Posted in: Amazon Studios, Preview, streaming, Trailer, TV | Tagged: amazon, Jensen Ackles, preview, season 3, soldier boy, the boys, trailer

The Boys S03: Jensen Ackles' Soldier Boy Goes Anti-Drug in 1984 PSA

It's not that we weren't expecting Amazon and Showrunner & EP Eric Kripke to drop some new stuff regarding Jensen Ackles' Soldier Boy ahead of this Friday's premiere of The Boys Season 3. We just didn't expect Vought International to hijack the proceedings with their own bit of nostalgic propaganda. In this case, a look back at a public service announcement from Vought's original supe (Homelander before there was a Homelander?) from 1984 urging kids to stay away from drugs. Yup, let that one sink in…

So on this Memorial Day, take a moment to join Vought International in remembering America's first Superhero via this classic PSA where he reminded children across the nation to remember that "taking drugs is not cool, and anyone who does is a loser" (why do we have a feeling there's going to be about ten-ton of irony behind it once the season hits?):

In The Boys: Diabolical "One Plus One Equals Two" (written by Simon Racioppa and directed by Jae Kim & Giancarlo Volpe). Focusing on Homelander (Antony Starr), the animated chapter shines a spotlight on The Seven leader's early days while explaining a whole lot about the connection he shares with Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell). With The Boys set to return for a third season that sees Homelander's sanity further deteriorating, the streamer has released the episode for free so viewers can be better informed heading into the end of this week:

Now here's a look back at the official Season 3 trailer for Amazon's The Boys, arriving on June 3rd (followed by our observations):

After having screened it now about 367 times, here's a breakdown of what the trailer had to offer and what that means for the season ahead. And make sure to let us know in the comments section just how brilliant we are…

Well, it looks like we're getting a look at Cameron Coleman's (Matthew Edison) new show as Homelander's (Antony Starr) public relations tour to repair his image rolls on. But as we quickly see (and as Erin Moriarty's Starlight so succinctly puts it), "There's something wrong with Homelander. There's something broken. He's lost his fucking mind." Considering where things stood at the end of last season and how he's had to be on a leash, it's not that surprising. Though if we needed a reminder, we get that disturbing cow-milking scene and Homelander gently caressing a bloodstain on he lies next to it. And then we get a montage of Homelander's growing madness as a segue to…

…Butcher (Karl Urban), who wakes up from a fever dream to a sound of a tea kettle. We get the rundown from Grace (Laila Robins) about how Butcher has been on the straight-and-narrow: not killing supes (though we see him damaging Sean Patrick Flanery's Gunpowder pretty badly), not drinking, and "even followed Hugh Campbell's [Jack Quid] orders without killing him." While Grace sees these as signs that maybe Butcher isn't "such an asshole." Visually, our biggest takeaway was seeing Hughie's confidence as well as how weird it is to see the power dynamic between the two shift so dramatically. At least for now…

Now, this is where we start getting some quick scenes of other storylines, including Mother's Milk (Laz Alonso) finally getting the family life he's wanted for so long. But how will he deal with the fact that his job is to "discipline" the very supes that his daughter idolizes?

From there, we see Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) sharpening his tools and Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) witnessing an uncomfortably rough exchange between Homelander and A-Train (Jessie T. Usher). But it's the exchange between Vought head Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) and Starlight that was fascinating because it gave us the vibe that Edgar is already looking to the future… and Starlight as the new leader of The Seven? I've always thought that Vought has some kind of genetic "killswitch" it could flip on Homelander if it needed to…

Ashley (Colby Minifie) alert! And if you were wondering if her life is going to get less stressful this season then look no further than the moment Homelander decided to drop someone from the sky to their bloody death before making his next public appearance. And he gets cheered for it, too! Yeah, Ashley's face speaks for all of us.

Uh-oh! Something's up and the "gloves are off" because Hughie sees something that leads him to realize that the government route doesn't work and they're going to have to go "old-school" on some supes (and we learned from Karen Fukuhara during her reaction to the trailer for Vanity Fair that the one dude was killed by a supes-themed dildo).

Ouch. That was a nasty glare exchange between Claudia Doumit's (literal) mind-blowing Congresswoman Victoria "Vic" Neuman and Starlight. But then we learn that there might be another way "to blow Homelander's fucking brain out" that won't require Neuman's particular "talent"… Jensen Ackles' Soldier Boy (who clearly has some anger issues of his own).

From there, we see Butcher shooting up some Compound V to give him the boost he needs to handle Homelander. We also see a thawed (and now escaped) Soldier Boy lost, confused & on the run before he (apparently) does some serious damage to a building from his power surges.

Once again, Mother's Milk needs to be the voice of reason by reminding Butcher that taking Compound V goes against everything they've been fighting for. But after a scene showing him looking more than comfortable with his new powers, Butcher argues that he needs it to level the playing field.

From there, we get some quick cuts of guns and violence (with bonus points for Laurie Holden's Crimson Countess putting her powers on horrific display) before Homelander once again references showing his "real" self to the world (as he did earlier) before offering his own public polling: "I mean, they fucking love me." From there, we get more cuts of action & violence, and let's just say that we're not big fans of the position that Tomer Capon's Serge aka Frenchie finds himself in (though the dance number with Fukuhara's Kimiko looks great). And Mother's Milk breaking the bat on Butcher without him even flinching? Ouch.

And then we cut the credits… but wait! We have a final scene where Butcher and the crew watch an unthawed Soldier Boy stagger from his cryogenic chamber. And it looks like he has a whole ton of pent-up power that he needs to burn off fast (has us thinking back to that destroyed building earlier). As for Soldier Boy being a "weapon" to take down Homelander? We can't help feeling like that plan isn't going to work and that SB & Homelander are going to have a lot more in common than they realize.

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