The Boys spinoff Gen V is in full swing and confirming that it is as depraved as its predecessor. The franchise’s penis obsession remains intact, as viewers learned during the season premiere, which included a scene where Emma/Little Cricket shrank down in size to appease a dude who wanted to feel like he had the biggest dong in town. That Supe power (and how she activates it) is deeply rooted and potentially triggering, but in The Boys franchise fashion, the heavy stuff is still balanced out with dark humor.
In Episode 4, however, the dong-mood changes with a “c*cksplosion” after Marie gets virtually roofied by Rufus. Yes, his name refers to him being “like human Rufenal,” as co-creator Michele Fazekas told Variety. Ol’ Rufus didn’t plan this one out, given that Marie is a blood bender, and once she wakes up in his room and realizes what is happening, she sends his blood rushing into his dong, and that leads to what’s being referred to as a “c*cksplosion.” Or as Jordan later describes it, a “Tag Team C*cksplosion.”
Fazekas also revealed that co-creators Eric Kripke and Evan Goldberg “love talking about” and “looking at” penises. Kripke chimed in, declaring, “They’re endlessly funny. They’re the weirdest looking things.” So, they take great pains to build these prosthetics and accentuate them with special effects, not CGI.
The conversation turned serious when Fazekas revealed that the explosion was secondary and only arose after the story behind the scene, which is the experience of many young women heading to university, where they have to really worry about predators:
“We never came into this saying, ‘We want to top The Boys.’ That scene, yes, is about a cocksplosion, but it came from a lot of women in my writers’ room who’ve gone to college and who’ve had these shitty experiences with dudes in college, where you’re like, ‘Is this guy a predator?’ Feeling unsafe. That’s where it came from, of young women going into college. We never start with the outrageous thing, we always start with the story.”
Kripke also elaborated more on the heaviness behind Little Cricket’s source behind her power strongly resembling an eating disorder. For sure, Cricket has gone through the most grueling scenes out of any character on this series thus far (although there are some close characters behind her, like Sam), yet Kripke stresses balancing the light and dark aspects of the show means that “you really have to lead with character,” and “you can never play it for a joke.”
That is to say, viewers witness how uncomfortable Cricket is, both with her purging and being pressured into that sexual act in the series premiere. There are a lot of layers in the mix, and as Kripke concluded, Gen V‘s “snarky dialogue” is present, but “‘The Boys’ universe is not like a Joss Whedon, everything-is-fun-and-light-and-bopping-around.” Point taken.
(Via Variety)