This trailer heavily implies that Robert Singer (Jim Beaver) and Senator Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) have been elected as President and Vice President of the United States of America. Now, thanks to Gen V, we know that Neuman is in possession of a virus that could completely wipe out all Supes. But, given that she’s a Supe herself and her daughter is of her bloodline, we’re not going to see the recently elected Vice President unleash the airborne virus anytime soon. Still, she’s got both one hell of a weapon and one hell of a Homelander problem, so who will Neuman be turning to in order to mutate the virus even further?

There is a slim chance that Neuman has no intention to use the virus at all, and just wanted to ensure it stayed out of the wrong hands. But that’s not really her style, is it?

The now-Vice President deciding not to twist an impressive murder-weapon to her advantage is pretty far-fetched for the character. Almost as far-fetched as the next little theory spiral that I’m about to take you on.

Isn’t Black Noir Dead?

We watched Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) die at the hands of Homelander (Antony Starr) back in Season 3, but the quietest member of The Seven sure does seem to be back up on his feet in this new trailer. Of course, this could be as simple as Vought wanting to be sure that the death of Black Noir doesn’t add to the growing discourse surrounding their super team. No one knows what the Supe looked like, so they could have crammed anyone in the costume.

Or we could be seeing a comic-accurate Black Noir make his way on screen. Previously, the Prime Video series had used the character for the same purpose he had in the comics: ensuring that Homelander didn’t go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs and to kill him if he did. However, they elected to have the Supe be his own character rather than the Homelander clone that he was in the comics. But, now that the original man in the mask is dead, it could have just been that they weren’t using the Homelander clone part of his story yet.

Why would they do such a thing? Two key reasons that are actually more tied together than they may seem at first glance: the first being that Black Noir is actually the Big Bad™ in The Boys comics, and the second being that Victoria Neuman has that aforementioned Supe-killing virus.

In the comics, all of the atrocities that we’ve tied to Homelander were Black Noir’s doing. (He also eats some kids. It’s a lot.) Homelander’s still a shit in the source material, make no mistake. But Black Noir masquerading as Homelander was really the comics’ primary antagonist. Now, there’s no rolling back the clock on the Prime Video version of Homelander. That big ol’ deplorable ghoul is going to stay that way until the day he dies.

… But what happens if we end Season 4 with the triumphant belief that the recently inaugurated President and his right-hand woman worked with scientists to formulate a virus to take down the tyrant that had been plaguing America, only then to learn shortly after that there’s another Homelander waiting under Black Noir’s mask, and that this one is way, way worse?

This might seem like an unhinged theory, but I watched a lot of Eric Kripke’s other wildly popular show, Supernatural. He’s got shenanigans in him, that one. And there’s another major hint in this trailer indicating that ol’ Homelander ain’t coming out the other side of this one.

We Should Totally Just Stab Caesar!

“Like Caesar,” says Homelander with excitement, completely forgetting that Caesar was rightfully murdered by his friends. Homelander might not have any friends, but it still seems like we should pick another historical tyrant to tie ourselves to, I don’t know.

Outside of being another signal for the Supe-supremacist at large’s demise, it’s also one of countless indicators that Season 4 of The Boys is gonna be political as hell. Season 3 was already skipping along into that territory of course, with the Singer/Nueman ticket established and Homelander being labeled as a big fat fascist before killing someone in the middle of Main Street.