The Boys

The Boys season 3 episode 1 includes the show's most absurd and disgusting sex scene yet. And it's all thanks to Ant-Man in Avengers: Endgame.

Because back when fans first suggested that Ant-Man should explore Thanos' most safely-guarded gem, the Marvel star said this was a "lost opportunity" for his character. "At the time, there was that sort of meme going around of: why didn’t Ant-Man just crawl up Thanos’s butt and blow him up? "Shooting it was so bananas," adds Kripke, "because we built that penis practically. However, the regular-sized guy probably wishes he was a size queen in hindsight, because all of a sudden, the man inside sneezes, thereby losing control of his powers. And there was a lot less blood then too. And "at great expense" too, showrunner Eric Kripke adds during our exclusive chat with him about that scene.

The Boys premiere recap: Damn, we've missed this show! To say the first three episodes of season 3 are "shocking" is an understatement.

In the climax of the prior episode, he injected himself with V-24 in order to take on Gunpowder. But now… - As much as I love Hughie and Starlight together, the writers have done a great job of making me invested in the Supersonic/Starlight relationship. In classic Butcher fashion, he makes a bold move to push Ryan away for good — not by opening up about his feelings — by telling Ryan that he can't stand to look at the monster who killed his wife. But there's one person who might know: Payback's CIA handler — and Butcher's mentor — Grace Mallory. With that intel in hand, Butcher has a chance to let Gunpowder walk free, but with the combination of V-24 and blind rage flowing through his veins, he can't help himself — and he beats Gunpowder to death. Hughie, however, is unaware of this encroaching romantic threat, as he's busy with Butcher and the Boys — including Mother's Milk ( Laz Alonso) who's back in the ring after a few episodes of daddy-daughter time — pressing CIA agent Grace Mallory for insight into the cause of Soldier Boy's death. In the last episode, Queen Maeve gave him a valuable piece of intel that could help him eliminate Homelander once and for all — but that's not all she gave him. Back in the world of Vaught, there's a bunch of super-powered shenanigans going on. Instead, Gunpowder tries to murder Butcher in the parking lot after the convention, and nearly succeeds. After failing to arrest a superhero named Termite (in what's perhaps the most hilariously outlandish sequence thus far in all of The Boys, and that's saying something), Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) steps in with a potentially game-changing piece of intel: Regardless, Homelander's thrilled to celebrate his greatness and to do, as he puts it: "Whatever the hell I want." But in the world of The Boys, good things don't last. It's been a year and a half since the explosive finale of The Boys season 2, and they haven't missed a beat, kicking off season 3 with a premiere that's as shocking as it is…

Spoiler Alert. Amazon Studios. [Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The Boys Season 3 premiere, “Payback.”] Of course, of ...

A man shows up at Neuman’s office demanding to talk to “Nadia,” and while Hughie doesn’t think much of it at first, it’s a massive clue as to Neuman’s true identity. “I look forward to it,” Homelander says, and then he vanishes. If Butcher can find out what it was, he can use it to, as Maeve puts it, “blow his brains out.” She also hands him three vials of V-24, and leaves after telling him not to “f**k up” their one chance to kill Homelander. Stan pitches it to a presidential candidate as “V-24,” a temporary Compound V: It gives soldiers powers to complete a mission, and then it wears off after a day. When the premiere kicks off, shockingly, things are actually pretty OK for Hughie ( Jack Quaid). He has no clue his boss at the Bureau of Superhuman Affairs is a head-exploding supe, he and Annie, a.k.a. Starlight ( Erin Moriarty), have gone public, and he’s committed to taking down bad guys the right way. (If you require context, this involves a supe with shrinking powers who’s high as a kite, a sex thing, and an unfortunately timed sneeze.)

Amazon has premiered the first three episodes of The Boys season 3 today, and it plans to launch the rest of them weekly to extend the conversation about ...

You’ll see. You’ll see. Amazon Prime Video has had fewer hits than its high profile competitors, but they’ve landed a few knockout punches.

Jensen Ackles joins the subversive superhero thriller The Boys in Season 3 as Soldier Boy, the first Superhero. American Masters salutes the Public ...

