The Boys Season 4: Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Role Explained

The Boys’ fourth season has landed on Amazon, and aside from bringing back the likes of Hughie, Butcher, Frenchie, Kimiko, and The Seven, the runaway hit series is introducing a score of new characters in the franchise’s darkest season yet. Joining Butcher and the gang this time around is actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who has been touted as one of the biggest new arrivals to the series. Now that the first three episodes have arrived on Amazon’s streaming service, now is the perfect time to break down Morgan’s character and the importance he has on both the past and the future of the series.

Warning. If you have yet to watch the first three episodes of The Boys Season Four, be forewarned that we’ll be diving into spoiler territory. Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s mystery character is none other than Joe Kessler, a long-time friend of Butcher who hadn’t run into the former leader of The Boys for eleven years. When the pair first meet in the season four premiere, Kessler is more than willing to throw several jabs at Butcher, harboring a far greater hatred of “Supes” than even Karl Urban’s character. As Kessler reveals, he wants to recruit Butcher out of the Boys for an operation that will take far more drastic measures in fighting against super-powered individuals.

The Boys’ Joe Kessler In The Comics

In the original comics, Joe Kessler was a character who went by the name of “Monkey” thanks to an operation gone disastrously awry. The “Monkey” is a Central Intelligence Analyst in the original comics and has government ties when he hits the fourth season. Considering how much the Amazon television series has differed from the source material, viewers most likely shouldn’t expect Kessler to have the same fate as he did in the comics in season four. 

Recently, showrunner Eric Kripke confirmed that The Boys would end with season five, leaving many to wonder which heroes and villains will survive the current season to return for the series finale. While the main series might be inching toward its end, the franchise already has the spinoff Gen V going strong and is planning to release another spinoff in the future with The Boys: Mexico. 

The Boys Season 4 premieres its first three episodes on Thursday, June 13th, streaming on Prime Video. Subsequent episodes will be released one at a time every Thursday.