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The Boys Season 2 tackles white supremacy, gushes blood, and gets a dog to hump a (stuffed) pig
Second seasons almost always try to top Season 1, but for Amazon’s darkly comedic, surprisingly smart take on superheroes, The Boys, it’s an especially tall order. The first season had grenade suppositories, a villain who drank breast milk, babies with laser eyes, and deadly superhero sex — all as part of a gripping, insightful story about power and corporate greed. How does Season 2, which premieres on Sept. 4, stack up? Well, there’s a gory incident with a sperm whale and a speedboat that makes the tale of Jonah look amateur, and that’s just the beginning, as well as some business with a horny dog we’ll get to in a little bit. But it’s not all gore and outlandish action. The Boys Season 2 goes deeper into its characters and explores some all-too-relevant themes like white nationalism, racism, and fear-mongering.
**SPOILER WARNING: This story contains mild spoilers for The Boys Season 2.**
“Any good genre is a metaphor for the real world,” showrunner Eric Kripke told SYFY WIRE at the Season 2 press junket. "The Boys has always been a show that will incorporate real-world events. The world is changing so quickly and in such terrible ways that we're just trying to keep up.”
With Karl Urban’s Billy Butcher MIA at the start of the season, and with the rest of his Boys forced to go underground, the psychopathic superhero Homelander (Antony Starr) looks to consolidate his control over the Seven. And, as recent real-life events have shown, creating a frightening "other" to unite people behind you is a horrible, effective tactic. “When we were writing the show, things like the travel ban were happening or the supposed caravan that was going to come up from Mexico,” Kripke says. “We were just really interested in how people use, how authority figures use racism and xenophobia to control the population.”
A new addition to the series — a character whose name might tip off some viewers that she has a role to play in the season’s exploration of these themes — is Stormfront, played by You’re The Worst star Aya Cash. During her interview with SYFY WIRE, Cash was quick to admit that Stormfront, who has Thor-like powers, is indeed a villain. When she first arrives, though, she’s a social-media-savvy disruptor, a thorn in Homelander’s side, and potentially sympathetic to Starlight’s newfound disdain of Vought and the Seven.
“Stormfront behaves the way Starlight wishes she could behave and didn't know it was an option as a part of the Seven,” Cash says of the pair’s relationship. “So I think that's inspiring to her, but I think the more she learns about Stormfront, the more she realizes she wants nothing to do with her.”
Erin Moriarty, who plays Starlight, says her character is in “an emotionally rocky place” when Season 2 begins and agrees with Cash’s assessment that Starlight initially is excited by Stormfront’s rebellious energy. “But, when she becomes aware that Stormfront is also wearing a mask and she becomes privy to what's lurking underneath, she's not as excited about her presence,” Moriarty says.
Things aren’t going exceptionally well for two other members of the Seven — or former members, in The Deep’s case — when the season starts. “He's been drinking Mai Tais and Lava Flows,” actor Chace Crawford says of The Deep’s descent to rock bottom. He’s desperate to get back into the Seven’s good graces.
“He will do anything for anyone to help him out,” Crawford teases. “And someone kind of sees this and takes him by the hand and introduces him to some form of religion.”
The Deep’s former teammate, the Compound V-addicted speedster A-Train, is looking at a “road to redemption” this season, according to actor Jessie T. Usher. “He hasn't even really hit rock bottom yet,” Usher previews. “I mean, health-wise, he's not feeling too great, but the worst is yet to come.”
And then there are the titular Boys. Season 1 ended with the shocking reveal that Billy Butcher’s wife Becca (Shantel VanSanten) isn’t actually dead, and she’s been raising her and Homelander’s child. Karl Urban tells SYFY WIRE that, while Butcher still has it out for Vought and Homelander, “with the revelation that Rebecca is still alive, [Billy’s] focus shifts entirely to finding her and rescuing her.
“And, obviously, he needs the help of the Boys to do that,” Urban continues. “He's not in good stead with the Boys after Season 1 after turning his back on them. So, there's a lot of internal conflict that plays out, particularly with Jack Quaid's character, Hugh Campbell."
Urban and Moriarty also both tease that Starlight and Butcher will be forced to work together, even though the last time viewers saw the two together, Butcher was shooting Starlight in the chest.
Tomer Capon, who plays another member of the Boys, Frenchie, teases that he’ll be getting a full-fledged origin story in Season 2. “What is more cool than an origin story?” he asks, before promising that the second season will top the first season in exploring character relationships, conflict, “and above it, all the blood, the blood, the blood.”
Well, to hear the way that Urban and Laz Alonso (Mother’s Milk) tease Jack Quaid about it, blood and dog semen. One episode of Season 2 features Terror, Butcher’s bulldog from the original Garth Ennis comic who has a penchant for humping.
“It's so hard to shoot with dogs. It's so hard on a show that's already really hard and I just can't have a dog in every episode of the show,” Kripke says, explaining Terror’s small-but-memorable role. “But, we bit the bullet for one. And it was really hard to shoot. It was almost impossible to shoot, especially getting that dog to hump on command.”
“Make sure you ask Jack about F*** Pig,” Alonso insists, egged on by Urban, both clearly having a ball mocking their co-star.
“I knew they would do this,” Quaid says with a laugh when confronted about their scandalous, highly exaggerated rumors.
“For some reason or another, I was the only one in the room with the dog. The trainers couldn't be there. So, I had to convince this dog to, uh, hump this pig and the dog's trigger phrase was the word 'boner,'" Quaid says, explaining that there’s footage of him holding up a stuffed animal pig and saying “Hey boner, boner, boner.”
At the time, Quaid thought the stuffed animal — the aptly named F*** Pig — was just a stand-in for the actual object of the dog’s affections.
“And then the trainers are like, 'No, that's the actual pig that he humps,'" Quaid says. “It was gross.”
The Boys Season 2 premieres on Amazon Prime on Sept. 4.