- CNN Special Report: Missing Madeleine McCann (10/9c, CNN): Randi Kaye updates the 15-year investigation into the disappearance of 3-year-old Madeleine McCann from a resort apartment in Portugal in 2007, described as the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history. Prime time is dominated by her youthful “Let’s put on a show” musicals with Mickey Rooney, including 1939’s Babes in Arms (8/7c) and Babes on Broodway (10/9c). Her greatest hits are yet to come. A busy Friday on the Apple streamer includes the finale of the trippy thriller Shining Girlsand new episodes of The Essex Serpent, Tehranand the bilingual mystery Now & Then. As Uncle Clifford ( Nicco Annan) wrangles with new owner Autumn Night ( Elarica Johnson) for authority, they take the acts to an unconventional place to stay afloat during the pandemic. Ackles is the legendary Soldier Boy, an original Superhero forged from the fires of World War II, who may be the only one powerful enough to take down the dreaded Homelander ( Anthony Starr). After all of those years battling demons as Dean Winchester, our money’s on Ackles. “He wanted theater to be as public as the library was,” explains James Earl Jones, one of the many stars who took advantage of Joe Papp’s progressive, egalitarian approach to the classics.

The show is based on the comic book by writer Garth Ennis and artist Darick Robertson, which ran for 72 issues from 2006 to 2012. Here is everything you need to ...

She also has heat vision and is immune to fire. Soldier Boy, played by Jensen Ackles, is the original superhero. The show is based on the comic book by writer Garth Ennis and artist Darick Robertson, which ran for 72 issues from 2006 to 2012. The duo have a shared power that they activate by holding hands. Gunpowder is also a member of Payback and is played by Sean Patrick Flanery. Mindstorm is another member of Soldier Boy's team who appears in the third season of The Boys. He is played by Ryan Blakely.

What does peacetime look like for The Boys? A recap of 'Payback,' episode 1 of the third season of 'The Boys' on Amazon Prime Video.

But perhaps the peacetime that both Vought and Neuman are so keen to maintain isn’t peacetime at all; it’s just stasis. For all his high-and-mightiness about the work he and Neuman have been doing — and, to be fair, they have contributed to a steep drop in “suit collateral” — the rich and famous still rarely face any repercussions. Of course, Butcher refuses to pass along Becca’s son Ryan’s location to Homelander; he’s bonded a lot with the kid over the year of Ryan’s isolated stay with Boys founder Grace Mallory. For all Butcher’s fears of becoming his father, he’s becoming a surprisingly good one himself. The two men agree to commit to their own favored brand of warfare: scorched earth, with only one left standing at the end. Neuman is complicit in sweeping the first death of the episode under the rug. “Think about what that would mean to millions of girls,” she tells Hughie, momentarily forgetting the real end goal here. It’s nice to see the big secret about Hughie’s new boss come out so early on, instead of after a few episodes of wheel-spinning. Creative violence is this show’s bread and butter, especially as it intersects with sex, so you can imagine the writer’s room laughing their asses off coming up with each beat of this scene. There’s no point in putting it off, so let’s dive in (no pun intended): at his boyfriend’s request, Termite shrinks down and squeezes through his urethra, stroking the inner walls of his dick as he meanders toward the prostate. Only two people die in the episode (a low body count in this show), and neither character was featured before this episode, anyway. It’s clear from the beginning of the episode that this ceasefire is temporary (if it even exists at all). In fact, much of “Payback” feels like the calm before the storm. What has happened in the last twelve months, and can an uneasy truce be sustained based on the threat of mutually assured destruction alone?

The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke discusses how Jensen Ackles was cast as Soldier Boy for Season 3 — and how the Supernatural actor fought for the role.

He can be scary, he can be emotional, he can be a credible action star. So it hadn't occurred to me to think of Jensen because he plays as younger, but it wasn't until I was on the phone with him that I was like, 'Wait a minute, are you interested in this part? The hopelessly smarmy supe is played by Jensen Ackles, and the role reunites him with show creator Eric Kripke — the two worked together for a time on Supernatural when the series was first taking off on the now-CW — and let's just say that Soldier Boy is a pretty far cry from anything Dean Winchester ever was, even on his worst day.

The Boys is back for eight more blood-soaked episodes in Season 3. Billy Butcher, Homelander, Hughie, and more are back for more fun.

