Spoiler Warning: The Boys Season 3

Despite the despicable actions of the show’s myriad superpowered individuals, the real villain of The Boys is Vought Enterprises, the international, unscrupulous corporation that manages the affairs of the supes. Stan Edgar, the former head of Vought Enterprises, represents this corporate malfeasance. The character of Stan Edgar never appears physically in the original comic books. Instead, Edgar dies of a heart attack near the beginning of the series, leaving a power vacuum for the comic’s other characters. However, the creators of The Boys were wise to utilize the character more liberally in the television adaptation.

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Here’s why Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad, The Mandalorian) is great as Stan Edgar in The Boys season three and why he must return for the upcoming season four.

Giancarlo Esposito’s Excellent Portrayal

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There are a whole host of fantastic actors on The Boys. Antony Starr absolutely kills it in his role as the sociopathic head supe Homelander, while Karl Urban delivers an equally phenomenal performance as Homelander’s supe-hating rival, Billy Butcher. However, there is perhaps no better actor providing their talents to The Boys than Giancarlo Esposito as Stan Edgar.

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Mainstream audiences got their first taste of Giancarlo Esposito’s villainous acting chops when he portrayed Gus Fring, the leader of a massive drug ring, in AMC’s Breaking Bad. Later, he moved from the deserts of New Mexico to the untamed frontiers of outer space when he was cast as former imperial officer Moff Gideon on The Mandalorian. Obviously, given this impressive pair of evildoers, as well as myriad other villains Esposito has previously portrayed, he was the perfect choice to be cast as the coolly sinister Stan Edgar. His icy stare is arguably more intimidating than Homelander’s glowing red, laser-shooting eyes.

The One Being Homelander Truly Fears

Much of the dramatic tension revolves around the vast power discrepancy between supes and their powerless human counterparts. When there are countless characters in a series that have the ability to very literally blow the minds of their perceived inferiors, it is understandable that the power dynamics will lie heavily in the favor of those with brain-bashing capabilities.

RELATED: The Boys Season 3: Why Humans Are the Real Villains, Not the Supes

However, there are several characters who, through the utilization of the corporate and financial power of the fictional Vought Industries, remain powerful. Giancarlo Esposito’s Stan Edgar, who was, up until recent episodes, the head of Vought Industries, certainly counts himself among the most powerful non-supes in the universe of The Boys. Homelander could not care less about eliminating other supes. In season three, we see him brutally murder Supersonic just to send a message to Erin Moriarty’s Starlight. However, Homelander wouldn’t dream of laying a finger on Stan Edgar, which serves to further cement a core tenant of The Boys; money is the most powerful superpower there is.

A Career of Callousness

In season three of The Boys, audiences got a glimpse into the long and storied career that Giancarlo Esposito’s Stan Edgar has had with Vought Industries. In episode four, titled “Barbary Coast,” there is a flashback to Nicaragua, where the U.S. government is carrying out a nefarious operation known as Operation Charlie, an off-the-books drug-smuggling cash for arms plot meant to be representative of the real-life Iran-Contra affair. Here, audiences get their first look at a young Stan Edgar, who is every bit as self-assured as his future self.

Once Stan Edgar and his squad of superheroes get involved, Operation Charlie results in the deaths of countless U.S. soldiers and several supes. However, aside from the death and destruction, the most glaring example of Stan Edgar’s callousness is when he insists that Black Noir continue to wear his face-covering helmet so that the general public isn’t aware of his ethnicity, despite Edgar himself being a person of color.

Giancarlo Esposito’s Stan Edgar was recently betrayed by his adopted daughter Nadia, a powerful politician in the universe of The Boys who was recently revealed to have secret, mind-blowing (again, literally) superpowers. Though he was forced to step down from his position as head of Vought Industries, in all likelihood, he is still operating from a position of power behind the scenes.