The Boys season three is moving into its final episodes with “Herogasm” taking things to a new level. The frankly gross comic event plays out much like you’d expect on the screen with big departures from the comics. But, as it transpires in the background, the storylines for all of our characters take some significant turns, too. Some of them mix in humor with tragedy, as we see with MM. And for Homelander, we see his mental spiral play out in an intriguing and insightful way. The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke chatted with Nerdist about the perils of Herogasm, MM mastering the “straight man” role, and the increasingly unstable Homelander.
Nerdist: Herogasm is one of the most infamous storylines in the comics. What was it like to conceptualize it for television? Was there anything that you wanted to include in The Boys “Herogasm” episode that you weren’t able to?
Eric Kripke: We knew how explicit it would have to be because [The Boys] really tries to present things as they would be in real life. A massive superhero orgy would have a lot of nudity and sex acts. And then we added in all our Boys madness with hovering vibrators and icy dildos and all of the craziness that we do. When you start getting down to the logistics of it, it’s horrifying. It’s so scary.
You’re bringing in dozens and dozens of people who are going to get naked and simulate sex acts. And it’s not a porn, like you have to do it really professionally with a safe space. [With] the production staff, I said, “You cannot be too strict about the situation. We cannot have anything go wrong or someone behave inappropriately.” …I was in LA while it was filming. But I held my breath the whole time. The producers on set held their breath mostly because of the smell.
MM catches it pretty bad at Herogasm, from a Love Sausage encounter to getting all sorts of fluids on him. What did Laz Alonso have sprayed on him?
I actually don’t know. Our special effects team is so good. My guess is it’s like all of their usual, probably some kind of like corn syrup based goo that just got shot at them with a cannon. Poor Laz. Once he read [the script], he would send me these texts like, “Is there another way to do this?” …I mean, ultimately, what I said to him is, “You’re a victim of your own success. Because you’re the funniest straight man that I’ve ever seen.” He’s so good. It’s an art to be a really good straight man. I knew he could handle all of this.
I love it. There’s a smaller moment with Homelander where he’s having this conversation with himself in the mirror. And it gives new insight into his psyche. What do you hope viewers take away from that scene?
You know, our take on Homelander is even though he’s a sociopath, he’s also a human being who has reactions and feelings. To me, the biggest sin that Homelander commits is that he hates that he has feelings and he hates that he’s a human being. You know, if he embraced that part of him more, he might be a happier person who isn’t going to destroy the planet. I think in the original version of it, the figure in the mirror was just this kind of cruel browbeating character telling Homelander what a loser he was.
And, Antony [Starr] called me and said, “What if it’s his childhood friend? And what if they have this connection because he was alone for so long that he ended up creating this relationship with an image of himself? And that’s what got him through these situations?” And I was like, that’s awesome. Because one, it’s sad, but it’s also really scary. [This is] a guy with multiple personality disorder. And that part of him is saying, “Cut out the part of you that’s human.” I don’t want people to sympathize with Homelander but I do want them to understand him a little more. I look at that scene, and I get a little scared by it, too.
