The title of this episode (Glorious Five Year Plan) refers to something Mr. Edgar said about Vought’s long term planning, but I can’t help but think it also could refer to what The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke’s former show Supernatural originally was – Kripke’s Glorious Five Year Plan for the show that ended up running for a decade more and changing many people’s lives in the process. Mine included. The episode was written by Meredith Glynn, who also was a writer for Supernatural. It seems fitting to make the title into a Supernatural reference, because we get to see more of Soldier Boy.
Like, a lot more of him.
That was not a spoiler or a surprise to anyone following what Jensen Ackles and Eric Kripke and everyone else has said about that scene, but still, it’s maybe a bit eye opening. Okay, more than a bit. Let me just grab a cold drink here before I go on.
No significant spoilers here, by the way, so you can enjoy the full impact of the episode that is about to be released, which is AMAZING. I’ll be back with a more detailed recap in a few days once everyone has had a chance to watch and enjoy. This episode is a pivotal one, and not just for Soldier Boy. Most of the episode watches Homelander consolidate his power; he knows even more than we think he does about the people currently in power, and is not afraid to use every single method he can think of to flip that power balance to his favor. He makes some surprising alliances to do it – but that is so often what this show is about. The one you think holds all the power sometimes suddenly doesn’t, and the people you think are allies may just have been temporarily pretending to be. Virtually anyone is capable of stabbing anyone else in the back at any time, which keeps the suspense factor going every episode. The Deep, parroting his ambitious scheming wife, ingratiates himself with Homelander and gets into a physical fight with A Train, which leaves A Train roaring with rage. For a while it looks like Starlight has Queen Maeve, Supersonic and maybe even A Train (after that altercation) more or less united against Homelander, but underestimating him is never a good idea. Some people find that out the hard way.
I have to say that Antony Starr is brilliant as this unhinged-and-owning-it version of Homelander. He’s constantly manipulating everyone around him, keeping them off guard with provocative comments and overt threats that he then keeps insisting was “just kidding, lighten up you guys!” It’s like Gaslighting 101 and he is an absolute master. There’s a priceless scene with Ashley (Colby Minifie, always a favorite of mine) where he asks her in disgust, “Is your idiot brain getting fucked by stupid?” She says no, obviously flustered, but Ashley learns fast. Later she asks Cameron Coleman the same question, threatening/promising to punish him if he says yes, and did I mention there’s maybe an impressive strap-on somewhere in this scene? I can’t help it, I kinda love Ashley.
While the supes continue to smile for the cameras and engage in brutal infighting, the boys are in search of the weapon that was powerful enough to reputedly kill Soldier Boy – and thus maybe powerful enough to kill Homelander. Butcher is perfectly willing to send Kimiko on a mission of murder even when she protests that she’s “not your fucking gun”. In fact, that’s exactly what he says she is – he tells them what to do and they fucking do it. Frenchie bristles, especially after Butcher keeps treating him like a dog exactly as Little Nina taunted him about, but he also backs down. The parallels between Butcher, who is perfectly happy to use people as weapons instead of treating them like people, and the people in power at Vought who do exactly the same, are striking, and Karl Urban knows just how to make it chilling.
Kimiko doesn’t like it, but she does the job – decked out in silver stilettos and a skin tight sequined dress and looking like fire. This is not a spoiler since Karen Fukuhara has described this scene and the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of fighting with dildos, but there’s nothing like actually seeing it. There’s the Star Spangled Banger for Homelander, the Deep’s Flounder Pounder, Black Noir’s Silent Screamer. It’s pretty epic. I’ve never really thought about a fight with dildos as the weapons of choice, but Kimiko makes it work – in a bloody, disgusting and entirely lethal way. As soon as I saw the cabinet, I started to snicker, after hearing Karen talk about enjoying the insane scene. She’s a brown belt in real life and it shows when Kimiko gets to do a fight scene. Sometimes the over-the-top scenes include an unexpected emotional impact too, which is something I value in this show – this is one of them. Kimiko’s innovative murder of the bad guy saves the prostitutes he hired or trafficked, but they’re more terrified of her than they were of him, and that isn’t lost on her.
And then there’s Soldier Boy. Eric Kripke tweeted some behind the scenes fun times with Soldier Boy back in the day, so you can look forward to more of that. Such as it is.