The Boys Season 3, like Seasons 1 and 2, will be eight episodes in total. The cursing. It's the violence. Season 3 picks up right where Season 2 left off; Billy Butcher ( Karl Urban) and Hughie Campbell ( Jack Quaid) have both gone legit in their fight against the Supes, with Butcher's crew working under the CIA umbrella and Hughie working as the right hand to Victoria Neumann (Claudia Doumit)—who may or may not be the mysterious figure who can make people's heads explode whenever the hell she feels like it. It's been a while since the last blood-soaked, gut-filled season of Amazon Prime Video's superhero send-up The Boys, but man are we glad to have it back. Not good at all!

The Boys Season 3 premiere sets up the potential for an all-new, all-terrifying version of Homelander. Here's what it means for The Boys, Starlight, ...

What he might do next is a chilling thing to ponder, but, as in the real world, the scariest part is asking ourselves how the “good guys” will redirect a monster that has grown much, much bigger than any one person. Other options may include the many other unstable supes that exist in a secret government bunker, but perhaps most likely is the chance of a partnership with Soldier Boy, “the first superhero.” Referred to as “Homelander before there was Homelander,” it should be clear that his politics are dicey and he’s not exactly a team player, but his well-earned hostility toward Vought could entail him allying with The Boys. At this rate, it looks like they’re going to need all the help they can get. This is disturbingly reminiscent of his interactions with Queen Maeve in the first two seasons, and as with Maeve, he’s keeping Starlight off-balance in order to keep the upper hand. Homelander’s increasingly public revelations of his rotten core have only led to a surge in his ratings, putting the rest of The Seven and The Boys in similar positions attempting to navigate his ever-escalating bad behavior. Having already gone above and beyond to make an enemy of Queen Maeve, he’s moved on to attempting to break Starlight while continuing to bully the others. Nowhere is that more true than Homelander, whose anger at being “subdued” has encouraged bolder acts that go beyond cruelty and into outright fascism.

The Boys introduces this highly anticipated character (played by Jensen Ackles) through a few interesting flashbacks and videos. We don't get to meet Soldier ...

And maybe we can meet more of the Payback in the future. But, while Stormfront ultimately runs the comic Payback show, Soldier Boy is in charge in the TV lineup. We don’t get confirmation if Soldier Boy is still alive in present time. Grace says she doesn’t know where the supe gun is nor does she know where the others are. We uncover our first bits of information about the TV version of Soldier Boy in The Boys first episode of season three. Well, we know where Noir is because he’s in the Seven. And Swatto died during that battle where 160 men died and Vought wasn’t held responsible. Soldier Boy was born poor in South Philly and allegedly became a war hero (thanks to Compound V) against the Red Menace. He is Vought’s very first superhero (using that word loosely here). Soldier Boy is super strong, fast, can fight hand to hand, and has a shield in addition to his powers. The chosen supes were Payback, including Crimson Countess, Gunpowder, Soldier Boy, Noir, Mindstorm, the TNT Twins, and Swatto. So Payback and Soldier Boy are essentially the older version of Seven and Homelander. As with all these heroes, Crimson Countess does borrow from Marvel/DC with some Scarlet Witch-esque powers. (Butcher blackmails her into honesty.) She was into some shady drug trafficking business in Nicaragua during Operation Charlie. The “higher ups” decided to bring a crew of supes into an active war zone. Gunpowder, another Payback member, is a “rights to bear arms” dude who ends up tussling with Butcher after the latter says he would tell people that Soldier Boy allegedly abused him. Soldier Boy is here and he’s definitely no Captain America. The Boys introduces this highly anticipated character (played by Jensen Ackles) through a few interesting flashbacks and videos.

In Episode 3 of the new season of The Boys, a suped-up Billy Butcher gets the gang back together to desperately find a way to kill Homelander, leader of the ...

