A very fatal mixture of cocaine, fetishism, and superpowers.
The most uncomfortable use of gills in television history.
And don't forget that weird breast milk scene.
Here are "The Boys" moments that still make our stomachs turn.
Put this one in the category of disturbingly cringe as the vicarious embarrassment for
the celebrity subjects of this scene induces genuine physical discomfort.
As edgy as "The Boys" is, it's still a bold move for a Hollywood show to openly mock other
high-profile Hollywood stars, especially Wonder Woman herself, Gal Gadot.
If this reference from Season 3 somehow passed you by, take yourself back to the interminably
tedious COVID lockdowns of 2020 when a bunch of overly-earnest celebrities including Gadot,
Mark Ruffalo, Natalie Portman, Will Ferrell, and many others, collaborated for an a cappella
cover of John Lennon's "Imagine."
This widely ridiculed video gave instant credence to the idea that celebrities are detached
from reality, which is a central theme of "The Boys."
Slate called the video, quote, "so bad it can bring us all together in hatred."
In a snarky homage to this tone-deaf celebrity flub, "The Boys" got prominent celebrities
like Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis, and others to recreate the video.
But this time, instead of it being Gadot's initiative, the show's most clueless character
The Deep is trying to capitalize on an epidemic of supervillain attacks as he drops his own
hilariously non-sequitur "Imagine" cover.
"We're all in this together, and together we can imagine a better world."
Another vicariously embarrassing scene from "The Boys" also came in Season 3 as A-Train
cuts a promo for an energy drink in a recreation of Kendall Jenner's infamous Pepsi ad.
Back in 2017 as Black Lives Matter gained traction, the Kardashian's wildly successful
high-fashion model inked a hefty deal with Pepsi.
An insider told People that the ill-fated ad could've cost as much as $5 million, and
the campaign overall might've run $100 million.
Jenner herself likely raked in around $400,000, and yet the soft drink giant quickly pulled
the spot after a backlash accusing both her personally and the soft drink brand of "trivializing"
BLM, according to The New York Times.
A-Train's riff on the ad will give you caffeine-jitter-level anxiety.
After heart trouble slows him down, The Seven's speedster wants to rebrand as a racially conscious
activist.
His first idea is just to redo his blue costume into a sort of kente-cloth bodysuit — as
an homage to his roots.
Then comes his energy drink shoot.
The scene starts with what looks like a real protest, but just as Jenner did with a can
of Pepsi, A-Train steps in at the key moment to quell social unrest with a tall can of
carbonated caffeine.
Jenner said she felt "really bad" about turning a racial justice movement into a personal
payday.
A-Train, of course, being a murderer and narcissist, hasn't shown the same self-awareness.
"We gotta listen to each other.
A-Train's turbo rush energy drink."
"Herogasm" is an annual Supe orgy founded by Soldier Boy back in the 1950s — and as
we see in season three, it's still going strong.
Hughie Campbell, Soldier Boy, and Billy Butcher come across this house party for sex-crazed
Supes because they want to find the TNT Twins — Soldier Boy's next targets on his rampage
of revenge.
The scene is wildly graphic, but really it's nothing compared to what goes down in the
comics where Homelander seduces Soldier Boy with a false promise of joining The Seven.
In Amazon's version, the two strongest characters do get physical, but there are no tender caresses
as their battle destroys the house and kills many of the people inside.
Hughie gets in on the action, too, but since his new powers of teleportation don't work
on clothes, he suddenly fits right in at Herogasm and even gets some offers.
The scene is rife with shocking moments and an excess of bodily fluids.
"I need a bathroom…
right now."
Trying to describe it here doesn't really do it justice, so if you really want to bask
in the explicit details, you'll just have to watch the episode yourself.
Viewers get one of the first glimpses that "The Boys" isn't your typical superhero show
through the eyes of Vought's newest sensation, Starlight.
She's an ingenue brought to the big leagues of The Seven and at first, everyone seems
nice.
That's when Chace Crawford's take on the impotence of Aquaman reveals his true nature.
The Deep tells Starlight she must perform a sexual act or he'll use his influence with
Homelander to destroy her career in a reference to the sexual politics of the Harvey Weinstein
scandal.
"You and me, we just roll with the punches, for like three minutes, maybe.
It's not a big deal."
The scene cuts away, but the implication is Starlight went along with the disturbing scheme.
In a cruel twist, she later finds out Crawford's fishy character is all but washed up himself
and has no such power over her.
Crawford was initially "uncomfortable" with the scene.
It wasn't in the audition or original script and he didn't see it coming.
In an interview with Metro, he recalled the producers coming to him and saying:
"We want to put this scene in that's in the source material and it's a pretty big deal."
Despite the actor's initial hesitation, he says they found the "realest" way to portray
the assault.
The Deep is a terribly shallow figure, and Starlight is one of the few sympathetic characters.
Crawford explained:
"[The moment] is a big jumping point for [Starlight's] character arc and supports the tag line: never
meet your heroes."
There's another scene from "The Boys" that made The Deep actor Chace Crawford uncomfortable.
It's during a sex scene in which the The Deep's gills get poked and proded.
The aquatic supe considers the gills a deformity and he keeps them covered at all times, even
in the bedroom.
That changes in Season 1 during The Deep's banishment to Ohio for his assault on Starlight.
When he brings home a fan for a hook-up, she gets all kinky about his fishy parts.
"Look at those gills!"
Crawford told MTV:
"It was the most uncomfortable scene ever.
It literally made me feel kind of nauseous, I'm not going to lie.
It was just so weird and uncomfortable.
I could not have gotten out of there faster that day."
On set, the prop gills were attached to a detailed rubber replica of Crawford's torso
down to the last chest hair.
As a crew member hand-pumped air through the gills so they'd move, Crawford recalled:
"I'm like, 'Guys, I'm nauseous.
Can I just get out of here?'"
Just like almost every Batman movie has that iconic shot of the Dark Knight astride a skyscraper
with the Bat-Signal in the background, "The Boys" has one of those superhero skyline shots,
too.
However, this one features Homelander atop the Chrysler Building pleasuring himself as
he repeatedly grunts:
"I can do whatever I want."
According to a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" with Eric Kripke, the scene was originally slated
for Season 1 as Homelander reacted to a lecture from Vought's momager and overall maternal
head of PR, Madelyn Stillwell.
Amazon execs initially axed the scene, but perhaps since the show's outrageous tone had
been so well-received they had a change of heart by Season 2.
However, the story had moved by then, so now Homelander seeks this rooftop release after
his long-suffering ex, Queen Maeve, threatens to expose his murderous deeds to the public.
This really is the ultimate exhibition of Homelander's narcissism.
He's a figure of pure will.
He finds anything that challenges his whims destabilizing and intolerable.
Starr described the scene to Uproxx as:
"[...] a moment of pure weakness and need, which I think fits with one of the fundamentals
of the character.
He's the strongest physical character on the show but the weakest character, psychologically."
Homelander continually steals the show with his pathological behavior as he vacillates
between all-powerful and wholly pathetic.
In Season 2, he takes his Oedipal attraction for Madelyn Stillwell even further when we
learn of his highly sexual breast milk obsession.
He sneaks into the recently deceased Madelyn's office, heats up some of her milk with his
laser eyes, and takes a big thirsty gulp.
Before her death by Homelander's hands — or laser eyes, to be more specific — Stillwell
had been the salve for Homelander's deep-seeded mommy issues.
Their relationship is almost beyond Freudian as Homelander curls up in her lap and suckles
at her fingers.
Speaking of things getting creepy between Homelander and Madelyn Stillwell, maybe no
scene is more upsetting than their secret cabin rendezvous.
By this point, fans have learned the two Vought employees are less than professional, but
it's still a surprise when they apparently meet outside the office for more Oedipal sex
games.
That's partly because Madelyn is already dead.
She betrayed Homelander and he bored through her skull with his laser eyes in response.
But also, Homelander was more like Madelyn's stalker; she placated him out of fear.
Soon we realize it's Doppelganger impersonating Madelyn.
Homelander isn't feeling it, though, and Doppelganger transforms from Madelyn into Homelander, still
wearing Madelyn's lingeries, and begins talking dirty to ...himself.
"And it's not even gay if it's with yourself, right?"
Homelander can't be pacified this time, though, and suddenly the sex game gets violent.
As wild as the scene is, showrunner Eric Kripke told Collider that he originally wanted Doppelganger
to actually carry through with the sexual act.
You might not think of Homelander as a terrorist, per se, since his killings are not really
politically motivated.
Not that Homelander doesn't have politics, of course.
He sees himself as a hybrid of Jesus, Superman, and Dirty Harry.
However, he's usually motivated to kill by his ego and infinite insecurity.
The best example is Season 1 when he murders the mayor of Baltimore and his young son.
This politician wasn't playing nice with Homelander's Oedipal crush Madelyn Stillwell, so he tracks
down the politician's plane mid-air, waves at the man's young son, and then cuts the
jet in half with his powerful laser eyes.
Homelander commits this heinous crime simply as a romantic gesture.
Stillwell, for her part, proves just as ruthless.
She's not mad at the atrocity, but rather at Homelander for taking such a big reputational
risk.
Homelander's most central crime for "The Boys" plot though is also at 30,000 feet when he
and Queen Maeve make an abortive attempt to stop some terrorists from hijacking an airliner.
Homelander recklessly fries the flight controls while blasting one of the terrorists, thereby
dooming everyone on board.
"Come on!"
"No, Maeve.
No.
You!
Stay back!
All of you, stay back!"
Maeve begs him to save some of the passengers but Homelander knows survivors will talk.
Homelander then turns the crash site into a stump speech about the need for Supes in
the military.
This anti-hero's strength and murderousness are nightmarish, but his willingness to use
the still-smoldering grave of his victims for PR really probes the depths of his twisted
psyche.
"The Boys" is super violent, and that's saying a lot in an era when you can see dozens of
murders a night on network TV.
Mostly though, the violence is used as a series of sudden comedic gags, kind of like a goofy
body-horror jump-scare.
The series is competing with itself, given it kicks off with A-Train running through
Hughie's girlfriend, Robin, leaving one of the show's central protagonists covered in
blood and holding the stumps of his lover's limbs.
That's a high bar, and yet, the exploding penis scene from Season 3 clears it.
Termite is a minor Supe who can alter his size like Marvel's Ant-Man.
He's having very fetish-oriented gay sex and shrinks down to crawl inside his partner's
urethra.
When Termite sneezes, though, he suddenly blows up to full size, and so do his lover's
delicate parts.
The disgusting scene was a negotiation between "The Boys" adventurous producers and Amazon
execs.
An erect penis wasn't allowed, so showrunner Eric Kripke and crew carefully crafted a 30-foot-long
flaccid member as their set.
Kripke told EW:
"But if you look at it, we had to design in all these wrinkles to make it clear that it
wasn't erect [...]I love this job."
The finished scene is hilarious, but the actors may have been a little disturbed.
Karl Urban is in the scene, but the star kept his distance when possible.
He said:
"I stayed away from that set.
I didn't feel like that was something I needed to see."
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