Everyone in the Supernatural fandom who has found their way over to The Boys is eagerly awaiting more of Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy. Without spoiling anything that isn’t already known, this episode includes a scene that is both insane (including a supe hamster that flies through the air like the Monty Python rabbit in The Holy Grail to eat a guard’s face) and dramatically epic (recall those temporary laser eyed powers we all know Butcher becomes desperate enough to take on) before Soldier Boy makes his memorable debut.
There’s a subtle Supernatural homage in there that reminds me of Castiel’s epic entrance complete with shattering glass and flashing lights, and then there’s a reveal that no one is going to soon forget. We’ve already seen in teasers and trailers what the boys see, so this is not a spoiler – steam pouring from an opened door, the shadowy figure of a person inside, oxygen mask on and tubes keeping him alive. He wakes slowly, raising his head, snapping his restraints and pulling out all his tubes and mask. He stands, staggers to the door, hands gripping the sides, looking disoriented, and then stumbles out.
I confess that I gasped. And maybe watched that scene more than once. Maybe.
Jensen Ackles has told the story of his very first day on set being naked in front of the coworkers he didn’t even know yet, “nothing between me and them but a sock”, so that’s no spoiler either. There’s a whole lot of steam going on, but let’s just say that all that working out he put himself through did not go to waste in my humble opinion. The Boys is all about showing its male cast with fewer clothes than its female cast, and I am here for it.
I won’t say what happens next so you can watch it for yourself, but I am looking forward to some gifs and screencaps from this episode. Like, a lot of them. ALL of them. Don’t let me down, fandom!
Halfway through the season and I don’t want it to end! Next episode drops in one week – stay tuned for a proper recap of this episode, for more from our exclusive chat with Jensen Ackles, and for more on The Boys Season 3!
Prime Video’s Season 3 of the hugely successful series ‘The Boys’ premieres tomorrow, and anticipation is through the roof. It’s been a month of press appearances and red carpet premieres and following the cast on a whirlwind European tour, with The Boys social media wizards rolling out daily content that has kept the fandom more well fed than Supernatural fans would have been in a bloody YEAR! I am not at all used to this, but I could get spoiled pretty quickly.
It’s clear from the sneak peaks and ‘leaked’ Public Service Announcement outtakes and teaser trailers that Season 3 is going to be amazing – but let me tell you, having watched the entire thing, it is BEYOND amazing. I felt like my head was going to explode from the twists and turns and revelations, and from the unexpectedly strong (and mixed) emotions I kept experiencing – and I assure you, Victoria Neuman was nowhere nearby. I loved that Supernatural was always a roller coaster ride for me, and The Boys takes me on the same kind of journey. With even more blood and guts and ALOT more non-G-rated content!
There have also been a slew of interviews with the cast, and yesterday I joined in the fun. I had a lovely chat with Soldier Boy himself yesterday afternoon, aka Jensen Ackles. Mostly I wanted to delve deep into understanding his new character on The Boys for its third season, and that part of the interview will have to wait until it’s not so spoilery, but we also had time to reminisce a little about his last show (and my favorite show of all time), Supernatural, and how working on The Boys was both different and similar.
When you watch a show for 15 years like I did Supernatural, you get pretty familiar with your favorite character (that would be Dean Winchester) and the way in which an actor portrays him (that would be Jensen). I used to play a game where I’d try to figure out what lines were ad-libbed, since that happened a fair amount on Supernatural. They were inevitably some of my favorite lines. According to Ackles, my track record was pretty good. Soldier Boy, on the other hand, is a brand new character. I don’t really “know” him that well, so it’s harder to pick out those improvised moments. I asked Jensen if he could think of any examples off the top of his head.
Jensen: There were some, I’m trying to think – I just watched the whole season through this weekend.
Me too, Jensen. It was a bloody wild ride!
Jensen: There wasn’t a whole lot of room for that though, given the character and given the type of scenes we were filming. I know like all of the stuff that we did, like the PSA that got ‘leaked’, that was just me and Phil (Sgriccia) messing around.
Me: I totally should have called that one.
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If you missed the priceless PSA outtakes and Ackles’ perfectly grumpy delivery, I tweeted it when it was released and kept the fandom gif makers very very busy.
