The Boys Is Bringing Back a Main Cast Member in Season 4, But With a New Twist

Even though the Season 3 finale of The Boys left a member of the original cast deceased, it won’t be the last fans see of the character. The only difference is the actor who portrayed the character throughout the majority of the first three seasons is coming back with a different take after they were replaced for parts of Season 3. If you’re confused, don’t worry, we’ll sort it all out for you in no time. But you will want to make sure you’re fully caught up on Season 3 because there will be spoilers.

WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for The Boys Season 3 finale.

Fans were deprived of the showdown between former Payback members Black Noir and Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles). The reason a confrontation between the two supes never took place is because Homelander (Antony Starr), who discovered Soldier Boy is his biological father, killed Black Noir for not telling him the truth. Actor Nathan Mitchell has portrayed the masked Black Noir in The Boys, except for a flashback episode that finally showed fans what Black Noir looks like underneath the mask. Fritzy-Klevans Destine played Black Noir in the flashback, which revealed how his face tragically got disfigured. With Black Noir dead, one would assume Nathan Mitchell’s services would no longer be needed on The Boys. Luckily, showrunner Eric Kripke thought of a new way to keep Nathan Mitchell on the show, while also bringing Black Noir back.

Kripke told Entertainment Weekly that Mitchell will play a new character that puts on the Black Noir costume in Season 4. The showrunner said he filled Mitchell in on his plans before they began filming Season 3: “I think I literally said something like, ‘OK, so I’m gonna say something and your stomach’s gonna drop, but then I’m gonna follow it up with something and you’re gonna see that it’s okay.’”

As Kripke playfully said, “a character who is completely silent and in a black mask can be recast.”

Mitchell will not portray “a different character who wears the Black Noir suit,” Kripke revealed. “It’s definitely not the last we’ve seen of Black Noir as a hero. It’s just that the guy who was inside [the Noir suit] in season 3, he’s gone. But we have Nathan playing a really interesting and hilarious character who wears the suit next season.”

It sounds like whoever this new character that Nathan Mitchell is playing, will perhaps find a copy of Black Noir’s costume and decide to put it on. Could he be another supe? That remains to be seen, but it sounds like it should make for a rather fun side-story nonetheless.

Black Noir and Soldier Boy have a complicated relationship. Thanks to an animated sequence that involves Black Noir’s imaginary animal friends, we learn how Soldier Boy bullied Black Noir while they were on Payback. The flashback sequence involved a young Stan Edgar recruiting Black Noir to help take Soldier Boy out, leading to him becoming a Russian prisoner. Before he was captured, Soldier Boy seared Black Noir’s face, causing him never to speak again.

“Young Noir grew up going to this like pizza chain called Buster Beavers. It’s like a Chucky Cheese,” Kripke explained. “He sees the animated characters. They come to life and they have a lot of interaction with him.”

“Like everything on the show, it’s sort of this organic road to hell, I guess,” Kripke added. “We wanted to see Noir sort of Dark Knight of the Soul. It’s hard to do that because he doesn’t communicate. We knew we had to go inside his head and someone pitched, like, he goes to a cabin. And I said, ‘He should go to a cabin, but all these Snow White animated creatures should be flying around all over him’ and that we strongly implied they’ve always been there. And then someone said, ‘Well, it might be a little corny. What about like a Chucky Cheese?’ So it just evolves.”

What were your favorite moments from The Boys Season 3 finale? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!