‘The Boys’ Showrunner on That Tragic Goodbye, Butcher’s ‘Bunny Foreshadowing,’ ‘Gen V’ Cameos and More Marvel Fun with Vought’s D23 Parody

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from “The Boys” Season 4 Episode 5, currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

While Homelander (Antony Starr) and the superheroes were away for Vought’s V52 fan event (don’t miss at all (Confused with Disney’s 23) In this week’s episode of “The Boys,” Butcher (Karl Urban), Frenchie (Tomer Capone) and company played a group of crazy and vicious farm animals on a journey to find a super-killer virus.

Amidst these two wild plot points was a more serious story: Hughie (Jack Quaid) and his recently returned mother Daphne (Rosemarie Dewitt) saying goodbye to Hugh Sr. (Simon Pegg) when Hughie agrees to give his father a painless death to put him out of his newfound misery. Throughout the episode, Hugh Sr. struggled to control the destructive superpower he gained after Daphne gave him Compound V in order to snap him out of a coma. Hugh Sr. ended up accidentally killing several people at the hospital while he was dazed.

Here, “The Boys” showrunner Eric Kripke breaks down “The Boys” Season 4, Episode 5, “Beware the Jabberwock, My Son” — including the “Gen V” cameos.

Let’s start with the scenes where the farm animals are flying and getting bloodied by Compound V, while the boys search for the virus lab on Stan Edgar’s (Giancarlo Esposito) estate. How much of this was practical, if any, and how much of it was visual effects?

Very, very little of it was practical. The bull was real, even though Stephan Fleet and his VFX department made him even angrier – he was actually a very, very gentle animal. The chickens were mostly real, except when they were bursting into people’s chests. And the sheep, apart from that shot where the barn door opens and the two sheep come in – I think that’s the only time there were real sheep in that sequence. A big thank you to our brilliant VFX team, because it’s not easy to create a believable animal from scratch and make it a completely new monster. It was Stephan who came up with the idea of ​​giving him baboon teeth: he has baboon jaws, and that’s what gives him his fangs and his menacing look.

Butcher has a special bond with the rabbit, as he was experimented with Temp V – the thing that led to Butcher’s fatal prognosis – and releases him. Then he stomps on him to kill him later when he sees tentacles coming out of the rabbit’s belly. We know he was taking the same thing Butcher was, so what can you tell us about what this means to Butcher, and why Butcher had such a visceral reaction to it?

This doesn’t mean anything good. I don’t want to give too much away, but I think Butcher is really starting to wonder what’s happening to him and how he could have killed Ezekiel. And that’s a little rabbit foreshadowing.

Shortly after, Butcher cuts off the leg of Vought scientist Sameer (happy to meet Victoria Neuman’s lover and Zoe’s father, by the way) and kidnaps him along with Kessler. How much of Butcher’s drastic decision to have Sameer work on another super virus was based on the rabbit’s fate – and juxtaposed with that of Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) are you moving more towards the dark side with Homelander in this episode?

That’s a really insightful point. The story for him in this episode is about trying to stay on the straight and narrow, trying to be loyal to his team. But then the rabbit and what happens to him – and maybe what happens to him — really, really upsets him, and makes him feel even more hopeless. That’s why he brings in Kessler and cuts off a guy’s leg just to cover his tracks, which is not incredibly rational behavior. I think he’s really disturbed and scared about what might happen to him.

Hughie’s dad’s superpower – how you all decide what a character’s power will be still matters. What was the choice here as to what Hugh Sr. would get when he received a dose of V at the hospital?

We really like when powers can somehow reflect their psychological state, or part of their deep-seated subconscious. I think that’s a lesson we learned on “Gen V” that really stood us in good stead. So we were really interested in this idea that he felt really light, because of his relationship with his estranged wife. He has this line: “You would look right through me, as if I were invisible to you. » So giving it a power that made that metaphor concrete was something that really interested us.

It’s very subtle, but it says a lot about Campbell’s DNA: Hughie’s power is a teleportation power and Dad’s power is sort of a phasing power, but they’re sort of cousins. They were in the same category. In our minds, the power you get is a combination of V and your DNA. And so if he has similar DNA to his dad, it makes sense that his dad might have a similar power.

Now let’s move on to some very disturbing scenes with Hughie and his father: I’m going to call this the euthanasia scene. How did you arrive at this choice for Hughie?, and working with Jack Quaid and Simon Pegg on the meaning of this scene?

From the beginning, we wanted to do a version of that scene. Hughie is really growing up this year, and really learning to take ownership or lead the family is something that a lot of kids go through – like that moment where their parents are taking care of them to, inevitably, taking care of their parents. Everybody’s going to go through that, and it’s a really universal and painful experience. And that’s when so many people say, “Oh yeah, that’s when I really grew up, when I became my parents’ parent.” I thought that was a really universal and difficult thing for Hughie to go through.

Speaking of Hughie, when we talk about this season, we address everyone’s trauma, and his biggest problem is his inability to let anyone go. And he really learns this season by forgiving A-Train and his mother and really letting his father go, he really learns to mature. They start the episode with his father saying, “You’re still the same kid who couldn’t let the cat go.” » And we end the episode with Hughie making the tough decisions that the other older members of the family are incapable of making. So this shows him becoming a real adult.

You bring in the characters of “Gen V” Cate Dunlap (Maddie Phillips) and Sam Riordan (Asa Germann) for cameos in this episode. Why did you choose to go through season 4 of “The Boys” now? And What should their appearances tell us about what’s happening in the current timeline at Godolkin University – and where might the other “Generation V” characters be right now?

This made sense because of V52’s history, and the fact that Homelander would use V52 as cover to lure different superheroes close to him as he began to build this army. And it made sense that Cate, who is also a supremacist, would want to sign up for this. I think Sam is a little more reticent, but he doesn’t really express his own opinions either – he kind of needs to evolve in that sense as a character.

But in terms of what that means, as is typical in the Vought universe, the characters who were really the villains of that era, Cate and Sam, are being presented by Vought to be the heroes, and given a movie and new levels of fame, while the real heroes of that era are locked away in an undisclosed location that will be revealed for Season 2 of “Gen V.” It’s just our similar message that being a hero is generally an unsung and thankless thing, and when you’re being held up in front of everyone as a hero, you’re generally anything but.

Related to V52 — which is clearly completely unrelated to any real event that a company is doing – have you heard from anyone at Marvel, whether complimentary or not, at this point about any jokes in the show?

I’ve heard very casually and in passing that Marvel executives watch and like the show. But I haven’t been given any names or people, just someone mentioned it to me in passing. I think it’s done in good fun. Like I said, I watch all the Marvel movies. I dig them. It’s just the amount of content that makes it worth having a little fun.

During V52, they presented projects for phases 7 to 19 of the Vought cinematic universe. How many of these titles will be Vought+ exclusives, and how many will go to theaters?

Well, let’s be honest, at least half of them will be canceled for delisting, then a bunch will be released on Vought+, then very few will be released theatrically. That seems to be the way business is done these days.

This interview has been edited and condensed.