The Boys Short Film Reveals Where Billy Butcher Was Between Seasons

As promised by series showrunner and creator Eric Kripke, a special short film for The Boys season two has been released offering a glimpse at what Karl Urban‘s Billy Butcher was up to between the seasons. The short, aptly titled Butcher: A Short Film, picks up where Urban’s character is seen at the start of episode 2.02 and for the first 20% plays out exactly as the episode, then things take a turn. To try and lay low, Butcher meets up with an old friend named Jock, who reminisces with him about their days in the army together before turning on him after he sees the news report of Butcher supposedly killing Stillwell. You can watch the full video below!

“We are going to release a pretty substantial thing because we had a whole storyline in episode two,” Kripke told Collider previously about the short. “It’s not really spoiling anything to say that as season two begins Butcher is MIA and then shows up, and in episode two we originally had shot something that really revealed where he went and what his experiences were. But it ultimately didn’t end up fitting that well into the episode because it made Butcher’s story a lot less mysterious and intriguing and it kind of slowed down the rhythm a little bit, it was better to not know in that particular episode.”

He continued, “But we have these scenes and so we strung them together into a short film called ‘Butcher,’ and we’re going to release that. You’ll be able to see it as this short film of like what his blank, missing couple weeks looked like, and it will work as a companion piece to the show.”

The first three episodes of The Boys season two are available now on Amazon Prime with the streamer set to release episode four tomorrow, Friday, September 11. New episodes will arrive weekly on Amazon Prime, culminating in the season two finale premiering on Friday, October 9. Though the first season dropped all at once last year, Amazon has a chance to create some appointment television for its streaming service not unlike The Mandalorian. This release strategy hasn’t been entirely popular with the fan base however.

The Boys has also already been renewed for a third season but due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic it’s unclear when it will be able to shoot, resulting in the cast for the series releasing a a dire warning for those eager to see their adventures continue: Wear a mask.