“Did it occur to you, it’s harder to stage a f*cking coup with a million eyes on me?” Sage (Susan Heyward) complains to superhero kingpin Homelander (Antony Starr) in the third episode of Season 4 of The Boys.
In any other show, that would be saying the quiet part out loud, but this being the Eric Kripke steered Prime Video series, the unhinged Supes plan to take over the White House is just one of many spiked flails pounding the narrative in what we now know for sure is The Boys’ penultimate season.
(L-R) Jeffrey Dean Morgan & Karl Urban.
There’s a near experience of supe fellatio ordered by Homelander, a disgruntled A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) becoming a mole for the now MM (Laz Alonso) led Boys, and a lot of jargon from new Seven addition Firecracker (Valorie Curry) that you might have heard from Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene and Megyn Kelly. There’s a murder trial for Homelander that ends pretty quickly in his favor, accusations of grooming against Starlight (Erin Moriarty), a chilling Pizzagate re-creation of sorts, a lot of chemicals being pumped into a lot of people on both sides, a very blood soaked holiday infused Vought on Ice, and some less than flattering Masked Singer and Elon Musk references.
There’s also a presidential election that is contested after the votes are counted.
Oh, there’s cameos by Will Farrell and Tilda Swindon, and the lead character in the show, Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) is dying.
Having announced on June 11 that Season 5 would be the end of the Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg EP’d The Boys, showrunner Kripke spoke with Deadline today about what to expect, how Season 4 is going to get the show there, what’s next for him. Kripke also hints how a certain Walking Dead alum’s addition to the series may have a much longer runway. (TB = The Boys)
TB: So, what’s up with you and wanting to end shows after five seasons?
ERIC KRIPKE: (LAUGHS) Five seasons is a good round number. I just like five.
TB: Why?
KRIPKE: I I’ve been thinking about it, and I would speculate that like I was trained on five acts as a television writer. So, it just makes sense to me have enough time to really get to know the characters but not so long that you wear out your welcome.
TB: Speaking of wearing out one’s welcome. The Boys may be ending after Season 5, but the franchise is going on, with Gen V, the Mexico spinoffs, and perhaps more. So, you’re not really out, right?
KRIPKE: I mean, I still want to be involved. I’m still having the time in my life, and you know, this is still the best job I’ve ever had. But, at least for those shows, I won’t be the day-to-day showrunner. I’ll give notes on scripts, and help them break story when they need me, but not the 24/7 in the grind.
TB: Looking at Season 4 so far, doesn’t look like Butcher’s going to be around in the grind either, because of the effects of taking Temp V.
Already sidelined by the CIA in the Season 4 opening episode, Butcher seems to get a new lease on life with the emergence of his old buddy Joe Kessler, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Now Kessler is a character in The Boys comics, but already he seems to have a much bigger role here. So, in the penultimate season, where does he and Butcher go?
KRIPKE: The initial notion was Butcher’s a maniac, and almost everyone in Butcher’s life is trying to hold him back.
TB: For good reason …
KRIPKE: Well, yeah. So, we thought it’d be interesting to create a character that wants to push him forward, who might even be more militant against superheroes than he is And we thought what a combustible nightmare that would be. Basically, in effect, we started talking about needing another Butcher, and that’s obviously no easy task.
To pull that off, you need another leading man, you need someone who’s as charismatic and good as Karl, and let those guys go toe to toe. Thank God this was all around the time that Jeffrey and I were texting. We had been looking for a part for him for while. Now, he was finally available, and once this part came up in the room, I was like, oh my god, this is the planets aligning on this particular part – and they did.
TB: Even in the first three episodes, it does feel like you’re setting up a Jeffrey
Dean Boys spinoff.KRIPKE: (LAUGHS) Hey, man, if Jeffrey wants to do it, and it works out, who wouldn’t want to Jeffrey Dean Boys spinoff?
TB: What about a Sage spinoff? Another new character, the smartest person on Earth. An almost off the grid Black woman who now clearly has Homelander’s number after he seeks her out – I mean, Sage’s made the CEO of Vought International, but she’s the real Puppet Master too. What’s that all about?
KRIPKE: We were trying to put our Boys-ian in spin on a very classic comic book archetype of a superhero whose power is their brain. They’re just so brilliant, but they’re always reedy White dudes …
TB: Like Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards…
KRIPKE: Yes, and what we thought was interesting and provocative was the world’s smartest person could be anyone. So, what if it was a Black woman from a poor neighborhood? And because of that she would have a really hard time of anyone listening to her taking her seriously. So, the irony that like the world’s smartest person, who could cure all of society’s ills, is somebody that no one listens to.
We thought that was something that was really intriguing. It also helped me understand why she’s such a misanthrope. You know, she has a history of nobody listening, and it’s just made her so bitter that she hates humanity.
