The Boys Season 3 leaks reveal a shocking change from Season 2

The Boys Season 3 is going to be different from its first two seasons in one big way: it takes place in the future.

Coming off the success of its second season last year, the cast and crew of the Amazon series are hard at work on putting together the third season of The Boys. While there’s still no official release date for the season, that doesn't mean fans have to wait for a trailer to find out more about its story.

New set photos from the show’s Toronto production have revealed some interesting details about the highly-anticipated season. Warning! Light spoilers ahead for The Boys Season 3.

Superhero Size Meal — The Toronto Filming Twitter account shared several new set photos from The Boys Season 3 online this past weekend, and it looks like the next season of the Amazon series may see it jumping forward in time.

The set photos feature first looks at some of the show’s new fun and satirical in-universe advertising and propaganda. However, the most notable of which is a political campaign poster promoting Ted Cruz for President in 2024. Assuming the poster is actually shown in the series, that means that not only does Ted Cruz exist in The Boys universe (of course he does), but also that The Boys Season 3 may take place in the year 2024 (or at least 2023 during the presidential election).

Welcome to 2024? Certain context clues scattered throughout the first two seasons of The Boys confirmed that they took place in 2019 and 2020, respectively (aka, at the same time the show was airing). Therefore, the presence of a 2024 political poster implies that at least three or four years will likely have passed between the events of The Boys Season 2 finale and The Boys Season 3.

Outside of the Cruz campaign sign, the set photos also show a number of other noteworthy pieces of superhero advertising. There’s a fast-food advertisement showing Antony Starr’s Homelander holding a hamburger and telling customers to “superhero size your kid’s meal.” Another image shows the cover of Deeper — a memoir supposedly written by The Deep (Chace Crawford) about his “harrowing escape from the Church of the Collective.”

The only other bit of notable advertising in the set photos is a banner promoting a reality show called American Hero that is apparently hosted by Starlight (Erin Moriarty). There’s no real indication of what the show is about, but it’s possible it could be The Boys’ take on American Ninja Warrior or other competition shows in that vein. We’ll just have to wait and see.

The Inverse Analysis — There are a few reasons why The Boys writers may have chosen to skip ahead into the future. The series exists in many ways as a political satire, and there’s a lot of material The Boys can capitalize on if it actually takes place during a U.S. presidential election year — especially one featuring a real-life politician like Ted Cruz.

The show’s second season finale was also, in many ways, a culmination of many of the stories that were introduced in its first season, so it makes sense for The Boys to take a bit of time and press the reset button for its third season. Although, what exactly that looks like or how a four-year time jump actually impacts the show’s plot remains to be seen.