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“There’s so many shows that pull punches now… that want to take the correct boxes and do things right, and this has never been a show that’s done that,” says actor Antony Starr at Deadline’s Contenders TV panel for The Boys, alongside fellow stars Jack Quaid and Erin Moriarty. “It’s always been unapologetically itself in its own lane.”
Based on the New York Times best-selling comic book by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, The Boys follows a group of vigilantes who aim to keep corrupt superheroes in check. In Season 4, Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) is closer than ever to the Oval Office and under the thumb of Homelander (Antony Starr). The dying Butcher (Karl Urban) is still reeling from losing his job as The Boys’ leader and trust of his fellow teammates. With the stakes higher than ever, they have to find a way to work together and save the world before it’s too late.
“This season is structured differently because we’re effectively taking Starlight away and making her Annie and part of The Boys, and that really adjusts the structure of the show and the way that the story is told,” says Starr. “Starlight was the British spy in the Nazis, and there were three seasons of that.”
Along with the difference in show structure, creator Eric Kripke decided to dive deep into personal backstories for the second to last season. “I just love how we get so deep into every character’s story we’re really dealing with our core traumas,” says Quaid. “Hughie was no exception, so Eric set up this amazing subplot of Hughie’s mom abandoning him when he was a kid.”
RELATED: Contenders TV — Deadline’s Complete Coverage
While Hughie’s trauma was focused in the past, Annie’s focus was on her present crisis. “When I found out about halfway through the season, the trajectory that this character was going to be taking and the deep dive into this identity crisis,” says Moriarty, “she is going to be struggling with or has been struggling with, and the way that was gonna manifest in this metaphorical, double character moment… It was one of the most gratifying experiences in my life.”
Check back Monday for the panel video.