Sgriccia has directed on many of Eric Kripke’s shows, including being a long-time director on Supernatural. I once had the great privilege of being on set when he was directing and sitting behind him to watch. (Jensen introduced him as “the man, the myth, the legend” and believe me, I didn’t need to be reminded to be in awe! In fact, I guess I was more or less frozen in silence so as not to interfere with filming, because eventually Phil turned around in his chair and exclaimed, “you are the quietest person I’ve ever met!” Which, I am NOT – but it was Phil Sgriccia!)
That PSA has Ackles ad-lib written all over it. No wonder I love it so much.
At that moment in our chat, Ackles began laughing.
Jensen: You know what’s funny? I’m driving [with a driver] to the airport right now and literally looking up at a billboard and I see my face right there on the Y – and I look over there and there’s another one, literally right across the street, the same one. Like my face is right here in the middle of LA!
Me: OMG that’s so bizarre. Savor it, not many people have that experience, that’s for sure!
(He posted the moment on his Instagram a little while later haha)
I also asked him what it was like being “the new guy” on set after having experienced the Supernatural set for fifteen seasons, with a cast and crew who were essentially family after all that time.
Me: It was a special set.
Jensen: Yeah, it was. And you know, this was fun for me. It wasn’t basically being the co-leader of a set for fifteen years, and it was kinda interesting – almost refreshing – to be the guest on somebody else’s set. Being the guest at the dinner table. And it was nice to kinda sit back and watch somebody else lead and set the tone for that set. I think Karl does an amazing job, Ant does an amazing job, they are all really great – not just at portraying their characters, but also providing a really healthy fun and creative space to make the show. So it was nice to kinda plug myself in.
Me: You can tell that you all got along well. Even the interaction in the press interviews and the way everyone can tease each other. It seems like it worked out really well.
From Claudia Doumit IGFrom Jensen Ackles IG
Jensen: It’s great and I had a lot of fun and again, like everybody who I was working with, they just brought it. It’s a different level. I felt like it was the same great energy level that I was so used to on Supernatural, but on a much bigger stage.
He is definitely right about both the energy level and the size of the stage – don’t miss Season 3 of The Boys, premiering tomorrow on Prime Video.
And stay tuned for much more about The Boys and more of my exclusive interview with Jensen coming up!
I’ve used these words to describe Prime Videos ‘The Boys’ before, but it remains the most accurate description for the show as it moves into its third season – it is a WILD ride! From the start, The Boys has packed so many ups and downs and twists and turns into its eight episode seasons that I invariably end up feeling dizzy afterwards – in a good way. (If you love rollercoasters like I do, you know what I mean.) Once the adrenaline rush has subsided, the best thing about The Boys is that it makes me think. My brain was working overtime the night after watching the first three episodes of Season 3 so instead of sleeping, I was mulling over all the things that happened. Trying to make sense of each character’s evolution, trying to suss out the real life parallels this show makes unapologetically. Where is the story going? What’s it setting up for the rest of this season?
I love getting to the end of an episode and having questions like these rolling around my brain, keeping me awake. But if it just made me think, I probably wouldn’t have been bouncing in anticipation for this season. I think for a living as a psychologist, and then try to make other people think as a professor – so sometimes I just want to sit back and be entertained. One of the teaser trailers for this season of The Boys was set to Imagine Dragons and asked repeatedly, “is this entertaining?” Well, the answer is a resounding YES. Watching the eight jam-packed episodes of Season 3, I laughed, I was sad, I was horrified. I had to turn away a few times when it was too much. I scratched my head with a hypothesis slowly forming, and then sometimes did a triumphant fist bump being right – and sometimes gasped out loud being wrong. This is one of the few times when I’m happy to be fooled. Surprise me, Show, and I am here for it!
For those of you who haven’t been reading my reviews of The Boys for the past two seasons, I came to the show via Supernatural. Eric Kripke, the showrunner behind The Boys, was the creator and first five years showrunner of Supernatural also. He changed my life with that show, and I will basically watch anything he puts his creative touch to and at least give it a chance. Was I ever glad I did that with The Boys! From the very first episode, I was intrigued. And then I was hooked. When Supernatural’s own Jensen Ackles joined the cast for Season 3, I was beyond overjoyed.
