TV Show Discussion: The Boys by Garth Ennis on Amazon Prime (Fonz Approved!) Update: Season 5 FINAL SEASON!

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"Obviously, Tek Knight is our version of Batman, and we wanted to really play around with that trope: Batman’s fascist underpinnings as a really wealthy dude who hunts poor people, and then profits of the incarceration."

Is this an accurate description of Batman?
 

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I don't know how to feel about this show's attempts at political satire this season.

I watched half of the newest episode last night and a small detail in the announcement of VNN anchor Cameron Coleman's death was that a sub-headline showed Firecracker blamed his death on a vaccinne.

My initial reaction was that was lame...

Then I see this today:



It's hard to parody and achieve smart satire of people who are SO STUPID.
 

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Black Noir Unmasked: ‘The Boys’ Star Nathan Mitchell Talks New Noir’s Powers and ‘Gen V’ Connection​


By Jordan Moreau
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Nathan Mitchell

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SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from Episode 7 of “The Boys” Season 4, currently streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video.

It’s Christmas for “The Boys” — sort of.

The latest episode begins with Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) filming a puppet-themed Christmas special for Vought, complete with a puppet version of A-Train and a hilarious pro-America, anti-woke agenda. However, Ryan pulls the plug on the promo over its controversial lyrics, which were personally approved by his dad Homelander (Antony Starr).

Things aren’t going well for the elder, unraveling supe. Homelander is furious that Vought hasn’t caught the company leaker yet, after Homelander incorrectly suspected and then murdered newscaster Cameron Coleman (Matthew Edison) — who is reported publicly to have died from a brain aneurysm after a flu vaccination. Firecracker (Valorie Curry) then points Homelander toward Webweaver (Dan Nousseau), who comes clean as an informant for Butcher (Karl Urban). Homelander rewards the Spider-Man ripoff for his honesty by violently tearing him in half as he shoots out disgusting webs from his, uhh, web-hole.

The rest of the Seven aren’t faring much better. The Deep (Chace Crawford) kills his beloved octopus girlfriend Ambrosius (voiced by Tilda Swinton), and fully pledges his allegiance to Homelander and Vought. He and Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) are sent by Homelander to eliminate Butcher and Starlight (Erin Moriarty), and we get a mini Seven vs. The Boys battle. The evil supes nearly have the upper hand, especially when the new Noir reveals he can fly, but A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) betrays his teammates to help The Boys. After A-Train is proven to be the Vought leaker, Homelander fires Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) from the Seven — and in another hilarious moment, it’s revealed that in addition to the Deep, she was also sleeping with Noir, but without the need for a lobotomy.​



After MM (Laz Alonso) steps down as the head of The Boys, Butcher is reinstated as the group’s leader as they continue trying the synthesize the supe-killing virus. After Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) is stabbed in the leg with the virus, her regeneration powers are put to the test when Frenchie (Tomer Capone) performs a bloody, makeshift amputation. There’s still hope, though, that Frenchie can make a supe bioweapon to kill Homelander. However, The Boys must now deal with a shape-shifter who’s posing as Starlight. A “fan” who took a selfie with her earlier in the episode turns out to be an undercover shape-shifter who has left the real Starlight chained up ahead of the team’s meeting with the president. With the season finale ahead, it seems like the presidential meeting may have an unexpected party crasher.


TheBoys.BlackNoir.1.jpg

Courtesy of Prime Video
Mitchell, who has played Black Noir since the beginning of “The Boys,” spoke with Variety about the second iteration of the character, which he calls new Noir. The original Black Noir was a mute killing machine who had been a longtime member of the Seven. In flashbacks, we learned that Noir’s name was Earving, and he’d lost the ability to speak after Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) brutally attacked him during a mission. At the end of Season 3, that Black Noir was killed by Homelander after he learned that Noir had been hiding the fact that Soldier Boy was Homelander’s father.
Now in Season 4, Noir has mysteriously returned with a new person under the black bodysuit. Mitchell discusses the talkative new Noir, the “Gen V” connection to the character and filming that flying supe battle.
When did you find out that the new Black Noir would be able to fly?
It was sometime in Season 4, because they were trying to figure out what new Noir’s powers were going to be. When I found out it was flying, I was very excited. That’s on the top of everyone’s list of superpowers. Why would you not want to fly? Then you couple that with the tools that this character has at his disposal — imagine someone who can fly coming at you with a bunch of knives. It adds a different dimension.
THBY_S4_UT_402_220926_SAVJAS_01341_R1_3000.jpg

