Season 3 of ‘The Boys’ Is Officially In Production

• Season 3 of Amazon Prime Video's The Boys is now in production.

• Executive producer Seth Rogen says that showrunner Eric Kripke "does have an ending in mind."

• Here's everything we know about the forthcoming Season 3 of The Boys.

There's some good news for those of us waiting to see what the hell is going to happen next in Amazon Prime Video's superhero satire/thriller The Boys (an adaptation of the comic of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson): Season 3 is in production, and on the way. The Boys' first season was fantastic, and Season 2 managed to live up to the first season's hype and possibly even exceeded it. And while we're all still thinking about everything that happened with Homelander, Butcher, Hughie, Starlight, Stormfront, and even The Deep, there's solace to be taken in knowing that Season 3 is on schedule to release later this year.

Showrunner Eric Kripke released the following statement after the show's Season 3 renewal was announced during last summer's Comic Con: At Home, saying that he and his team of writers were already in the midst of the process, planning diligently for the future:

"Hard at work"—sounds good to us. With Kripke already planning, alongside his excellent cast, and the expertise of The Boys comic writer Garth Ennis and the super-producer team of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, signs are pointing upwards for The Boys to have yet another awesome go-around in Season 3.

Here's everything we know so far.

Season 3 of The Boys is currently in production.

Karl Urban said in an interview with Men's Health last fall that The Boys was tentatively planning to begin filming Season 3 in late January, but with everything Covid-19 related, it was hard to predict. Well, he turned out to be just ever-so-slightly off: The Boys officially began production in late February, and Kripke shared the first photo from set.

Kripke shared a photo of a Homelander-looking statue along with a caption that included a bunch of hashtags and handles. "#TheBoys #Season3 #FirstPhoto #InProduction #TheBoysTV @TheBoysTV@PrimeVideo@SPTV #SPNFamily"

The official account of The Boys shared the same message.

Jack Quaid, who plays Hughie, also shared a new season message alongside Erin Moriarty, who plays Starlight. "Season-three’s greetings, everyone! Can ya tell we’re excited to be back?@TheBoysTV@ErinMoriarty_@SPTV@PrimeVideo"

Urban himself also shared a couple photos from his way to set, saying that filming The Boys was the only thing that could get him to leave Covid-free New Zealand.

The people involved with The Boys are very active on social media.

We may not have too much official information about the upcoming Season 3 of The Boys just yet—at least not any really juicy stuff like plot details or a release date—but we can kind of get a glimpse of what's going on just from following the show's stars, like Urban and Quaid, on their social media accounts.

For one, check our Urban's Birthday post to Quaid.

We don't know if this is an old or a new photo, but it's fun either way, right? The cast is always in each other's comments, too.

For Quaid's birthday, he did actually share a behind-the-scenes photo....even if that behind-the-scenes photo was just the aftermath of his birthday celebration and eating some cake.

Quaid, in particular, is super active on his accounts. You can find behind the scenes photos like this one of co-star Claudia Doumit (who will certainly have a larger role in Season 3 as Victoria Neuman).

And he'll even share some cool-ass art to just get you in a good mood.

Jack Quaid. Cool follow. But he's not the only one. Moriarty shares some great stuff too, including some rare footage of Hughie and Homelander bro-ing out.

Honestly, just follow the whole cast. You won't regret it.

What will Season 3 of The Boys be about?

Well, now that we've seen how Season 2 ended up playing out, with heads exploding in a congressional hearing and a cliffhanger where that head exploder was revealed, it might seem a little bit hard to top. But at least we have an idea of where things are going. Butcher seems like he'll be somewhat on the lam, Hughie is working with Victoria Neuman, and Mother's Milk, Frenchie, and Kimiko all sort of seem to be doing their thing. Mother's Milk, in particular, gets to see his family again.

As far as the Supes go, things are kind of at a standstill; Maeve has dirt on Homelander, who is totally emasculated and embarrassed at the end of the season. Plus, he's had to invite both Starlight and A-Train back in The Seven, for, obviously, very different reasons. The Deep is once again in turmoil, not achieving his season-long goal of regaining his spot. Surely he'll have another outrageous plotline in Season 3—Chace Crawford is a treasure in this role.

But as far as actual storyline? We don't really know. Victoria Neuman seems to be a plant from Vought, given that she blew Alistair Adana's head up as soon as he started talking about using more internal Church of the Collective information to bring Vought down. A Vought operative posing as the leader of its opposition, and one that people really believe in, and believe they're fighting for good? Pretty freaking terrifying.

