From Pepsi references to "Supernatural" reunions to Billy Butcher's secret love for his dog,
Terror, there is no end to the incredibly detailed Easter eggs hidden all throughout
Amazon Prime's hit show. But only true fans notice these things from Season 3 of "The
Boys."
In Season 3, The Boys find themselves going up against an all-new supe: Soldier Boy. Technically,
Soldier Boy isn't new to the superhero game. He's the first powered-up living weapon Vought
created, and he's been a part of the company for a long time. According to the Vought-approved
version of his biography, his service in World War II included storming the beaches on D-Day,
and he continued working with Vought into the Vietnam War.
Like Homelander, Soldier Boy has incredible strength and impenetrable skin. He also doesn't
seem to age and has more than a handful of personality quirks, like compulsive marijuana
smoking or casually homicidal tendencies to cite two examples. It makes him a profoundly
unreliable hero.
Soldier Boy reportedly died in the 1980s. At the beginning of the season, Butcher is
investigating how the seemingly unbeatable Soldier Boy was finally defeated. Maeve helps
Butcher's investigation as her own form of rebellion against Vought, and the intel that
she gives him in the first episode of the season also includes a hint at Soldier Boy's
real personality. Maeve gives Butcher a file on Soldier Boy which prominently features
the name Raymond L. S. Patriarca.
It's not clear whether Soldier Boy is this universe's version of the real-world Rhode
Island mobster, or if Soldier Boy worked for him as a member of the La Cosa Nostra gang.
But the file definitely shows us that Soldier Boy was in jail when Vought discovered him.
Despite his unsavory past, Vought still decided to give him powers. It turns out Vought's
penchant for creating ill-behaved superhumans goes back to the very beginning of its history.
To outsiders, Billy Joel's music probably seems like a bizarre pairing with the extra
raunchy, hyper-violent content of "The Boys." But the Piano Man is intimately connected
with the show. In the very first episode of "The Boys," Hughie and his girlfriend Robin
are having an intense debate about the merits of Billy Joel's music when A-Train kills her.
That incident might have changed Hughie's relationship with his favorite recording artist,
but it also marks the beginning of some great needle drops in the Amazon Prime series.
Season 2 features multiple Billy Joel songs, and the artist was excited enough to tweet
his support for the show. The connection continues into Season 3, but this time the music is
even more thematically appropriate. "Uptown Girl" plays in the first episode of the season
over a montage of Hughie's near-perfect life with Annie and working for the Federal Bureau
of Superhuman Affairs. The song marks a new high point for Hughie, but it also comes back
over the episode's credits just after Hughie discovers that his boss is the head-popping
supe who first begins terrorizing people back in Season 2. Hughie might love some Billy
Joel, but the music isn't always a good omen for his immediate future.
Most of the time, Billy Butcher comes across as cold, calculating, and heartless. But every
so often, there's a small hint indicating that Butcher has a softer side. In "The Boys"
comics, Butcher's dog Terror is a regular member of the team. Butcher's affection for
the bulldog shows that he does have the capacity to care for something other than himself.
He simply chooses to do so in an extremely selective, Terror-specific capacity.
Butcher's fur baby has a small role in Season 2, but for the most part, TV audiences have
missed out on that part of Butcher's life. That's probably because, as showrunner, Eric
Kripke, knows how difficult it is to work with animals. Ultimately, having Terror join
The Boys on their misadventures regularly turned out to be too much of a hassle.
While Terror might not be helping in the effort to bring down Homelander in Season 3, he isn't
absent from the show entirely. This season sees Butcher spruce up his kitchen counter
at home with a cookie jar that looks identical to Terror. Beneath that tough exterior, Butcher
is a softy when it comes to dogs.
TV shows cost millions of dollars to put together and raising that kind of money can be a real
challenge. Most shows, and even movies, tend to include some product placement to pay the
bills. Even though Amazon certainly isn't hurting for money, "The Boys" has done the
same. Seeing real-world products in a fictional universe can sometimes feel jarring, but "The
Boys" has been able to include products in a way that fits into the story in a more-or-less
natural way.
In Season 3, Hughie and Annie's relationship is going better than ever, but it's not completely
smooth sailing. Shortly after Homelander reveals that he killed Supersonic, Hughie has his
own bombshell to drop on Annie, so he decides to soften the blow with some candy and White
Claw.
Whether or not the brand name boozy seltzer seems out of place is up for debate, but the
candy, Almond Joy, Charleston Chew, and Bit-O-Honey, actually has real significance to the in-show
history of "The Boys." During Season 2 when Hughie and Annie start building their relationship,
he finds out that those are her favorite kinds of candy. At the time, Hughie calls out Annie's
taste.
"Those are like the three worst candy bars in the history of candy."
Clearly, he filed away the information for later use.
There have always been clear parallels between Vought in the world of "The Boys" and Disney.
Both companies have histories that go back to the early 20th century, and both function
as massive entertainment companies that also pursue numerous side projects in the form
of corporate subsidiaries. In Season 3, the Vought-Disney associations become even more
heavy-handed, and not just because we see much more of Payback, the series' original
in-universe answer to the Avengers, than usual.
VoughtLand is exactly what you would expect from an alternate reality Disneyland. Kimiko
and Frenchie have to make their way through a section of the park called Brave Maeve's
Inclusive Kingdom, and their walk is packed with hilarious details. Clearly, Vought is
capitalizing on Maeve's identity in the way only a soulless mega-conglomerate can. They
also scramble to make the public forget about the literal Nazi who occupied a prominent
and influential position in The Seven until very recently.
