Yes, heads literally explode. There is often more over-the-top violence then you can possibly imagine. And, we admit, a character with a super-enhanced phallus might have been a bit too much. But, shocks aside, the second season of “The Boys,” which ended with the final episode’s release last night on Amazon Prime, was an impressive allegory for the social unrest, political corruption, police brutality, and social media obsession that plagues contemporary society. Ignore the marketing because “The Boys” isn’t just another costumed super-hero show.
READ MORE: “The Boys” season two is a superhero satire with a lot on its mind [Review]
Set in Toronto, er, an alternate reality where super-powered beings have been part of the fabric of society for decades, the series follows the increasingly intertwined fortunes of the Seven, a group of corporately funded heroes, and “the boys” in question, a ragtag group whose lives have been irreparably harmed by the supes. In season two, systematic racism comes to the forefront with Stormfront (a superb Aya Cash), an initially progressive newcomer to the Seven who begins to incite a white supremacist ideology among the group and, more specifically, its leader, Homelander (an incredible and awards-worthy Antony Starr). And her long long history, conceived of and filmed over a year ago, turned out to be distressingly timely.
Series creator Eric Kripke took some time this week to discuss the season finale, his thoughts on how season’s storylines resonated after the social justice movements of the past year, Starr’s fantastic performance, and, oh yeah, clarify if Frenchie (Tomer Kapon) might play for both teams.
Note: Serious spoilers ahead regarding the season two finale. You’ve been warned.
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The Playlist: First off, let’s talk about Stormfront. She’s still around right?
Eric Kripke: We say in the episode that she’s being held in an undisclosed location, that is correct. She is now “Stump-front.” But we felt the fate worse than death for our stumpy little Nazi was for someone that’s so believed in some kind of Aryan perfect master race finds themselves mutilated and potentially living for another century because she ages very slow. So, imprisoning her in that way felt like the right just desserts
And, in theory, she could always come back in some other form or another, right? Who knows.
Who knows my God, who knows. Anything’s possible in this crazy world we live in.
During Season one there was a heartbreaking schene where Queen Maeve and Homelander didn’t attempt to save a packed plane. This ended up becoming a key plot point for season two. How far ahead are you thinking in that respect?
We have a cocktail napkin sketch of where we move forward, but you never know 100% for sure that it’s going to work until you get there. We had the idea that, boy, if we had some video of this plane, that would be really good blackmail material. But until we got in the middle of season two we weren’t 100% sure it would work until we realized that it would. We’re breaking an [the next season] right now, already. So, I already know most of season three and there were a couple of details and things that get set up in season two that become important in season three.
Obviously, because of the stay-at-home orders and the pandemic, there’s been a significant break between shooting season two, writing season three, and then going into production on three next year. We’ve had social justice movements, Black Lives Matter protests, and a COVID-affected election. Considering that season two was almost prophetic in many ways about almost police brutality and extremism did that change your initial plans for season three at all?
No. Look, I hope that when season three airs we’ll be living in a much more sane America and my show will seem a little dated. That’d be great. That would be it. That would be a cost that would be so happy to pay. But my feeling was that in season two we weren’t trying to predict anything, we were just writing what was happening at that exact moment. And it just happened to also be happening two years later. You just can’t predict those things. So, I only know how to continue what I’m doing, which is we’re writing season three right now to reflect everything that’s happening at this moment. And we’ll see how it lands when it airs, then hopefully when it does, it’ll just be a bad memory.
When you saw all these events unfolding even before Season two was released, were you struck by the parallels?
Yeah, I mean, to a certain extent, it was a little uncanny how many of the issues we were talking about in the show, moved to the forefront of the conversation. But by the same time, by the same token, none of them are new issues. There is an incredible amount of police brutality on African-American men when we wrote the show. It was in the news all the time. And we wanted to talk about it, for example, white supremacy and white nationalism, and the Charlotte rally and “There’s good people on both sides” and all that shit, that was all in the world when we wrote it. So, I think, obviously, people remember what’s happening now. People are more conscious of what’s happening now, but two years ago though, all those things were still happening.
How did you feel about this past season mostly coming out on a weekly basis versus the binge aspect of season one?
The weekly version was the producers’ request. If anything, Amazon was reluctant to do it and we wanted it, and so I ultimately was happy with it. Amazon will look at all the hard viewer data and decide whether it makes sense next year or not. I think that decision hasn’t been made yet. But I really enjoyed it for here we are five weeks on and it’s still one of the primary conversations in pop culture and people can unpack what happens in every episode and look forward to the next one. Had we dropped all at once, we would be long gone by now. And, selfishly, for something that I worked on for two years. I liked that there’s at least a couple of weeks that people can enjoy it and talk about it. And if not, it’s not completely disposable.
The entire cast gives impressive performances throughout the season, but I was blown away by Antony’s portrayal of Homelander.
Antony just gives a jaw-dropping performance as Homelander. Sometimes it seems like he’s delivering five different emotions in a single moment. Antony makes Homelander scary, vulnerable, sociopathic and pathetic at the same time. As Antony rightly says, “Homelander is the weakest character in the show.” And he brings the audience into those conflicts and nuances. So while you might not sympathize with Homelander – I hope you don’t – you at least understand him. Give Antony all the awards.
Also lastly, because I know people want to know or maybe my friends want to know, is Frenchie bisexual, or is he just sexually liberated?
I think he’s pansexual, I think he’s pretty fluid in terms of who he loves and who he has sex with. I just think it’s who Frenchie is. So yeah, no, I think that’s, I can confirm that that’s correct.
“The Boys” season two is available on Prime Video worldwide.