The Boys Season 2: Jensen Ackles Cast As A Classic Superhero
It's happening and here's what you need to know about The Boys season 2.
This article is more than 2 years old
The Boys arrived on Amazon July 26, 2019 and became an instant hit. Season one delivered on all counts and scored big ratings for Prime Video. Season 2 has already been confirmed. It’s happening and here’s what you need to know about The Boys season 2.
The Boys Season 2 Promotion
The future looks bright for Amazon’s surprise hit The Boys in season 2 and we look forward to every gory, unseemly, and questionable minute of it. The first full season 2 trailer is available to watch below…
Here’s our first good look at the season’s new hero, Stormfront, in a viral video where she ticks off Homelander…
The Boys themselves seem ready to resume sticking it to the supes in season 2, as evidenced by this new photo…
For a quick look at what’s to come, check out The Boys season 2 teaser trailer below.
Where The Boys Season 1 Left Things
Season 1 of Amazon’s hit series The Boys lived up to all the hoopla the comic book brought with it. Based on a series written by Garth Ennis (Judge Dredd, The Preacher) and co-created, illustrated and designed by Darick Robertson (Transmetropolitan, Wolverine), the gratuitously violent series hit on all notes for fans and non-fans alike.
The story is set in a world of superheroes who, on the surface, are what we expect superheroes to be. Not even a little digging will allow one to see that these superheroes care more about themselves and what’s best for them versus what’s is best for humankind. The series centers around The Seven: Homelander, Queen Maeve, Starlight, A-Train, The Deep, Black Noir, and Translucent. Seven superheroes who skirt the line of justice for their own personal gain and pleasure.
Enter The Boys. A rag-tag group put together by Billy Butcher that include Hughie, Mother’s Milk, Frenchie, and the Female. Through Billy’s insistence, this group exists to keep a lid on what he feels are superheroes out of control. He also has a personal stake in it, as most of the members do, since Billy feels Homelander was the cause of the disappearance of Billy’s wife.
If you have not seen the first season of The Boys, read on at your own peril (and binge it now!) as the show set things up for The Boys season 2. When we last left the Boys, Starlight was turning against a member of the Seven, A-Train. During this fight, A-Train literally has a heart attack from the super drug he has been taking all season. Hughie makes a tough decision and decides to save A-Train, the supe who killed his girlfriend.
Meanwhile, Butcher has lured Homelander to the house of Madelyn Stillwell (Elisabeth Shue), the lady who has control of the Seven, so he can kill Homelander with the C4 he strapped to Stillwell. But things turn after Homelander has his last heart-to-heart with Stillwell and finds out she’s been lying to him all along. In typical Boys’ gratuitous fashion, Homelander loses his shit and burns off Stillwell’s face with his laser eyes. Butcher, thinking he no longer has anything to live for, pushes the button on the C4 anyway.
Butcher wakes up, not dead at all, on a lawn in front of a house. Homelander has saved him. As Butcher comes to his senses, the season ends with Butcher realizing that Homelander has a son and he’s alive, but Butcher’s wife is the mother and that she too is alive.
When Amazon Will Release The Boys Season 2
Or more importantly, WHEN do we move on? Amazon has not released an official premiere date for The Boys season 2, only stating that it will be seen in 2020, or as show creator Eric Kripke hopes, for it to “drop one full year after the first season, so about the same time next year.” Now we know the official release date for The Boys season 2 is September 4, 2020.
The Boys Season 2 Episode Titles
The Boys season 2 will have eight episodes and now we know what each episode will be called. All eight titles were leaked by the The Cinema Spot and here’s what they dug up…
- The Big Ride
- Proper Preparation and Planning
- Nothing Like It In The World
- Over The Hill With The Swords Of A Thousand Men
- We Gotta Go Now
- The Bloody Doors Off
- Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker
- What I Know
I feel like that “Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker” title was inevitable.
What’s The Next Season About?
The stars and everyone else involved in the series remains tight-lipped about what direction The Boys season 2 will take. With Stillwell out of the picture, who is going to maintain the official title of Boss? Another big reveal happened when Giancarlo Esposito (The Mandalorian) popped in as Stillwell’s boss at Vought International. Does this mean he will take control of the Seven? It’s a good bet he might.
