Rich in revelations, episode 7 of the third season of “The Boys” notably explores the tragic past of Black Noir in a violent animated sequence with influences as diverse as Martin Scorsese and Snow White!
Warning, this article contains spoilers on episode 7 of season 3 of The Boys!
If Black Noir has always been as silent as it is mysterious, the 3rd season of The Boys, currently streaming on Prime Video, revealed some secrets about the character. In the 3rd episode, in particular, flashbacks showed him in his youth when he was part of the Payback team and no longer wished to hide under a mask.
But after an operation that had gone wrong, he was discovered completely disfigured. A turning point in his life which the 7th episode returned to during sequences where the Super is surrounded by animated animals, such as Snow White. A concept that greatly amused the creator of the series, Eric Kripke.
To TVLinethe latter also explained why he decided to integrate animated characters into his plot: “If there’s an idiosyncratic way to tell a story, I take it because it’s a lot more fun to think outside the box and tell something uniquely. This idea that when Black is alone, he is like Snow White, with cute animals flying around him, made me laugh..”
Imaginary friends present from the beginning
On the run since knowing that Soldier Boy is alive, Black Noir therefore takes refuge in an abandoned Buster Beaver restaurant (parody of the American chain Chuck E. Cheese), whose mascots come to life.
“When you look at all the layers of this cartoon, there are these animated characters that only he can see and that he can probably see since season 1. They’ve been around him this whole time. That’s clearly what we’re implying in this episode.”, admits the screenwriter in an interview with variety.
Prime Video
And to add about the animals: “They are adorable, right? I kept saying it would be like Martin Scorsese realized Snow White. Lovable Disney characters, but whose bodies are realistically anatomically deformed from beatings, the way a real human body reacts when exposed to this kind of violence. And it’s an explosive combination.”
A brutal reconstruction
Indeed, it is these animated characters who reenact the scene which had not been shown in episode 3: the one where Soldier Boy’s comrades gang up on him to deliver him to the Russians but not before he arrives at his death. take on Noir very, very violently, to the point of disfiguring him forever, forcing him to never take off his mask again.
And it may be animation, you have to have a strong heart to watch this particularly bloody sequence! Note also that the imaginary friends of Black Noir then come to greet the public in a very short post-credits scene.
Prime Video
Eric Kripke also took advantage of the bustling scene to develop Homelander’s friend, as he states: “We wanted to explore Noir’s origins and really reveal who he was and where he came from. In flashbacks, he was a young, handsome superhero with aspirations of becoming the next Eddie Murphybut he was targeted by Soldier Boy in such extreme ways that he ended up being really physically deformed.
In our minds, once he recovered from his injuries and put the mask back on, he only very rarely took it off, Darth Vader style. None of this is natural. And we played with that. When he is in this restaurant, does he take off his mask? But why would he? He’s so ashamed of who he’s become, it didn’t fit.”
To find out if Soldier Boy will finally find Black Noir to make him pay for his betrayal, go to Prime Video this Friday, July 8.