Climactic battles, guts, gore, and head-popping antics all mark an over-the-top season of
"The Boys."
And what exactly is a "Herogasm?"
This is everything you need to know about the ending of "The Boys" season 3.
"The Boys" Season 3 opens with our characters in vastly different spaces than where Season
2 left them.
Yet the celebrity of the Seven remains strong as the action-packed film, "Dawn of the Seven,"
opens in theaters.
Butcher teams up with the Seven's Queen Maeve, who wants revenge on Homelander and longs
to ruin Vought's world.
"If we can find this…weapon, or whatever it is, maybe we can use it to blow Homelanders'
f—ing brains out."
Frenchie and Kimiko enjoy a blossoming romance and dream of escaping to Marseilles.
Mother's Milk re-enters his daughter Janine's life and strives to become an excellent dad.
However, out of all of The Boys, Hughie's life has changed the most.
The newly-confident protagonist and Starlight have gone public with their romance, and Hughie
co-heads the Federal Bureau of Superhuman Affairs alongside Congresswoman Victoria Newman.
He enjoys a tight workplace camaraderie with Newman and feels like they're accomplishing
a lot in their mission to capture errant supes with the help of government funding.
Alas, as always in "The Boys" universe, nothing good can last.
Hughie soon discovers that Newman is actually Nadia, a supe who grew up in an orphanage
for superhumans.
Video footage from Newman's childhood home exposes her as the Head Popper from Season
2 and that she's been groomed since childhood by Vought CEO Stan Edgar.
Hughie feels like a weak loser once again and sets out on his darkest path yet.
Annie "Starlight" January remains the only known supe with entirely pure motives.
Starlight yearns to change the Seven from the inside until she realizes how fruitless
that mission is.
She sees the psychotic nature of Homelander growing more threatening, and she's scared.
Alas, Hughie tells Starlight she needs to continue her tenure in the Seven until they
can figure out a way to kill the leader of the Seven.
When Starlight and Homelander attend a meeting with Stan Edgar, he informs them that Starlight's
popularity points are up while Homelander's have plummeted.
This has the unsurprising consequence that the already-threatening stance Homelander
has toward Starlight grows fiercer and more ominous.
Edgar tells Starlight that she will become the first-ever female co-captain of the Seven.
She fears what Homelander will do to her and must figure out a way to harness her newfound
corporate power to take the psychopath down before it's too late.
Starlight recruits new Seven member and former boy-band superstar, Supersonic, to help her
fight Homelander but has to learn to stand tall in the face of her mounting fears.
Starlight's new role as co-captain of the Seven presents many obstacles on her Season
3 journey.
In "The Boys" Season 3, Homelander finds the public tides turning against him for the first
time.
As Stormfront's Nazi past is exposed, Homelander is forced to explain his relationship with
her, exposing cracks in his veneer.
Homelander's narcissism soars in Season 3, too, as he sees the weaknesses of other members
of the Seven as a reflection of himself.
He attempts to demean Starlight by demanding that she sings a Marilyn Monroe-style "Happy
Birthday" to him on his televised birthday special, and is incensed when she refuses.
Homelander hasn't dealt with rejection before, and secretly it's his greatest fear.
The head supe falls into a dark space when Stormfront kills herself.
He realizes he didn't buy into her plan of building a master race because he is the master
race, in his mind.
Homelander believes he's better than anyone else.
When Starlight leaks a damning video of Homelander on social media, he decides to drop his "good
guy" charade.
He reveals the true disdain he holds for people, and gains fans in the worst of humanity, who
feel represented by him.
"I'm not just like the rest of you.
I'm stronger, I'm smarter, I'm better."
Homelander no longer has a reason to hold his darkest self back.
Antony Starr plays Homelander with subtle malevolence that gives the character authentic
humanity, making him truly terrifying.
For characters like Butcher and Hughie, the introduction of a 24-hour, temporary Compound
V serum proves to be a game-changer.
Queen Maeve secretly gives a few vials of the superhuman serum to Butcher, in case he
needs to use it against Homelander.
