WARNING: Spoilers ahead for The Boys season 3
A-Train's insulting swipe at a Vought employee in The Boys season 3 is actually an ice-cold callback to season 1. Across two-and-a-bit seasons, Amazon's The Boys has crafted a depressingly believable, impressively rich world full of corrupt superheroes and corporate executives who are somehow even worse. While the likes of Billy Butcher and Starlight understandably snatch headlines, The Boys is full of unsung heroes - minor characters who make this universe more colorful and vivid. Played by Malcolm Barrett, Seth Reed is one such unsung hero. A PR guy working for Vought, Seth has been around since The Boys' debut season, often surfacing to offer marketing ideas that are terrible, offensive, or terribly offensive.
But Seth isn't the one offending folk in The Boys season 3's "The Only Man In The Sky." The long-suffering marketer is drafted by a desperate A-Train to help revive his post-running career. Among the misguided ideas A-Train makes Seth present is a "getting in touch with my roots" docuseries titled "A-Train To Africa," and a virtual reality video game based on the slave trade called "The Middle Passage." After the pitch goes terribly, Seth points out how A-Train "couldn't care less about [his] African roots," to which the not-so-speedy speedster replies, "Yeah? You don't have a f**king dick."
At first glance, the insult seems like a basic, juvenile, low-brow jab about Seth's confidence and masculinity, but the line actually references a scene from way back in The Boys season 1. When Billy Butcher and Hugh Campbell attended a support meeting for victims of supe collateral damage, Seth Reed was among the attendees. He sheepishly admitted that during a past sexual encounter with a supe who possessed ice-based powers, the partner climaxed and froze his penis clean off. Rumors say he hasn't been able to watch Frozen since. A-Train's insult in The Boys season 3, therefore, is completely literal. Somehow, word has spread around Seven Tower about Seth's frosty downstairs situation.
It's small, off-hand, subtle throwbacks like this that glue The Boys' fictional world together. Even supporting figures come with their own quirky backstories, tragic circumstances, and missing appendages. Other examples of The Boys season 3 adding similar world-building color include revealing the fate of Madelyn Stillwell's son, explaining Black Noir's mask, and drawing a narrative thread between Grace Mallory and Soldier Boy. Everything is connected, whether that be a hidden link between two supes, or a Vought PR man complaining about absent genitals at a support meeting attended by Butcher and Hughie. These interconnected details are a big reason as to why The Boys continues to compel in season 3.
A-Train's cruel reminder of Seth's missing dong also works hand in empty hand with the now-infamous Termite scene from The Boys season 3's premiere. Just like Seth's arctic misadventure, a badly-timed mid-sex accident resulted in the Ant-Man parody leaving a bloody mess upon the floor, regrowing to normal size after entering his partner's shaft. These examples just go to show that, contraception or not, supe sex is rarely safe sex. Not every Compound-V subject does a satisfied eye glow when they climax, and supes aren't just dangerous when they're trying to kill you - they're dangerous when they're trying to love too.
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The Boys continues Friday on Prime Video.