Why We're Worried About Maeve In The Boys Season 3

After hitting rock bottom when Elena leaves her midway through season 2, Queen Maeve emerges as the true hero of the Seven on The Boys finale. Between saving Starlight from Black Noir by leveraging the supe's nut allergy against him and preventing Homelander from going scorched earth on Butcher with a well-timed blackmail scheme, the disillusioned Maeve seems ready to embrace her role as a superhero once more. Unfortunately, that's also the reason why you should be worried about Maeve's fate on season 3 of The Boys.

From one angle, Queen Maeve's footage of Homelander letting the plane crash from season 1 is a nice piece of leverage to have over the unstable supe. After all, she knows better than anyone that Homelander's driving force is a need to be loved. In the wake of losing Ryan and Stormfront, however, Homelander is so untethered from reality that he's likely to become even more unpredictable than usual. He's also seething over Maeve's betrayal — for a long time, he counted her among the people who were in his corner.

To make matters worse, she also has to contend with the wildcard that is Black Noir. It's currently unclear whether or not he'll ever fully recover from that Almond Joy attack, but if he does ... well, then there's no doubt Queen Maeve is in trouble. With the Seven's two most dangerous members gunning for her and her redemption arc feeling alarmingly complete, Maeve's time on The Boys may be coming to an end.

When she was first introduced, Maeve was a hard-drinking, disillusioned supe who was barely going through the motions. Her time in the Seven had left her with little patience for Starlight's naivety, or much fight left to take on the likes of Homelander. She was a shell of a person, but in season 2, she regains her strength for Elena and Starlight, but also for herself.

After her actions in the season 2 finale, she's on track to become the de facto leader of the Seven — behind closed doors, at least. For the moment, her possession of the incriminating plane footage is enough to keep Homelander in check, which means she and Starlight may actually find a way to do some good in the world from within the Vought system. She also has a decent shot of convincing Elena that they can be together now that she is retaking control of her life and owning her mistakes.

That's all great news for Maeve, but it's bad news for the longevity of her character. She has essentially redeemed herself and proven that she is one of the good guys in the process. But her happiness, combined with Homelander and Black Noir's vendettas, could prove to be a lethal combination.

Amazon's The Boys isn't completely faithful to the Garth Ennis comic book series on which it's based, but the show does often take its cues from the comics. That could spell trouble for Maeve, whose comic book counterpart ultimately dies protecting Starlight from Black Noir and Homelander. Even in the comics, her death is painted as a noble sacrifice — even though she can't stop Homelander completely, she stalls him long enough to facilitate Starlight's escape

Maeve has already saved Starlight more than once, and after their season 2 finale team-up with Kimiko to take down Stormfront, they could be closer than ever before in season 3. Add in the fact that Homelander and Black Noir both have plenty of reasons to come after Starlight, and the potential for Queen Maeve to insert herself between the Seven's most dangerous members and Starlight, someone who reminds her so much of her younger self, becomes far too plausible. While it would be refreshing to see a character as complex as Maeve get whatever approximates for a happy ending on The Boys, all signs point toward trouble ahead for the hero in season 3.