From The Umbrella Academy to Invincible to The Nevers and beyond, there are a lot of shows about superheroes on the air these days. The Boys manages to stand out from the pack on account of its iconoclastic bent, willingness to shock and eagerness to entertain. The show gives us a world where superheroes are almost uniformly corrupt, with the most powerful being the worst among them.
The show has been a hit, and particularly picked up steam in its second season. According to cast member Laz Alonso (Mother’s Milk), it’s just going to get more sick and twisted. Speaking to Collider, he said that showrunner Eric Kripke is “getting darker and darker” with every season. The upcoming third season will get a fresh injection of awful courtesy of Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), a dark mirror of Captain America and one of the first celebrity superheroes. His inclusion “allowed to not only bring in a character historically who’s pretty dark, but it also makes all of the other ensemble Supes darker as well.”
And keep in mind, this is a show where the superhero analog — Homelander — tossed his own son off a roof, crashed a plane full of passengers, killed his lover and last year started a relationship with a literal Nazi. How much darker could things get, exactly?
Jensen Ackels’ The Boys character will make the show even darker
Alonso also said that season 3 will be a lot bloodier, which I suppose goes hand in hand with darker. “I was talking to the head makeup artist and she’s in charge of ordering the blood — that’s one of her many jobs,” he explained. “She told me that all of Season 2… When you talk about bulk, I don’t think they used over a gallon of blood in Season 2, believe it or not. Season 3, we’re already at three and a half gallons of blood. So that should give you a little indication of where it’s going.”
So get ready for them to top the scene where everyone’s heads were exploding in the courtroom:
And THEN there’s the “Herogasm” episode, about a regular event where the superheroes of the world say they’re banding together to fight a powerful supervillain…but really they’re heading to a secluded location for a spell of superpowered debauchery. Antony Starr, who plays Homelander, seemed pretty nervous about it on Twitter:
Oh dear god what are you people cooking over there....😂😂😂👍🏼🦑
— Antony Starr (@antonystarr) April 15, 2021
“Ah, man, I’m not looking forward to that episode!” Alonso told TooFab. “I’m excited for you to see it, but I know filming it is gonna be a long episode.”
I’m gonna count it as a good thing that the entire cast seems nervous about what they have to do. As for when we’ll actually see The Boys season 3, it likely won’t be until next year. Alonso says the team is “between one-fourth of the way through and halfway through” shooting the new episodes.
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