The Boys won't be back in town for another few weeks, but Prime Video has given the ultra-violent comic book adaptation an early season 5 renewal ahead of its season 4 premiere on June 13.
The streamer also debuted a brief teaser featuring Kimiko, aka The Female, carving "Season 5" into a table.
“The Boys is an unabashed and bold series that continues captivating our customers all over the world by piercing the cultural fabric season after season,” Amazon MGM Studios head of television Vernon Sanders said in a statement. “We are proud of this series that has grown into a global franchise, and we are thrilled that Eric Kripke and the creative team have more engaging stories to tell for all the loyal fans.”
Showrunner Eric Kripke added: “The Boys could be the best job I’ll ever have. What other show allows me to write about politics, capitalism, family, and exploding genitalia, though not in that order. The cast and crew are deeply grateful to Sony Pictures Television and Amazon MGM Studios for the opportunity to tell this story for another season. My only problem is that since this year promises to be free of any conflict or misinformation, we’re not sure what to write about.”
“Since its premiere, devoted fans across the globe have been down with The Boys for this unapologetically wild ride,” said Katherine Pope, president of Sony Pictures Television Studios. “And we couldn’t be more proud of our producers, writers, cast, and crew who bring this genius insanity to life. Now, with a fifth chapter to their story, we can’t wait to see where Eric Kripke and ‘The Boys’ go next.”
Kripke has previously said that he hopes the show will run for at least five seasons, and it doesn't sound like there are any plans in place to end it there.
Though the trailer (see below) did give us some idea of what to expect, specific season 4 plot details are still under wraps. We do know that the premiere will pick up almost immediately after the events of the Gen V finale.
Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) doesn't have long to live after overdosing on Temp V in the season 3 finale. Thankfully, he knows about a certain Supe virus that was created in Gen V's "Woods."
"For Butcher, by the time they were making the finale, we were pretty deep into breaking Season 4," said showrunner Eric Kripke in a recent interview with Variety. "We knew that we wanted that virus to be a pretty big part of Season 4, and we knew that we wanted Butcher to be aware of it. It seems crazy that he wouldn’t be aware of it. It became kind of tricky, because how do we show that he knows about it without it just being dialogue? This idea came up that it probably shouldn’t even happen in The Boys, it should happen in Gen V.”
"The value of having the [two shows’ writers] rooms be in coordination is, our room took it to Michele and her room and said, ‘Can we put Butcher in the end, so we can show that he’s really hot on the tail of the virus?’ It was really cool, because it does a nice little preamble to what’s coming next. And Karl and Ant both were willing to come in on their days off to go work on the other show. But the Homelander part was Michele’s team."
"The world is on the brink. Victoria Neuman is closer than ever to the Oval Office and under the muscly thumb of Homelander, who is consolidating his power," reads the official season 4 synopsis. "Butcher, with only months to live, has lost Becca’s son as well as his job as The Boys’ leader. The rest of the team are fed up with his lies. With the stakes higher than ever, they have to find a way to work together and save the world before it’s too late."
Returning cast members include Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Jessie T. Usher, Laz Alonso, Chace Crawford, Tomer Capone, Karen Fukuhara, Colby Minifie, Claudia Doumit, and Cameron Crovetti, along with new recruits Susan Heyward, Valorie Curry, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
The first three episodes of The Boys season 4 will be available to stream from June 13th, with new instalments dropping weekly through to the season finale on July 18.