Briefly recall the content of previous seasons. In the world of the series, there is a squad of superheroes called “Seven”. The headquarters of the detachment is located in the powerful corporation Vought, whose specialists are looking for assignments for superheroes, receive money for the services of the “Seven” and are engaged in their advertising. But these superheroes are not positive characters through and through: at least not all of them. Among them are narcissists, greedists, sadists and rapists.
Superheroes have their enemies, one way or another affected by the “Seven”. This is a squad that calls itself “The Boys”. They are not superheroes, but nevertheless they are able to create a lot of trouble for both the “Seven” and the Vought Corporation itself. The detachment is led by former intelligence officer William Butcher, who has his own scores with the head of the “Seven” Homelander (in the Russian version – Patriot). The “Boys” squad also includes a boy named Huey, whose bride was accidentally killed by one of the superheroes, the fighting Frenchy (in the Russian version – Frenchman), Butcher’s old friend Em Em (Mother Milk), and the superheroine Kimiko, whom the “Boys” in his saved time.
In the second season, the heroine Stormfront (Thunderstorm) appeared in the superhero squad, whose origin was unclear. Stormfront is extremely strong, she is not afraid of the Patriot himself and can even manipulate him. However, at the end of the second season, Stormfront is losing.
And here is the third season. Huey (Jack Quaid) works for the Bureau of Superhero Control under Victoria Newman (Claudia Dumit). What Huey doesn’t know is that Newman herself has superpowers – she was the one who blew up the heads of members of Congress in Season 2 – and that she was raised by Vought CEO Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito). Butcher’s “boys” also work for the Bureau: they look for dirt on superheroes, but try not to kill them.
Homelander’s (Anthony Starr) popularity is waning and Starlight’s (Erin Moriarty’s) is on the rise, and Vought management decides to put Starlight in charge of the Seven along with Homelander, which sends him into a fit of rage, but Stan Edgar has the means to control him, so Homelander has to comply.
Meanwhile, Butcher and Hugh unearth an old story about a group of superheroes led by Soldier Boy (Soldier Boy) who were sent to fight in Nicaragua, but nothing good came of it. It was believed that Soldier Boy died during this operation, but the “Boys” found out that he was actually alive, and the Russians were holding him.
Soldier Boy has tremendous destructive power, and only he, according to Butcher, can deal with Homelander. And then Butcher decides to go to Russia to free Soldier Boy and try to destroy Homelander with his help. What then to do with the deadly weapon itself – Butcher does not know, but he hopes to somehow agree with that.
How to get to Russia – Butcher does not yet know, but Frenchy (Tomer Capon) once worked as a killer for the Russian mafia, and he still has connections with the sinister Little Nina (Katya Winter), with whom he will bring Butcher together.
***
“The Boys” is a truly iconic series: against the backdrop of all this endless Marvel and DC superheroes, where each superhero was sleeping and thinking how he could make all of humanity happy, “The Boys” was downright a breath of fresh air, because it showed how in reality, there could be people who somehow received superpowers: it is clear that among them there could be scoundrels, and sadists, and moral freaks, and it would be extremely difficult to control such people.
In the second season of The Boys, the creators of the series did not lower the bar, but the series did not receive any noticeable development: it was quite interesting, the new superheroine Thunderstorm ignited almost the entire season, and I was wondering how it would all develop further: it would gradually fade Or will the show change in some way?
From the very first episode of the third season, the creators of the series did everything to make it clear – they decided to increase the degree of brutality, bloodiness and a certain madness. And it’s very cool, because the third season in the format “let’s keep trying to get Homelander, and we will introduce another superhero there, and then – on the knurled” – it would not be so interesting.
No, formally, this is exactly what is happening: they are still trying to get Homelander, they have introduced a new superhero into the series, however, Soldier Boy is actually “only a tool” and is more nominally present in the series, and several storylines are unfolding in parallel here.
