Everything You Need To Know About The Boys S3

The trailer of The Boys S3, Amazon Prime Video's show about superheroes with immaculate public lives and nasty private ones, begins with Homelander (Antony Starr) having to apologise for his ill-fated S2 romance with neo-Nazi superhero Stormfront (Aya Cash). "I'm just a man who fell for the wrong woman," he says, over and over again in a series of televised interviews. Stormfront is now dead and even a year later, her homicidal former boyfriend is dangerously close to coming apart at the seams. Which is worrying news for anyone who knows the depths of his depravity. Meanwhile, Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), the leader of the Boys, a team of regular human beings intent on taking down sinister superheroes, has disbanded the group and given up fighting. When Homelander becomes even more dangerously unbalanced, his fellow superhero Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) comes up with the solution to perhaps help The Boys take him down once and for all – a drug that turns human beings into superheroes for 24 hours. The playing field has finally been leveled.

Ahead of the show's release on Amazon Prime Video on June 3, here's everything you need to know:

What happened at the end of S2?

By the end of season 2, Butcher has finally warmed to his late wife's son, Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), who was fathered by Homelander. He, however, sends the boy away to live with his friend, the former Deputy Director of the CIA, for his own safety. Ryan's latent powers have finally manifested – he uses his laser eyes to kill Stormfront, who was building an army of superheros to achieve her Nazi dreams of a white supremacist society. Homelander has agreed to back down from hunting The Boys on the orders of Maeve, who finally snaps from the strain of being pushed around by him and threatens to leak a video of him allowing a plane full of passengers to crash, if he fails to leave Billy and Ryan alone. Hughie (Jack Quaid) and Starlight (Erin Moriarty) get back together, the inherent danger of their relationship having finally been dissipated. Hughie has joined Congresswoman Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit)'s staff, believing her to be a good person, only for the audience to discover she's a superhero, and just as evil as the rest of them. In more uplifting news, Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) and Frenchie (Tomer Capon) appear to be happy together.

Which cast members are returning for S3?

You can expect to see each member of The Boys return, which means Urban will reprise his role as Billy Butcher, along with Quaid as Hughie Campell, Fukuhara as Kimiko, Laz Alonso as Mother's Milk and Capon as Frenchie. The targets of their righteous anger – members of elite superhero group The Seven, including Homelander (Starr), A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), The Deep (Chace Crawford), Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott), and Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) – will also be back on screen. Technically a Seven member, Starlight (Erin Moriarty) is now completely on the side of The Boys and will reprise her role on the show.

Congresswoman Victoria Neuman (Doumit) will also have an expanded role to play in season 3. 

Which new characters can I expect to see?

Jensen Ackles will play Soldier Boy, a satirical take on Captain America. The superhero was operational during World War II and has now been reactivated. Laurie Holden will play the Crimson Countess, a member of his team. 

What have the cast and crew said about S3?

Showrunner Eric Kripke teased the opening of the third season, saying the first 15 minutes contained "not just the craziest sequence they had ever done, but the craziest sequence pretty much anybody has ever done." Actress Karen Fukuhara said the season would make the infamous s2 'whale scene', in which Butcher rammed a speedboat into a beached whale, splattering its blood and guts onto the screen, look like a "piece of cake". "It's not just about the crazy action scenes [or] the social commentary, [but also] the depths of the characters, and the darkness that some of them go through," she added.

Actor Jack Quaid said the new season would raise the bar for The Boys as a whole. "I feel like every season we reset what the ceiling is, and somehow we push through it. I don't know how we can keep raising the bar for messed-up things, but Eric (Kripke) keeps finding a way."

Recommendation in collaboration with Amazon Prime Video.