We do have one piece of info as to what Season 3 could be about—the titled of the first episode. In a tweet confirming that The Boys would be filming its third season in early 2021, Kripke included a photo of the S3E1 script, and it's titled "Payback". We could only imagine who's getting Payback and would not dare speculate (but could it be Stormfront?!?!?!? or Homelander?!?!?!? OK, we'll stop now).

And granted that we've already seen between cults, racist, literal Nazi Supe villains who don't age, and creepy resurfacing characters, the show has all sorts of trends and precedents to ride into Season 3.

One more thing to keep in mind? Kripke is already thinking about an ending. "Erik does have an ending in mind that he likes and is working towards," Rogen said in an interview with GamesRadar. It's not likely that Season 3 will be that ending—but it's good to know there's a plan in place. We've been hurt before, and no one wants to go down that road again.

Get ready for more of both Ashley Barrett and Victoria Neuman in Season 3.

You probably saw this one coming. After the thrilling twist in the Season 2 finale, The Boys made it official by announcing that it would be upping Doumit, who plays Congresswoman Victoria Neuman, to series regular for Season 3 (she had previously been considered recurring). We already knew from the cliffhanger that the only way for Season 3 to go would be through discovering and coming face to face with Neuman's head-popping secret, but officially increasing Doumit's role locks it up.

The same goes for Colby Minifie, who plays the often-stressed publicist-turned-fired publicist-turned-Vought company VP Ashley Barrett. Minifie has had a big couple years; in addition to her role on The Boys, she also appears on Fear The Walking Dead, and this fall had a role in Charlie Kaufman's trippy existential horror i'm thinking of ending things. Ashley already had an increased role in Season 2 of The Boys, but she was one of the more entertaining characters and it was clear that the people making the show thought so too.

Kripke, who previously worked with Doumit on his show Timeless, was excited to increase the roles of his two stars.

"So @JustDoumi & @ColbyMinifie are the BEST," he wrote on Twitter. "Funny, talented, and such good people. We've got some weird shit lined up for them in Season 3! #HeadPopperForever"

Kripke says the Victoria Neuman character isn't making any kind of statement about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

It was clear from the start of Season 2 that Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) was the show's stand-in for a progressive, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-esque politician (and The Boys handled this sort of character significantly better than Space Force did with the same kind of thing). But when Season 2 revealed in a twist that Neuman was... well, evil, this made some not happy; in The AV Club review, The Boys was said to essentially be taking a "both sides" stance on modern day politics. In an interview with Polygon, though, Kripke made sure to state that this is not the case.

"We’re not we’re not making any statement about AOC at all. As we were designing the season, it came from the simple screenwriting math of “let’s talk about the character you would least expect and create the biggest surprise.” And then we built a backstory and biography that we’ll reveal in season 3 of why she’s doing what she’s doing, and how she’s not who we think she is. So it just came from that," he said.

In fact, his biggest worry when deciding to finish that storyline how it finished was that exact reaction. But he decided to stick with his gut on the shock of the reveal.

"Frankly, my hesitation in the room was like, “I don’t want people to think that we don’t love AOC because we love AOC,” Kripke said. "But we ultimately decided that the drive of the story had to come first."

He also says current events—and the outcome of the 2020 election—could have an impact on Season 3.

Part of what makes The Boys so great is that its social commentary, subtle or not, feels very relevant with what's happening now. This covers political, social, and pop culture fronts. And Kripke thinks that the election going a certain way could impact the way the show plays when it debuts (assumedly at some point in 2021).

"If, God willing, Biden wins, the show might air—might—in a setting of more stability and sanity, and start to live as a historical document of the derangement of the Trump years rather than an up-to-the-minute, current depiction," he said in that same Polygon interview.

Kripke added that while writing Season 2, he was writing about the issues of the time—which was about a year and a half or two years ago. He says he's writing Season 3 right now, so make sure you're keeping an eye out; anything that ticks across your news feed could end up a plot point in The Boys Season 3.

When is the release date for Season 3 of The Boys?

Fans of The Boys may have lucked out; where many, many, many shows had huge, significant delays in production due to the COVID-19 outbreak, it seems like The Boys may be able to avoid that same fate. The show was already wrapped up with filming by the time things all shut down in March, leaving it on schedule for the Season 2 September debut that we all just experienced.

Now, with Season 3 on the horizon, it seems like delays should be minimal if any moving forward. While COVID-19 is still very much a thing, many projects industry wide have begun production with safety protocols in place, and one would imagine that to be the case; filming had been expected to commence in early 2021, and Kripke himself confirmed that in the above tweet.

