I Had A Stressful 24 Hours

In 2019, The Boys crashed onto Prime Video and took the world by storm. Based on the comics by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, series showrunner Eric Kripke adapted the comic for Prime Video, which turned the superhero genre on its head. The series has broken viewership records for the streaming giant as it dominates the top 10 charts, and its violent, satirical take on the average superhero kept bringing audiences back for more.

In an interview with Polygon, Kripke spoke about an episode of The Boys that nearly got pulled by Amazon ahead of its release. The episode was originally titled “Assassination Run” but was later changed following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on July 13, 2024. The episode, now called “Season Four Finale”, has Homelander (played by Antony Star) plot to murder the elected President Robert Singer (played by Jim Beaver), less than a week after Trump’s incident.

“It created a lot of anxiety because I directed that one. I had a lot of emotional eggs in that basket, and there was a very real possibility that they were going to delay its airing. It went all the way up the chain to Andy Jassy, the head of Amazon, and he was okay with airing it.

All that came back was, ‘Just change the title. It’s a tasteless title considering, but it’s different enough, and we will back it.’ Thank God that they did. I had a really stressful 24 hours, but it all pales in comparison to the madness in the real world.”

Prime Video is gearing up to release the fifth and final season of The Boys on April 8, and fans are already feeling the loss of the dark humor, violence, and irony of the series. Kripke took note of how the series unfortunately reflects real-world chaos, with Homelander being the epicenter of what many would describe as certain world leaders and how they have been behaving on the news as of late.

“Outside of the people, the thing I’ll miss the most from the show is reading a maddening headline and having a place to put it, knowing that I can process it with these writers, we could broadcast it out to a couple million people. I’m not saying it moves the needle or changes the world. But you had a place to process it, and now I don’t have a place to put it anymore, except to be frustrated like everybody else, and I don’t love that feeling.”

The Boys has two spinoffs released, Gen V and The Boys Presents: Diabolical, and has plans to release a whole new spinoff series titled Vought Rising, which will focus on Homelander’s father, Soldier Boy (played by Jensen Ackles). The Boys has an impressive Rotten Tomatoes rating of 93%, and fans are hoping the final season delivers even more chaos and mayhem.

The Boys season 5 will begin on Prime Video on April 8, with episodes releasing weekly.