SPOILER WARNING: Spoilers for The Boys Season 3 AheadAntony Starr and Erin Moriarty have been hyping up the release of The Boys Season 3 finale, which releases tomorrow July 8th. In a recent interview with Collider, the duo shared their thoughts regarding the power dynamic between their characters. Starlight (Moriarty) has despised Homelander since entering The Seven, the most popular superhero team in the world, during Season 1 of the show. However, this season her character has done more damage to the power-hungry supe than ever before.
As Collider questions the actors on the power struggle between the characters and the push-and-pull nature of their relationship, Starr says he always thought, "Homelander is the bad guy of the show, and Butcher is in the middle, and then Starlight is the ultimate good," however, as we've seen with The Boys, there are no complete black and white characters. The full quote from Starr is below:
""It was super fun. I've always looked at it like Butcher and Homelander are basically the same animal. They're two sharks. Homelander is the bad guy of the show, and Butcher is in the middle, and then Starlight is the ultimate good, the beacon of hope, and the bright light of goodness. We both find out in Season 3 that emancipating ourselves and actually speaking our truth is the way forward and the way to get what we want, but obviously for very different reasons. It was cool. I love the way that this show really parallels character journeys alongside each other. We had a lot of fun doing that. It's always good to bang heads with people that you enjoy working with, so it was great fun."
Moriarty felt the same way and talked about how important it was to her to play a young woman who is coming into her power.
"Yeah, it was really fun and funny how those two characters, working for such opposing sides, have this parallel. Obviously, the parallel is that they ultimately end up in this place of understanding that speaking honestly is going to best service them and result in such different things. It's interesting how they both come to that. Also, as a young woman who is working for this corporation that has historically been very sexist, for me, Erin, I enjoy the catharsis of playing a young woman coming into her power, standing up to a man who is drunk on power and who has taken advantage of his power. That, to me, is fun and cathartic to play out.
Homelander has undoubtedly been drunk on power throughout The Boys; however, with the introduction of Soldier Boy, we finally saw a Homelander who experienced fear. Of course, with the revelation that Soldier Boy is, in fact, the supe's biological father, we may see a different relationship begin to form within the final episode.
Starlight Has Been Nothing but Trouble For Homelander
Following the start of Season 3, Starlight/Annie is one of the most famous supes in the world, and her ratings are off the charts. So much so that then Vought CEO Stan Edgar promotes her to co-captain of The Seven. But, of course, this angers Homelander, who then derails the relationship between Hughie and Starlight by claiming to be in a relationship of his own with Vought's American sweetheart.
A chain of events is set in motion, involving Homelander killing Annie's friend Supersonic, Starlight attempting to stop Soldier Boy, and a live video where Annie exposes Homelander as the narcissistic psychopath he is. We will have to wait and see how the third season of The Boys will end and which characters will live to see the eventual fourth. Usually, it would be safe to assume Erin Moriarty will be returning for another season. However, The Boys and showrunner Eric Kripke have never been afraid to kill off key characters. There's a chance the finale releases tonight at 7 CT; however, Prime Video users have experienced trouble in the past with an overload of fans crashing the streaming service. Die-hard fans will constantly be refreshing their apps tonight as they patiently wait for a diabolical finale to The Boys Season 3.