The Boys Has A Deleted Scene That Explains One Of Season 5's Strangest Mysteries [Exclusive]

This article contains spoilers for "The Boys" Season 5, Episodes 1-5.

On "The Boys," Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) was introduced as a masked, always silent superhero. When Black Noir perished in the Season 3 finale, the show kept the character around by recasting Mitchell in Season 4 as a new Supe hired to "play" Noir in real life. (Like a lot of "The Boys," this plot point satirizes a superhero trope, namely how the big characters never truly die.)

Throughout Season 4, Noir II was portrayed as an actor trying to get into character, but failing because Noir was such a blank slate. Unlike the original Noir, the second one could and did talk plenty ... until the opening episodes of Season 5. Noir II had suddenly gone silent, not even talking to his best buddy The Deep (Chace Crawford).

Some fans, yours truly included, suspected this might be setting up a twist; had the actor Noir been replaced? Had the original one somehow returned from the dead? Part of me even wondered if the show might be adapting the original comic's infamous twist that Noir was a clone of Homelander (Antony Starr) after all. It turned out to be nothing; Noir resumed talking in Episode 4 "King of Hell." The only secret he was hiding is that he was starring in an off-Broadway play in his civilian identity.

/Film spoke with Nathan Mitchell about this, who explained Noir's silence in Season 5 wasn't an intentional red herring. Rather, Mitchell pointed to a deleted scene from "The Boys" Season 4 finale between Noir and Homelander that explained why Noir II was acting more like the original. The scene, which was included on DVD and Blu-ray releases and can also be found online, gives Noir II a firsthand look at how unstable Homelander is.

The deleted scene is set in the Seven's conference room. Homelander, on the verge of tears, gives a self-pitying rant about how everyone close to him has betrayed him. He compares himself to Julius Caesar being stabbed in the back by Brutus and the Roman senate.

Homelander walks over to the silent Noir, commenting on how "[his] predecessor was a good listener, too." He rests his hands on Noir's shoulders, then makes his way up to Noir's throat, all while alluding to how even though the first Noir was his favorite, he still killed him for keeping secrets. Again, Noir II doesn't say anything, but he's obviously terrified. 

"For the first time, new Noir was like, 'Oh, this dude could kill me right now.' And so he's horrified into the role. He's so scared that he's like, 'Oh, wow, no, no, I have to do this,'" Mitchell explained.  "Unfortunately, we had to cut that scene. But if people could see that, they would really understand where we're going. [...] I think seeing that scene really puts [Noir's silence in] the first three episodes [of Season 5] in context."

Indeed, cutting this scene does a disservice to Noir's arc in Season 4, too. The character was a method actor baffled by his role, unable to find any motivation for what drove Noir. When the deleted scene begins, Noir II is looking over drawings Noir I made of his imaginary cartoon friend Buster Beaver, and unable to glean anything from them. Seeing Homelander at his most vulnerable (and dangerous) would've finally give Noir the motivation to stay quiet he thought he wanted.

"The Boys" is streaming on Prime Video.