The Boys Season 3 Review: 8 Ups & 2 Downs

10. It's Occasionally Overstuffed & Rushed Through

Though it's mostly a massive step-up from previous seasons, The Boys' third chapter is also the show's messiest and over-eager, packing its eight episodes with a handful of major subplots that could have done with more room to breathe.

Though the season's biggest developments are handled with ample consistency and great pace -- from Homelander's deteriorating mental state to The Boys' struggles to remain as a functioning team -- many of the smaller plotlines are not so lucky, and despite their potential are often rushed out and underused.

Most notably, the third episode, "Barbary Coast," struggles to balance its abundance of flashbacks and present-day drama, making each new twist feel oddly muted and underdeveloped, because it doesn't focus on them long enough for them to really matter.

In other cases, many promising plotlines are introduced only to be flippantly brushed aside without any lasting impact, such as the death of eager newcomer Supersonic, Homelander's attempts to make Starlight his PR girlfriend, and The Boys' all-too-brief and handwaved trip to Russia.

None of these developments are entirely awful, but there's a sense watching each episode that the season could've done with a major trim and tighter focus.