new season is SO F***ING NUTS, it'll give you more time to obsess."

The vast majority of the original cast of The Boys is set to return for season 2 — most notably the full Boys roster: Karl Urban as former-CIA-operative-turned-Boys-leader Billy Butcher; Jack Quaid as Hughie Campbell, who teams with the Boys after a member the Seven kills his girlfriend; Laz Alonso as Marvin (aka Mother's Milk); Karen Fukuhara as Kimiko; and Tomer Capon as Frenchie. 

Also returning for the new season are Anthony Starr as Homelander, the leader of the Seven; Erin Moriarty as Starlight, the Seven's newcomer who possesses light-emitting powers; and Chase Crawford as the Deep, the Seven's answer to Aquaman. Even more are expected to come back: Nathan Mitchell as Black Noir, Dominique McElligott as Queen Maeve, Jessie T. Usher as A-Train, Giancarlo Esposito as Stan Edgar (the head of the Seven's overseeing company Vought International), and Malcolm Barrett as Seth Reed (a Vought International executive who's had to deal with his own very personal Supes issues). 

The Boys season 2 won't be all familiar faces, though. Joining the series for its second season is Aya Cash, best known for her work on the FX comedy You're the Worst, who will play a gender-swapped version of Stormfront, a powerful superhuman who also happens to be a Neo-Nazi. In March 2020, Entertainment Weekly unveiled the first look at Cash in character as Stormfront, rocking a red-and-black costume with some badass-looking embellishments. 

Two Timeless alums, Goran Visnjic and Claudia Doumit, will also appear on The Boys season 2. According to Deadline, Visnjic will play Alistair Adana, the "charismatic and shadowy leader of a mysterious church," while Doumit has been cast as Victoria Neuman, "a young wunderkind congresswoman." 

Additionally, Patton Oswalt will be on The Boys season 2, though details on his role are being kept under wraps.

When we last left our ragtag group of anti-heroes on season 1 of The Boys, the future of the corrupt superheroes known as the Seven — and of Vought International, the company that manages the team  — was completely up in the air. The season 1 finale left a lot of doors open for where season 2 could go, but the biggest revelation we dealt with had to do with Billy Butcher and his season-long vendetta against Homelander. When Butcher realized that his wife Becca (Shantel VanSanten) was, in fact, still alive and also raising her and Homelander's eight-year-old child, Butcher was left in a position that not even comic fans know the outcome of. 

Now that Vought International vice president Madelyn Stillwell (Elisabeth Shue) is out of the picture, season 2 of The Boys will also have to deal with what will come of Homelander, as well as the future of Vought. Chances are that we'll be seeing much more of the company's inner politics, and we're sure to get a wider variety of Supes in the mix, especially considering the addition of Stormfront to the cast. 

While we won't be seeing it until The Boys season 3 rolls around (Amazon Studios has yet again given the series an advance renewal), Kripke has promised that the show will explore the comics' infamous Herogasm storyline. Perhaps season 2 will plant those particular seeds that will ultimately grow on season 3 of The Boys. 

Since the first teaser trailer for The Boys season 1 was released during New York Comic-Con in October 2018, many fans were holding out hope that the first footage from season 2 would arrive in October 2019. That estimation was a close one, as Amazon dropped the first teaser trailer for The Boys season 2 in December 2019 during Comic Con Experience – São Paulo (more commonly known as CCXP) in Brazil. 

Based on that footage alone, it's clear the second season of The Boys will be even bigger, better, and bloodier than the first. The teaser opened on Homelander, his face freckled with blood after his split with Madelyn, then shifted to unspool a quick-paced montage of who (and what) is to come on the new episodes. Familiar faces (most notably a still-alive A-Train) are back in brutal action, and some characters who had little screen time on season 1 (like Giancarlo Esposito's Mr. Edgar) are seemingly going to play a big part in the upcoming narrative. 

During San Diego Comic-Con@Home in July 2020, Amazon Studios unveiled another sneak peek at The Boys season 2 — this time via a clip featuring Billy and the Boys speeding a boat directly into a beached whale, causing the poor creature to explode. Then, on August 4, 2020, the company dropped the official trailer for the new season. As expected, there's a ton of wit, violence, and Boys-versus-Supes tension in store. 

Start counting down the days until The Boys season 2 premieres on Amazon Prime Video on September 4, 2020.