REVIEW: The Boys Season 3
With every passing season, Amazon Prime’s adaptation of Garth Ennis and Darrick Robertson’s The Boys seems to be playing “can you top this?” in terms of going where no other heroic series has not dared to go.
The third season, out on disc just months before the fourth season drops, mainly focuses on the increasingly callous Homelander (Antony Star) fighting Starlight (Erin Moriarty) for the heart and soul of The Seven. When Vought named her co-leader, he was far from thrilled and let everyone know. The group of underground heroes – led by Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) trying to take down Homelander and expose their sponsor’s corruption almost seems sidelined this season.
There were interesting twists and turns across the eight episodes, such as Butcher’s protégé Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid) working with Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) at the FBSA (Federal Bureau of Superhuman Affairs). His romance with Starlight remains rocky, especially as he gets jealous of her ex, Supersonic (Miles Gaston Villanueva).
The season’s new wrinkle is the discovery of Compound V24, which can give someone temporary Supe powers that last 24 hours, and Butcher uses it to go toe-to-toe with Homelander, hoping to rescue Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), Homelander’s son, from his evil influence.
The plotting and scripting is tight, although it has recently been eclipsed by the first season of the Gen V spinoff. Eric Kripke and company are doing a fine job juggling multiple threads and making sure everyone gets their moment or two to shine.
Sony Home Entertainment has released the series on only Blu-ray, which looks fine in fantastic AVC encoded 1080p transfer in its original aspect ratio of 2.39:1. However, the Ultra HD broadcast on streaming is a tad sharper. The DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio audio track is up to the challenge and delivers just fine.
Just a few Special Features are included: The Making Of A Giant Urethra (1:58) and Gag Reel #1 (2:37), Gag Reel #2 (3:00); and Deleted & Extended Scenes (seven totaling eight minutes).