On top of ridiculous caricatures of Vought heroes and an unbelievable amount of rainbow
flags, the Inclusive Kingdom also has some searing jabs at corporate appropriation of
social justice issues. Kimiko and Frenchie walk past food vendors like "BLM BLTs," "Woke
Wok," and a Mexican food stand with a menu that includes "Systemically Oppressed Tacos."
Vought isn't going to lose out on marketing opportunities, no matter how shameless they
are.
"Truly there is no god here."
The relationship between Homelander and Vought executive Madelyn Stillwell was a major focus
of the first season of "The Boys," which premiered in 2019. Homelander's jealousy of Madelyn's
son became a huge point of conflict for the two of them, right up until Homelander burned
a hole in Madelyn's head in the season finale. In the years since that dramatic moment, the
ultimate fate of Madelyn's son Teddy has been a mystery, but Season 3 quietly reveals that
Teddy is alive and well.
Hughie's investigation of his boss Victoria Neuman leads him to the Red River Institute.
The Institute operates as a home for young supes whose parents either abandoned them
or died in a powers-related accident. When Hughie arrives at Red River, he pretends that
he and Annie are interested in adopting a child so he can get a closer look at what's
happening behind the scenes.
"Well, Samir is South Asian. It's very hot right now."
In one of the Institute's classrooms, Hughie has a brief interaction with a young teleporting
boy who turns out to be little Teddy. The season doesn't reveal how Teddy became a supe,
but the reveal has some believing that Teddy is actually Homelander's son. We'll have to
wait until Season 4 for more details.
Soldier Boy's history with Vought goes all the way back to the company's earliest days.
He's been out of the picture since the '80s, but he has intimate knowledge of the first
several decades of Vought's roster of supes, and also made an outsized impact on supe culture.
As Soldier Boy reveals, he's the founder of the annual Herogasm event. When he discovers
that Herogasm is still running almost four decades after his apparent death, he clearly
takes a little bit of pride in its longevity.
Soldier Boy brags about his history with Herogasm to Hughie and Butcher, and in doing so, he
also reveals a shocking detail about his history with Stormfront. He tells the others that
he created the first Herogasm alongside her, but calls her by a telling name.
"I founded it back in '52. Me and this other supe, Liberty. Man, was she a firecracker."
Season 2 of "The Boys" revealed that Stormfront was once called Liberty before Vought forced
her to undergo a rebranding. Neither Hughie nor Butcher tells Soldier Boy what became
of his old friend, and as far as we know, he doesn't discover Liberty's fate for himself
before the end of Season 3. Considering Homelander's intimate history with Stormfront, maybe it's
better for everyone if this truth remains buried.
Before working on "The Boys," showrunner Eric Kripke was the mastermind behind another wildly
successful TV series. "Supernatural" ran for well over 300 episodes on The CW, launched
the career of Jensen Ackles, and inspired a prequel series called "The Winchesters."
Season 3 of "The Boys" sees Ackles join the show as Soldier Boy, but he isn't the only
"Supernatural" alumnus who's part of the Amazon Prime series.
In addition to Ackles, this season of "The Boys" also includes appearances from other
"Supernatural" actors. Gattlin Griffith plays Gunpowder in flashback sequences this season,
and he previously appeared as Jesse Turner in the "Supernatural" episode "I Believe the
Children Are Our Future."
The season also reintroduces Jim Beaver as presidential candidate Robert Singer. Beaver
played the character Bobby Singer on "Supernatural," and both characters grew up in South Dakota.
Dakota Bob, as he's called by some in "The Boys," could become even more important in
Season 4.
"The Boys" is loaded with social and political satire, but the show's main characters are
so caught up in their battle against Vought and the supes that they hardly ever have time
to stop and directly address issues that also exist in our world. A-Train and Blue Hawk
provide an exception to this rule in Season 3 by offering their perspectives on police
brutality and systemic racism. However, dipping into the discourse of current events doesn't
pan out so hot for either of them.
Despite the prominence of supes in this universe, there's plenty of overlap between the political
history of "The Boys" and our own. Some background details in Season 3 can help fans better understand
how one character, in particular, relates to some of the most important issues in recent
history.
M.M.'s apartment becomes a regular hangout for the characters this season, and in addition
to meticulously cleaning the place, M.M. has also decorated it with political memorabilia.
Hanging above his TV is a "Move on over, or we'll move on over you" sign that was adopted
by the Black Panthers in the 1960s. In shots of M.M.'s entryway, fans can spot a framed
picture of President Barack Obama hung above a "Vote Huey Newton" poster.
M.M. himself is much too young to have been a member of the Black Panthers, but it's not
a stretch to imagine that his father had time to participate in the movement in between
his legal battles with Vought and Soldier Boy.
When it comes to attention to detail, "The Boys" goes above and beyond most other shows.
It's not just that "The Boys" is filled with references to other series or small details
about the history of its world. The team behind Amazon's series also takes care to accurately
recreate the feel of ridiculous commercials and cable news segments. They also never miss
an opportunity to sneak in a joke, which means that any time a news segment is on screen,
the ticker at the bottom of the screen is running with some hilarious detail.
In Season 3, the trend of ticker jokes begins in the very first episode. The news is covering
a group of Stormfront sympathizers who call themselves Stormchasers. The ticker at the
bottom explains that some Stormchasers have gathered to await the return of JFK Jr. It's
something some real-life conspiracy theorists believed would happen back in 2021.
"They were disappointed when the assassinated president and his deceased son never showed."
The news ticker jokes in "The Boys" are almost always poking fun at some real-life figure
or group. In the Season 3 finale, a news ticker takes a jab at Texas Senator Ted Cruz. It
says that Cruz was caught trying to leave a hotel without paying for the pornography
that he ordered in his room. It's those kinds of small details that make "The Boys" spectacular
to watch again and again.
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