The Boys Showrunner Reveals 'Payback' On The Way In The Season 3 Premiere

the boys season 2 finale homelander screenshot amazon

The Boys wrapped its wild second season in early October, and showrunner Eric Kripke is already looking ahead to Season 3 and dropping some hints on fans. Season 2 ended on a new status quo for pretty much all the key characters whose heads hadn't exploded by the time the final credits rolled, and Kripke's first big reveal about the Season 3 premiere indicates that revenge could be on some minds.

Eric Kripke took to Twitter to not only tease the start of The Boys Season 3, but also when the show will get back into gear. According to the showrunner, fans are not ready for what's to come!

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The Season 3 premiere is literally called "Payback," so it may be a pretty safe guess that at least one character is planning on getting revenge for something. There's no shortage of characters who might want revenge as of the end of Season 2, either. Homelander probably didn't need an excuse to want to harm others, but the death of Becca, the disappearance of his son, and the downfall of Stormfront might leave him more unhinged and vengeful than ever.

Stormfront herself would be a candidate if she hadn't been so thoroughly fried to a crisp in the Season 2 finale courtesy of Ryan. Butcher seems to have risen above a need for revenge in Becca's memory, but not killing her son might not extend to letting Homelander live in the long run. Even The Deep has a bone to pick with A-Train after the Church of the Collective fiasco.

It's worth noting that the Boys stars that Eric Kripke tagged in the post include Antony Starr (Homelander), Jack Quaid (Hughie), Karl Urban (Butcher), Erin Moriarty (Starlight), Laz Alonso (MM), Karen Fukuhara (Kimiko), Jessie T. Usher (A-Train), and Nathan Mitchell (the surprisingly allergic Black Noir).

Although the post courtesy of Eric Kripke conceals the identity of the director, "Payback" writer Craig Rosenberg is an executive producer on the show who wrote four of the 16 episodes of the series so far. In more good news, the third season of The Boys will apparently begin filming early in 2021. Ideally, that would mean a shorter wait between Seasons 2 and 3 than the more than a year between Seasons 1 and 2, but only time will tell.

Season 3 has a lot going for it, not least of which was the reveal that congresswoman Victoria Neuman is a murderous Supe who blew up heads in Season 2, and the arrival of Jensen Ackles' Soldier Boy should be a game-changer. Soldier Boy will showcase a new side of Ackles, who has been playing a very different character for well over a decade on The CW. Eric Kripke already revealed that anybody expecting to see Ackles playing another good guy "will be disappointed," according to Variety, because Soldier boy "was Homelander before Homelander."

While the wait for "Payback" in The Boys Season 3 could be long, you can always rewatch the first two seasons streaming on Amazon now. If you're in the market for some other TV options, check out our 2020 fall premiere schedule!

Laura Hurley
Senior Content Producer

Laura turned a lifelong love of television into a valid reason to write and think about TV on a daily basis. She's not a doctor, lawyer, or detective, but watches a lot of them in primetime. CinemaBlend's resident expert and interviewer for One Chicago, the galaxy far, far away, and a variety of other primetime television. Will not time travel and can cite multiple TV shows to explain why. She does, however, want to believe that she can sneak references to The X-Files into daily conversation (and author bios).