The Breakdown on ‘The Boys’ Season Three Trailer

The trailer for The Boys season three dropped recently. At almost 2 and a half minutes long, the clip packed quite the punch and gave us a glimpse of what’s in store this June. Irreverent, witty and bold, Eric Kripke’s The Boys (based on the comic book of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson) serves viewers a much-needed reality check on the done to death superhero genre. Season three seems to have all this and more! Here’s the breakdown.

The Boys season three trailer opens with a seemingly vulnerable Homelander. The superhero poster boy is at Vought’s Dawn of the Seven premiere. “Out of crisis comes change,” he says and it feels like a forewarning. 

We hear a voiceover telling us that Homelander is going off-kilter, clues of which viewers might’ve gleaned in the first two seasons. The leader of the Seven has gotten more and more volatile with every installment. We see Homelander reluctantly milking a cow (fun fact that we learned from a Vanity Fair video: actor Antony Starr was set to take a cow milking lesson before filming the scene but chose not to so as to represent Homelander’s first time experience as authentically as possible). “He’s lost his fucking mind,” Starlight says to someone on a call. 

Billy Butcher has been keeping off the hard liquor. Mother’s Milk is reunited with his family at a party for his daughter Janine. Guess what the theme is? Surprisingly, superheroes (the Seven feature prominently in the banner hung up in the living room). 

Next, we see an almost Tarantino-style scene (Jensen Ackles, who debuts as Soldier Boy in season three, thought so!) where a person falls from a skyscraper and hits the asphalt. A crowd cheers for Homelander as Ashley looks like she’s about to have a meltdown managing the optics of the situation. 

We see Hughie disavow the straight and narrow path as the boys go up against a system that’s rigged. What follows is a scene where there’s a fight happening and then a man’s face is busted open with a — guess what? — dildo! We also spot congresswoman Victoria Neuman who looks like she’s up to no good after exploding a slew of people last season. 

Fans are finally treated to a glimpse of Soldier Boy that’s not archival footage as he drops a rocket launcher for a young Gunpowder. Soldier Boy was Homelander before Homelander was Homelander so it’s going to be interesting to see these two egos clash in season three. 

There’s also a new drug in town with a variant of Compound V dropping on the down-low that makes one a Supe for 24 hours. Butcher ingests it so now we know how he got the Homelander-ish superpowers we saw him busting out in the teaser trailer. Butcher’s eyes glow golden and he unleashes lasers with his gaze. We also get a glimpse of two new Supes from Payback — Crimson Countess, who is a spoof of Marvel’s Scarlet Witch as well as Gunpowder. We might have even glimpsed Swatto. 

Fair warning, there’s a lot of maniacal smiling from Homelander in this trailer. We also see Kimiko dancing in a hospital gown in what seems like a fantasy sequence. A-Train is back — in an all-new colorful getup! — and shooting an energy drink ad. We also see Butcher coming to grips with his new powers and Soldier Boy awakening from what seems like cryosis in a hyperbaric chamber. It’s going to be interesting to see what this spoof of Marvel’s Captain America does this season. 

The heroes and villains seem to now be on equal ground. All in all, season three of The Boys seems set up to deliver a whole lot of fun and commentary when it drops on Amazon Prime Video on June 3rd. We’ll be tuning in.