Main enemy of the heroes of The Boys, Homelander, divinely played by Antony Starr, has been a little more humanized during the 3rd season of the show which has just ended on Prime Video. Enough for him to deserve redemption? Not sure…
Warning, this article contains spoilers for season 3 of The Boys!
Evil, vicious, cruel, unstable… The Superman, as powerful as he is evil from The Boys, portrayed brilliantly by Antony Starr, is one of those villains of pop culture that we love to hate. During the 3rd season of the show which has just ended on the Amazon platform, the character also shows some flaws, proving that he remains human despite everything.
In the final episode in particular, Homelander finds his son Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), with whom he always wanted to have a relationship but who he had put aside a little until he discovered that the Super introduced this season , Soldier Boy, is his biological father. The villain then gets it into his head to live a small family life with his parent and his offspring, which the character of Jensen Ackles refuses.
And when Ryan is injured in the ensuing confrontation, Homelander does not hesitate to drop everything to come to his rescue, proof that he is really attached to the young boy. However, going after a Super who hurt his son is one thing, but killing a protester in cold blood who did the same is another!
And yet this is what happens at the very end of the episode, proving that the character remains a terrible human being. This is also shown by the fact that he murders Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) after feeling betrayed by the man he considered his best friend.
A lost cause?
Can such a monster nevertheless redeem itself? It’s possible, but The Boys would then fall into the cliché of the villain whose faults are forgiven by other more generous actions. This is also what the series already seems to be tending towards for the character of A-Train (Jessie T. Usher). It would therefore be a shame to offer all the antagonists rehabilitation arcs.
An opinion shared by Antony Starr who confided to Collider on a possible happy ending for his character: “I think Homelander’s happy ending would be him wiping everyone out and just sitting in a bloody wasteland alone with no one to bother him.”
And to continue:I don’t think there is a redemption story for Homelander. I wouldn’t really want to see that, to be honest. Nor do I think there is any intention to do so.”
On the other hand, the actor does not know how the story of the villain will end. “Every time I try to predict what might happen in the future, I get it wrong, so I stopped speculating. I’m just like, you know what? I’ll leave that to the authors and save myself the embarrassment of being wrong, again and again and again.”, he concluded.
Our interview with the actor and his acting partners: