We review the keys to the first episodes of the Amazon Prime Video series, with Patriota losing his mind (even more) and the signing of Jensen Ackles making himself beg.
It seems repetitive to state that ‘The Boys’ is back more wild, bloody and thug than ever, but it is true: the third season of the Amazon Prime Video series raises the bar (once again) while avoiding becoming a caricature of itself as much as it is a caricature of the world of superheroes. The bet continues to rise and we do not know when it will peak. At the moment he maintains the type in the first three episodes of the new season, which premiere this Friday, June 3, and where We’ve already seen unpredictable cameos, surprising plot twists, and Soldier Boy’s disruptive shadow on the horizon..
Created by Eric Kripke and based on the comics by Garth Ennis, ‘The Boys’ quickly became a resounding success, as well as one of the best action series on Amazon Prime Video (and, if we dare, even one of the best action series in the history of television). With its second season we managed to get closer and better to the characters, and the real world mixed more deeply with the sick and cruel world of superheroes that the series shows us. It is no longer just a parody: it is almost an antidote to the Marvel formula that allows us to embrace our most cynical and political side without losing sight of the purest (and sometimes absurd) entertainment..
Since the end of the second season of ‘The Boys’, the wait has been long. There has even been a global pandemic in between. Waiting until we have searched among the keys to ‘The Boys: Diabolical’, the animated series of ‘The Boys’ released in 2022, looking for clues for this season. We can finally stop speculating: the new episodes have already arrived and prepare us for a season full of emotions. And a ‘Herogasm’? We hope so.
MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST THREE EPISODES OF ‘THE BOYS’ SEASON 3 BELOW
Play fair or blow heads? That is the question
The central philosophical question of ‘The Boys’ reappears in the third season: Can you win by playing by the rules or is the system completely rotten? There has always been a part of Hughie who thought he was a knight without a sword, and now more than ever with his new job at the Office of Superhero Affairs alongside Victoria Neuman. In the first episode of the new season we see him proud of his suit and tie, his protein breakfasts and his meetings full of gossip. However, everything is a mirage and he will have to ask himself the question that he has been avoiding: who really is Victoria Neuman from ‘The Boys’?
We already met him at the end of season 2: It is about the “exploding-heads” that caused havoc episodes ago and did not stop putting stones in the way of the protagonists in their odyssey to unmask Vought. In the final scene of the season, he took the president of the Church of the Collective out of the way after he confessed to him that he has a lot of dirty laundry from The 7, confirming his identity to the viewers and revealing that his actions could respond directly to the Vought interests.
Hughie will soon face the truth and the foundations of his beliefs will shake.. Also his relationship with Starlight (Erin Moriarty), with whom he had begun to share life as a couple in the light of day. It seems that the Butcher method seems now the only possible option.
Patriot reveals his incel inside
If Patriot (Antony Starr) has been a central figure in ‘The Boys’ from the beginning, in the third season he directly becomes its sun, moon and stars. In other words, he is more unleashed than ever and walks dangerously to enhance all his cruel, manic and megalomaniac qualities. Or worse: to become a incel. “It’s mind-boggling how the most powerful white guys in the world are the first to say they’re being victimized, disenfranchised and persecuted. [Esta temporada] We’re trying to put the spotlight on what the f… is that.”explained Kripke in an interview with EW.
Indeed, Patriota begins the season with one blow after another that makes him feel like the most attacked person on earth. He first has to go interview after interview apologizing and explaining how she could not have realized that Stormfront was a Nazi. An image washing process that is driving him crazy. After Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) does not stop tightening the nuts, even using Starlight to make him angry because he has much higher public acceptance numbers than Patriota.. ouch. And then to add insult to injury, The Deep goes on to publish a memoir before him.
These and other traumatic events for the character will lead him to enter the discourse incel: you feel attacked, isolated, misunderstood… You feel canceled by social networks and unfairly forced to repent of feelings and opinions that you consider not only perfectly respectable, but the absolute truth. Sure, when he exploits and expresses this vision in public, a new Patriot is born. A Patriot with fewer limits and without mincing words. A public danger that will wreak havoc this season. The revenge will be terrible.
Butcher, between fatherhood and barbarism
If Patriota is at the limit, Butcher (Karl Urban) is directly on the edge of the abyss. Who could blame him: at the end of the previous season he had to see the love of his life explode into a thousand pieces, and then he had to fulfill his promise to take care of the boy responsible for his death and who is also a descendant (powers included) of his Patriot archenemy. At the beginning of the third season we see him as we have never seen him before, trying to be a father figure to ryan (who now lives isolated in the woods with Agent Grace Mallory) while containing his fury against the knew to align with Hughie’s ideals. But, oh, how little it lasts.
After a year of relative peace, things turn ugly again, and Butcher breaks one of his most important inner promises: never to become what he hates more than anything in the world. And that mantra of ‘The only super good is a super dead’? In the trash, halfway, when he decides to take Component V and acquire superhuman powers in his own body. It has a trick, because they are not permanent powers but a version recently created by Vought and that grants powers for only 24 hours. But of course, it is a prototype still in testing and may have unexpected side effects.
At the moment, this decision keeps her hidden from her colleagues. Meanwhile, Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) and Frenchie (Tomer Kapon) are busy hunting down superheroes and finding clues. Kimiko continues to yearn for her family roots, while Frenchie just wants to escape her past, which apparently has to do with the Russian mafia. Also, Maternal Milk (Laz Alonso) has rejoined the group due to force majeure: it turns out that Solider Boy caused the death of his family, so this quest is personal to him. Enough to leave his daughter again and put herself in danger again.
SUBSCRIBE TO AMAZON PRIME VIDEO
Soldier Boy, a shadow of the past… for now
The obsession of advertising campaigns to tell secrets to catch the public has ruined a surprise for us: Soldier Boy will be alive at some point in the season, as we saw in one of the official trailers in which he came out of some kind of camera naked.. However, the first episodes try to maintain the mystery and the protagonists seek, instead, what supposedly ended their lives.
But, who is Soldier Boy? Little by little we are learning more about him. Parody of Captain America, he was the leader of the first group of superheroes who fought in World War II, the direct precedent of the League of Seven. Along with Countess Scarlet (The Walking Dead’s Laurie Holden), Gunpowder (Sean Patrick Flannery) and others, Soldier Boy showed the first (mostly negative) possibilities of putting super-dangerous superheroes at the forefront of everyone’s safety. “It’s like Captain America gave up on superheroism and was just your inappropriate, drunken uncle.”is defined in EW by actor Jensen Ackles, who returns to work under Eric Kripke after ‘Supernatural’.
What will happen when Soldier Boy and Patriota face each other in the third season of ‘The Boys’? Nothing good, that’s for sure. That and many other moments we hope to see week after week on Amazon Prime Video with these new episodes that show that the series still has enough fuel left to burn everything to the ground.
Source: Fotogramas
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