Other questions about. How does Butcher fully react when he finds out his wife is still alive… and the mother of Homelander’s son! Does Starlight continue to help the Boys or will fame bring her back to the Seven?
What about The Deep in The Boys season 2? His actions throughout the first season got himself shipped off to Sandusky, Ohio. It is pretty clear that those at Vought, particularly Stillwell, didn’t want him associated any longer with the Seven, but now that Stillwell is out of the picture, do things change for him? Will his knowledge of the inner workings of the Seven hold any sway in coming back into the fold?
While the direction of The Boys season 2 is being kept firmly under wraps, some of the main characters have offered up a few juicy tidbits. Hugh “Hughie” Campbell, portrayed by Jack Quaid, told ComicBook.com “No one is ready. It’s just absolutely bonkers. I’ll just put it this way, the scale is a lot bigger. I think we’ve topped season one, in terms of insane moments that make you say ‘What the hell?’ I’ve done things this season that are definite firsts for me in my career, and I probably won’t do them again since. Definitely a moment… I can’t give it away, but when you see it, you’ll know what I’m talking about.”
Karen Fukuhara plays the Female, a mute superhuman who has taken sides with the Boys, and she explained her take on what Kripke is looking for in The Boys season 2. “He wants it to be, yes big, more action, bigger sets all of that, but he wanted every character to dive into their past. It just digs deeper.”
Anthony Starr, who simply chews up the screen as the unhinged, psychopathic superhero Homelander, gave us a hint of what may be next for season 2. “More blood, more blood,” said Starr. “There’s lots of blood.” He then went on about his character. Season One for Homelander was about reconciling his past, dealing with his past,” Starr continued, “And one of the things that happen to all the characters [in Season 2], is whatever he had in Season One gets taken away. It’s a very internal journey.” He added, “It gets really fucking weird, and I can’t tell you what, but I’ve done some of the weirdest things I’ve ever done.”
The Boys Season 2 Returning Cast
Thankfully most of the entire season one cast of The Boys returns for The Boys season 2. For the Boys, Karl Urban is back as revenge-seeking Billy Butcher. As previously mentioned, Jack Quaid is Hughie. Laz Alonso comes back as Mother’s Milk, Tomer Capon is Frenchie, and, as also mentioned, Karen Fukuhara plays the Female.
For the bad good guys, Anthony Starr returns as scene-stealing Homelander, Erin Moriarty stars as the conflicted Starlight, Dominique McElliogott is Queen Maeve, Jessie T. Usher is the A-Train, Chace Crawford returns as the Deep, and Nathan Mitchell is the barely speaking Black Noir.
Some of the others returning for The Boys season 2 are Giancarlo Esposito as Stan Edgar, Simon Pegg as Hughie’s father, Jennifer Esposito as deputy director of the CIA Sus father, Jennifer Esposito as deputy director of the CIA Susan Raynor, and Ann Cusack as Starlight’s mother.
New Additions To The Boys
Season 2 of The Boys will see a couple of new faces introduced.
First up is Shawn Ashmore. You know him as Iceman in the X-Men movies and now he’s joining the cast of The Boys to play another superhero: Lamplighter. Here’s your first look at Shawn Ashmore as Lamplighter in The Boys season 2…
Lamplighter is a former member of The Seven who disappeared from The Seven. It was Lamplighter that Starlight was brought in to replace in season 1. The character also has connections to the Boys and when he returns he creates chaos in the group in The Boys season 2.
Next up is actress Aya Cash. She will portray Stormfront, who in the comic is male and one of the worst superheroes created. Here’s your first look at Aya as Stormfront, below…
For comparison, here’s what Stormfront looked like in The Boys comics…
In The Boys comics Stormfront was raised in Nazi Germany and was a Hitler Youth. It will be interesting to see how The Boys season 2 version of Stormfront is handled, as in print he gave Homelander a run for his money in terms of evil doing.
When asked about her Stormfront character, Aya Cash had this to say: “I think Stormfront is like a nuclear bomb that goes off in the Seven. Maybe nuclear bomb isn’t the right word. We’re in Chernobyl. There you go. It’s a Chernobyl thing. . . . I think she’s here to blow up Vought. She’s here to try to get Vought back to the original idea behind creating superheroes… And she can be quite the feminist. There’s a lot of, I wouldn’t say misdirect, but she also is a very empowered woman.“
Goran Višnjić (ER, Timeless) will appear as Alistair Adana, a character who does not appear in the comic and as such will represent a new face to The Boys. Adana is described as the head of a mysterious church. Also being added for season 2 is Claudia Doumit (Where’d You Go, Bernadette, Timeless) as a congresswoman.
