The Boys: Eric Kripke on Why This Herogasm Moment Didn’t Make Cut

With only a little more than a week to go until the third season of Amazon and Showrunner & EP Eric Kripke‘s The Boys hits our screens, the cast & crew have been jetting all around the world to get the word out about what’s to come. And one of those things heading our way is Episode 306, otherwise known as the streaming series’ take on “Herogasm.” Written by Jessica Chou and based on the stand-alone miniseries set between issues #30 and #31 of the comic book series, the storyline finds Butcher and the crew crashing Vought’s ultra-secret annual supes debauchery-fest otherwise known as “Herogasm.” Over the course of the six-issue series, our heroes wade through a sea of sex, drugs, and other vices to learn more about Vought’s overall plan- while Homelander’s mental descent continues. During an interview with EW, Kripke and Jack Quaid (Hughie) discuss how close the episode matches the comics and how intense the filming was on everyone on set… and the one “Herogasm” moment that couldn’t make the cut.

While Kripke’s a Fan of the Homelander/Soldier Boy Sex Scene in the Comics, It Won’t Work Here: “I love that scene and it’s hilarious, but for a dozen reasons, all of which will be revealed when you see the season, it ultimately just didn’t track. We talked about it. It conflicted with a lot of the other things we were trying to build with Soldier Boy. So, unfortunately, that one had to go,” Kripke explained. “I would love to see Soldier Boy and Homelander f***ing, but it can’t happen in this show, unfortunately, for reasons everyone understands.”

Quaid Believes “Herogasm” True to Comics, Goes Places “You Wouldn’t Necessarily Expect It to Go”: “I read all of the comic books when I was cast as Hughie, and ‘Herogasm’ was one of those issues where I was like, ‘Okay, we need to do this or some version of this because this is the craziest thing I’ve ever read. I think we definitely stayed true to the comic. I can’t really say much about ‘Herogasm.’ I think the joy of ‘Herogasm’ is figuring out what exactly that means, watching it for yourself… seeing how it unfolds. That goes into places where you wouldn’t necessarily expect it to go.”

Kripke Shares an Anecdote to Describe the ‘Herogasm” Experience: “How you could have been around that much explicit nudity for that many days on a hot, stuffy, sticky film set is just … How anyone survived it, I don’t know. I asked Paul [EP Paul Grellong] at one point, ‘What’s it like being there?’ And he’s like, ‘Day 1, it’s really novel and you’re surrounded by all these beautiful naked people. By day 2, they’re all naked mole rats and you just want to get outside.’ I was like, ‘That makes sense.'”

And here’s a look at one of the newest teasers, this time focusing on how Starlight (Erin Moriarty) is gaining more power within The Seven… and Mr. Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) has some friendly advice:

Now here’s a look back at the official Season 3 trailer for Amazon’s The Boys, arriving on June 3rd (followed by our observations):

With the third season hitting screens on June 3rd, viewers were treated to the official trailer on Monday. After having screened it now about 23 times, here’s a breakdown of what the trailer had to offer and what that means for the season ahead. And make sure to let us know in the comments section just how brilliant we are…

Well, it looks like we’re getting a look at Cameron Coleman’s (Matthew Edison) new show as Homelander’s (Antony Starr) public relations tour to repair his image rolls on. But as we quickly see (and as Erin Moriarty‘s Starlight so succinctly puts it), “There’s something wrong with Homelander. There’s something broken. He’s lost his fucking mind.” Considering where things stood at the end of last season and how he’s had to be on a leash, it’s not that surprising. Though if we needed a reminder, we get that disturbing cow-milking scene and Homelander gently caressing a bloodstain on he lies next to it. And then we get a montage of Homelander’s growing madness as a segue to…

…Butcher (Karl Urban), who wakes up from a fever dream to a sound of a tea kettle. We get the rundown from Grace (Laila Robins) about how Butcher has been on the straight-and-narrow: not killing supes (though we see him damaging Sean Patrick Flanery‘s Gunpowder pretty badly), not drinking, and “even followed Hugh Campbell’s [Jack Quid] orders without killing him.” While Grace sees these as signs that maybe Butcher isn’t “such an asshole.” Visually, our biggest takeaway was seeing Hughie’s confidence as well as how weird it is to see the power dynamic between the two shift so dramatically. At least for now…

Now, this is where we start getting some quick scenes of other storylines, including Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) finally getting the family life he’s wanted for so long. But how will he deal with the fact that his job is to “discipline” the very supes that his daughter idolizes?

From there, we see Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) sharpening his tools and Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) witnessing an uncomfortably rough exchange between Homelander and A-Train (Jessie T. Usher). But it’s the exchange between Vought head Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) and Starlight that was fascinating because it gave us the vibe that Edgar is already looking to the future… and Starlight as the new leader of The Seven? I’ve always thought that Vought has some kind of genetic “killswitch” it could flip on Homelander if it needed to…

Ashley (Colby Minifie) alert! And if you were wondering if her life is going to get less stressful this season then look no further than the moment Homelander decided to drop someone from the sky to their bloody death before making his next public appearance. And he gets cheered for it, too! Yeah, Ashley’s face speaks for all of us.

Uh-oh! Something’s up and the “gloves are off” because Hughie sees something that leads him to realize that the government route doesn’t work and they’re going to have to go “old-school” on some supes (and we learned from Karen Fukuhara during her reaction to the trailer for Vanity Fair that the one dude was killed by a supes-themed dildo).

Ouch. That was a nasty glare exchange between Claudia Doumit‘s (literal) mind-blowing Congresswoman Victoria “Vic” Neuman and Starlight. But then we learn that there might be another way “to blow Homelander’s fucking brain out” that won’t require Neuman’s particular “talent”… Jensen Ackles‘ Soldier Boy (who clearly has some anger issues of his own).

From there, we see Butcher shooting up some Compound V to give him the boost he needs to handle Homelander. We also see a thawed (and now escaped) Soldier Boy lost, confused & on the run before he (apparently) does some serious damage to a building from his power surges.

Once again, Mother’s Milk needs to be the voice of reason by reminding Butcher that taking Compound V goes against everything they’ve been fighting for. But after a scene showing him looking more than comfortable with his new powers, Butcher argues that he needs it to level the playing field.

From there, we get some quick cuts of guns and violence (with bonus points for Laurie Holden‘s Crimson Countess putting her powers on horrific display) before Homelander once again references showing his “real” self to the world (as he did earlier) before offering his own public polling: “I mean, they fucking love me.” From there, we get more cuts of action & violence, and let’s just say that we’re not big fans of the position that Tomer Capon‘s Serge aka Frenchie finds himself in (though the dance number with Fukuhara’s Kimiko looks great). And Mother’s Milk breaking the bat on Butcher without him even flinching? Ouch.

And then we cut the credits… but wait! We have a final scene where Butcher and the crew watch an unthawed Soldier Boy stagger from his cryogenic chamber. And it looks like he has a whole ton of pent-up power that he needs to burn off fast (has us thinking back to that destroyed building earlier). As for Soldier Boy being a “weapon” to take down Homelander? We can’t help feeling like that plan isn’t going to work and that SB & Homelander are going to have a lot more in common than they realize.