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The Boys season 4 premiered its first three episodes today June 13, 2024, on Amazon Prime Video, and it saw the titular group plotting to take the fight to Homelander and his band of Supes once more. While many fans were excited to see the show and their favorite characters return, there was one aspect of season 4 that left many fans confused.
The marketing and trailers for The Boys season 4 showcased that Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) was alive and well. This particularly left many confused as Homelander killed Black Noir in season 3 of the show, and his return from the dead left many confused as they wondered who was behind the mask.
Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for The Boys season 4. Discretion is advised.
Well, the premiere of The Boys season 4, "Department of Dirty Tricks", ends up confirming that this Black Noir is just a stand-in for the older one, and the real Black Noir is still dead.
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Explaining how Black Noir is still alive in The Boys season 4
The original Black Noir is still dead in The Boys season 4. However, the Seven filled his role by hiring someone else to portray Black Noir in his place so that suspicion wouldn't rise against them.
In the first episode of season 4, "Department of Dirty Tricks," we can see Black Noir present at a meeting in Vought Tower where possible new candidates for The Seven are being looked at. While he doesn't utter a word, we can still see that something is at play here. His identity remains a mystery, but it's revealed that someone else is behind the mask later on in the episode.
When Homelander hires Sage to help him find a purpose, he stages a meeting where he lures his fans into a building so that he can kill them and plant them at Starlight's rally to give her a bad name. Homelander asks A-Train, The Deep, and Black Noir to kill the fans, and Noir lands the first blow.
In the second episode of season 4, "Life Among the Septics", Black Noir is speaking in front of Homelander too which causes the leader of The Seven to ask him to shut up and play his role - as the original Black Noir was a mute.
Why did Homelander kill Black Noir?
The Boys season 3 revealed that Black Noir used to serve in a different superhero group known as the Payback in the 1970s and 80s, and he used to work with Soldier Boy before his disappearance. However, Black Noir gets disfigured when a mission goes wrong, and he ends up becoming mute.
Over the years after joining The Seven, Black Noir grew closer to Homelander, and he recognized him as his best friend too, but he knew Homelander was Soldier Boy's son. When Homelander got to know about this information, he ended up killing Black Noir, as he felt betrayed by his best friend for holding this information from him.
With Black Noir returning in The Boys season 4, it also throws out the theory that the superhero returned as a clone of Homelander, as in The Boys comic.
What's exactly this new Black Noir's purpose remains to be seen, but it certainly looks like more will be known in the coming weeks.
The first three episodes of The Boys season 4 are available on Prime Video right now.
