'The Boys' Season 3 Teaser Transports You Into A Nightmarish, Fox News-Ish Vought TV Special
And they say satire is dead.
In this season 3 teaser for the Amazon Prime series The Boys, American cable "news" is satirized to the fullest, all while giving us a sneak peak at what's been happening since the end of season 2.
Entertainment Weekly reports that there will be more of these segments to help tide fans over until season 3 and help fill any gaps between the two seasons. In these Vought News Network clips, fictional newscaster Cameron Coleman (Matthew Edison) hosts Seven on 7, a faux Fox News-like program from the Vought Corporation. According to EW, new episodes of Vought News Network will be released on the 7th of every month, and each will contain seven news stories and one commercial.
Keeping up with the Seven
The main goal of these mini-episodes is to update viewers on the happenings between seasons 2 and 3 of The Boys, and the first six-minute clip does a bit of that. Homelander (Antony Starr) is housebound following his rather dramatic break-up with secret Nazi Stormfront (Aya Cash). The U.S. Military is still hesitant on letting super-people serve in the armed forces, despite concerns of "superpowered terrorists." The Dawn of the Seven, the latest Vought superhero team-up movie, might be dead in the water given the whole "one of the stars is an actual Nazi" thing. Superhero Blindspot (Chris Mark) is still missing, though the folks at VNN offer their thoughts and prayers. (Those might not do a whole lot of good, considering Homelander deafened him and left him for dead last season.)
In other news, Congresswoman Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) announced that our boy Hughie (Jack Quaid) is the new Federal Bureau of Superhuman Affairs senior analyst. Eagle the Archer (Langston Kerman) is on the attack against the Church of the Collective after they leaked some, uh, compromising footage of the conservative hero with his sidekick. Alistair (Goran Visnjic), the leader of the Church of the Collective, is also missing.
For a bit of fluff, the Vought News Network shares the record successes of singer and member of The Seven, Starlight (Erin Moriarty). The song she sang at Translucent's funeral is apparently tearing up the charts, and might make her into a pop superstar.
The Unnerving Similarities
In addition to the news stories, the clip also featured a fake commercial for "Our Sheet" sheets. They're clearly riffing on the My Pillow guy (and Razzie Worst Actor nominee) Mike Lindell. Our Sheet CEO Mickey Londale explains why his sheets aren't just the best, they're also the most patriotic. The voices in his head told him to tell you, and so he does in the commercial.
The entirety of the clip is a takedown of conservative news television, which showrunner Eric Kripke clearly intended.
"Since the very start of The Boys, we've seen Vought's propaganda arm — I mean, news channel — VNN," Kripke said to Entertainment Weekly in a statement. "We'll be digging deeper into those fair and balanced patriots next season, so as a teaser, we're introducing 'Seven on 7' with VNN's biggest star Cameron Coleman. The episodes are in-world canon, serving up brand-new information that bridges the story gap between season 2 and 3. So enjoy the hot takes and catheter commercials, just like your parents do!"
I don't know what's more horrifying – the threat of a The Boys universe catheter commercial, or knowing I can turn on the TV and see something all-too-similar to the above play out in real time. Satire isn't dead, but it certainly has teeth.
No date is set for The Boys return, but at least we'll have Coleman and co. to tide us over.