Courtesy of Jasper Savage/Prime Video
Did any of your other flying castmates give you tips about shooting that big fight scene?
I gotta shout out our amazing stunt team, because without them we wouldn’t be able to make this scene happen. Pulleys are very uncomfortable. The way the harness sits on the body, it holds whoever’s in there. It just pulls on your thighs, and it looks really cool but it does happen at the expense of some comfortability. I was just a taking in the whole sequence of everything we had to do. What really excited me was just the comedic moments that new Noir plays when he’s in the air and being shot at and he realizes he can’t take it like, “Oh fuck! Shit!” That was one of my favorite parts.

Was the other Noir able to fly, and we just never saw him do it? Does this new Noir have other powers we haven’t seen yet?
No, he could not fly. New Noir is a new supe with a new power set. They’re different in their abilities. All I know is that he can fly, and he’s an aspiring actor.
We hear the new Noir talk this season, which is something the old Noir never did. How did you decide on the voice for new Noir?

When I approach Noir as a character — both Black Noir and new Noir — the thing that interests me the most is the notion of contrast. How can I give the character traits that contrast what we would expect from him? With OG Black Noir, we look at the suit and get this stoic, menacing figure: “He could kill me.” When I crafted old Noir, it was “How can I give him traits that contrast with this killer that we see?” That’s where you get the socially awkward person who is empathetic toward animals and kids, but kills people and is also kind of a kid himself.


With new Noir, I knew we’d be looking at him in the context of old Noir, so we’d be expecting what we saw out of old Noir. If old Noir could speak, he’d have this cool, maybe a little raspy, deep voice that is intimidating, even though he has a soft heart. If old Noir is this badass, then new Noir is just this guy who gets thrown into a suit. He’s kind of average and everyday, in that sense. He’s an actor, but he’s also just dude. What would it be like if a normal person got plucked out of their life and put into the Seven and asked to do some crazy shit? I tried to bring a normal, everyday quality of someone who’s totally not in their element and trying to figure things out as this world unfolds before them.
We know he’s an actor, but will we ever find out where this new Noir came from?
I think where they found him is pretty simple. We might elaborate on that, I don’t know. I think he was an actor who hasn’t really made much traction in his career outside of Cirque du Vought. He graduated from Godolkin, and he was really good at university. But that’s why not a lot of people know him, so he’s a capable enough replacement.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
 
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Black Noir speaks! The Boys star Nathan Mitchell on 'New Noir' and almost going 'down with the character'​

The actor talks about his life underneath that suit for four seasons.
By
Nick Romano

Published on July 11, 2024 12:00PM EDT










but he does it the whole time. - Yeah.



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Warning: This article contains spoilers from The Boys season 4, episodes 1-7.

The Boys star Nathan Mitchell was surprised to see his character Black Noir on the set of the upcoming DC comics film Superman — or rather, someone who looked an awful lot like Black Noir.

Paparazzi photos leaked from the set of the highly anticipated superhero movie from director James Gunn, revealing a figure dressed all in black and leading David Corenswet's hand-cuffed Man of Steel along the street with a team of soldiers carrying assault rifles.

"I might be missing something, but it is hard for me to imagine another superhero in pop culture right now that looks like Black Noir. The goggles were reminiscent, and the all black," Mitchell tells Entertainment Weekly. "I don't know 100 percent, but the possibility that I could be playing a character that has had an impact to the extent that it inspires an antagonist in a Superman movie, I couldn't have thought or dreamed of that."

The Boys' Eric Kripke unpacks that Jeffrey Dean Morgan season 4 twist

Mitchell played the character of Black Noir for four-going-on-five seasons of The Boys, Amazon's R-rated drama that is definitely not set in the universe of DC Comics, but heavily satirizes superheroes of all ilk. Yet he's the only member of the core cast who's neither seen nor heard. As Black Noir, a dark play on Batman, Mitchell is fully covered, face and all, in a black suit. And because of the tragic backstory to this character (getting his face blown apart in a World War II skirmish...yes, he's that old) Mitchell did not speak on screen for three seasons, using only his body language inside the costume to convey his performance.

