The Boys season 3 premiere recap: Payback

Season 2 of Amazon Prime’s The Boys ended with Nazi supe Stormfront (Aya Cash) absolutely mutilated by Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), the superpowered biological son of Homelander (Antony Starr). Unfortunately, Ryan’s mother, Becca Butcher (Shantel VanSanten), accidentally gets killed by his superpowered wrath against Stormfront.

One should also remember that Homelander was basically blackmailed into leaving Starlight (Erin Moriarty) and Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) alone. The season 3 premiere really begins with a highly fictionalized movie depiction of Homelander battling Stormfront (played by Charlize Theron) over a destroyed cityscape.

Then, in a moment intended to generate audience cheers, Queen Maeve, Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell), Starlight, and A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) show up as reinforcements against the evil Nazi, Stormfront. In fact, Homelander uses their presence as an excuse to drop the line: “I guess this means we’re breaking up, Nazi bitch.”

The moviegoing crowd loves the show, and we get to see Hughie (Jack Quaid) and Starlight on the red carpet outside. Congresswoman Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) and Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) are also there, ostensibly to watch the movie, but we already know those two always have ulterior motives!

The Boys and a tentative peace

The premiere has an interesting moment when Hughie awkwardly gets a photo-op with A Train. In case you don’t recall, Hughie was inspired to join The Boys anti-superhero vigilante group after A-Train, who has superspeed, ran right through his girlfriend at the time, Robin (Jess Salgueiro).

Things also get awkward when Hughie heads to the bathroom, where he discovers that the blockbuster superhero film’s director, Adam Bourke (P. J. Byrne), is having sex with Vought’s Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie). Just as awkward is the fact that Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) shows up, almost as if to just say hi (but also to remind us he’s skilled at infiltrating places).

We also briefly see Frenchie (Tomer Kapon) and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara). Kimiko has a surprise impromptu musical moment.

However, things get considerably weirder when a new supe, named Termite (Brett Geddes) shrinks down to enter the body of a man (Jarrett Siddall) for sexual gratification.

He sneezes, reverts back to his regular size, and kills the man! Frenchie accidentally witnesses the moment and Termite, realizing having a witness could destroy him, attempts to kill him.

However, Kimiko saves Frenchie, then Butcher puts Termite in a bag of cocaine, rather than squishing the supe in his miniaturized form. It’s a bit of a surprise to see Billy Butcher refrain from killing a supe that he knows has done something wrong.

Homelander and the press

This episode of The Boys reminds us that Hughie has a father (Simon Pegg), and that he’s now part of The Federal Bureau of Superhuman Affairs (FBSA). However, we get further evidence that not all is as it appears when a mysterious, panicked man named Tony ()
shows up asking for “Nadia,”.

This is apparently another name for Victoria Neuman (unless Tony is just some nut, though we instantly know he’s probably not). Still, Victoria’s far from the only character with things to hide, as Homelander does damage control regarding his twisted relationship with Stormfront.

Homelander appears on the Vought-owned Cameron Coleman Show, and Cameron Coleman (Matthew Edison) has all the signs of being a softball interviewer. Despite that, he struggles to handle even a little bit of scrutiny and criticism.

Homelander is enraged that The Deep (Chace Crawford) is receiving equal attention, with his book about escaping the cult he was in. Homelander does his best, saying he’s just a man who fell in love with the wrong woman regarding Stormfront.

Unfortunately, for him, he knows his reputation took a hit, and he is not very happy about that. Of course, he is also upset that his son, Ryan, is being hidden from him.

It’s not that he truly loves his son, but he sees Ryan as an extension of himself (something fairly common among narcissists).

A temporary Compound V: V24

This episode really only briefly touches upon some of The Boys, such as Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso). We briefly see him at the birthday party for his daughter Janine (Nalini Ingrita and Liyou Abere).

He is jealous of Todd (Matthew Gorman) for his relationship with Monique (Frances Turner). However, the bigger moments here involve bodies exploding and new drugs being invented.

In this case, it’s a new twist on Compound V called “V24,” which is supposed to be a merely temporary version of the superpower-causing Superdrug. It’s introduced by Stan Edgar himself, in a meeting scene with politician Robert “Dakota Bob” Singer (Jim Beaver).

Singer is concerned about it being associated with Nazism, given that Frederick Vought was himself associated with Nazis. That doesn’t stop Edgar from trying to convince Singer that V24 is worth applying to create super-soldiers in the military.

In fact, later on, Edgar sort of whines about having to babysit a superhero team, rather than just having more of a straightforward, no-nonsense business. So, in a way, this premiere is a bit of a transitional episode, rather than a simple action-oriented one, with many of the main characters exploring new directions.

In the next scene, Billy Butcher argues with Hughie about the “soft” direction they are headed.

Another awkward meeting

Next on The Boys, Starlight and Homelander actually have an awkward meeting with Stan Edgar. It becomes obvious that Edgar is doing it somewhat like a power flex against Homelander.

He announces that he wants Starlight to be co-captain of The Seven. Homelander does not take it well.

The awkwardness continues when, in the next scene, Hughie learns that Starlight previously had a relationship with another supe named Supersonic (Miles Gaston Villanueva).

Hughie also finds it a little cringe-inducing that Starlight’s involved in the reality TV game show “American Hero.” Hughie says: “Vought’s the worst thing that ever happened to us and now you want to be their Ronald McDonald?”

On that note, in the next scene, Homelander (no doubt enraged by Starlight’s advancement) harasses A-Train about eating too much junk food. After A-Train says “F**k you, man” under his breath, Homelander hears it and threatens him openly.

It further establishes that Homelander is rather tired of holding back. It’s oddly similar to the next moment where we see that a pro-fascist “Stormchaser movement” exists in wake of Stormfront’s grave bodily injury.

It seems they are also tired of holding back, suggesting that Stormfront herself is far from the only danger The Boys (or, perhaps, The Seven) might face.

The Stormfront has not passed

For those wondering if The Boys (and the boy Ryan) successfully destroyed Stormfront, the next scenes clarify things considerably. We see that, in fact, Stormfront is in a hospital, still suffering from Ryan’s display of incredible power.

Homelander meets with her, presumably in a relatively secret location, and she sexually gratifies him while talking about his greatness. However, awkwardly for Stormfront, he does not identify as a Nazi, saying he’s the great one, not of any master race.

The scene reminds us that, when it comes to a true malignant narcissist, all the grand talk of visions and truth is just there to build up the worship of the great and powerful leader, who alone can supposedly save humanity (often by destroying large segments of the population). On that note, Queen Maeve soon meets with Butcher about something called “BCL Red,” which apparently killed a supe as powerful as Homelander named Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles).

Maeve wants to use it to kill Homelander, and, interestingly, gives butcher some V24 for his scheduled meeting with the Payback superhero team. Sometime after she leaves, Homelander himself creepily shows up to visit Butcher, threatening to rend him limb from limb to learn the location of his son.

Homelander seems to leave, but during this confrontation. But Butcher nervously eyes his hidden stash of V24, suggesting he’d consider using it to fight him.

This is also significant because Butcher hates superpowers, but he may just hate Homelander more.

Nadia

This episode of The Boys winds down with Tony following “Nadia,” calling out her name. Hughie follows them, spying.

She tells Tony her name is not Nadia anymore. Then, after he tells her “We should tell everyone about Red River,” they get into a brutal fight where she ultimately uses her molecular combustion superpowers to kill him.

In the premiere, we don’t yet know the significance of this relationship, but we know it was significant enough to lead to a brutal outcome, that’s for sure!

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