Some of the storylines are subtle tweaks of existing ones from The Boys, and one is the exact same way of defeating a villain as from S2 of the show. There really needed to be a lot more set-up and establishing of characters or relationships, much of which could've been fixed with different takes rather than longer scenes. Some of the tropes for specific characters, specifically Sam, are also complete lifts from the Boys.

Fans of The Boys will be disappointed that there aren't really characters we root for here, either, unlike the Starlight or Hughie, or even Kimiko. Part of this means we have to acknowledge that these are younger, college-aged people who are going to make mistakes due to naïveté or lack of experience.

There are some fun scenes and mainly a lot of expanding on the world-building of the Voughtverse. It's a show I'm glad exists, even if it's flawed. It leans pretty hard into diversity, which itself has its in-universe rationale, yet I kind of wish they'd spent the money/time to add in the CGI needed for one character's qualities in particular. I'm hoping it finds its footing, but I'm satisfied that I won't need more episodes to be sure of this rating.