That changed with season 4, which is currently rolling on Amazon's Prime Video. Antony Starr's Homelander, this world's equivalent of a Donald Trump-esque Superman, murdered Mitchell's Black Noir in the season 3 finale. But because Mitchell technically never appeared on screen thus far, showrunner Eric Kripke brought him back to play "New Noir," a supe actor paid an obscene amount of money to pretend to be Noir so that the public does not catch on to the fact the old one is dead.

Ahead of the season 4 finale, dropping on Amazon next Thursday, July 18, Mitchell speaks with EW about how he initially thought he would leave The Boys when his character got killed off and returning as Black Noir 2.0.

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

Black Noir and Chace Crawford's the Deep from The Boys.

Nathan Mitchell's Black Noir with Chace Crawford's the Deep on 'The Boys' season 4.
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Simon Pegg came up with 'Wee Hughie' line for The Boys season 4's emotional scene

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Was there ever a moment prior to this season where you thought Black Noir might remove his mask?

NATHAN MITCHELL:
When I got the role, I was told this character doesn't speak and that we don't see his face. I took the role with that in mind and I embraced that reality. While I always hoped for it, it was never something that had been brought up as being on the table. All I could do was dive into Noir with everything that I had and see what happened.

I've heard the story from Eric Kripke's point of view about how he told you Noir would be killed off, but that you'd be playing a new character to wear the costume. What's your version of events?

I am not sure what my face was doing, but my heart dropped. Then he was like, "But you're coming back!" For me, it's interesting because you hear actors talk about how you play a role and it becomes a part of you. I have connections to my characters, but I haven't thought too deeply about that. When I found out Noir was dying, damn, it did hit me. I did feel like I was losing someone. Kripke gave me the option of being Noir unmasked in season 3 or unmasked in season 4. My first inclination was to go down with the character because I was so connected to him and have so much love for him. Then I took a day or two to think about it, and I'm like, "It's smarter to be New Noir. I'll be New Noir." But it was a mourning process for me a little bit. Even when we filmed that [death] scene at the end of season 3, at the beginning it felt like someone was dying. That was an experience I didn't think I would have.

I feel like you and Karen [Fukuhara] have been in similar boats in the sense that you both have had characters who can't speak. Has that presented unique acting challenges that you might not have expected going into it, but that you found through the process?

Yeah, definitely. When I got this role and jumping into it, there was a bit of an adjustment period and a learning curve, just figuring out how my movements translated in the suit, how a slight tilt of the shoulder contrasted with a big tilt of the shoulder. If I turn my head slowly, how is that different from if I turn my head quickly? What impact does that have on the audience? Once you get it, you can really go on this journey with the character and create an arc and tell a story with subtle movements.

The Boys boss knows a Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki reunion would 'break the internet': 'It's occurred to me'

How much of New Noir's backstory did you get over the course of filming the series?

We talked a little bit about Old Noir, but the focus was really on where he was in the present. We touched on, [New Noir] is from Godolkin [the supe college from spinoff series Gen V]. He's this actor who has never had the success that he's wanted to have. He's made some progress — he's done Cirque du Vought [a parody of Cirque du Soleil] — but his career isn't really where he wants it to be. Then all of a sudden this opportunity comes about. He is like, "What else am I doing?" So he jumps in and realizes it's more than he bargained for.

Amazon released a fake video of your character's audition tape to become New Noir. Did that in some ways help you wrap your head around who this character was?

We did that closer to the end of the season, but all of those inklings were really in how I was approaching the role. It's a trope on the dark side of acting where people dive in to the point of doing some things that aren't that great. That's something we explore with Noir, and it's an interesting take.



Did you end up shooting a lot of material like that?

We did that and maybe one other thing. So we will see if that other thing comes out.

You shot your first scene without the mask last week [for episode 6]. Just because of camera angles and the amount of shots showrunners need for the edit, were there really specific things you had to now worry about for New Noir that you didn't have to worry about for Old Noir?

It was kind of the opposite. I could be feeling things underneath the mask, but I had to be mindful that I was translating my feelings into my physicality. So there are ways in which I was more mindful when I was filming as Old Noir.

This week we see New Noir fly for the first time in a fight sequence with Butcher [Karl Urban], Starlight [Erin Moriarty], and the Deep [Chace Crawford]. Was that actually you in the harness?