So let’s just say I could not wait for this season to drop!
Without giving away any of the truly gobsmacking events of the first three episodes, because you need to experience those yourself (so NO BIG SPOILERS), here’s a synopsis of where we find the characters as Season 3 begins and as they progress through these first few episodes. Alot of time has passed in real life since we’ve been in this universe, and the show includes a time jump as well. It’s a year later – a year that, unlike the constant turmoil that we’ve experienced in real life – has been relatively calm for the boys. It’s heartbreaking that the calm, as is inevitable for this series, is mostly on the surface and about to be shattered. Somehow that makes it all the more devastating when that happens.
In the first episode, ‘Payback’, on the surface at least, things are going well for most of the boys. Mother’s Milk has a warm relationship with his daughter again, which is what he wanted most. His exploits with Butcher and company haven’t left him unscathed, though, when it comes to his marriage or his OCD. He still feels compelled to line up the forks at his daughter’s (painfully supe-themed) birthday party. And it turns out obsessions with revenge aren’t all that easy to walk away from either – MM has got an entire walk-in closet papered with old newspaper articles about a supe who died decades ago – Soldier Boy. It looks a lot like John Winchester’s hotel room walls, yellowed newspaper clippings proclaiming Soldier Boy cleared of various – and yes, we already doubt that.
Frenchie and Kimiko have been together for the past year. They can communicate seamlessly now, Frenchie fluent in her unique sign language and Kimiko also using her phone to text messages to him and express herself. They seem closer than ever, but we get a clearer look at how much the trauma of Kimiko’s past has affected her. She might not have words, but Kimiko can be eloquent, whether it’s carving FUCK into the furniture or playing an increasingly discordant melody on a laptop keyboard piano as other members of the team argue. There’s a poignant scene at an amusement park where Kimiko glimpses a brother and sister sharing cotton candy, smiling sadly knowing that she and Kenji never got to live that life and longing for it still. Sometimes this show is brutal with the “we don’t get to have nice things” and you just know this is gonna be one of those times.
Hughie and Annie have also been living a relatively quiet life. They’re spending most nights together, having a lot of sex (with the euphemism of don’t forget the AquaFresh), and getting along fine. Hughie finally feels like he’s getting some respect too, working alongside Victoria Neuman at the Federal Bureau of Superhuman Affairs. His coworkers are a little bit in awe of him, giving him accolades for helping bring down supes, and he looks dapper in his well-fitting suit. He has a collegial relationship with Neuman, the two of them eating lunch together, joking, supporting each other. United in their mission. Even Butcher reluctantly plays by the Bureau’s rules, deferring to Hughie though it clearly grates on him.
When you think of how far Hughie’s come, how shattered he was after his girlfriend’s death and how helpless he felt, it’s easy to imagine just how heady his new life must be. He doesn’t have to get his hands bloody and he genuinely feels like he’s doing some good in the world.
Unfortunately he’s on the wrong show. Of course we all know that Neuman is the one who’s responsible for all the exploding heads of the past season, so watching how close she and Hughie have become was immediately ominous. Poor Hughie. Like I said, on this show you really can’t have nice things.
Even Butcher has been living a relatively calm life, following the Bureau’s rules as far as who the boys can go after and how (no murder or dismemberment) and visiting Ryan at Grace Mallory’s heavily guarded and hidden away house. Though it’s a painfully awkward fit on Butcher, there’s a clear affection between Butcher and Ryan that makes even Mallory acknowledge that maybe Butcher isn’t a total asshole after all.
Or is he? As we move through the first few episodes, the line between Butcher and Homelander is more and more blurry as the differences between them narrow. They are both rage-filled, on a hair trigger, capable of brutality. Neither puts a scorched earth policy off the table. Is there a line that Butcher won’t cross to get his revenge on Homelander? Is he willing to sacrifice anyone and everyone to do it, including in a very real sense, himself and who he is?
Time will tell.
Once again, because this is The Boys, things fall apart dramatically and all of the boys are drawn back together, reluctantly understanding that in order to effectively fight a system that is much more vast and integrated than they suspected, they can’t keep playing by the rules. We’ve all seen Butcher’s laser eyes in the trailers, so it’s no spoiler when I say things go south in a dramatic way.
