Homelander’s final scene from the season 2 finale was disturbing and hilarious, as per usual on The Boys. And it was supposed to happen earlier.
The Boys wrapped up its second season in style this week, with the action-packed “What I Know.” Stormfront met her end (basically), an important character died, the Boys are back in business with their names cleared, and Starlight rejoined the Seven.
A lot happened, but everything on The Boys ultimately comes down to Homelander, the show’s morally bankrupt, emotionally stunted funhouse version of Superman. Even with everything that went down in “What I Know,” the most memorable — and creepy, and hilarious — scene may have come right near the end, when Homelander is standing over New York City muttering the words “I can do whatever I want” over and over while he…helps himself.
It was unsettling, grotesque and funny in that way The Boys seems to have perfected, and according to showrunner Eric Kripke it was supposed to happen in season 1, but Amazon wasn’t having it.
That info came out in a Reddit AMA Kripke did a year ago, long before the second season premiered. “There was ONE SCENE that Amazon said FUCK NO, you have to cut,” he wrote. “I couldn’t quite understand why considering everything else we have in the show, but: Homelander, after being dressed down by Stilwell in episode 2, was standing on one of the Chrysler building Eagles. He pulled his pants down and started jerking off, mumbling ‘I can do whatever I want’ over and over again until he climaxed all over New York City. We shot it! Oh my God, Anthony was the BEST in that scene. Amazon seemed to think it wasn’t necessary. I thought it told me something about his psyche. To be clear, they’ve been great, that may have been the ONLY fight I lost in Season 1.”
It’s not clear if the footage that Kripke and actor Antony Starr shot for season 1 was just repurposed for season 2 or if they redid it. Either way, clearly Amazon didn’t object to the scene the second time Kripke suggested it, probably because the show has proved a big success and they didn’t want to mess with a good thing.
As Kripke says, it’s a little weird that Amazon would say no to this sign but sign off on all the horrific violence that has become the show’s signature. Apparently a superhero masturbating was a step too far. And it does say something about Homelander’s psyche. In this scene, he’s just suffered a defeat: his Nazi girlfriend is dead or near enough that she might as well be, and Queen Maeve has blackmailed him into letting Butcher live. What’s more, he’s lost control of his son Ryan, who will now be raised far away from his toxic influence. In this scene, Homelander is trying to make himself feel powerful again, although he’s fooling himself. As long as he measures his self-worth by what others think of him, he can’t do whatever he wants, which is a good thing, because he is one seriously disturbed individual.
The Boys is officially a hit. Season 3 won’t be along for a while but we’ll definitely be looking forward to it.
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h/t Digital Spy