“The Boys” showrunner Eric Kripke is fully aware that fans will have strong feelings about where Homelander ends up in the season three finale, but he promises that there’s more left to be explored as the Prime Video show continues.
“My guess is they’re gonna be shaking their fists at the writers,” Kripke, who serves as the showrunner, executive producer, and head writer, told Insider. “But I’ve learned a long time ago there’s a difference between ‘hate’ and ‘love to hate.'”
Kripke added that he wants the audience to love to hate Homelander and to feel “frustrated about what will happen next.”
“And I think we’re on the right side of that line. You want your audience riled up,” he said.
Prime Video
In season three, Antony Starr’s Homelander spirals deeper into manic, unhinged territory.
So, the Boys, Annie January/Starlight (Erin Moriarty), and Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) band together to devise a plan that would effectively kill him and put an end to the madness.
Homelander’s desperate need for attention, approval, and love only intensifies as the season progresses.
His past relationship with the Nazi supe named Stormfront (Aya Cash) causes a drop in his popularity, Stormfront commits suicide on his Vought-given birthday, and Starlight becomes co-captain of The Seven.
Homelander becomes unable to plaster a fake smile on his face and starts losing control of his temper in public — beginning with his outburst at his televised annual birthday special.
But rather than hurting his fame, Homelander showing his true colors actually boosts his celebrity.
This comes to a head in the finale, released on Thursday night.
After the major battle sequence and one-on-one fight against Queen Maeve, Homelander leaves with Ryan (the son of Homelander and Butcher’s late wife Becca), who willingly chooses the supe over Butcher (Karl Urban).
The last scene of the episode shows Homelander descending on a rally filled with various opposing groups of people and introducing his supe son Ryan to the public.
Prime Video
Homelander’s supporters are thrilled by his appearance, but Starlight’s fans are angered.
One of them throws a can, which hits Ryan, and yells, “Fuck you, fascist.”
Homelander reacts by murdering the Starlight supporter with his laser beams, resulting in silence among the crowd as he gauges their response. Then Todd, the stepfather of Mother’s Milk’s daughter Janine, cheers for Homelander, and the others join in.
As Ryan watches people respond positively to Homelander, a smile slowly forms on his face.
Even though Homelander ends up in a position of power by the season’s end, Kripke teased that “there’s more to come.”
“The story’s not over,” he said. “Hang out, folks. There’s more story to tell and I’ll make a pledge to you right now that I will not end this series with Homelander winning. So, you can hold me to that.”
Prime Video
Kripke said that wrapping up the season with that chilling scene was the show’s way of “really lining up what the Boys are gonna be up against next year.”
“Homelander is getting his followers so whipped up into a frenzy that, as we said in the writer’s room, he literally kills someone on 5th Avenue and people cheer for him, it’s a sign of the devotion of his followers and it’s not an accident that there’s also a bunch of these well-meaning, lefty Starlighters,” he said.
Like all the seasons of “The Boys” thus far, the upcoming fourth season will draw from real-life events.
“It’s a hint of one of our big themes in season four, which is society as a whole is fracturing into these two factions, and no one’s listening to each other, and the threat of violence just gets worse and worse every day,” Kripke said. “It’s an appetizer of what all these superheroes are gonna be doing to society in season four.”
All episodes of season three of “The Boys” are streaming on Prime Video.