For all of them, but for Hughie especially, I found that evolution heartbreaking – because it requires him to turn off his natural empathy and sacrifice some of his humanity to do it. From the beginning, Hughie has been the one hanging onto that humanity, being the canary in the coal mine, willing to speak up even if he got punched in the face for it to try to find the elusive balance between morality and power. Can he keep hanging onto it this season?
That’s painful to contemplate. However, that’s one of the things I like best about The Boys – it makes me feel.
Things are changing rapidly on the other side of the fence too. Most of those things I won’t spoil, but suffice it to say some of them are jaw dropping. It’s no secret, since it’s been in the trailers, that Homelander is becoming even more unhinged than he was before – which is really saying something considering what we’ve seen him do. The more alone he is, the more unloved he feels, the more desperate he becomes, the thin thread keeping him from just doing what he wants – whatever the hell he wants – fraying with every loss.
Like any narcissist, he magnifies and tantrums over every perceived slight, no matter how small. He threatens and snaps and lashes out – verbally with the perfect words to go straight to a rival’s self esteem – and physically if they don’t back down quickly enough with their tail between their legs. The brutality with which Homelander abuses his supe colleagues is one of the most sickening things about him. He torments A Train and The Deep ruthlessly with targeted comments about their appearance, with words like ‘disgusting’. (The gender roles continue to be flipped alot this season – we don’t often see men ridiculed for their weight or subject to control over their appearance. Except of course celebrities, which all these actors are, which makes the whole thing really meta and even more disturbing).
Homelander excels at putting supes in the position where they have to do something they very much do not want to do, with others watching so they’re forced to go along with it. He knows each of their vulnerabilities and exploits them with precision. For Annie, it’s a familiar trauma, being forced to “go out there and smile” when you want to cry or scream or say no. Those well-done moments are when the show makes me sick to my stomach, not the blood and guts everywhere.
The hate that boils inside Homelander is more and more obvious, and more and more terrifying. He’s a loose cannon who doesn’t believe he has anything left to lose, and there is nothing more dangerous than that. The other supes are afraid of him, stumbling all over themselves not to offend him and to put themselves in a one down position that might keep them alive, but they are also increasingly resentful of his abuse and control. (Ironically, Homelander is also sick of being controlled, not wanting to tow the company line anymore).
Mirroring what has been happening with the boys, as this show often does, the other supes have also been living relatively quietly. A Train reconnects with his brother, the voice of reason in his life. The Deep is maybe-supported-maybe-controlled by his cult-arranged wife Cassandra, who quite literally puts words in his mouth to try to get him in Homelander’s good graces.
And then there’s Soldier Boy. It’s Queen Maeve who finds the yellowed file with the description of his demise and kicks off the search for answers – and hopefully for the weapon that was powerful enough to kill him (and thus Homelander). I admit to gasping out loud when that report and photo appeared on screen, even though we had already seen it in a teaser. Still – this is it, Jensen Ackles has arrived on The Boys! I think I was entitled to my scream.
You’ll have to watch the investigation with its unexpected twists and turns and revelations for yourself, but by the end of the third episode, Barbary Coast, the boys have enough clues to know where to look for those answers. We also get some flashbacks of Soldier Boy and his team Payback that are absolutely priceless. I mean, horrifying. Ahem. But priceless. Ackles’ Soldier Boy is a misogynistic asshole who apparently treated his sidekick like shit, but he’s a charming one. And I cannot wait to see more of him!
There’s a lot more going on in these first three episodes – in fact, so much happens in one episode of The Boys that it leaves my head spinning. The American Hero search for the next supe is going on, with Starlight’s old boyfriend Supersonic competing, which means a little bit of the song and dance that we’re apparently getting a lot of this season (also cannot wait because Chris Lennertz never disappoints – I mean, the second episode has a ballad called ‘Chimps Don’t Cry’…)
There’s plenty of humor too. Kripke excels in the unlikely combination of horror and emotion and humor, which is one of the things that made me fall in love with Supernatural too. That combination works well here. The character of Ashley carries much of the humor that delights me, and Colby Minifie is brilliant in portraying her. It’s often Ashley’s reaction that is the audience’s reaction, and Minifie makes it so obvious with her priceless facial expressions that I laugh every time. Ashley gets an assistant this season. Also named Ashley. You cannot make this up. Oh, and there’s a Payback supe named Swatto. Who flies, with comically small wings. Again, you cannot make this up. But Kripke and company can.
