Posted in: Amazon Studios, TV | Tagged: prime video, soldier boy, the boys

The Boys S05 Offers "Deeper" Dive Into Homelander/Soldier Boy Dynamic

The Boys' Eric Kripke and Antony Starr on exploring the "intergenerational damage" between Homelander and Jensen Ackles' Soldier Boy.

By the time the credits rolled on "Assassination Run/Season Four Finale" (directed by Kripke and written by Jessica Chou & David Reed), President Calhoun (David Andrews) was sworn in as the new POTUS after the death of VP Neuman (Claudia Doumit) and President-elect Robert Singer (Jim Beaver) being arrested for her murder. After pretty much turning over all power to Homelander (Antony Starr) during a very ominous press conference, we see President Calhoun escorting the now-in-charge Homelander into a secret facility during an end credits scene that Calhoun learned about from one of his POTUS classified meetings. Inside the cell is a containment unit, and guess who's inside? Yup… Jensen Ackles' Soldier Boy, drugged out of his skull and oblivious to who it is that's staring down at him. Who says Kripke's The Boys doesn't know how to do cliffhangers?

With a week to go until filming for the fifth and final season gets underway, Kripke and Starr sat down for a conversation with Variety to discuss the Prime Video series, the impact that the fourth season had, and more. In terms of that big reveal between Homelander and Soldier Boy, Starr sees it as an opportunity to dig deeper into the "intergenerational damage" that exists between them and how that impacts the leader of The Seven. "There's this intergenerational damage that gets dealt with," Starr explained. "That's a really important thing that we look at those relationships, and we built those relationships from a very deep internal perspective."

And it's something that Starr is already seeing in what Kripke has given them about their characters so far, adding, "I've read into the season slightly, and it not only is bigger, but it's deeper." Kripke noted that viewers shouldn't expect things to go well for Homelander now that it appears that he's won – in fact, it's just the opposite. "The more Homelander gets what he wants, the less happy he is. And that really frustrates him. You can expect a real ratcheting up of stakes and emotion, and 'The Boys' really have their work cut out for them," the showrunner shared.

Speaking with Gamesradar+ earlier this year, Kripke shared one of the reasons why Soldier Boy was brought back – and how his allegiances will be quite different during the final season (sorry, Karl Urban's Billy Butcher). "You know, what we realized was we really hadn't explored the father-son relationship much between Homelander and Soldier Boy. There's a lot of material there: how Soldier Boy feels about Homelander, how Homelander feels about his dad, and so we really wanted to dig into that relationship," Kripke explained.

The creative team also doesn't lose sight of just how popular both Ackles and the character are—as was evident by the crowd's reaction to him coming out onto the stage for the panel. Kripke joked, "We were just really excited to bring him out. And, you know, Jensen, despite his tragic ugliness, you know, we thought we should give him a shot." What's not a joke is who Soldier Boy has his sights set on when he does wake up from his deep freeze. "Soldier Boy is really driven to kill Butcher after Butcher betrayed him in season 3. So he's just an excellent antagonist, to switch sides and basically, you know, to be with the supes," Kripke added.

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