We’ve now seen three seasons of Amazon Prime Video’s superhero spoof comedy The Boys, each one crazier than the last. However, as the show unfolds, we get to know the characters more and better, including heroes like Hughie, Starlight, and Billy Butcher, as well as villains like Homelander and Soldier Boy.
Still, as the program approaches Season 4—which was formally announced on June 10—you begin to wonder if there is an end in sight. The show has done an excellent job of making us fall in love with its primary characters while consistently upping the stakes with each breathtaking moment. Eric Kripke, the showrunner, clearly has a plan, since each season of The Boys does an excellent job of hinting what’s to come in the next. We can only hope it arrives soon.
Following a season that included a superhero who exploded a penis from the inside and a massive superhero orgy, you begin to wonder just how far—and how much further—things can go. But this crew has yet to disappoint us, so our aspirations (and expectations) remain as high as a Homelander sail into the sky.
Will there be a fourth season of The Boys?
There will undoubtedly be! Season 4 of The Boys was first announced on June 10, 2022.
When will Season 4 of The Boys be released?
That is currently up in the air. In a recent interview with Collider, star Karl Urban (who plays Butcher) stated that filming for Season 4 would begin in August 2022.
That may mean we receive Season 4 as soon as the spring of 2023—but we’re not holding our breath. After all, Season 2 premiered in the fall of 2020, while Season 3 won’t arrive until the summer of 2022. However, sometime around 2023 appears to be a safe bet.
What will the fourth season of The Boys be about?
We know what we have to work with from the end of Season 3, and it’s quite a bunch. Butcher’s brain has effectively turned into Swiss cheese as a result of way too much Temp-V, and he has been given 12-18 months to live. Who knows how far down the timeline we’ll be when we return to Season 4?
Perhaps more importantly, at the end of Season 3, Homelander (in a clear take on Donald Trump’s famous “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters” quote from 2016) laser-cut the head of a protestor into a million pieces…and his adoring fans cheered him on. What precedent does this establish? That’s not a good one! Homelander was joined at this event by his son Ryan, who had followed his father after the confrontation with Soldier Boy and Butcher. All of this is bad.
In The Boys comics, SPOILER!, Black Noir is a supercharged clone of Homelander who goes insane even more than Homelander himself—and his darkest acts are eventually attributed on him. With Ryan’s sinister smirk at the end of the season, may he become as evil as his father? We already know that the Black Noir plot cannot follow that route, so perhaps a hybrid of the two occurs.
Isn’t that also bad? Victoria Neumann is running as Dakota Bob Singer’s Vice President, having gotten Stan Edgar out of the way and streamlined power for Homelander (The Deep assassinated the prior running mate on Homelander’s behalf, opening the way for this). That puts the head-popper just one head-pop away from the most powerful position in the free world. There’s a lot to discover here, people.
The Boys: Varsity, a spin-off of The Boys, will most likely be released before Season 4—and will tie in with the events of Season 3.
A new spin-off of The Boys, The Boys Presents: Varsity, or just Varsity, was ordered in 2020 and is now under production. Varsity has been described as a college-themed spinoff of The Boys, with the show set at “Godolkin University School of Crimefighting,” a school run by Vought, where the young adult Supes will be tested in Hunger Games-style challenges; the show also has “all the heart, satire, and raunch of The Boys.”
In an interview with Deadline, The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke stated that the two shows will take place concurrently.
“There is definitely crossover, and we’re working hard to create a universe in which some of the challenges and storylines from Season 3 carry over to the first season of Varsity. There’s a presidential campaign going on in the background of that season, and certain things are going on at that school that are both in response to Season 3 of The Boys. There’s Soldier Boy, and so on, but there are also some fresh storylines unfolding in that season of the spinoff that we need to pick up and carry into Season 4 of the program.”
Who will be in The Boys Season 4?
Karl Urban, Antony Starr, Jack Quaid, Erin Moriarty, Laz Alonso, Chace Crawford, Jessie T. Usher, Tomer Capone, Colby Minifie, Karen Fukuhara, and, most likely, Cameron Crovetti will all return.
There are probably those people who are more unsure. Soldier Boy was put back on the shelf, leaving Jensen Ackles for a rainy day when the show needs a wild card back in the mix. Queen Maeve appears to have found her way out of town, but this could backfire; Dominique McElligott may or may not return.
We all know that Black Noir is no longer alive. However, as Kripke stated in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, that costume may be worn by someone else. And Nathan Mitchell, the actor, will carry off where…well, Nathan Mitchell left off.
“It’s clear that Black Noir’s role as a hero is far from over. It’s only that the man who was inside [the Noir costume] in season 3 is no longer there “He stated. “However, Nathan will be playing a really unique and entertaining character who will be wearing the outfit next season.”
