Jensen Ackles' Soldier Boy Has One Main Goal In The Boys Season 5

Fans of "The Boys" should prepare to see a lot more of Captain America-parody Soldier Boy (played by Jensen Ackles) in the near future. Ackles is not only starring as Soldier Boy in a prequel spin-off, "Vought Rising," he's also set to be a series regular for the fifth and final season of "The Boys."

Soldier Boy was introduced in season 3 of the hit superhero satire series. Once the leader of America's greatest superhero team, Payback, his teammates tired of his abusive behavior in 1984 and backstabbed him, handing him over to USSR scientists for (super)human experiments. The Boys found Soldier Boy in cold storage and awakened him; the experiments gave him the ability to fire blasts of radiation that removed supes' powers.

So, Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) and Hughie (Jack Quaid) made a deal with Soldier Boy; if they helped him get revenge on his former teammates, he'd help them kill Homelander (Antony Starr). Not even discovering that Homelander was his biological son dissuaded Soldier Boy; he had no time for his boy's emotional weakness. But when he tried to kill Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), Butcher broke the deal and Soldier Boy got sent back into cryosleep, this time monitored by the CIA.

Season 4 of "The Boys" concluded with Homelander staging a coup. In the season's last scene, he finds the frozen Soldier Boy and looks unsure of what to do with his father. In an interview with Games Radar, "The Boys" creator Eric Kripke suggested that in season 5, father and son will be working together against their common enemy: Butcher. "Soldier Boy is really driven to kill Butcher after Butcher betrayed him in season 3," Kripke said.

The last time Soldier Boy woke up, his top priority was revenge against the people who betrayed him, so this tracks.

The season 3 finale of "The Boys" — "The Instant White-Hot Wild" — is one of the show's most controversial episodes, specifically because of how it resolves the season-long conflict/breaks the Butcher-Soldier Boy alliance. Some fans took Soldier Boy's side, even when the show didn't, since Butcher betrayed him. ("We had a deal," Soldier Boy reminds Butcher during the scene). Ryan's presence, and Butcher passing up his chance to kill Homelander, were cited as contrivances so the show wouldn't have to remove Homelander (and end) before the writer wanted to. I don't think it's a coincidence that season 3 is when criticism that "The Boys" was dragging out its conflict started to bubble up.

Some fans take it a step further and whitewash Soldier Boy altogether; it doesn't help that Ackles stole the show. That I don't agree with; Soldier Boy is a very bad dude with the history to prove it. Aside from physically abusing his teammates, he's shown to have named names of suspected communists to the House Un-American Activities Committee, violently suppressed civil rights activists in the 1960s, and may have even killed JFK.

"The Boys" season 3 is about toxic masculinity and how it's passed through from generation to generation. Soldier Boy, who is violent and patriarchal, represents how the men of the Greatest Generation weren't all that great, and modern sexism is just an evolution of that. That's why the season ends with him as the final obstacle; to fix a problem, you must always tear out the root. Unfortunately, the show doesn't meld its themes and narrative here — the Boys look foolish for backstabbing Soldier Boy because Homelander is so much worse.

The Soldier Boy team-up is the central source of conflict within the Boys themselves during season 3. Annie (Erin Moriarty) and MM (Laz Alonso) act betrayed that Butcher and Hughie are working with him. It doesn't matter that it's a means to an end to remove a greater evil — Homelander, who has been the Boys' top target since day one and who has no weaknesses besides Soldier Boy's radiation powers.

MM's opposition is because Soldier Boy once carelessly killed his family while policing their neighborhood. It makes total sense that he can't stomach Soldier Boy breathing and that he puts his revenge ahead of everything else. But Annie is the show's moral center, so we're supposed to take her view as the correct one. Instead, she looked naive. Hughie and Butcher's deal with Soldier Boy didn't require them to do anything they weren't already doing ("exterminating sh*tbag supes"), and they could always turn on him after Homelander was dead.

Soldier Boy is the lesser of two evils. Not in a moral sense (that's too subjective to debate), but in a practical sense. Homelander, thanks to his supersonic speed, flight, and laser vision, can wipe out entire nations single-handedly before anyone could have time to react. Soldier Boy cannot, nor is he interested in doing so. He's a simple hedonist; outside of revenge, his only goals appear to be making up for lost time on the 40 years of drugs, sex, and fast food he missed out on.

Homelander? He has a god complex and wants to make a world where the supes are masters, and normal humans are slaves. As of season 4, that's just what he's done. The show has essentially vindicated the fans who thought the Boys made the wrong call taking down Soldier Boy instead of Homelander. One can only presume the Soldier Boy defense brigade will return in force once he starts hunting Butcher.

"The Boys" is streaming on Prime Video.