Now that Season 3 is out, we get to go a bit deeper into one of the first superhero groups in the history of The Boys. The loudmouth parody of Marvel's Captain America is the leader of Payback. And he has the strength to help America win World War II—and presumably has strength comparable to Homelander. His anti-aging ability preserves not only his skin, but also the sexist norms of the 1940s, when telling a female case officer for the CIA she needs to smile was acceptable to him. Until we see Orphan Black's Ryan Blakely do more than protrude his large forehead for a pose, we'll reserve judgment on how useful Mind-Storm is in The Boys universe. So far on this season of The Boys, she's only shot a few fireballs, but in the comics, she has Homelander-style heat vision lasers and can manipulate fire on a greater level than Season 2 standout Lamplighter. We may not have seen the last of what Crimson can do. In Episode 3 of the new season of The Boys, a suped-up Billy Butcher gets the gang back together to desperately find a way to kill Homelander, leader of the more popular Avengers spin-off The Seven, once and for all. Through her recollection of that catastrophic event, we find out about one of the first groups of superheroes Vought tried to shove into military action—Payback.

Fun! Meanwhile, Butcher (Karl Urban), Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), and Frenchie (Tomer Capon) work to get info about Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) from his old ...

“I’m the real hero.” And with that, the episode ends. With that, Butcher heads back to the convention to confront Gunpowder. The guy shoots him several times, and Butcher falls… The prolonged, heartfelt goodbye he says to his ex-wife does not inspire confidence that he’ll survive Season 3. “No God. The only man in the sky is me.” Caught between his laser eyes and the fall, she jumps. He’s left with a bullet in his leg and a cut on his cheek, but he gets away. He tries to threaten her, and then Stan Edgar, who’s been watching the dress rehearsal, cuts in and tells Homelander that since Starlight’s numbers are better, she “can call her own shots.” With that, Homelander storms away. He shares the info about Red River with her. “Oh, God,” the girl says. Ringing in his ears, Homelander rants at the girl and says she should, in fact, jump. With his annual televised birthday celebration approaching, “The Only Man in the Sky” turns the insane supe into a ticking time bomb of contempt, arrogance, and pent-up rage. (He wasn’t supposed to go there without Annie [ Erin Moriarty], but, oh well.) He lies to the nurse and says he and Starlight are thinking of adopting, and he’s able to copy information from one of their computers onto a flash drive. Fun! Meanwhile, Butcher ( Karl Urban), Kimiko ( Karen Fukuhara), and Frenchie ( Tomer Capon) work to get info about Soldier Boy ( Jensen Ackles) from his old Payback teammates.

The Seven are some of the most powerful "supes" on The Boys. But who's the most powerful of them all? We rank them here.

As the wife of Frederick Vought, she became the first known superhero, and she is by far one of the most powerful. Just a few of the powers we see from Noir, but his main ability is his high martial arts prowess. The only other supe we see with this ability is Homelander, and he is clearly impressed by this as he falls for her. The ability to turn completely invisible is his trademark power, but it's arguably his carbon skin that makes him so formidable. One of the few on this list that is a consistent member of The Seven, Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) is a great all-rounder. He is able to send a girl in the tunnel flying through the wall, and is also to send Starlight flying through the air, which is very impressive considering she's pretty strong herself. After spending years as a local hero, she is attracted by the glamour of The Seven, but quickly discovers the dark reality of being a member. Noir is definitely one of the most feared in the group and is highly reliable, but he has one unfortunate weakness that lets him down: Tree nuts. Her alliance to The Boys massively helps them in their pursuit of taking down The Seven, providing them with intelligence and working from the inside to bring them down. One of the earlier members of The Seven, Lamplighter (Shawn Ashmore) was replaced by Starlight, with not much being known about him in the first season. One of the first heroes we meet, The Deep (Chace Crawford) finds himself sinking toward the bottom of the rankings. Kicking things off, we have Shockwave (Mishka Thébaud). Although he never really made it to The Seven, he was all set to join as the replacement to A-Train after the latter's forced retirement.

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — This week's new entertainment options feature some very dark characters. “Lucifer: The Complete Fifth Season”: Grade 3 /12 ...

New and crazy adventures await William Butcher (Karl Urban) and his team in their attempt to eliminate Vought's Supes. Plus, Billy seems more relentless than ...

Let us know in the comments section below. The task to portray the first live-action adaptation of Soldier Boy has been entrusted to Jensen Ackles. 44-year-old Ackles is coming off a fifteen-year run as Dean Winchester, the demon hunter in The CW’s Supernatural. His credits also include voicing Bruce Wayne in the Batman: The Long Halloween animation movies. In the comics, Soldier Boy was introduced in 2009’s Herogasm miniseries created by Garth Ennis, John McCrea, and Keith Burns. Soldier Boy’s role and powers mock pretty much the ones of Marvel’s Steve Rogers, including his shield as a melee weapon.

