Why Homelander Killed Black Noir in The Boys Season 3?
RIP Black Noir, our beloved soft delusional serial killer boi.
Amazon’s ‘The Boys’ is notorious for its shocking moments, notably Black Noir’s death in the season 3 finale. The death of Black Noir is one of The Boys’ stunning storyline twists. Who killed him? It is Homelander. This startled not only the audience, but also the other members of The Seven, because Black Noir and Homelander had been good friends throughout the show. Homelander has a personality that can be considered complicated, which is why his relationship with the other supes are strained. Homelander and Black Noir, on the other hand, were close friends. Homelander can’t trust anyone, but he can trust Black Noir. So, why did Homelander kill his own ‘best friend’?
Throughout the series, Black Noir was a mysterious character, an unreadable sphinx as Homelander called him during the conversations they had before he sadistically killed him. He was very quiet, didn’t speak, always wore a helmet over his face to cover up his battle scars, and stayed on the sidelines, only turning up when Vought needed him. Homelander and Black Noir’s connection began while Homelander was fresh out as a supe as shown in the final episode of The Boys Presents: Diabolical. Homelander worried Black Noir would expose him after he lost control and killed innocent people in the episode. However, it came out that Black Noir actually helped Homelander in covering up his mess instead of rat him out. After that, Homelander begins to think that he can finally find someone to trust, so he trusts Black Noir. They respected each other.
The reason why Homelander killed Black Noir was because he believed Black Noir had hidden a secret from him about his father all this time. Black Noir admitted that he was aware Homelander is Soldier Boy’s son all along. Homelander was so enraged by this that he ruthlessly murdered Black Noir by ripping out his guts with Homelander’s own hand. Homelander felt that the only person that he can trust was lied to him all of this time, he believed that Black Noir had betrayed him.
Season 3 of The Boys reveals a backstory about who Black Noir was before joining The Seven, telling the side of his story. Black Noir knew Soldier Boy back when he was a member of Payback, the supe team that was led by Soldier Boy. In Season 3 Episode 3 showed a flashback from Grace Mallory’s experience back at the war with Payback. In that episode, it showed a young Black Noir with Stan Edgar talking about Black Noir insisting on not wearing his mask so that people can know his face. It was just a little scene showing who Black Noir was. Later in Season 3 Episode 7, Black Noir was hallucinating about his past again with these cartoons. It shows his past with Payback and his conflict with Soldier Boy. Turns out Black Noir was physically and verbally abused by Soldier Boy making Black Noir hate him so much that he wanted to get rid of Soldier Boy. When Stan Edgar offered him a way to get rid of Soldier Boy, Black Noir jumped straight in. Of course, he took advantage of the opportunity to eliminate Soldier Boy when the opportunity came in.
Even though Homelander believed that Black Noir betrayed him, does that really mean that Black Noir really did betray his own friend? Noir didn’t say anything because the secret was never meant to be revealed. What would he say to Homelander anyway? That he got rid of the only family he had. He would have killed him. And turns out he was right.
