At the โThe Boysโ Prime Video FYC panel on May 21, Erin Moriarty (Annie January, ex-superhero Starlight) revealed that she โlearned a lotโ about ๐ e๐ฅ whilst filming Season 3โs โHerogasmโ episode. โIt was like walking into an orgy house,โ said Moriarty of the set. โEvery corner was covered with something.โ
The super-orgy held its 70th anniversary in the showโs sixth episode, one plagued by โdildos in shapes that I didnโt think were physically possible that could fit into the human body,โ Moriarty tellsย Varietyโs Angelique Jackson. โThere were things and shapes that I thought, โThese would pierce an organ, most people wouldnโt survive them.โ But of course, they exist,โ said Moriarty. โI donโt understand, but I learned a lot.โ
For Jensen Ackles, who plays the daunting Soldier Boy super-villain hybrid, he candidly remembered being warned about the Herogasm episode when being approached about playing his role. โThe source material has it going a little differently,โ said Ackles, referring to the notion that his character hooks up with superhero Homelander in the comics. โI didnโt know how verbatim we were going to go, so I was prepared for the worst.โ
Acklesโ Soldier Boy wreaks havoc on the super-orgy fighting the American flag-wearing supe Homelander. This massive brawl was performed mostly by the actors themselves. โI think our stunt doubles only got to do one or two gags,โ said Ackles.
โWe had been rehearsing and doing stunt training for that fight scene for weeks,โ said Ackles. โWe got to come in on our off days and train and fight; itโs like learning a dance, itโs so heavily choreographed. It may not have been an emotional scene, but it took its toll for sure.โ
While the confrontation between the two superheroes was the main plotline for the episode, Ackles remembers โthe smellโ of the set โthe mostโ while filming.
In what Jessie T. Usher says took โfour daysโ to shoot, Ackles vividly remembers the state of production amidst โHerogasm.โ โYou looked like you had just come out of war,โ Ackles said of Moriarty. โWhen I saw our camera operator outside, he was just staring at the ground. I went up and said, โHey Liam, whatโs up, howโs it going up there?โ And he said, โIโve seen some shit man.โ He was traumatized, and they did not prep me either.โ
โI mean, it just smelled like old ๐ e๐ฅ after a while. There was nothing that could have been said to me to prepare for that day,โ said Ackles. โThereโs some shit that I shot that didnโt even make the final cut and Iโm like โReally, you made me do that, you knew you werenโt gonna use it, but you made me do that anyway?โโ
While the episode encompasses โdistractingโ moments, Starr affirms that โThe Boysโ is โall driven by character.โ โI do believe the show walks that kind of knife edge, it does straddle those worlds pretty well throughout this episode, and even though there are a lot of distracting things going on, thereโs a lot of intense story. The needs of the characters drive the narrative.โ
Karen Fukuhara (aka Kimiko Miyashiro) agreed. โOur show is about what someone does with their power, whether itโs political or a superpower, or the effect that someone else can have on another human being.โ
A key character arc that comes into play in the season stems from Moriartyโs character resigning her role as super-Starlight โ a story that she believes many women in the workplace can connect with in the modern era.
โThereโs a very real internal battle that sheโs going through that I think a lot of women are going through that work in corporations,โ said Moriarty. โThey still have underlying misogynistic, systemic issues. [Annie is] trying to figure out whether sheโs going to change things internally or externally.โ
Upon landing the role of co-captain of The Seven, Annie hopes that sheโll be able to evoke change as a new leadership figure within the group. However, she quickly realizes that this is not the case.
โ[In] โwoke cultureโ everyone is a proponent of feminism, the question is really whatโs the motive: Is it genuinely to put women in a position of power, or is it to feed into consumerism and is it just exhibitionist feminism?โ questioned Moriarty. โI think that [Annie] realizes that itโs all exhibitionist, and the only change sheโs going to be able to enact is outside of The Seven.โ
Juggling important topics throughout Season 3 of โThe Boysโ was something that Laz Alonso (aka Motherโs Milk) urged creator Eric Kripke to lean into, specifically touching on the topic of racism.
โThere was always [the question of], โWho is Motherโs Milk, why is he called Motherโs Milk?โ and to finally have the opportunity to explain the origin story for this manโs trauma was something that was tremendously satisfying, and it was also creatively satisfying for me,โ said Alonso.
After Motherโs Milk watched his grandfather get killed by Soldier Boy during his adolescence, his father fought for his justice throughout the duration of his life. However, his overworking nature led to his subsequent death. Motherโs Milk sits down with his daughter Janine by the end of the story to talk about the harsh realities of the world, a conversation that touches on the topic of systemic racism.
โI asked Kripke to have this conversation and find a way to take whatโs happening as we have with all the other stories in society right now and infuse it into the show, and he was down with it,โ said Alonso.
โKripke and I were actually talking about his backstory during the George Floyd protests, and thatโs when our version of his backstory really came to life,โ said Alonso. โI asked Kripke to lean into this: Systemic racism is something that is so traumatic and pervasive in the African American community that it is something that is almost encoded in DNA.โ