‘The Boys’ might be going in circles, but a chilling Season 3 ending proves there’s still some narrative juice left.
Spoilers in front for the time of year finale of Amazon Prime’sThe Boys .
The future generation is fucked , according toThe Boys . In the last episode of the third time of year of Amazon ’s raucous superhero satire , showrunner Eric Kripke and his squad of writers make their bleakest assertion yet : The kids are not hunky-dory . It ’s a scarey vision of what ’s to fall from a series that stay fresh doubling down on its real - world parable .
Antony Starr ’s progressively terrifying warped Captain America , Homelander , has dodge destruction yet again , withthe Boyshaving to verify his real forefather Soldier Boy ( Jensen Ackles ) does n’t destroy New York through a nuclear combining of madness and PTSD . In the wake of the Vought Tower - set showdown , Homelander ’s son , Ryan ( Cameron Crovetti)—conceived via ravishment — decides to seek his shelter and love rather than habituate his mother ’s husband , Billy Butcher ( Karl Urban ) , as a father figure . Homelander ’s pursuance to win over the child , which began in Season 1 , is lastly over , and he brings him to a exchange where his MAGA - esque supporters are introduce to his spawn . When a counterprotestor gainsay him , Homelander blows his head off . Ryan smiles .
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It ’s a soundly haunt icon . The quest to save Ryan ’s soul has been hang overThe Boysever since he was introduced . When Season 2 drew to a close , he inadvertently killed his mother while trying to barricade the not - so - secret Nazi Stormfront ( Aya Cash ) from strangling her , and start this twelvemonth in a retreat where Butcher attempts to keep him grounded despite his guilt feelings and budding violent inclination . But the allure of the magnate his biological father manage is too great , and Ryan now seems forever lost .
It ’s a conclusion that help solve a problem thatThe Boysappeared to be go into as it head into its fourth passel of episodes : What to do about Homelander ? Starr ’s performance as the sociopath is magnificent , a deft portraying of virile toxicity mashed up with excited impotence and simmer fad . And yet Homelander ’s unkillable nature has made him start to seem like a narration hurdle . This year , Kripke made the parallel between Homelander and Donald Trump glaringly obvious , which resound as almost comically unsubtle to viewers who had been paying attention andpissed off dummieswho , for some grounds , think he was an antihero and not an straight-out villain .
Ryan ’s allegiance give way the writers a new angle on Homelander , and feed in directly into the themes of generational rot that the season had been teasing out . Homelander was created using the deoxyribonucleic acid of Soldier Boy , who the Boys unexpectedly unthaw in fourth dimension and planned to utilise as a potential weapon system . Soldier Boy ’s brand of self - affair has a Reaganite bent , and one " make America great again " begets another , ensue in Homelander ’s specifically 21st 100 eccentric of horror . But even beyond this legacy of nationalist evil , The Boyshas grow more and more concerned in how insult are passed down . In the penultimate episode , Butcher contends with his father ’s mistreatment , while on the Q.T. superpowered pol Victoria Neuman ( Claudia Doumit ) flip her surrogate father , Stan Edgar ( Giancarlo Esposito ) , under the jalopy to protect her own daughter . Victoria also injects the fille with Compound V , a marrow which will give the shaver ability but will almost certainly corrupt her in one way or another .
There is the fortune thatThe Boysmight be go away in circles . Victoria , who can detonate hoi polloi ’s heads , still feel like an idea more than a fully fledged theatrical role , and the season stop with another tease that she ’s up to something in the long terminal figure without offering any concrete detail . Elsewhere , Queen Maeve ( Dominique McElligott ) , has basically been adjourn as a graphic symbol , presumed dead by the world and headed out to almost literal pasture , an unceremonious quasi - ending for a character who felt underserved by the narrative . ( In the reservoir comics , Homelander drink down Maeve . ) Her other female mate and former member of the Seven , Starlight ( Erin Moriarty ) , persist the only virtuously pure entity on the show , and has join up with the Boys to take down Vought from the outside in another reset for the plot of ground .
Despite these nagging doubts , Ryan ’s formidable smirk tells usThe Boysstill has the power to make our hide crawl . Just how screwed we are — both inThe Boysand in life — remains to be seen .
