On this final season of Prime Video’s “The Boys,” Homelander — played by Antony Starr and described by showrunner Eric Kripke as “our sociopathic Superman” — decides he’s going to be the new God, and he’s going to make the world believe he’s the new God.
“We had endless conversations about, like, is that too far?” Kripke told me recently on an Emmy FYC panel at Sony. “Are people going to say that’s just stupid? Are we jumping the shark? I was having long conversations with marketing, like, ‘We have to be careful about how we introduce the idea. We have to build up to it. It’s too much.’ “And then, 48 hours before we air, Trump releases that image of himself as Jesus. Can you please give us an opportunity to do satire?! Can you not make the world crazier than our fucking superhero show?! So yeah. I’m tired.”
By the way, Kripke and his staff wrote that storyline two years ago. “People are like, ‘Wow, you are really hitting it! Are you guys all high-fiving?’ And I’m like, ‘No, we’re all so sad.’”
Pause for collective sigh. It’s difficult to satirize power, corruption and egomaniacal leaders in an age where real life transcends the most over-the-top, cartoonish ideas that Hollywood writers could imagine. I often say that it’s even hard to watch “Veep,” the great HBO comedy starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the inept VP-turned-POTUS Selina Meyer. Now, I’d vote for Selina Meyer in a heartbeat.
