The boys are back in town. Amazon released the first look at The Boys season 3 in March 2022, and it might leave fans with more questions than answers.
Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) looks into the mirror with glowing eyes and later seems to shoot rays of heat out of his face. For a guy whose life mission has been to kill the superheroes, that’s pretty disconcerting.
The Amazon Prime Video series follows problematic superheroes — who are essentially influencers with superhuman abilities to kill lots of people. The Boys, a group of vigilantes, work to expose superhero group The Seven and their parent corporation, Vought, as the evil war lords they are.
At the end of season 2, The Boys seemed to get a win. Homelander (Anthony Starr) was overruled by Maeve (Dominique McElligott) and Starlight (Erin Moriarty), who took over The Seven. Stormfront (Aya Cash), a superpowered Nazi, was not killed but certainly put out of commission in a gory final battle. Hughie (Jack Quaid) even found a real job for an anti-supe politician.
However, not all was well. Billy was last left grieving the death of his wife, Becca (Shantel VanSanten), so it isn’t at all clear how he suddenly has powers in the new trailer. Some brief scenes in the trailer make it seem like his power aren’t just related to heat vision. The grieving widower might even have some super strength — but that won’t be the biggest shock of the summer premiere.
“I promise you have never seen anything like it in the history of cinema,” Urban said during Saturday’s SXSW panel in Austin, Texas via The Hollywood Reporter. “We went bigger this season. It’s a fun intense roller coaster ride.”
Meanwhile, Hughie is working his new job for politician Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit), but it turns out she isn’t just trying to legislate supes to protect Americans. She has the ability to make people explode from the inside out, and the gross blood splatters around Hughie in the season 3 teaser signal that he’ll figure out her little secret.
Showrunner Eric Kripke teased at the end of season 2 that Victoria won’t be an exact adaptation of the character from The Boys comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, who also serve as executive producers.
“There is a corrupt politician in the books named Vic Neuman. And through him, they kind of dig into some of the seedier sides of politics,” Kripke, 47, told Collider in October 2020. “And although we have a very different character, I think we’re signaling that we also have a corrupt politician who is going to lead us into some of the seedier sides of politics as the show proceeds.”
In addition to the returning characters, fans will also meet Soldier Boy, The Boys take on a Captain America-like figure. Jensen Ackles — who starred in Kripke’s hit show Supernatural for 15 seasons — gets quite a bit of screen time as the World War II veteran in the March trailer.
One scene shows the new character getting punched by a WWII soldier in an apparent flashback. He smirks through his mask, which is complete with a patriotic star and eagle as he gears up for the fight. At the end of the teaser, however, Ackles’ character rips off wrist restraints and an oxygen mask. His long hair and beard make it look like he’s been out of commission for a while — so why is he back now?
Amazon is keeping his storyline under lock and key, but scroll down to find out everything we know so far about The Boys season 3:
