Adventures In Binge-Watching

With all of my newly acquired free time, I've been able to watch several of the television series available on streaming services.  Since July 4th, I've watched Season 3 of Stranger Things and both Seasons 1 and 2 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.  I've watched The Umbrella Academy and the cheesy Lost-wannabe iLand.  I've watched female-fronted dramedies like Dead To Me, Russian Doll, and the Emmy-winning Fleabag.  Recently, I watched the sublime Undone.

Last night, I wrapped up Season 1 of the anti-superhero series The Boys.  The premise of the show is that the superheros in an Avengers-like group called "The Seven" are basically terrible people, egomaniacs with utter contempt for mere mortal humans.  They're total shits, killing with impunity and laughing about it later, letting a plane crash simply because it's too much of a bother to individually rescue all the passengers, and setting new low bars in sexual harassment if not outright rape.  

The titular Boys are a group of four mortal men and one woman ("The Female") who, due to various reasons, hold well-deserved grudges and grievances toward The Seven and set out on the virtually impossible task of bringing them down.  The Boys are only slightly less immoral characters than The Seven they oppose, so the entire show is an exercise in anti-hero character development.  Do I cheer for the vain and impulsive drug addict, or the lying, sociopathic hit man?

It's no spoiler, but The Boys don't fully succeed in their mission, leaving several of The Seven to still be dealt with in the upcoming Season 2.

I've learned in my binge watching that it's basically best not to actually watch in binges.  If I watch, say, only one or at least no more than 2 episodes at a time each night, I think a little more about the series in between viewings and it sticks with me more.  If I instead try to watch all 8 to 10 episodes of a series in one or two long marathons, I find that two days later I've forgotten about almost the entire series.  

Binge-watching doesn't allow time to roll the plot and the characters around in your mind.  Binge-watching doesn't allow time to speculate about what may or may not happen next.  Binge-watching robs a series of much of its flavor.

Which would be a shame for The Boys, as there are a lot of intriguing characters to savor and lots of unexpected twists and turns in the plot.  I recommend watching the series, but only one episode a night.  But if you finish the penultimate Episode 7, I wouldn't blame you a bit if, like me, you go right straight through and also watch the final Episode 8.