Will the original cast of The Boys return for Season 3?

While The Boys certainly has the feel of a show where anyone could be killed off at any point, now that Season 2 is over we know who we fully expect to see back for Season 3. It feels fairly safe to assume that our surviving key heroes—meaning Urban (Billy Butcher), Erin Moriarty (Starlight), and Jack Quaid (Hughie Campbell) will be back. Homelander (Antony Starr) and The Deep (Chace Crawford) are essential to the show, and will certainly stick around. Maeve (Dominique McElligott), A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), The Female (Karen Fukuhara), and Mother's Milk (Laz Alonso), all have stories that set them up for Season 3 return as well.

Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) could all be up in the air, considering last we saw of him was getting an Almond Joy stuck in his mouth and suffering from possible brain damage. Human antagonists Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) and Ashley (Colby Minifie) are also up in the air, but feel fairly integral to the plot, and Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) will certainly be back after, uh, that ending.

Don't expect Stormfront to return. But don't rule it out, either.

Aya Cash (Stormfront) is fantastic in The Boys, but she really had the feeling of a single-season villain all along, and well, the Season 2 finale proved that to be correct; her character died a violent death at the hands of Homelander's son, Ryan.

Cash doesn't expect to be back, but she was such a standout part of Season 2 that it would seem possible that she could return in flashbacks, or maybe Homelander's visions. She was married to Frederick Vought, after all, a story that remains largely untold. Cash is open to the idea, though she clarifies that she was signed up for just the one season.

"I had a wonderful experience on The Boys, I was always signed up for one year, so who knows?" she said in an interview with ComicBook.com. "If the writers have something for me to do, I will absolutely be there. I think Stormfront's story has been told very well, in terms of the arc of what happened, but if they want me back, I will be back in a second."

Obviously, we'd love to see her keep giving this performance for years, but that's not up for us to decide.

We may not have seen the last of Love Sausage.

What a mid-season appearance it was from Love Sausage, the Supe the gang encountered during their trip to the Sage Grove Center just after meeting up with Lamplighter. Don't remember Love Sausage? Yes, you do. Stop lying—Love Sausage is the one with the long, Mr. Fantastic-esque, python-like penis that strangled Mother's Milk until the guys and Kimiko got it to retreat. Oh, now, you remember.

Anyway, Kripke said during a virtual New York Comic Con panel that there's already been discussion about bringing Season 2's lewdest Supe back for more.

"Last week, a writer pitched that this is not the last time Mother’s Milk and Love Sausage interact," Kripke said, after poking fun at how uneasy such a suggestion may have made actor Laz Alonso.

Will a new superhero join the cast for Season 3?

One new character who will debut in Season 3 is Soldier Boy, set to be played by Supernatural star Jensen Ackles. Soldier Boy has been referenced in the show before, and described as "the original Superhero," and Ackles was the lead for 15 years on Kripke's previous show, Supernatural, which is gearing up for its final season.

“As Soldier Boy, the very first Superhero, [Ackles will] bring so much humor, pathos and danger to the role,” Kripke said. “I can’t wait to be on set with him again, and bring a bit of Supernatural to The Boys.”

Kripke has also mentioned Jeffrey Dean Morgan, star of The Walking Dead and Watchmen (the 2009 film, not HBO's 2019 limited series), could have a role in Season 3 after previously lobbying for one on Twitter. But there are hurdles to jump for that to happen.

"There’s one role we’re already talking about," Kripke told Collider. "We have to coordinate. Because you know, he’s on The Walking Dead, so he has another home. But we already talked about one role, and there might be a potential other that we’re talking about. "

Season 3 will tell viewers even more about Kimiko.

Kimiko has been on quite the journey since the gang rescued her mid-way through season 1. Season 2 has seen her continue to forge relationships with all of The Boys; obviously Frenchie, who has a thing for her, but we've also seen fun moments between Kimiko and Butcher, among others, as well (that duo sitting on the couch watching Homelander and Stormfront on TV was classic).

While Season 2 introduced Kimiko's family and background (and showed her taking up a hobby as a contract killer), Season 3 will get into more of her personal interests. Namely, we're going to learn how she feels about art. "We figured it out for season 3 what her favorite movies are, and she loves Hollywood musicals," Kripke said in an interview with EW. "That's her thing. She'll be watching like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers or West Side Story."

Kimiko as a fan of musicals....is honestly iconic. Not what we expected, but a perfect character quirk, in line with Butcher's love of the Spice Girls. Is it too much to ask for a Little Shop of Horrors reference?

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