The Boysseason 3 recap delves deeper into the story of Homelander and his son, the arrival of another classic hero in Soldier Boy, and the destruction of The Seven, all while setting up the brewing war between the leader of the Seven and Billy Butcher and his Boys. When the second season ended, Billy Butcher and Homelander went to battle with each other when Billy’s wife Becca died, and Ryan chose to go with Billy’s ally Mallory to live safely away from his corrupted father. That all changed in season 3.
Taking place one year afterThe Boys’second season, season 3 sees Homelander mostly lying low, as he knows Queen Maeve has the incriminating footage of the plane incident from season 1 and also realizes that Starlight poses a threat and cannot be trusted. Meanwhile,a new face joins the show as Soldier Boy is brought back from suspended animationto stop Homelander, and the two realize they have more in common than warring Supes.The Boysseason 3 endswith a few significant deaths and a shocking turn of events for Homelander.
Soldier Boy Has Arrived
An Original World War II Superhero
The Boysseason 2 endedwith the defeat of the first-ever Compound V hero, Stormfront, although she didn’t die in that final battle. With that said, Homelander humiliated a disfigured Stormfront early in season 3, and she died by suicide. While a former Nazi Supe showing up to team up with Homelander and The Seven was an interesting turn, the third season went to the other side of the ideology. The season brought in the American equivalent of the World War II soldier with the arrival of Soldier Boy.
This was a major change in direction from the comic book series. In the comics, Soldier Boy was a joke, an American supersoldier who couldn’t do anything right. He ended up getting himself and his teammates all brutally murdered, thanks to his incompetence. InThe Boyson Amazon Prime Video, he is played by Jensen Ackles and is a legitimate hero,possibly the only person who can challenge and defeat Homelander. In the war, Soldier Boy was volatile, and most of his team, Payback, hated him.
Soldier Boy ended up captured by the Russians after Payback betrayed him, and the U.S. government left him behind. The Russians then experimented on him for decades, and he was left in suspended animation until he was finally released in season 3 to fight Homelander. However, before Soldier Boy went after Homelander, he had some unfinished business.
“I wanted to tell a story about Butcher and Ryan, and one about Homelander and Ryan, and I knew a big part of Hughie’s arc was how he views his own father. It was like,Boy, there’s a lot of father-son sh*t happening this season.
So it wasn’t me, for the record. Someone said, “What if Soldier Boy is Homelander’s father?” You know when an idea locks into place. Your first reaction is to be scared because it’s huge. Then you let that sink in and you’re like,Oh, wait, I’m scared of it in a good way. That was about mid-season.”
Herogasm Is The Ultimate Form Of Debauchery
The Superhero Orgy Turns Into A Superhero Massacre
Before Soldier Boy takes the battle to Homelander, he has to deal with the people who betrayed him in the past. This led to Herogasm, a controversial moment in the comic book series. However,the Herogasm inThe Boysseason 3didn’t cross as many lines as the comic book storyline. What it did do, however, was allow Soldier Boy to cut loose. This is becauseSoldier Boy’s former teammates in Payback, the TNT Twins, host Herogasmin their home. This allowed Soldier Boy to enact revenge for their betrayal.
EvenJensen Ackles saidthat the entire scene was something no one could ever forget:
“Just the Herogasm I think itself is something that a lot of people are excited to see. I know I was just kind of very curious as to how that was going to work. And even the director was like ‘I don’t know what I’m shooting anymore.’ Our crew looked traumatized. you may’t unsee it. That toothpaste will not go back in the tube.”
A-Train even has a moment in the episode when he brutally murders a racist Supe before having a heart attack himself. However, the big battle here is when Soldier Boy turns his attention to Homelander. Billy Butcher even gets involved and has eye laser powers for a short time thanks to Compound V. It all ends with Soldier Boy and Billy Butcher almost beating Homelander before he once again escapes to fight another day.
The Boys Take Their Own Compound V To Gain Powers
Billy Butcher Ends Up With Tumors Thanks To The Drugs
Billy Butcher had powers when he went into battle with Homelander and Soldier Boy. This is becauseThe Boys got a version of Compound V known as Temp V, which allows a person to have superpowers for 24 hours. For Billy Butcher, it is eye lasers, and he and Homelander have a fantastic moment in Herogasm, where they both shoot their lasers at each other. However, there is a problem — if a person takes more than three to five doses, it could kill them.
Hughie also takes Temp V and ends up with powers as well.
Billy Butcher takes at least six doses before the end ofThe Boysseason 3, and he now has several brain tumors. He only has 18 months to live, thanks to his abusing the drug to fight Homelander. This leads to his moments in the fourth season where he begins to hallucinate an ally (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), and he realizes his obsession is destroying his brain. On top of Billy, Hughie also takes Temp V and ends up with powers as well, although this is partially thanks to his insecurity at always needing Starlight to save him.