Butcher, whose life purpose is to eliminate supes, is becoming one. Well, sort of. In the show's first three episodes, we see him meeting with Maeve, who has ...

Maybe. Hughie is feeling quite threatened by Starlight’s ex-boyfriend, who is now a member of the Seven. This would line up with the comics where Hughie does use Compound V and kills a supe. Or maybe it is the power that’s addictive. After an encounter with Gunpowder, Butcher realizes that the only way he can fight is on an even playing field. Maeve discovers a weapon that might kill Homelander and gives Butcher Compound V24 because he will surely need it. It is two million dollars a hit (whew) and supposedly meant for soldiers. The Boys season three sets up a story that will surely divide our titular crew.

Amazon's adaptation of The Boys remains just as violent and over-the-top in season 3. New this season is Soldier Boy (played by Supernatural's Jensen ...

This straightforward throughline makes the season’s highs hit harder and its lows easier to ride out — particularly when The Boys is riffing on current events that, in our incredibly rapid news cycle, will feel stale by the time it airs. But in 2022, our disasters are more diffuse, and our leaders less prone to forcing the same arguments ad infinitum. After all, the series, which kicks off its third season with three episodes this Friday, isn’t best read as a takedown of superheroes — or as a violent satire on current events, even as the show lambasts celebrity culture, right-wing media, and yes, the Trump presidency.

Prime Video's action-packed satire asks, "What do the good guys do when the bad guys just keep winning?"

What makes The Boys’ approach to this familiar territory stick—like a speedboat plunging straight into the innards of Lucy the Whale stick—is its unrelenting winks to the world in which we actually live. But generally speaking, The Boys remains one of the more in-touch satires in streaming, putting a fine point on a metaphoric dagger too many other shows wield like a blunt butter knife. So to get what they want, The Boys have to decide what parts of themselves they’re willing to lose. (If there’s an argument to be made for a The Boys movie, then it’s seeing those cruel, icy orbs on the big screen.) So, in a painful action-packed dramedy of errors that never lets up, The Boys season three takes aim at a daunting question: What do the good guys do when the bad guys just keep winning? Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), Frenchie (Tomer Kapon), and even Butcher (Karl Urban) try to do the same.

The first three episodes of The Boys: Season 3 introduce a new super-drug called V24. Let's explore what makes this drug so different from Compound V, ...

Fans of the comic will know that Billy is anything but the hero of this story, and is instead a prime example of how a person can become every bit as twisted and evil as the monsters they hunt. All of this suggests Billy is careening down a self-destructive path that puts him more in line with the comic book incarnation of the character. The introduction of V24 could very easily lead to a scenario where the number of superhumans in this world balloons almost overnight. We still don't know what exactly V24 is doing to Billy's body chemistry, but it's enough to wonder if this disgusting moment of bonding will lead to Hughie gaining powers of his own. In the TV series, only Kimiko has thus far been given a permanent power boost courtesy of Compound V. One injection granted him super-strength and heat vision, more than enough to make quick work of Gunpowder. We don't know if V24 bestows the same powers to every person or if the effects are completely random (as is the case with Compound V). However, Billy's heat vision could be a clue V24 is derived from Homelander's DNA. In more ways than one, the series seems to be putting Billy and his team on a path that more closely mirrors the original comic book series. By the time those children have endured a decade or more of being prodded in a lab and molded into walking, talking brands by the most powerful corporation on the planet, they've almost surely grown up to become self-absorbed sociopaths. And whereas the comics revealed Vought has a secret failsafe against Homelander in the form of Black Noir, Season 3's Iran-Contra flashback has finally confirmed this isn't the case in the TV series. Compound V has transformed him into a godlike being who can decimate entire cities in the blink of an eye. The first three episodes reveal that Vought America has developed a new experimental drug called V24 that can give anyone superpowers for 24 hours. If you haven't already, be sure to check out IGN's review of the three-episode season premiere.

Roxana Hadadi is a TV critic who also writes about film and pop culture, with the closed captions on and motion smoothing off. Photo: Amazon Prime. Dicks ...