"Temp V" causes a user to develop temporary superpowers that wane within a day of the
drug's injection.
While the initial high of Temp V allows for superhuman strength and other powers, the
detrimental side effects are equally as strong.
Butcher initially hesitates to use the drug but eventually succumbs to its lure -– as
does Hughie.
Ultimately Butcher and Hughie both become hooked.
The two experience horrific hangovers and personality changes after using Temp V and
soon discover that prolonged use of the drug will kill them.
Temp V opens up a plethora of storyline possibilities and may play a pivotal role in future seasons.
By the season's end, the prolonged negative effects of the superhuman drug become apparent
for Butcher.
Season 3 of "The Boys" ushers in the long-anticipated arrival of Jensen Ackles as Soldier Boy.
Ackles plays Soldier Boy with sarcastic bad-boy appeal, sans the good heart beating underneath.
"You should smile more.
I bet it's a beautiful smile."
Once the greatest supes in the world, Soldier Boy was the leader of a mega-supe team called
Payback.
The group included future Seven member Black Noir, Soldier Boy's lover Crimson Countess,
and Gunpowder, among others.
The world believes Soldier Boy died in 1984 while saving the world from nuclear annihilation.
The truth is far more dark and complicated.
Billy Butcher thinks the chemical that killed Soldier Boy may be the only weapon that can
end Homelander.
His crew attempts to steal it from a clandestine Russian lab, only to find a very much alive
Soldier Boy imprisoned in suspended animation.
After Butcher and Hughie take Temp V, they free Soldier Boy and recruit him to help them
kill Homelander.
However, the team quickly learns that Soldier Boy is as psychopathic as their nemesis.
Yet, the radioactive superhero can render another supe powerless by blasting them with
his energy, so the Boys need him to take down the Seven.
Alas, Mother's Milk has personal reasons to want Soldier Boy dead, and once again the
group breaks apart.
Hughie and Butcher accompany Soldier Boy as he locates his former Payback teammates.
The supe makes up for lost time by ingesting hardcore drugs and reminiscing about his heyday.
Season 3 of "The Boys" may introduce us to new characters, but the corruption of the
new supes mirrors that of those we already know.
Through almost 40 years of torture at the hands of the Russians, Soldier Boy discovers
that his former Payback team betrayed him.
In 1984 Nicaragua, the team is sent by Vought to help new CIA agent Grace Mallory in the
historical Contra battle against the Sandinistas.
This is a fictionalized version of the battle that sparked the real-world Iran-Contra Affair
scandal involving Oliver North.
Crimson Countess, the woman Soldier Boy once loved, quickly hatches a plan to hand Soldier
Boy over to the Russians during the height of battle.
The entire Payback team is in on the plan, and Soldier Boy has nearly four decades to
plot his revenge.
Soldier Boy won't rest until he can torture and murder his traitorous team.
The betrayal by the members of Payback, not to mention Soldier Boy's egomaniacal personality,
once again proves even the best supes in history were terrible people.
Butcher and Hughie set up Crimson Countess by trapping her in the trailer where she now
lives to make her easy prey.
The Countess seems to have a part-time porn site where she communicates with Seth Rogen
in a humorous cameo appearance.
The Countess is also a fierce advocate for chimps and has released the sappy ballad "Chimps
Don't Cry" in their honor.
"You know that chimps are physically incapable of crying?
But that doesn't mean they're not crying on the inside."
The rest of the Payback team proves easy for Soldier Boy to track down.
In Episode 6, an exclusive supe event called "Herogasm" occurs, and it is exactly what
the name implies: an invite-only festival of debauchery for supes.
"Wait, is this…?
Is this Herogasm…"
The event, hosted by the TNT Twins Tessa and Tommy, former members of Payback and middle-aged
siblings with vague powers, gives us a visual of the insane sexual appetites supes have.
Soldier Boy, Hughie, and Butcher head to Herogasm to kill the twins, but Starlight shows up
with Mother's Milk to stop them.
Suffering from PTSD, Soldier Boy is unable to focus his radioactive energy and ends up
killing or grievously injuring a myriad of supes.