It was recently confirmed by Kripke himself that Patton Oswalt (The Secret Life of Pets 2, The Confirmation) will arrive on The Boys season 2, but in what capacity we do not know. It is even rumored that series producer Seth Rogen (Superbad, The 40-year-old Virgin) may make an appearance.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Jeffrey Dean Morgan is perhaps best known for playing The Comedian in The Watchmen movie and more recently for playing Negan on The Walking Dead. The Boys showrunner Erik Kripke recently took to twitter and offered him a job on The Boys…
If he takes the part it sounds like we won’t see him until Season 3, but given the nature of The Boys it wouldn’t be a surprise if they worked in some sort of tease hinting at his presence in the third season. That is, of course, if any of this happens at all.
The Terror For Season 2
In The Boys comics on which the show is based, the team has a vicious pet named The Terror. According to Karl Urban, he’ll show up in The Boys Season 2.
Speaking at C2E2 to fans he said, “You know what? You’re gonna love Season 2. . . . If you love Terror, you’ll love Season 2. Definitely, Terror makes an appearance.“
The Terror is Billy Butcher’s loyal yet totally vicious bulldog. He’s with Billy from the beginning in the comics, so presumably Billy had him in season one and we just didn’t see him? Either that or they’ll change things up and have him acquire The Terror during the course of The Boys Season 2, which would be odd.
The Terror is known to be incredibly vicious and violent, especially for a pet bulldog. But he’s also a lover and Billy has trained him to sexually violate things on command. So The Terror tends to get sexual with anyone and everyone he isn’t killing, humping the legs of Billy’s friends and various nearby objects. It’s speculated in the comics that The Terror might actually have super powers, it’s not clear or not whether he has received an injection of the superhero creating drug compound V.
There were at some point plans to put The Terror in The Boys Season 1, but those plans were scrapped. Eric Kripke explained The Terror’s season 1 absence to EW this way, “It’s so fucking hard to work with animals. We have such an unbelievably challenging show anyway that I was just too intimidated by the idea of having an animal who doesn’t listen to directors and doesn’t care about your stunt or pyrotechnic and your CG or your green screen, just doesn’t give a shit about any of it.“
They’re biting the bullet for The Boys season 2 though, and The Terror will be there to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies and friends as the ultimate super-pet (sort of).
The Boys: More Bloody And Bawdy Than Ever
One thing is perfectly clear about The Boys season 2: It is going to be bloody and bawdy. Kripke announced they were taking one of the most infamous stories from the comic and bringing it to life.
Yes, we are talking about “Herogasm”. He explained on his reddit, “We JUST figured out how to do Herogasm!! It’ll come in Season 3 maybe (if we get picked up for Season 3). I’ve really wanted to do it, but needed to figure out our twist on it, so it’s not just an hour of hardcore porn. But I think we got it!! Super excited about that.”
The Future Of The Boys
Even though The Boys season 2 hasn’t debuted yet, Amazon has already renewed the show for season 3. We may not have seen season 2 yet, but the suits at Amazon have, and if they’re giving it another season before they wait for audience reaction, that means they must really like what the show has in store for it’s return.
In fact they are so eager to get more of The Boys that work has already begun on The Boys season 3. Eric Kripke has cast Supernatural’s Jensen Ackles to star as the character “Soldier Boy” (the original Superhero in The Boys universe) in the next season.
Here’s what Kripke had to say about Jensen Ackles, who he previously worked with on Supernatural…
“When I was a child, I had a crazy, impossible dream — to provide Jensen Ackles with gainful employment. I’m happy to say that dream has come true. Jensen is an amazing actor, an even better person, smells like warm chocolate chip cookies, and I consider him a brother. As Soldier Boy, the very first superhero, he’ll bring so much humor, pathos, and danger to the role. I can’t wait to be on set with him again, and bring a bit of ‘Supernatural’ to ‘The Boys.”
The Boys season 2 is coming and now so is season 3.
