‘The Boys’ Showrunner Is ‘Really Troubled’ by Its Similarity to Real-Life Politics: ‘I’m Not Happy Being Satan’s Writers Room’
Note: This story contains spoilers from “The Boys” Season 4, Episode 6.
The growing similarities between “The Boys” and the very real political issues (and crises) of the 2024 election isn’t lost on showrunner Eric Kripke. In fact, he says he’s starting to be “really troubled by it.”
Episode 6, titled “Dirty Business,” found the country’s 1% gathered at Tek Knight’s mansion so Homelander (Antony Starr) and Sage (Susan Heyward) can explain their plans to take control of the White House. They want to kill newly-elected president Robert Singer (Jim Beaver) and replace him with his vice president, Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit). Neuman is — to the public at least — secretly a Supe and with her in charge the hope is supes in general could have even more control.
Once again, the Prime Video series is showing an eerie level of prescience to the current real world events — this season has hit on Donald Trump’s trial and the upcoming election — and Kripke told TheWrap it’s getting concerning.
“This show has an increasingly disturbing track record of reflecting reality one way or another,” Kripke told TheWrap. “There’s some throwaway dialogue, for example, in that billionaires are talking about how they have to stack the Supreme Court to get the decisions that they need. I’m not happy being Satan’s writers room. I’m starting to get really troubled by it. But there does continue to be a certain eerie similarity between the show and the things that are happening in the real world.”
Victoria makes her pitch to the alt-right partygoers in a macabre speech that hit a bit too close to home.
“I’m here tonight to tell the truth: truth is America’s not a democracy. The word democracy makes people feel safe,” Victoria began. “But the founders never trusted the masses because the truth is the masses are f—g stupid. Anyone who has a ‘live, laugh, love’ mug shouldn’t have a say in how a country is run. People are a labor force that need a kind and firm hand. There are no nations. There’s Apple, Exxon and Birkshire Hathaway. Corporations are the real super powers here. You should be able to operate without any regulation or restriction whatsoever. After all, you’re billionaires. You’re smart enough to know what’s best. Bottom line: you support me and that is what you’ll f—g get.”
The episode, and the decidedly unpatriotic machinations happening in Tek Knight’s mansion, happened to drop on the Fourth of July. It might look like that’s the show doing an extra bit of meta-commentary, but Kripke said it just happened to line up that way.
“It was not necessarily built to land on the Fourth of July. We didn’t know what Amazon was going to do with air dates until really just a couple of months ago, right before they announced the premiere. I only know about a week or two before everybody else knows. And then we knew it would land on the Fourth of July.”
Raquel “Rocky” Harris contributed to this story.
New episodes of “The Boys” stream Thursdays on Prime Video.
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