Posted in: ABC, Amazon Studios, streaming, TV | Tagged: ABC, amazon, beau arlen, big sky, Jensen Ackles, soldier boy, the boys
The Boys/Big Sky: Jensen Ackles Offers "Soldier Beau" Seal of Approval
Okay… now, we can officially say that The Boys/Big Sky/Jensen Ackles Pun War of 2022 is officially over, with Ackles checking in to offer his seal of approval. If you missed it yesterday, Ackles was promoting the Wednesday night return of ABC's mystery thriller-drama, where he's playing Sheriff Beau Arlen. That included an Instagram post with a new Big Sky teaser focused on Ackles' character and included a caption asking the question, 'Who thought it was a good idea to give this guy a badge?" Well, the social media folks over at The Boys picked their spot and made it count with a game-changing pun. Yup… "Soldier Beau." Now, as we see it? That might very well be the fastest pun war we've ever seen go down… because it's perfect on so many levels. But who are we but mere prophets for The Goddess of Television? The person we needed to hear from was Ackles… and Ackles has spoken!
In July, Kripke covered a ton of topics in his interview with Variety (check out the complete interview with a ton of other details here), with highlights focused on Butcher (Urban), Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott), Starlight (Erin Moriarty), Soldier Boy (Ackles), and Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell):
So Should We Be Expecting Ryan to Go "Brightburn"? "Ryan is a really important piece of the story because he's half Becca, half Homelander. If Butcher can figure out how to get his shit together and get the kid back, that could be the single best weapon they have against Homelander. But vice versa. If Homelander wins the kid over, that's apocalyptic because then there's two Homelanders. It's like a child drama with apocalyptic stakes. It's like 'Kramer vs. Kramer' meets 'Avengers: Endgame.' So that will be a really rich story moving forward."
How Will Butcher React to Knowing He's on a "Crazy Ticking Clock"? "He's got so much to do that he hasn't done. And everything that he's tried to do up to this point has exploded in the most horrible way. What we find fascinating about the question we're asking about Butcher is, is he self-aware enough to realize that he's causing his own misfortune? Is he self-aware enough to actually see if he can change? Those are some of the interesting conversations we're starting to have for Season 4."
Maeve's Leaving Will Make Things Tougher for Starlight… at Least Until She Returns? "I don't think 'The Boys' will end without Maeve showing up again… We needed a way to sort of gracefully get Maeve out of the show, let her head for the exit. Obviously, we didn't want to kill her and fall into the tropes of gay characters and bisexual characters in shows getting killed. We wanted to do the opposite of that and send her off and give her a happy ending with Elena. The best way to do that was, well, take away her powers, and she's not useful in the fight anymore. And we did that because Annie can't really grow into her own until all the characters that are around to protect her are gone. It was important for her next step for her mentor characters and her protector characters to go away. And so it's only up to Annie. There's no one left but Annie. So what is she going to do?"
Black Noir Is Dead! Long Live Black Noir! "Without spoiling anything, I will just say this: When you have a silent character in a mask, he's reasonably easy to recast… If you notice in the flashbacks of this season, it was a different actor [Fritzy-Klevans Destine], and perhaps the reason we did that is so that if we were to recast Noir, we could recast him with Nathan [Mitchell, the original Black Noir actor].
Just Because Soldier Boy's on Ice Doesn't Mean He Can't Return… Right? "The old TV adage is like, never kill anyone unless you really, really have to. Never close a door, open a window. We'll all have to wait and see, but I can't imagine the series ending without Soldier Boy making another appearance."