‘The Boys’ Season 3 Premiere Non-Spoiler Review: “Payback” – Absolutely Diabolical

After a hard-hitting second-season finale, The Boys are back in town.

Hot off the spin-off of The Boys Presents: Diabolical, Prime Video’s The Boys Season 3 is one for the ages. Simply put. But let’s rear it back a little and do one episode at a time, starting with the first.

What is The Boys?

The Boys is a fun and irreverent take on what happens when superheroes—who are as popular as celebrities, as influential as politicians, and as revered as gods—abuse their superpowers rather than use them for good. Intent on stopping the corrupt superheroes, The Boys, a group of vigilantes, continue their heroic quest to expose the truth about The Seven and Vought—the multibillion-dollar conglomerate that manages the superheroes and covers up their dirty secrets. It’s the seemingly powerless against the super powerful.

Prime Video

Plot Synopsis

Here is the plot synopsis for The Boys Season 3 according to Prime Video:

It’s been a year of calm. Homelander’s subdued. Butcher works for the government, supervised by Hughie of all people. But both men itch to turn this peace and quiet into blood and bone. So when The Boys learn of a mysterious Anti-Supe weapon, it sends them crashing into the Seven, starting a war, and chasing the legend of the first Superhero: Soldier Boy.

Prime Video

Cast

From Amazon Prime Video, comes the cast as well:

• Karl Urban
• Jack Quaid
• Antony Starr
• Erin Moriarty
• Dominique McElligott
• Jessie T. Usher
• Laz Alonso
• Chace Crawford
• Tomer Capone
• Karen Fukuhara
• Nathan Mitchell
• Colby Minifie
• Claudia Doumit
• Jensen Ackles

Depravity at Its Finest

Episode 1 is what most first episodes do; they set the groundwork for the rest of the season. Not to put it down, however, it is still jaw-droppingly horrifying. There is a moment in the first twenty minutes that, as a man, you will be gripping yourself in disgust and pain. That’s the most I can say.

But getting back to the basics, catching up with the series’ characters was a lot of fun. You see Hugh “Hughie” Campbell Jr. (Jack Quaid) at his new job, Marvin T. “Mother’s Milk” Milk (Laz Alonso) being a family man, and Frenchie (Tomer Capon) and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) on their usual hijinks. The boys of The Boys are separated and isolated, but what brings them back together?

An Anti-Supe weapon that killed the previous face of superheroes, Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles). Where does this adventure take them? With that, my friends, you will have to wait and see.

Payback is a B-Word

So, if The Seven are the Justice League, who are the Avengers?

Well, that would be Payback, the biggest superhero team by Vought before The Seven ever arrived. They were led by the one and only Soldier Boy, this universe’s Captain America.

Now there are some changes that were made for the show, so to not step into spoiler territory, I want to give you a little synopsis about Payback from the comics, as they share a majority of similarities.

Payback is a Dynamite Entertainment team created by writer Garth Ennis and artist Darick Robertson. The team first appears in The Boys #7. The team is parody of the Marvels Avengers, with Tek Knight an analogue of Iron Man, Stormfront taking cue from Thor, the Crimson Countess inspired by the Scarlet Witch, Mind-Droid inspired by Vision, Swatto drawing inspiration from Hank Pym, and the patriotic Soldier Boy parodying Avengers leader Captain America. Playing up on the Marvel and DC competitiveness, Payback is often referenced as a second rate Seven team.

The Boys Wiki

Now you can see a bit of the difference there, but the main focus of what the team was is clear. How do they tie into the main plot of this season? That’s a whole explanation for later when they slowly unravel things in front of you over the course of the eight episodes.

Overall Thoughts on The Boys Season 3 Episode 1

Episode 1 sets the perfect groundwork for the rest of the season. “Payback” shows that this is gonna be easily the darkest season yet, building upon the downward spiral of depravity and hopelessness that the show has built over the course of the last two seasons.

Antony Starr murders as Homelander, no pun intended, and the man needs to play every depraved supervillain. I am looking at you DC — make him the Reverse-Flash, I am begging you!

The whole cast as a whole is perfect always though, anyone who has watched before should know that.

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