BEWARE, SPOILERS: Don’t read if you haven’t watched One Plus One Equals Two, the season 1 finale of Boys Present: The Devil.
Amazon’s animated anthology The Boys Presents: Devilical launched on Friday, just under two months before the premiere of the third season of parent series The Boys. While most of the short shorts that make up the first season of the adult cartoon serve mostly as “gore fun for Season 3” of the OG show, according to The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke, there are snippets of a third-season plot that will served straight out of the delightful chaos at The Devil’s.
First, there’s the final episode titled “One Plus One Equals Two”, written by The Devilish showrunner Simon Rasioppa, which centers on an introduction by Homelander (played by Anthony Starr in The Boys and voiced by him in this animated episode). in Supes of the Seven and the connection he made with Black Noir (played by Nathan Mitchell in The Boys but not voiced in it because he is always silent) due to working together to cover up a mostly random massacre with sides of Homelander. (Starr was arrested for alleged assault after these interviews were conducted.)
“Yes, the ending is canon,” Kripke told Variety. “I thought he did such a good job with it. I don’t think we had any specific plans for it to become canon for sure. But he did such a good job of writing and directing that when I watched it, I thought, “That’s exactly what happened.”
“There’s a certain backstory to really understand the relationship between Homelander and Black Noir and give us a deeper understanding ahead of Season 3.”
For the Devilish finale, Racioppa also brought in The Boys actors Elisabeth Shue (to voice her now-deceased Vought executive Madeleine Stillwell) and Giancarlo Esposito (to voice his character, Vought CEO Stan Edgar).
“This is an episode with a bit of Homelander backstory, so I wanted to make sure it was as close to the show as possible. It has black noir in it. So we wanted to try to make it as a good episode with elements of an American action movie that feels really connected to the mother ship,” Racioppa said. “This is the one episode most associated with the mothership.”
But there’s another episode tied to The Boys Season 3 – and it’s definitely not the one you’re expecting.
“Oddly enough, even though this is not canon at all, obviously I will tease you that there is such an unexpected connection between the Roiland episode and Season 3. “And Roiland isn’t canon at all, but the connection is there and you’ll see.”
For those who have seen it, it’s easy to see why an episode by Rick and Morty co-creator Roiland called “Animated Short Film Where Angry Superheroes Kill Their Parents” features characters such as the superhero named Paper, which any newspaper can find sometimes, and one called Boombox, which has a speaker for a head that can only play “Only Wanna Be With You” by Hootie & the Blowfish, will not be canon.
“Obviously some episodes can be more canonical than others,” Racioppa said. “We didn’t want to involve people in this. We felt that if everything had to exist canonically with the Mothership show, it would limit much of Diabolical’s creativity. We couldn’t get as wide and crazy and weird as we’d like. Like the Justin episode obviously can’t – that guy with the speaker is probably not canon.”
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