The build-up to the Season 3 finale really starts here as character arcs and storylines
begin to converge.
Homelander shows up to battle Soldier Boy and openly expresses fear for the first time.
Starlight publicly quits the Seven and shows true bravery by attempting to stand up to
Soldier Boy.
She live streams a video where she calls out most supes for only caring about themselves.
We're looking at a new Starlight, and she is fierce.
The pieces continue to fall into place for a final showdown between the good and bad
guys.
Any glimmer of hope we held for the redemption of A-Train gets knocked to the curb in "The
Boys" Season 3.
Unable to run due to his addiction to Compound V, which causes heart issues, the fastest
superhero decides to rebrand himself.
A-Train commandeers his race to promote a self-serving and tone-deaf brand of energy
drink, Turbo.
In a mockery of the infamous 2017 Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial, A-Train stars in
an ad where protesters and police unite to gulp down his new soda.
When A-Train decides to confront a C-list Vought supe named Blue Hawk for his racist
patrolling of New Jersey, a tragedy ensues that leaves his brother, Nathan, paralyzed
from the waist down.
A-Train manipulates the events of the tragedy to serve himself, and when given a chance
to do the right thing, he fails.
Although he suffers constant abuse at the hands of Homelander and the Deep, A-Train
continues to seek their approval and betrays others to get back into Homelander's good
graces.
A-Train thinks he cares about others but focuses on what will benefit him alone.
If Season 2 of "The Boys" brought us relationship goals to aspire to through Frenchie and Kimiko,
then Season 3 solidifies the depth and authenticity of their romance.
The love that Frenchie and Kimiko share grows as they become more vulnerable with each other.
Although Kimiko still can't speak, the first episode of Season 3 showcases her singing
voice as the former weapon of the Shining Light Liberation Army belts out "Dream a Little
Dream."
Music provides a healing outlet for Kimiko.
She and Frenchie often snuggle up to watch old musicals, and the two are showcased in
a phenomenal musical dance number.
Kimiko realizes she blamed Compound V for making her a monster, but in reality, it's
her life-long conditioning by the Shining Light Liberation Army and personal choices
that caused her to become a killing machine.
In the season finale, Kimiko tells a downtrodden Frenchie that their past doesn't define them.
She thought she would always be broken, but that Frenchie saw something in her.
And she sees it in him.
In Season 2 of "The Boys," Billy Butcher does everything within his power to protect his
ex-wife, Becca, and her young son, Ryan Butcher, from Homelander.
When he finally unlocks his powers at the end of Season 2, Ryan shows his first signs
of superpowers with a tragic ending.
After that devastating event, Butcher stows Ryan away with ex-CIA Deputy Director Grace
Mallory.
However, Homelander finally finds them and tells his son that he loves him unconditionally.
The leader of the Seven even means it, as much as Homelander can love someone other
than himself.
Ryan has longed to hear those words from Butcher, but Homelander will suffice.
"Dad.
I wanna go."
Ryan's loyalty to his dad grows in the final episode of "The Boys" Season 3.
He sees Butcher and his friends as the enemy.
After the showdown with Soldier Boy, Ryan leaves with Homelander, and his psychotic
grin in the last scene of the season finale does not bode well for his future.
The last action-packed scene of "The Boys" Season 3 takes place in Vought Tower, the
home of the Seven.
Everything has led to this showdown, and it's epic.
Soldier Boy gets the edge on Homelander, but when Ryan intercedes, he turns his sights
on the boy.
Butcher will still do anything to protect Ryan and can't let Soldier Boy hurt him.
For a singular moment, Butcher and Homelander join forces against the mega-superhero.
Ultimately, though, it's Maeve who sacrifices herself in the fight.
Homelander and Ryan fly away, but there is little closure in the aftermath of the battle.
Both villainous supes survive the showdown, leaving future storylines wide open.
"The Boys" still feels as timely and politically resonant as ever.
The ending of Season 3 sets up the possibility for another season, but we'll just have to
tune into Vought News Network to find out what comes next.
"That b—h, has definitely got to go."
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