The Boys Season 4: New Black Noir Explained

The Boys season 4 has a new Black Noir, but who is he?

By Spencer Perry

Spoilers for The Boys season 4 follow! Even though it has been two years since The Boys season 3 concluded, fans of The Boys could have very easily been confused when they turned on The Boys season 4 and saw The Seven member Black Noir was still running around. In the season 3 finale of The Boys, Homelander killed Black Noir after he learned Soldier Boy was his father, and Black Noir had been keeping the information from him. Like no time has passed though, The Boys season 4 kicks off and Black Noir is just...there! So what's going on with this new version of The Boys character Black Noir?

The new Black Noir makes his first appearance in The Boys season 4's premiere episode, attending a meeting of The Seven at Vought Tower. Black Noir enters and sits down, saying nothing, just like the original Black Noir. Later in the episode, Homelander recruits The Deep, A-Train and new Black Noir with a twisted task, beating some of his biggest fans to death so he can blame their murder on Starlight's supporters. The new Black Noir does as he's asked, dispatching two of them with a wooden baseball bat and confirming that he has taken Compound V. At that point he breaks character and speaks, exclaiming: "Yo what the f-ck? That was so f-cked up you guys."

The Boys season 4 episode 2 delivers another moment of New Black Noir breaking character as he speaks to A-Train on the set of his new movie. New Noir breaks his silence again and asks A-Train about the day before when they were given the task of murdering the three people. Noir reveals however that he's unsure about Noir's motivation. A-Train doesn't have much to offer him beyond that he should stay silent since that's Noir's entire deal.

The Boys Season 4
(Photo: Jasper Savage)

In the next episode, The Boys season 4 episode 3, new Black Noir reveals even more about his identity in a brief scene. After approaching Ashley Barrett, New Noir says: "I studied performing arts at Godolkin, I did Cirque de Vought in Montreal. YOu didn't hire me to stand around like a f-cking oak tree." He goes to ask for direction for his "performance" as Black Noir, revealing that he has to live in a ninja dojo but Black Noir didn't know karate. In short, he's a supe-actor that works for Vought and Black Noir's backstory doesn't make sense. One last nugget gets revealed as Noir falls asleep during the meeting of The Seven, confirming he's a narcoleptic. 

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It's unclear how Noir will fit into the larger schemes of The Boys season 4 as it carries on, but he's made it clear that he will definitely do as he's told. It's also worth noting that Nathan Mitchell, who has played Black Noir since the beginning of the series, continues to play the part and actually gets to deliver dialogue as the new Black Noir. The Boys also appears to be confirming that this new Black Noir is definitely not like the Black Noir from The Boys comic books.

In The Boys season 4, Karl Urban stars once again as Billy Butcher, leader of The Boys, which also includes Jack Quaid as Hughie Campbell, Laz Alonso as M.M., Tomer Capone as Frenchie, and Karen Fukuhara as Kimiko Miyashiro. Some of the "supes" featured in the series include Antony Starr as Homelander, Jessie T. Usher as A-Train, and Chace Crawford as The Deep. Other stars of The Boys include Colby Minifie as Ashley Barrett, CEO of Vought International, and Claudia Doumit as Victoria Neuman.  

The world is on the brink. Victoria Neuman is closer than ever to the Oval Office and under the muscly thumb of Homelander, who is consolidating his power. Butcher, with only months to live, has lost Becca's son as well as his job as The Boys' leader. The rest of the team are fed up with his lies. With the stakes higher than ever, they have to find a way to work together and save the world before it's too late.

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