Warning: This story contains major spoilers for The Boys Season 5, Episode 6. Please proceed with caution!
Episode 6 of The Boys‘ final season is in the books and two of the show’s pivotal superheroes are ready to spill.
Susan Heyward, aka Sister Sage, and Nathan Mitchell, aka Black Noir, both had key storylines in the episode, titled “Though the Heavens Fall,” which began streaming May 6 on Prime Video.
Heyward joined The Boys in the fourth season, playing a woman with superhuman intelligence. Sister Sage quickly became one of Homelander’s (Antony Starr) closest advisors — until she turned on him late in Season 5, defected from The Seven, and joined up with Billy Butcher’s (Karl Urban) team of supe fighters.
Mitchell has been a part of the series since the pilot. However, when the original Black Noir, a silent assassin with enhanced strength and stealth, was killed in Season 3, Mitchell was recast as the character’s more talkative replacement. This week, Black Noir II is murdered in cold blood by his best “bro,” The Deep (Chace Crawford).
Below, Heyward and Mitchell discuss their characters’ arcs, the show’s relevance to current events, and what fans can look forward to in the series finale, which plays in movie theaters in two weeks.
Gold Derby: Let’s dive into Episode 6, which is a major one for both of you as Sister Sage leaves The Seven and Black Noir unfortunately dies. What were your reactions when you learned about these storylines?
Susan Heyward: I was excited! When I started working on the show, I always imagined she would [defect]. There was always a lot of hubbub about if she would take over, or if she would destroy Homelander. But when she says “all empires fail,” I feel like she’s jumping on for the ride, knowing that eventually the ride’s gonna end. It’s gotta fall. She’s just smart enough — depending on which side of the spectrum you’re on — to get out before the thing comes crashing down.
Nathan Mitchell: I thought his death was fitting, because Noir II’s primary relationship in Seasons 4 and 5 is with The Deep. It’s this story of mentorship and brotherhood. Over the course of Season 4, Deep becomes a mentor and teaches him that violence is power, violence is how you get where you need to be. It’s how you establish yourself in The Seven, how you solve your problems. And then in Season 5, when they turn against each other, it becomes this sibling rivalry, tit-for-tat. I think The Deep gets caught up in the moment. When you fight with your brother and it goes too far, you’re like, “Oh no, go tell mom.” But he can’t say anything now that he’s dead. They’re still bros, even after he’s dead.
Nathan, what was it like working with Chace and crafting this final moment for Black Noir?
Mitchell: It was intense. It was full of logistical things, like all these cords wrapped around the neck. It was a really violent struggle. I remember watching it and being like, “OK, we got it. We got the visceralness and the intensity of the moment.” I thought we dug deep and found some good stuff.
Susan, what was it like working with the other half of the cast for the first time?
Heyward: It was amazing! We switched the order of filming, so we filmed Episode 6 early in the process, so it was a complete culture shock. There are board games going, and there’s music sometimes — the vibe on set is really relaxing. We stayed in this really juicy, playful place. Sometimes with the supes can be playful, but also edgy in a different way. So it was great to jump the fence and see the other side.
How would both of you describe your characters’ relationships with Homelander?
Mitchell: There’s a deleted scene in Episode 8 of Season 4 where Noir is basically scared into being method. Noir is in this world, kind of bumbling around, not really getting the gravity of everything and how dangerous Homelander is. After that moment, he really understands that this man could kill him at any second. In Season 5, he’s working for Homelander, but he doesn’t buy into this vision that Homelander is God. He just knows that’s the company line. He’s like, “This is my boss who could kill me, so I better fall in line.”
Heyward: It’s this epic cat-and-mouse game. She quiet-quit as soon as the conversation about V-One starting happening and immortality and forever. Again, all empires have to end. Her power comes from accepting things as they are, and not trying to change things. She’s just stalling him enough to get out unscathed.
Susan, what will you miss the most about playing Sister Sage?
Heyward: Before the twist at the end of Episode 6, she’s fully confident, fully derisive of humanity, and sometimes insufferable in her status. That was really, really fun to play. I’ll miss that a lot.
What were your favorite parts of working with each other?
Heyward: Nathan is so intentional. It’s really hard to project through the suit, so it’s easy for people to think it’s simple or underestimate it. But he’s thinking about his body position. He’s thinking about his breathing. He’s thinking about so many things. He takes on that task, and he stays really, really intentional.
Mitchell: Susan is so intelligent. She’s just such a great soul. She has so much wisdom. She’s kind and warm and chill, and she just brings so much to Sage. I really appreciate her as a person, and the choices she makes as an actor. We obviously didn’t get too much time together scene-wise, but it was really fun. It would have been fun to see how Noir and Sage’s relationship actually unfolded, because they had a great dynamic.
Without spoiling anything, what should fans look forward to in the series finale?
Mitchell: Man, oh man. I think they should look forward to some very violent showdowns.
Heyward: Fans should look forward to lots of explosions, and to seeing the ugliest parts of humanity when it’s unmasked.
Do you have any comments on how The Boys always seems to be unintentionally mirroring our own politics and real-world issues?
Heyward: I had a bit of a political awakening around the time the show started. I started reading political books about how empires rise, how cultures end, how too much power in one place affects people. And unfortunately, there is a pattern there. There is a way things start, the way things go, and the way things end. I have to give our writers kudos for educating themselves about those cycles of history in a way that I wasn’t educated in before. Watching the show helped me to be curious about that. I hope it’s helped other audience members be curious. Keep reading, and I’ll keep talking to people, because unfortunately, we’ve seen this before. We’ve seen fascism before, and we’re seeing it now in so many parts of the world, and there are things that we can do that have been proven to work when resisting it.
Mitchell: There’s talk about the show writes stuff, and then it happens. On the day we were filming [Black Noir’s death,] there was an oil spill in the ocean. [The Deep murdered Black Noir in part because he blamed him for an oil spill, which killed his fellow fish folk.] I remember someone came up and showed me an article in the North Sea or somewhere, where something spilled. That was very ironic and eerie.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Season 5 of The Boys streams every Wednesday on Prime Video until the May 20 series finale. Be sure to check out Gold Derby’s full coverage:
