The Boys Season 3 Finale Recap and Review

The Boys Season 3 has been all about new factions forming as the teams (and surrogate families) that Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) and Homelander (Antony Starr) built around themselves fractured and split. The revelation that original superhero Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) was still alive changed the hierarchy of power in The Boys universe, as Homelander suddenly had an opponent to fear, and Butcher had the weapon he needed to finally kill his nemesis. However, the penultimate episode delivered the bombshell that Homelander was created from Soldier Boy's DNA, giving the two titans all the reason in the world to bond, instead of battle. 

(WARNING: The Boys Season 3 Finale SPOILERS Follow!) 

The Boys Season 3 Finale Recap

The finale episode "The Instant White-Hot Wild" begins with Homelander still trying to process his revelatory phone call with Soldier Boy, even as Vought faces the storm of controversy over Starlight (Erin Moriarty) outing Homelander for his murderous mayhem and revealing to the world that Soldier Boy is still alive. 

Hearing that Soldier Boy is essentially his dad makes Homelander get sentimental – so he uses the info from Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) to track down his own son, Ryan, where Mallory is hiding him. This time, Ryan is far more succeptible to Homelander's impassioned plea about family, as he hears it it coming from his father – a role Butcher cruelly passed on. 

 Starlight's other big reveal to the world – that Maeve (Dominique McElligott) has been kidnapped or killed by Vought – only causes a deeper schism in the American public. As pro and anti-Homelander factions clash outside Vought HQ, Ashley (Colby Minifie) and Deep (Chace Crawford) take the initiative of quietly moving the imprisoned Maeve off the company premises. That turns out to be a foolish miscalculation, because Maeve escapes. 

Meanwhile, The Boys rally to finish their mission to take out Homelander and Black Noir, bringing justice to Butcher and Soldier Boy (respectively). The team's various subplots of both personal and interpersonal conflicts need to be smoothed out – as only The Boys can. Frenchie and MM bond and find solace in one another; Butcher tries to be a more noble man by knocking Hughie (Jack Quaid) out and leaving him behind at a gas station, rather than let him take anymore Temp-V and get himself killed. 

Over at Vought, The Seven are having a similar reality-check moment. A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) has to face both his crippled brother and Homelander over killing Blue Hawk (Nick Wechsler) in a rage; The Deep and Ashley have to answer to Homelander for losing Maeve, and Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) bravely returns to the team, after running in fear of his former teammate Soldier Boy coming for actual payback. Homelander handles it all in true Homelander fashion: he rips Noir's guts out for keeping the secret about Soldier Boy all these years, then horribly cows his entire team (and wig-wearing Ashley) as insignificant lessers. Homelander gets some kind of use out of The Deep by sending him to assassinate a US Senator hoping to become Vice President right in his own pool, clearing the way for Neuman's rise. 

After Butcher takes off with Soldier Boy to kill Homelander and Noir (no need for that!) Starlight picks up Hughie and they reconvene with Maeve and the remaining Boys members. There's debate about whether to make saving Butcher part of the mission, and Hughie is the only one with enough love left to do it. Butcher and Soldier Boy bond over their messed up dads and unreliable team bonds as they wait to do battle. The rest of The Boys catch up to them and after everyone comes at Butcher they all settle down and put differences aside for the mission to get done. 

The final act of The Boys Season 3 finale sees an epic battle unfold at Vought as Soldier Boy arrives with The Boys and Maeve. Soldier Boy sees Homelander as inferior and weak, so no alliance can be forged; however, Homelander brings out Ryan, who chooses his dad's side of the fight. In the end, everyone gets fairly injured and/or maimed; Soldier Boy is put back into stasis; Maeve is presumed dead and retires with her girlfriend; Deep and A-Train both pay personal costs for getting back on The Seven, and Butcher finds out Temp-V has given him a year (at most) to live just as The Boys are coming together again.

In the final scene, Ryan watches Homelander brutally laser a protestor in front of a public crowd in broad daylight, and get adored for it. Ryan's creepy smile hints that he's ready to follow in Homelander's footsteps. 

The Boys Season 3 Finale Review

Without a doubt, The Boys Season 3 finale delivered the biggest and best battle sequence the series has ever done – and that's really saying something after the epic tag-team match during the "Herogasm" episode. The number of combatants, stunt work, and use of space (in the thematic setting of a news media studio) was top-notch work – not to mention all the movie-level VFX work that was done. 

That all said, "The Instant White-Hot Wild" confirmed one big drawback to The Boys Season 3: the lack of any real substantial plot advancement. This season was all about character evolution, and we certainly got ticks of that in Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) and Hughie learning to be okay with having power (or not); Butcher and Maeve rediscovering their respective noble sides (and banging); MM and Frenchie resolving their past traumas, etc. It was great for the cast to be able to all flex more acting muscle (which they did wonderfully), but it also felt somewhat underwhelming, narratively. 

In its third season The Boys is still playing it somewhat safe in terms of retaining the core cast ensemble – a game that does get tedious after awhile. A doomsday clock hanging over Butcher adds some exciting stakes for Season 4 – but aside from Jensen Ackles' Soldier Boy being every bit a scene-stealer as Antony Starr's Homelander – and some vastly improved action – The Boys Season 3 doesn't feel like it will be all that memorable. 

...Doesn't mean we don't want The Boys Season 4 ASAP, because we do. 

The Boys Season 3 is now streaming on Prime Video.