‘The Boys’ Season 3 to Include Episode Focused on ‘Herogasm’ Comic Arc
“The Boys” has featured all manner of outrageous scenes throughout its two-season run, but an episode in the show’s upcoming third season is set to one-up everything that has come before. Series showrunner Erik Kripke recently teased on Twitter that an episode in “The Boys” Season 3 will adapt the “Herogasm” comic book arc.
The show’s adaptation will be based on “The Boys: Herogasm,” a six-issue spinoff of the original comic that satirized traditional superhero team-ups (think: “The Avengers”). In the spinoff, various superheroes pretend to leave Earth to fight an alien threat but instead retreat to a an island resort to participate in a drug-fueled orgy. Meanwhile, Hugie and Butcher (played by Jack Quaid and Karl Urban in Amazon’s adaptation, respectively) infiltrate the island while working against Vought.
Kripke teased that the “Herogasm” arc will be adapted in the sixth episode of Season 3 and will be written by Jessica Chou. The tease marks one of the first major announcements about the upcoming season since “The Boys” Season 3 was originally announced in July 2020. Other details about the show’s third season, including a prospective release date, are under wraps.
Kripke expressed an interest in adapting the “Herogasm” comic arc long before his Amazon adaptation was renewed for a third season. Kripke stated in an AMA on Reddit following the show’s Season 1 debut in 2019 that he and the writing team had “just figured out how to do ‘Herogasm'” and aimed to include it in Season 3. He also noted it would be important for the show to put a twist on the “Herogasm” adaptation to ensure that “it’s not just an hour of hardcore porn.”
Diehard fans of “The Boys” have plenty to look forward to beyond the show’s upcoming third season; Amazon announced in September 2020 that “The Boys” would be getting a spin-off show that will be “part college show, part ‘Hunger Games’ — with all the heart, satire and raunch of ‘The Boys.’” The still-untitled spinoff will be “set at America’s only college exclusively for young adult superheroes (and run by Vought International).
‘The Untitled Boys Spinoff’ is an irreverent, R-rated series that explores the lives of hormonal, competitive Supes as they put their physical, sexual, and moral boundaries to the test, competing for the best contracts in the best cities.”
“The Boys” has become one of Amazon Prime Video‘s most-discussed original series and has fared well with critics; IndieWire’s Ben Travers commended the show’s sophomore season in his grade B review and offered particular praise for its satirical elements.
“Eric Kripke’s superhero series (is) a more ambitious, and altogether more successful, satire in Season 2. By widening its scope beyond greedy corporations, ‘The Boys’ turns its laser vision on the holy triumvirate of 21st century American corruption: social media, a fearful populace, and predators in power,” Travers said in his review. “Though the series remains frustrating in its callous treatment of select women and minority characters — and generally relies to much on the boyish perspective it happens to be criticizing — its ruthless censure of behavior too often exhibited by angry white men is worth applauding, so long as you’ve got the stomach for it.”
