The Boys Writer Talks Hughie’s Dad, Butcher’s Rabbit, Generation V Cameos, and V52

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 (not to be missed 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.

In between these two crazy plots was a more serious storyline: Hughie (Jack Quaid) and his recently returned mother Daphne (Rosemarie Dewitt) say goodbye to Hugh Sr. (Simon Pegg), when Hughie agrees to give his father a painless death to put him out of his new misery. Throughout the episode, Hugh Sr. struggled to control the destructive superpower he gained after Daphne gave him Compound V to bring him out of a coma. Hugh Sr. ended up accidentally killing several people at the hospital while in a daze.

Here, “The Boys” showrunner Eric Kripke analyzes “The Boys” Season 4 Episode 5, titled “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 angrier – he was actually a very, very cute animal. The chickens were mostly real, except when they were exploding in people’s chests. And the sheep, other than 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 credit to our brilliant VFX team, because it’s not easy to create a believable-looking animal from scratch, and make it an entirely new monster. It was Stephan’s idea to give him baboon teeth – he has the jaws of a baboon, and that’s what gives him his fangs and his menacing appearance.

Butcher has a special bond with the Rabbit, as he was the subject of experimentation with Temp V – leading to Butcher’s fatal prognosis – and frees him.. Then he stomps on him to kill him later when he sees tentacles erupting from 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 it’s a little rabbit foreshadowing.

Shortly after, Butcher cuts off the leg of Vought scientist Sameer — who is thrilled 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, in order to allow Sameer to work on more super viruses, was based on the rabbit’s fate — and happened to be juxtaposed with Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) Are you moving more towards the dark side with Homelander in this episode?

This is a really insightful point. The story for him in this episode is 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 him – it really, really bothers him and makes him feel a lot more desperate. So he brings Kessler into the equation and cuts off a guy’s leg just to cover his tracks, which is not surprisingly rational behavior. I think he’s really shaken 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 take care of them to, inevitably, take 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 ordeal for Hughie to go through, and a difficult one.

The problem with Hughie, when we talk about this season, we’re dealing with everybody’s core trauma, and his biggest problem is his inability to let go of anybody. And he really learns this season by forgiving A-Train and forgiving his mother and really letting go of his father, he really learns to mature. They start the episode with his father saying, “You’re still the same kid that couldn’t let go of the cat.” And we end the episode with Hughie stepping in and making the tough decisions that the other older members of the family are unable to make. So it shows that he’s growing up and coming of age.

You bring in the characters from “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 present timeline at Godolkin University – and where the other “Generation V” characters might be right now?

It made sense now because of the V52 story, and the fact that Homelander would use V52 as a cover to bring different superheroes closer to him as he started building this army. And it made sense that Cate, who is also a supreme supremacist, would want to sign up for that. I think Sam is a little bit more reluctant, but he also doesn’t really voice his own opinions — he kind of needs to evolve into that 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 the time, Cate and Sam, are presented by Vought as heroes, and given a film and they are given new levels of fame, as the true heroes of the era are locked away in an undisclosed location that will be revealed for Season 2 of “Gen V.” It’s just our similar message: being a hero is usually an unsung and thankless thing, and when you’re presented in front of everyone as a hero, you’re usually anything but.

Related to V52 — which is clearly completely unrelated to any actual corporate event – have you heard from anyone at Marvel, complimentary or otherwise, at this point about any jokes in the show?

I’ve heard very casually and in passing that Marvel executives watch and love the show. But I haven’t been given any names or people – just someone mentioned it to me in passing. I think it’s meant 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 due to loss, then a number of them will be released on Vought+, and then a very small number will be released in theaters. That’s how it’s done in business these days.

This interview has been edited and condensed.