Starlight Joins The Boys
Starlight Finally Comes Into Her Own As A Hero
For the first two seasons, Starlight found herself caught between The Boys and The Seven. She was assaulted and humiliated by The Seven and realized even Hughie had been lying to her about his role in the battle. However, inThe Boysseason 3,Starlight took a side and joined forces with The Boys, turning on The Seven and even becoming a star in her own right after she was cleared of all wrongdoing after Stormfront framed her for her crimes. Eric Kripke said the third season was always about Starlight finding herself (viaBusiness Insider):
“Starlight’s story in season three is really about owning her power on her own terms. That’s the big arc for her. When she starts out, she thinks she can have power given to her from these external sources: Vought, Stan Edgar, etc. And that obviously goes really poorly because one, it’s a corrupt system, and two, it’s not coming internally. It’s being laid on her instead of her choosing what she wants to do.
And then she has that big scene with Neuman where she finally is starting to realize who she needs to be. So, we very much designed that turning point. From that point forward, when she finally tells off Neuman, she starts scoring win after win and really does then claim her own power as like, how is she going to wield her power as a really powerful woman.”
However, this doesn’t work out too well for Starlight’s former boyfriend, Supersonic. When A-Train tells Homelander that Starlight and Supersonic tried to convince him to betray The Seven, Homelander beats Supersonic to death before lasering off parts of his body. He then brought Starlight to the roof to show her what he had done as a warning not to cross him.
Victoria Neuman Goes To The White House
Victoria Neuman Running For Vice President
The other remaining storyline fromThe Boysseason 3 concernsVictoria Neuman and her rise to the White House.Viewers learned in season 2 that she was secretly a Supe, and she had killed several victims with her power to explode people’s heads. However, in the third season, she gets a much bigger chance than just attacking Vought and The Seven as a congresswoman. Robert “Dakota Bob” Singer chooses her to be his running mate as he runs for President of the United States. Of this storyline, Eric Kripke said,
“Anyone who’s a fan of Garth Ennis' original books knows that one of his biggest plots, kind of towards the back half of the books, is a Dakota Bob presidency with a Neuman vice president who is a secret Vought plant and obviously conspiring to make themselves president.
“Even though we’ve taken a roundabout way to get there, we’ve sort of manipulated those chess pieces into position so we can start telling that story. The stakes couldn’t possibly be higher because you have this secret Supe in the White House with an agenda and is just hungry for power. A superhero in the Oval Office, I think, would be really destructive for a lot of reasons.”
This leads in an interesting direction in the next season. Victoria is former Vought International CEO Stan Edgar’s adopted daughter, and the two have different ideas on Compound V. Edgar makes it clear inThe Boysseason 3 that he wants to legalize the use of Temp V for regular people. However, Victoria’s goals are still blurry in this season. With Temp V slowly killing Billy Butcher, it is clear that neither Edgar nor Victoria had the best interests of the people in mind.
Homelander Loses Control & Faces No Repercussions
He Commits Several Murders & His Popularity Increases
The ultimate breaking point for Homelander comeswhen he learns that Soldier Boy is his father,or at least that Soldier Boy’s DNA contributed to his creation. However, while Homelander wants a touching father-son reunion with Soldier Boy, the World War II hero wants nothing to do with it. Instead, he calls Homelander “pathetic” and says that if he had been around to be his father, he could have raised him better:
“It’s a shame that I’ve missed so much. I wish I could have raised you and taught you, father to son. Maybe if I’d raised you, I could have made you better, and not some weak, sniveling p—y starved for attention. But there’s no fixing that now … You’re a f—g disappointment.”
Homelander doesn’t take this well. In a shocking moment, he murdered his teammate Black Noir since he knew the truth about Soldier Boy and Homelander and kept it from him. This doesn’t matter since he is never unmasked, and The Seven can replace him without anyone knowing. This then led to a giant battle at the end between Homelander, Billy Butcher, Soldier Boy, and Queen Maeve. Billy betrayed Soldier Boy before he could beat Homelander to protect Ryan.
Homelander and Queen Maeve continued fighting while Butcher and Soldier Boy did battle. Things ended tragically as Homelander took out one of Maeve’s eyes. However, before he could finish her off, Maeve realized Soldier Boy was about to detonate himself and explode, so she tackled him out a window to save everyone in the building and seemingly sacrificed herself to save the day.The good news is that Maeve survived and went into hiding, with the world and Homelander thinking she was dead.
However, Homelander ended up facing the people on the streets, with Ryan by his side.“I don’t make mistakes. I’m not just like the rest of you — I’m stronger, I’m smarter, I’m better,” he said. He received cheers from the powerless humans. This was shocking, but then, when someone threw a can and hit Ryan, Homelander lasered the man’s face off, and the crowd cheered again. Homelander murdered a man in front of everyone and was seen as a hero to the people. Eric Kripke said this was set up from the first season (viaVulture):
“We absolutely talked about that infamous [Donald] Trump quote — that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would still love him. Well, let’s see that. It’s a hint of the very clear and present danger Ryan is in. A lot of the focus of season four is on Ryan because the way that kid turns goes the fate of the world. It’s whether there’s a second Homelander or somebody who can actually fight Homelander.”
The season ended with not only Homelander murdering someone in cold blood but also with his son Ryan smirking after it happened. This led to many questions about whether Ryan would follow in Homelander’s footsteps or turn on him, and the fourth season revealed what led to the tipping point. However, for at least this final episode ofThe Boysseason 3, Homelander proved he was the biggest villain in the series, and the public loved him even more for it.