And this would not be The Boys if we didn’t have some graphic violence and some explicit scenes of various flavors of sexual depravity. I tend to be in the ‘hey to each his own’ camp, but there were times I laughed out loud at the poking fun at the lengths people will go to in order to get off. No judgment though! I could probably write a whole psychoanalytic article about the sexual acts the show likes to depict and the consequences of those acts and what that says about the people who came up with those ideas, but I’ll spare everyone that. Some of the sexual humor doesn’t work for me, but I admit to laughing at times. You’ll know those when you see them.
Kripke kept saying he pushed the envelope this season with the most out there scene ever on television in the first episode, and I can confirm that yes, that envelope was pushed so far it fell right off the desk. That’s not really why I watch the show, but I appreciate their guts in going wherever the hell they want to go. It works best for me when it’s a scathing parallel for the things that are happening in the real world that are upsetting every single day, from the old adage ‘power corrupts’ to the outcomes of racism and homophobia and misogyny. From mass media manipulation to political corruption to the NRA – I mean, the Vought Rifle Association – I frequently find myself nodding in response to something going on in the show. It feels cathartic to see that reflection, validating.
And when I say that Jensen Ackles is gonna knock your socks off as Soldier Boy, in the most disturbingly complicated way possible? I am once again not exaggerating.
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So, three episodes in and I am not disappointed. AT ALL. There are plenty of surprises that I didn’t see coming, and some subtle dropped hints that have me intrigued. In fact, I cannot wait to see what the rest of Season 3 brings us!
Check out the first three episodes tomorrow, and hold on tight. New episodes drop each Friday on Prime Video.
It felt a little like San Diego Comic Con at SXSW on Saturday morning, when The Boys panel took the stage. It wasn’t as large as Hall H, but Ballroom D is plenty big and it was crowded with fans eagerly anticipating seeing the trailer for Season 3 and hearing from Eric Kripke and the cast. And they did not disappoint – they showed the trailer on the big screens and there were audible gasps from the audience (link at end of article fyi)
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For days, the fandom has been guessing that Imagine Dragons has joined The Boys family thanks to some twitter bantering, and the trailer confirmed that – perfect song for an amazing sequence of glimpses of what’s to come. From the unlikely musical sequence to Homelander’s disturbing fascination with milking a cow to the requisite blood and gore and humor mixed in, the trailer leaves little doubt that the new season is going to up the ante even over the last. Butcher’s laser eyes and Soldier Boy’s smirk are indelible images that make June 3 damn hard to wait for. And that last glimpse of an unkempt Soldier Boy breaking his bonds, just that look on his face….omg, bring it!
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For Supernatural fans like me, having Eric Kripke and Jensen Ackles working together again is a dream come true. There was even a little Supernatural Easter egg in the trailer, with a ‘We’ve got work to do’ from-the-trunk closing shot that I loved. I am a die hard Supernatural fan forever, but I fell in love with The Boys from the pilot episode and just keep being more and more fascinated and entertained by it.
The panel was moderated by Christian Slater, fittingly enough ‘the narrator’ in the animated series The Boys Presents: Diabolical. Eric Kripke was joined by Karl Urban, Laz Alonso, Karen Fukuhara, Chace Crawford, Jessie T. Usher and Jensen Ackles.
Ackles, the “new kid” on the show who joins in Season 3 as Soldier Boy, said he was nervous about joining a show that he already was a fan of, and that he “geeked out” over his talented castmates.
Jensen: it was a thrilling ride to be on and I can’t wait for you guys to see it!
He definitely got maybe even more than he bargained for, which makes June 3 even harder to wait for. Going from a show on the CW to one on a streaming service like Prime Video changes what you’re allowed to do substantially (and removes the weirdness of two seasoned hunters like Sam and Dean having the most PG13 language ever)
Jensen: I thought we’re gonna level up here, gloves are coming off, it’s gonna be all the things I couldn’t do with standards and practices. And then I read the script and I’m like, I can’t do that!
