One Of The Boys Season 3's First Scenes Is A Reminder That This Show Isn't For The Faint Of Heart
Warning: spoilers ahead for season 3 of "The Boys."
Whether you love it or hate it, we can all agree that "The Boys" is not for the squeamish. The series' first episode opens up with Hughie (Jack Quaid) watching his girlfriend explode after superhero A-Train (Jessie Usher) accidentally runs into her body at super-speed. The first season sees characters getting their bodies ripped apart by laser beams, an entire plane full of civilian passengers realizing they're going to die, and one character being exploded to bits from the inside. Sometimes it seems like Hughie spends half the show covered in other people's blood and guts.
The season 2 premiere stepped things up even more with the sudden, shocking scene of a minor character having her head unexpectedly explode right in front of the main characters. Because the perpetrator (and the perpetrator's motives) weren't revealed yet, I for one spent the rest of the season in constant terror: every time the show lingered on a character's face for more than a second, I thought I was about to watch their head explode.
The season 3 premiere doesn't hold back much either. Not only does yet another head explode (well, an entire body), but we also see one of the most gruesome deaths in the entire show. A newly introduced Supe called the Termite is having (very) kinky sex with his boyfriend, which involves the Termite shrinking himself and crawling inside his boyfriend's urethra. A little weird, but hey, it's a consensual act between two adults, so I'm sure it's harmless fun, right? Wrong. The Termite sneezes, which accidentally brings him back to normal human size while he's inside his partner. It's both disturbing and a very interesting way for the show to kick off Pride Month.
The Boys' obsession with sex-related gore
Where the show writers' slightly depraved brand of creativity shines is with its depiction of supe-on-supe sex. Season 2 has multiple, somewhat nauseating, sex scenes between all-powerful psychopath Homelander (Antony Starr) and the literal Nazi superhero Stormfront (Aya Cash). Their first time together features Homelander burning her with his lasers and her throwing him around the apartment. These are two god-like beings who can't be harmed by normal people or weapons, so here they're basically reveling in how tough they are.
In an age where people are constantly debating the necessity of sex scenes on TV, there's something to be said of most of the sex scenes on "The Boys," which are not designed to titillate but to terrify. One of the earliest such scenes features minor superhero Popclaw (Brittany Allen) having an orgasm so intense it explodes the head of the guy going down on her. Later, we hear a story from a one-off character about how he had sex with a superhero with ice powers. When she climaxed she accidentally turned into ice, while the guy was still inside of her. "It snapped off," he says simply. The lesson is clear: if superheroes ever did exist, do not have sex with them, because you can never quite know what kind of damage they'll do to you.
It all serves to showcase the absurd power imbalance between the superheroes in this world and the normal people; even when the supes aren't trying to harm you, they still can. This Termite opener helps to serve as a nice little warning to viewers as they head into the rest of the new season: this won't be the last instance of extreme sex-related gore on "The Boys," so please brace yourself.