The first three episodes of The Boys season 3, reviewed and explained

Episode 303: “Barbary Coast”

The Boys continues its well-advised focus on the fundamentals. For all the press the show gets for its grotesque stunts, it knows how to buckle down and tell a good story.

And then Homelander forces the Deep to eat a live octopus. There’s room for everyone!

As always, it’s hard to stop looking at Homelander. I’m impressed that the show has found ways to keep him: A) an actual character with motivations and feelings and stuff, and; B) an iconic psycho who could break down and murder half the world any moment. And he is deep down the rabbit hole at this point, displaying a chilling self-awareness on top of his sociopathy.

His confidence high after giving his climactic speech in the last episode, Homelander lays it all out to Starlight when she threatens to release the tape from the plane, which is what she and Maeve thought would give them leverage over him. “I would prefer to be loved,” he tells her after telling her how he could take out every defense system the U.S. has in place, before wiping New York off the map just for kicks, “but if you take that away from me, being feared is A-one okey-doke by me.”

And he means it. We’ve seen him do horrible things, and I fully expect him to take out a few characters before he’s finally brought down…if he’s brought down. I suppose it’s possible a cynical show like this could pull out a cynical ending on us.

Meet the real Black Noir

In any case, the Homelander scenes snap with tension and lend weight to the bits where Butcher and crew search for a weapon capable of taking him down. They find a lead by grilling Grace Mallory about what happened to Soldier Boy in Nicaragua in the ’80s, which leads to a fun flashback where we learn quite a few interesting tidbits.

To start, we finally meet Soldier Boy, played by Supernatural veteran Jensen Ackles. He’s a Captain America parody who first served in World War II and has carried the casual sexism of the era with him through the decades. Honestly, he doesn’t seem that different from Homelander: entitled, vain and powerful; I don’t know if they’ll hate each other or get along swimmingly when he inevitably turns up alive.

It was fun seeing a young Mallory and especially a young Stan Edgar in this scene. But the biggest eyebrow-raiser for me was seeing a young Black Noir…without his mask. The show already hinted in season 2 that it was breaking with the comics when it came to Black Noir, but now we know for sure. He’s a Black man who wants to stop wearing his mask when he fights, which contrasts with the scene back in the present when A-Train refuses to speak about racial injustice in the superhero community because he’s “Michael Jordan, not Malcolm X.” There’s been a counterpoint to that argument on the Seven the whole time, although after Black Noir sustains serious facial scarring in this flashback, which is supposedly why he’s never taken off his mask since.

I’m excited to see more of the man behind the mask. I assume his scarring was the result of whatever weapon the Russians used on Soldier Boy that day in Nicaragua, so perhaps Butcher and the Boys will eventually talk to him.

Ryan the likable moppet

But for now, they’re going to look for Soldier Boy in Russia, using one of Frenchie’s old unsavory contacts to facilitate their passage; we’ll find out more details on that next episode.

I do think The Boys is one of those shows where the villains are more interesting than the heroes, but the heroes do give it an honest shot. The theme with this lot continues to be the dangers of backsliding. Mother’s Milk could be leading a quiet family life, but he feels he has to track down Soldier Boy so he can get closure over what happened to his family. Butcher is jumping back into his mission so hard that he’s pushing away Ryan, which could be a huge mistake given that he’s Homelander’s son and seems to have Homelander’s powers. I see a tragic arc in the making.

Ryan, by the way, is just adorable. Usually I’m not that big on precocious little kid characters, but actor Cameron Crovetti is very winning; he’s earnest and innocent, but not in a cloying way. Oh god, I’m already dreading that tragic arc I just mentioned.

And the whole episode is bookended by Starlight putting on a happy face and fighting through the pain, whether she’s performing at a cringey child hero pageant as a kid or kissing Homelander to sell the new story he’s cooked up about them being an item. We didn’t get a ton of forward momentum in this episode, but when the story unfolds this smoothly and the characters are still compelling, that’s not always necessary.

The Bullet Points

• Ashley continues to be a great supporting character. I liked her frantically running through Vought Tower to tell Homelander that his numbers had improved. And she has a sidekick now! A sidekick also named Ashley who she can take out her self-loathing on.
• I liked Mother’s Milk being fussy about cleanliness when he returns to work for Butcher. Little details like that help build up a character.
• Kimiko doesn’t have much to do this episode, although I like that her French boyfriend is careful to give her space as she works through the crushing weight of ennui. Of course he’d understand; his people invented it.
• Kimiko does break Hughie’s arm, though…at his request, so he can take a convincing sick day while he plots ways to neutralize his boss. Hughie’s come a long way from the timid guy he was at the start of the series.

Episode Grade: A-

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