The Boys Season 4 Is Flipping What Fans Know About Certain Supes
Erin Moriarty teases that The Boys Season 4 will reveal a villain isn't what the fans thought they were.
Amazon’s bloody and profane anti-superhero series The Boys has a less-than-positive view of the caped crimefighters that have dominated Hollywood for the past decade and a half. Generally, they’re portrayed as corrupt and egotistical power abusers who the titular “Boys” are out to take down. However, in an interview with Collider, actress Erin Moriarty reveals that The Boys Season 4 will provide insight that offers more nuance to the previously-demonized characters.
The characters… that you thought would be villains, you start to learn a little bit more about them that perhaps makes you feel, not that they’re good guys, but that there are always gonna be details that you can never anticipate, that prevent you from putting that character in a box
Erin Moriarty on The Boys Season 4
The Boys has always been far from a black-and-white show, with the titular vigilante group’s leader, Billy Butcher, taking some more-than-questionable actions in order to stop the superpowered “heroes” who have caused so much misery. It’s fitting that the show would also take the time to humanize some of its superhuman antagonists.
There had already been elements of this in previous seasons, where the audience learned information about the superhero Homelander’s past which painted the previously-reviled character in a slightly more sympathetic light. However, that didn’t stop the nigh-invulnerable leader of the superhero group “The Seven” from becoming increasingly unstable over the course of the series, to the point where he publicly kills a civilian at the end of Season 3.
In a shocking reversal of how everyone expected that scene to go, the crowd begins to cheer at Homelander’s choice to publicly execute someone — leading audiences to wonder just how much further the so-called hero will go in The Boys Season 4. It’s no secret that The Boys will eventually turn Homelander into an existential threat to the entire world, so Homelander will almost certainly become more and more violent as Season 4 goes on.
With Erin Moriarty’s revelation about the next season in mind, that leads to another question: What will the other previously-irredeemable supes do to try to stop him from destroying everything? Will some of them reveal themselves to have more humanity than previously expected? If The Boys Season 4 goes down this path, it would be far from the first time superheroes turned against their supposed leader.
In season 3, Queen Mauve spent most of her time trying to find a way to kill Homelander, who had begun holding her girlfriend, Elena, hostage. There was also the matter of Soldier Boy, the previously-legendary superhero who Billy Butcher managed to successfully turn against Homelander and The Seven — though that plan didn’t work out quite as well as Billy had hoped.
Erin Moriarty’s comments were intentionally vague, so it’s unclear how (or even which) previously-villainous characters will prove themselves to be more than meets the eye. We already know that her character, Starlight, has turned against the corruption she has witnessed as part of The Seven, so she’s not talking about herself.
We’ll likely have to wait until Season 4 releases to get any real information. The Boys Season 4 started filming in August 2022, but the release date for the season has not yet been released. However, current estimates say it will come out on Prime Video in either late 2023 or early 2024.