The fight scenes continue to be well-blocked and well-staged, in particular a few in the season’s back half that are less about splashy choreography and more about brawny brutalism between their participants. Whatever can happen will happen, and whatever can go wrong will go wrong — but not wrong enough to leave a lasting impact in the world of The Boys. Sadism is still there: brain matter splooging out of a skull, the sticky smear of a body dragged along pavement, a supe punching through another person’s abdomen (a scene that happens twice with two different sets of characters). Fatherhood as a burden is still there: more memories of Butcher’s abusive father, and two more story lines with the same dynamics. But whatever wounds these men inflict upon each other are wiped away by The Boys’ unwillingness to genuinely change the structures in which its characters operate: Vought is still untouchable, the American government is still duplicitous, the criminal underworld is still full of Russians. There’s a rinse-and-repeat quality to both the heroes and the villains that means nothing much changes by the end of this season, as The Boys settles into the same cyclical narrative patterns as the cinematic universes it claims to be mocking. That American freedom is a myth and that the country’s gung ho ideology is built on propaganda and lies? Combine those decades of political awfulness with the concurrent superhero monoculture takeover of movies and TV, and certain patterns of stasis begin to emerge.

The Boys season 3 begins with the long-awaited blockbuster hit of the summer. Release the Bourke Cut!

“Dawn of the 7 is a very sneaky way to reset all of the story actually,” Kripke says. It kind of gives you the opportunity to kind of do bad acting. In the real world events of The Boys season 2, Homelander was unbothered by Stormfront’s ideology and had every intention of living out his days with the powerful woman who properly appreciated his god-like status. The fictional film was apparently part of a Snyder Cut-like movement to “release the Bourke Cut,” a gag that Zack Snyder himself appears to have appreciated. Dawn of the 7 is an Avengers or Justice League-style superhero teamup film starring the superpowered members of Vought’s premier team. The Boys season 3 opens in a place where the show hasn’t dared tread before: the cinema.

“The very first 15 minutes of episode 1 is by far the craziest thing we've ever done…like, by a mile.” Naturally, when we had a chance to speak with Kripke ...

Of course, The Boys had already pulled off one instance of sudden rectal violence when they dispatched Translucent with an ass grenade in season 1. Ah, the magic of artistic creation! The case presented in the opening moments of season 3 episode 1 “Payback” is by far the most extreme and gruesome example yet. “It starts with ‘well we haven’t done Ant-Man yet’ and then someone says “you know that meme of Ant-Man climbing up Thanos’s butt? It’s a bold, grotesque opener to a season that no one could possibly have predicted. Unfortunately for that human penis, Termite sneezes, accidentally enlarging himself and exploding the penis owner’s body to smithereens.

It's Homelander's party, and he can go Nazis if he wants to. A recap of “The Only Man in the Sky,” episode two of the third season of 'The Boys' on Amazon ...

Could he actually develop some empathy for the supes he’s always thought of as inherently wrong? But it’s hard to know how Kimiko could’ve avoided the public violence, especially since it’s a Countess fireball that makes the biggest mess. Poking and prodding him with the suggestion that Soldier Boy routinely molested him, Butcher winds up provoking a gunfight that he barely escapes. He gets the information he wants — whatever happened to Soldier Boy happened during a mission in Nicaragua, working under none other than Grace Mallory! (Oh, and Soldier Boy did slap him around a little, but it never went further than that.) He tries to resist Butcher’s invitation back — he can’t abandon his family again — but we know it’s only a matter of time. She knows that he does want to be with his family, but he can’t be at peace when he still has unfinished business. After getting shot by Gunpowder (more on that later) and watching Ryan’s emotional stop-motion animation of Becca’s voice-mail, he realizes Grace Mallory might be right, it might be time to get out of the game like Mother’s Milk did. Thankfully, the fight ends with an honest admission: Hughie thought things were finally going his way, but the Neuman revelation has shown him how blind he was to the truth. But the couple’s fake fight is organic enough to morph into a real one, tied to Hughie’s awareness of his relative physical weakness. While Annie is preoccupied with the birthday boy, Hughie is too impatient — and too insecure about his reliance on his superhero girlfriend — to wait for her to investigate Neuman further. But as soon as he hears the news, he pivots from bored obligation to actively encouraging the woman to go through with the suicide. He pays a visit to the Red River Institute, a group home for the super-abled owned by Vought, where it turns out Neuman (and her latest victim, Tony) grew up.

