The X-rated superhero villains from “The Boys” are back. Where do the new episodes start and what does season three have in store?
When the whole world threatens to become unhinged, a superhero comes around at the last second and saves the day. Batman, Iron Man and their countless DC and Marvel counterparts have left us with this certainty for quite some time. But as we all know, power corrupts – so what happens when superheroes and superheroines only apparently use their superhuman powers for lofty purposes?
The rough, black humorous and extremely bloody Amazon Prime series “The Boys” explores this question. From June 3rd, the streaming service will start the third season around archenemies Billy Butcher (Karl Urban, 49) and Homelander (Antony Starr, 46), the Superman with a mother (milk) complex. Where season two left us and what you can look forward to in season three, you can read here – spoilers ahead for the past seasons!
Homelander, Stormfront and the Nazi Past
A central plot point of the second “The Boys” season was the love-hate relationship between Homelander and “The Seven” newcomer Stormfront (Aya Cash, 39). At the beginning she presented herself as a progressive crowd pleaser, but over the course of the season it turned out that she is the exact opposite: Despite her youthful appearance, she was already part of the Nazi movement in Germany during the 1930s and is a racist through and through. Homelander claims in the season three trailer that he’s “a man who fell in love with the wrong woman.” In truth, however, he had no problem with Stormfront’s despicable views.
Which part Stormfront will play in the new episodes is still a secret. Around a year has apparently passed since the events of the season finale, in which the antagonist was turned into a badly charred but still alive pile of flesh – by a butcher.
The butcher and his son
The tragic end of season two showed the showdown between Homelander and Stormfront on the one hand and the boys around Billy Butcher and his family on the other. Just reunited with his wife Becca (Shantel VanSanten, 36), who he believed dead, he had to say goodbye to her again.
Becca’s son, Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), the result of being raped by Homelander, has powers similar to his birth father’s, but cannot yet control them. While attempting to save his mother from Stormfront, he accidentally kills Becca and severely injures Stormfront. But shortly before Becca succumbs to her injuries, Billy promises to take care of her son. This difficult stepfather-son relationship is addressed in the new episodes.
Made, not born
Another insight from season two was that “Supes” are not born as such, but created in a laboratory. Thanks to a drug called Compound V, which originated during the Third Reich and was intended to help create super soldiers. But the serum is so unstable that it turned most of the subjects into ticking time bombs. One of the reasons why there are so few superheroes.
So there’s a lot of potential for disaster – especially if you take a look at the trailer for season three. It already shows that Billy Butcher is beginning to experiment with the material to finally have a chance against Homelander. And Butcher’s psyche is unstable enough without Compound V…
Exploding heads and Captain America for arms
At the end of season two, another antagonist emerged. An alarming number of heads exploded in the finale, seemingly without any outside influence. But then it was revealed that the power-hungry Congresswoman Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit, 30) is behind the bloody murders and apparently can only commit them with the power of her mind.
The preview of the new episodes also offers first impressions of a new protagonist: the Captain America parody Soldier Boy, played by Jensen Ackles (44). Like his Marvel template, Soldier Boy also seems to wake up from decades of sleep at the end of the trailer – but his attitude is likely to differ subtly from that of Steve Rogers.