Honestly, I wish I could say I was in the harness. We have a great stunt team that we wouldn't be able to do any of this without. While that's something I'd love to do, sometimes there are technical realities on the day that we have to adhere to. I'd love to be flying, as uncomfortable as I hear it is, but on the day we only had so much time to get certain shots to make it happen.

Black Noir from The Boys.

Nathan Mitchell as Black Noir on 'The Boys' season 2.
AMAZON
The Boys used a Cecily Strong SNL sketch as inspiration for Starlight storyline

Kripke says he really wants to do more scenes with you without the mask on as the New Noir. Did you guys talk at all about the fifth and final season?

We have talked a little bit. I'm very excited about the things he's mentioned. I had a few ideas, and then he shared with me what he was thinking. I was like, "Whoa! That's cooler than what I was thinking of." I can't wait to jump in and do that.

How have you guys been digesting that the fifth season will be the last?

Eric's original plan was always to have five seasons, so we had an idea in the back of our minds that was likely. Some of us may have wished for a sixth, just because we love spending time together. I just love being in this family so much, but I really appreciate and respect the commitment to telling a good story and not dragging it out longer than it needs. While there's a bit of sadness that it is going to come to an end in the next season, it also feels right to a certain degree. We can appreciate this last ride and going out on our own terms.

I think you saw the paparazzi photos that leaked from the Superman movie set showing a Black Noir-esque character. What was your reaction to seeing that?

That was such an honor to see. I might be missing something, but it is hard for me to imagine another superhero in pop culture right now that looks like Black Noir. The goggles were reminiscent and the all black. I don't know 100 percent, but the possibility that I could be playing a character that has had an impact to the extent that it inspires an antagonist in a Superman movie, I couldn't have thought or dreamed of that. It is really cool because, in making a Superman movie, you're also making a case about why Superman is needed and why he matters and why he's relevant. If you're doing it in the modern day in this world in 2024, the discussion around superheroes includes The Boys. So if you're going to make a case for Superman, you have to make a case for Superman in context of a team like the Seven and showing that contrast. I think that's a really smart thing to do, and I'm really excited to see the movie.
 

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The finale is almost upon us!

My main questions and interests:

1. Expecting some big shit to justify the Sage character. I thought she was the most interesting new aspect of this season but there hasn’t been much payoff so far.

2. It will be lame if they kill A-Train. Major character deaths are so rare on this show— or even consequences, Frenchie getting out of jail so quickly was super lame!— and the writing has been so on the wall for him. It would be too predictable and mundane.

3. What is Ryan going to do??? A break from Vought seems inevitable. But everything isn’t going to be peachy keen— my guess is he separates from Homelander but we see some residual impact of him learning to abuse his power in the name of good vs that movie executive. He’s going to be a problem in some way.

4. The Deep probably should have died last episode but now that they had him kill his main lover and learn his new one doesn’t care about or respect him, it will be interesting to see where they go with his plot. I suspect Sage’s complete disregard for him might come back to haunt her.

5. Obviously the virus plotline that has carried over from Gen V is the biggest wildcard.

Those are my top 5. Hope Frenchie and/or Kimiko die because they are always the least interesting part of the show.
 

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1. Expecting some big shit to justify the Sage character. I thought she was the most interesting new aspect of this season but there hasn’t been much payoff so far.

They didn’t deliver on this premise IMO.

3. What is Ryan going to do??? A break from Vought seems inevitable. But everything isn’t going to be peachy keen— my guess is he separates from Homelander but we see some residual impact of him learning to abuse his power in the name of good vs that movie executive. He’s going to be a problem in some way.

Best part of this finale for me. I was off on “in the name of good” but we did see his second kill and the beginning of a break from Homelander but total uncertainty as to where he’ll land.

4. The Deep probably should have died last episode but now that they had him kill his main lover and learn his new one doesn’t care about or respect him, it will be interesting to see where they go with his plot. I suspect Sage’s complete disregard for him might come back to haunt her.

Just nothing. No plot movement, no character development.

5. Obviously the virus plotline that has carried over from Gen V is the biggest wildcard.

To be continued for another season.
 

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It isn’t just “I have to wait so long to see the next season.” It’s that I’ll have mostly forgotten the details of this season after a two year wait!

 
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