This article contains spoilers for The Boys season 3. As we're fond of pointing out around here, no other show on television understands superhero culture ...

Mother’s Milk alleges and Grace confirms that the CIA sold all of that excess cocaine into minority neighborhoods in the U.S. to disrupt and destabilize them. - Operation Charly, or the reason Grace was in Nicaragua in the first place, is basically completely real. - Mother’s Milk calls out Grace for another unsavory part of her role in Nicaragua – the purchase of the Contra’s plentiful cocaine. Here are all the references to the “real world” that we spotted in The Boys season 3. Does this mean thatCharlize Theron is also a part of the MCU in The Boys‘ universe? There are still many references to the church and its veiled comparisons to Scientology though. Finally! Confirmation that Amazon exists in the Boys‘ universe. Good to know that Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner exists in The Boys. Is the existence of Amazon canon in The Boys universe? - Fictional director Adam Bourke (P.J. Byrne) had to reshoot the whole film after Stormfront’s true nature came to light. This season finds Homelander making good on Antony Starr’s promise to become a “homicidal maniac” and in the process the world that Vought created begins to resemble our own more closely than ever before. The Boys season 3 opens up with one hell of a homage.

While fans have been anticipating this date for the last two years, since the announcement of Jensen Ackles taking on the role, there have been several theories ...

While Soldier Boy could impact how the series moves forward, he could also have a lot to do with how certain characters’ stories continue to develop. Season 3 is an exploration of Soldier Boy but also how Vought operated in the early days of the company. The trailer for the series has given fans several clues into what the arc of Soldier Boy could be this season. With Soldier Boy breaking out from captivity, several other members may be alive, too, with glimpses of Crimson Countess (Laurie Holden) and Gunpowder (Sean Patrick Flanery) in the trailer. It is possible that past connections could still be alive, giving Soldier Boy the chance to call in some favors and find new ways to interact in the world he’s just woken up in. Season 3 of The Boys is about to hit Amazon Prime, and the long-awaited arrival of the Captain America counterpart, Soldier Boy, is almost here.

The Boys' Claudia Doumit had chunks of her hair ripped out while filming fight scenes for season 3.

"I think she thought she was going to stand in front of a green screen and say a couple of lines and be done. And according to showrunner Eric Kripke, she had no idea just how big her appearance was going to be. As I recall, I left the set that day with just clumps of my hair missing, because there was so much blood, and we're very physical in the scene, and we're moving around," she laughed.

Showrunner Eric Kripke talked to us about how The Boys pulled off the Termite gag, and the Avengers Ant-Man/Thanos meme inspiration for the moment.

Just kind of the smell in the air.” And then you had like this British Invasion of Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman and Garth Ennis, who made The Boys, and then they deconstruct and tear it apart, but rebuild it and pay homage to it and just start playing with the form? The scene includes an image of Termite jumping into the giant (from his point of view, at least) penis, and also a sequence where he is inside it. “There’s certainly a trend to deconstruct the superhero genre,” Kripke said. Unfortunately, Termite (who, it must be repeated, has been doing a ton of cocaine) sneezes while inside the penis, accidentally reverting to human size and exploding his partner’s bottom half in the process. And then hilariously, one of the writers [...] raises their hand and says, Did we do a butt explosion in season 1?

'The Boys' star Erin Moriarty talks about Starlight's new role within The Seven and that unexpected Starlight/Homelander moment in Episode 3.

Hughie is so well intentioned and loves her so much, but I don’t think anyone could possibly understand how uncomfortable and scary it is to be put in that position every single day, to be by Homelander’s side. How is that going to start to affect Hughie and Annie’s relationship? Exactly! He’d sooner kill the person threatening his power or die himself than give that up. She works in an environment where she’s viewed power as something that people take advantage of, and its power has existed in a really toxic way at Vought. But she looks at it as potentially being her chance to finally impart that change and do good within Vought that she’s been wanting to do and make certain decisions that could steer Vought in a better way. TVLINE As Homelander put it, if it’s released and he loses everything, then he has nothing to lose.