Jensen Ackles Reunites With Misha Collins in The Boys Episode
Jensen Ackles said working with misha collins and Jared Padalecki on this week’s episode of The Boys took a “minor mental adjustment.” The reunion puts three Supernatural veterans into a new setting just as the Prime Video series moves toward its finale on May 20.
Ackles called the shift “a minor mental adjustment” because he was playing Soldier Boy alongside people he had worked with for 15 years in a different world. He said, “I mean, getting on set with those guys in any capacity is always gonna be familiar. It’s always gonna be something that feels normal and just comfortable. The kind of the odd thing was doing it in a new environment with different costumes, with different crew and different cast, and then kind of adjusting ourselves to that.”
Soldier Boy and Marathon Man
In the season 5 episode “One-Shots,” Soldier Boy and Homelander visit The Seven alum Marathon Man to get some V1. The drug is meant to make Homelander immortal while Billy Butcher’s plan to wipe out all Supes with a deadly virus hangs over the episode.
Jared Padalecki appears as Marathon Man and Misha Collins plays Malchemical, whose power is emitting a toxic gas. At Marathon Man’s mega-mansion, the speedster hosts a poker game that also includes heightened versions of Seth Rogen, Kumail Nanjiani, Will Forte and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. It is a crowded setup, and it gives the episode the sort of guest-list energy that has become part of the show’s late-run playbook.
15 Years of Switches
Ackles said the reunion felt manageable because he, Padalecki and Collins had already spent 15 years playing different versions of themselves and different characters on Supernatural from 2005 to ’20. He said, “I mean, you gotta keep in mind too, Jared and I, and Misha, we played different versions of ourselves on Supernatural for 15 years. Maybe I’d be possessed by a demon or an angel, or Jared wouldn’t have a soul, or he was playing Lucifer. So, we were already pretty used to playing different versions of different characters with each other for a long time. So, it wasn’t that big of a stretch for us to have to pretend to be somebody other than what we used to, to play together. But when the cameras were off, it was right back to the old banter.”
He also said, “What it all boiled down to was like, I’m playing this guy, and I felt comfortable in that suit enough to be able to work with somebody who I had worked with for 15 years, playing a different character.” The cast switch matters because the scene is not just a nostalgia beat; it folds familiar faces into a current story line about V1, Homelander and Butcher’s virus plan without pausing the momentum of the season.
May 20 and 2027
Ackles said the modern-day version of Soldier Boy remains part of the picture, even as the episode digs into how the character became what he is. He said, “You’ll definitely see the modern day Soldier Boy, he’s in there. But you kind of get the sense of seeing why certain elements of his personality took over more.”
For viewers, the practical takeaway is simple: this week’s episode delivers the reunion, and the series finale arrives on May 20. Ackles also said he will reprise Soldier Boy in Vought Rising in 2027, keeping the character active after The Boys closes its run.
