The Boys Showrunner Admits That Writing Season 3 is “Fun and Breezy”

When you consider the content of Amazon’s adaptation of The Boys, which includes elements like literal Nazis, faces being ripped off, exploding heads, and superhero sex next to corpses, perhaps two words that you don’t consider when describing it are “fun and breezy.” That’s exactly how series showrunner and executive producer Eric Kripke has described what the writing process is like for the show’s upcoming third season. Based on what we know of the next batch of episodes, which will include Jensen Ackles as a supe named Soldier Boy who is described as “worse than Homelander,” these descriptors are an even bigger surprise.

“The thing that has worried me about Season 3 is that it has become really fun and breezy to write again,” Kripke told Consequence of Sound. “That worries me. It’s feeling enjoyable. I should be in intense, deep introspection for this. I know, obviously, that every season of a television show gets a little bit harder because all of your original best instincts to explore have been explored. So, you have to start going to some of the areas that it wouldn’t at first have occurred you to go to in those stories, and those are always a little trickier to make feel as big and as fascinating as the stuff you hit early on. So, it’s challenging.”

Kripke also compared the breeze with which he’s felt in writing the new season to how he feels when they’re wrapping up an episode for the show, noting that he always wishes for more time in the edit.

“I like my seasons when they’re over. When I’m making them, I’m like, ‘Man, how do we make this better?’,” Kripke added. “I was telling someone in my Post department the other day that when I finally approve a cut, like the visual-effects shot, it feels like a defeat to me. It feels like a defeat to me because I have to now admit that either because we’re out of time or money, it’s just not going to get better. So, nothing makes me happier to say than, ‘Oh, I’ve got a whole bunch of notes. Go make it better, dude.’ I’m not the guy who’s like, ‘It’s over, and I’m happy.’ I’m just like, ‘Yeah, man. I wish I had another month with everything.’”

Kripke has plenty of time between now and the eventual premiere of season three though, as production will begin in the first part of 2021. Both seasons of The Boys are now streaming on Amazon Prime.