We’re just shy of a week away from The Boys' Season 4 premiere, and the series' showrunner is weighing in on some of the discourse in anticipation.In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke responded to fans saying Homelander is a hero and criticism about the show going “woke” in its latest seasons one fell swoop.
“Anyone who wants to call the show 'woke' or whatever, that’s OK. Go watch something else. But I’m certainly not going to pull any punches or apologize for what we’re doing," Kripke told THR.
"Some people who watch it think Homelander is the hero. What do you say to that?" he added. “The show’s many things. Subtle isn’t one of them. So if that’s the message you’re getting from it, I just throw up my hands.”
When asked whether the showrunners always intended to parallel former President Donald Trump’s ensuing presidential race via Homelander’s authoritarian rise to power, Kripe responded that Homelander was always intended to be a proxy for Trump.
“When Seth [Rogen] and Evan [Goldberg] and I took it out to pitch, it was 2016. We just wanted to do a very realistic version of a superhero show, one where superheroes are celebrities behaving badly. Trump was the, ‘He’s not really getting the nomination, is he?’ guy. When he got elected, we had a metaphor that said more about the current world,” Kripke said. “Suddenly, we were telling a story about the intersection of celebrity and authoritarianism and how social media and entertainment are used to sell fascism. We’re right in the eye of the storm. And once we realized that, I just felt an obligation to run in that direction as far as we could.”
BREAKING: Homelander has been found guilty… of being a great father!
— Vought International (@VoughtIntl) May 30, 2024
Here’s a recent photo from the courthouse, where he was respectfully listening to closing arguments.
We wish the jury well as they deliberate and decide to keep him #HomeFree! pic.twitter.com/Z35UYOpzAw
The Boys’ official X/Twitter account for Vought International — the show’s in-universe superhero agency — went so far as to post a photo of Homelander on trial on the same day Trump was found guilty on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records to further drive their parallels home. Speaking with THR, Kripe acknowledged The Boys’ tendency to accurately reflect real-life political unrest.
“It’s not a spoiler to say that first episode [of Season 4], Homelander is on trial. A big concern is ‘Can you convict someone that powerful of a crime?’ And what does that mean for the various supporters or the people protesting him? Did I know it was going to come out during Trump’s trial? Of course not. But we write what we’re either scared of or pissed off about,” Kripke said.
This isn’t the first time The Boys has Kripke included prescient political commentary. Speaking with THR, Kripe acknowledged that A-Train’s prescient Season 3 storyline about cops over-policing Black neighborhoods during the height of the Black Lives Matter protests wasn’t happenstance.
“Well, it’s been a problem for over 100 years,” Kripke said. “It was a problem five years ago, and, unfortunately, it’s going to be a problem five years from now. It’s always the same shit.”
In our review for Season 3 of The Boys, we gave the show a 9/10, writing that it "achieves a balance between impactful storytelling and extreme violence that cements itself as one of the best shows on streaming, no matter year or genre."
The Boys Season four premiers on Amazon Prime on June 13.
Isaiah Colbert is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow them on Twitter @ShinEyeZehUhh.