The main line, of course, is Butcher’s ongoing confrontation with his squad against Homelander. And this line is complicated by the fact that Queen Maeve gets Butcher temporarily (up to a day) the active drug V, so that with the help of the drug he can solve especially difficult problems. Butch faces a juicy ethical question: if he – an ordinary, albeit very cool person – gets superpowers at least for a while, then how is he generally different from superhero assholes? But Butch does not need to think about such collisions: he needs to get to Homelander, and for this all means are good.
There are also other plot branches. The line of trying to use superheroes in a real war and what happened to them, the line of recruiting new members of the “Seven” in the form of a kind of television competition, the line of Frenchy and Kimiko, the line of Frenchy and his connections with the Russian mafia, the line of Em Em, who has a difficult relationship with his daughter and especially with his daughter’s stepfather, the line of Hughie and Starlight (pretty, however, fading), the line of Victoria Newman and her claims to the presidency (this, of course, is clearly just a touch on the next season), and so on – here you can be tormented to list it all.
Nevertheless, such a workload of the season with various characters does not make it meaningless and incomprehensible: in fact, everything is very clear and systematic here, and that some lines are introduced only in order to develop them in the future – well, this is completely normal for the series, which will continue for a number of seasons.
But the recklessness, bloodiness, brutality and – which, in my opinion, is the main thing – harsh satire without any equivocations and figs in your pocket – with this everything has become much cooler, and it’s very cool. They pulled through, and excellently, everyone here: mega-corporations, preoccupied with ratings to the detriment of any notions of at least some kind of social justice, a stupid mass of viewers ready to applaud frankly Nazi statements, politicians, the military, and even Hollywood to boot. Everyone got it, as in the excellent film “Don’t Look Up”.
Butcher at Karl Urban is still cool, brutal and incredibly charismatic. This is the best role of this actor, and from season to season he not only does not lower the level, but even raises it. And here we learn some details about Butch’s childhood, about why he became that way.
Anthony Starr’s homelander gets even meaner and more menacing, and Starr plays him brilliantly: striking and very “talking” facial expressions, Starr perfectly demonstrates all the complexes of this shit-superhero. And it’s great here that when Homelander stopped being shy and stopped pretending to be a “superhero-savior”, his ratings suddenly went up a lot. Because there will always be a mass of spectators ready to applaud such a creature as Homelander, and he quickly realized that now absolutely everything will be forgiven him: even if he blows the head of a person in the crowd of spectators who called him a “fascist.” Normally, everyone will just applaud, because Homelander is so cool!
Soldier Boy, played by Jensen Ackles (the actor co-starred on Supernatural, which was also showrunner Eric Kripke) was good, but he didn’t actually get that many episodes.
The rest of the characters and the actors playing them were either not very prominent – Victoria Newman will clearly come to the fore next season – or acted in the paradigm of their own roles from previous seasons. Frenchy with Kimiko – good, but expected, Mm – all the same suffering about her daughter and all the same quarrels with Butch and Frenchy, Hughie with Starlight – completely expected and the same, but here they clearly personify some kind of island of rationality among what is happening madhouse.
We ended the season spectacularly and with dignity, while the vast majority of viewers did not even notice that in fact, purely plot-wise, everything returned to the point where the main characters were at the beginning of the season. But since the main thing here is the process, not the result, I don’t consider this a disadvantage. And the process – here it was very cool, and I watched the season with great pleasure. The creators of the series managed to raise the level and show a certain development, if not of the characters, then of the approach to the series: it became much more crazy, and I just really liked it.
In general, we are waiting for the fourth season. It will most likely be in about a year.
Third season / The Boys. Season 3
Director: Eric Kripke Cast: Karl Urban, Anthony Starr, Dominic McElligot, Jack Quaid, Erin Moriarty, Jensen Ackles, Jesse Usher, Laz Alonso, Tomer Capon, Karen Fukuhara, Colby Minifie, Claudia Doumit, Giancarlo Esposito, Katya Winter
Series, USA, 2022, 60 min. fantastic action movie, 8 episodes in season 3