Posted in: Amazon Studios, Preview, streaming, TV | Tagged: amazon, Jack Quaid, prime video, season 4, the boys

The Boys: Jack Quaid Wants In On "Gen V"; S04 Hughie/Butcher Dynamic

If it feels like Amazon and Showrunner & EP Eric Kripke's The Boys never has an "off-season, that's because it doesn't. With the third season having recently wrapped, filming is already underway on the fourth season. Along with that, production is also underway on the college-set spinoff series Gen V. And then add into the mix the wonderful "meta marketing" the show does so wonderfully between seasons to keep fans guessing what's coming next. So we appreciate Jack Quaid taking some time out from promoting the return of Paramount+'s Star Trek: Lower Decks for a third season to touch-base on if he's involved with the newest addition to the franchise and how Hughie will react to learning Butcher's (Karl Urban) time on the earth is coming to an end.

Though he's not involved with Gen V "at this point," Quaid made it clear he's definitely interested. "I haven't really talked about that with anyone, but I'd love to be," he explained. And it was during his time filming the Lower Decks/Strange New Worlds crossover in Toronto that Quaid was able to get to know the cast. "I took them all out to brunch one day. I got to know a bunch of them. They're awesome. They're so talented. They're so cool. I can't wait for that show to come out. I wish them all the best. They're gonna knock it out of the park," he shared. And while it's still a little early when it comes to scripts, Quaid had some thoughts to share about how Hughie would react to losing Butcher. "Man, I mean, we're gonna have to find out, but it's not gonna be good. Butcher is like his best friend and an older brother. So that's pretty devastating news when Hughie finds out, but we're just going to have to wait and see how that plays out," Quaid said. In fact, Quaid added that at this point, he knows about as much as the fans do: "I haven't read all the scripts for Season 4 yet. I don't really know, actually. This is my time to be a fan and just kind of let things come to me and react to them genuinely as I'm reading them. But I was really happy with the way the writers teed everything up for this next season."

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 (Jensen 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."

With Filming Set for August, How Are Things Going with the Season 4 Scripts? "I'm starting to look at some early drafts of the first couple. We're still early, I think right now we're in the middle of breaking Episode 3 and I'm reading a draft of Episode 1. And even in that stage, it's early with some heavy rewriting and we're still in there figuring it all out. But it's super interesting and fun and really, really emotionally rich. Probably as emotionally complicated as we've ever done. So far, that's been my big takeaway. Everyone is really facing their core issues in a way that's pretty exciting, a very character-driven season."

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