When it comes to pushing the boundaries of acceptable television, the comedy series, The Boys, never fails to shatter the glass ceiling. However, in season 3, episode 6, titled ‘Herogasm’, there was one moment in the superhero show that Amazon almost cut completely. Warning spoilers ahead!
Based on a comic series of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, The Boys is known for its dark take on the superhero genre and being delightfully outrageous. However, the episode ‘Herogasm’, which already featured a full-on superhero orgy that quickly turned into a massacre, proved to have the most outrageous moment of the TV series yet, and was almost too much for Amazon. Said taboo scene sees an octopus performing oral sex on the superhero, The Deep (Chace Crawford).
Speaking with TV Line, showrunner Erik Kripke revealed that the shocking sequence left Amazon executives reeling. “We had a lot of discussions this season about the scene with Deep and the octopus,” Kripke explained. “For some crazy reason, Standards has a policy against bestiality. They’re so uptight, really. The discussion of that scene and how we pulled off that scene actually triggered a lot of alarm bells at a lot of different levels at Amazon because you’re not supposed to show people f–king animals, and I get it.”
However, despite the streaming services’ initial concerns, ultimately, the octopus scene made it into the final episode.
“My pitch to them was always like it’s so absurd [that] it wouldn’t be out of place in a Farrelly brothers movie,” he said. “So it’s hard to call it prurient bestiality. It’s ridiculous. To my knowledge, I don’t even think octopi have orifices down there. So there was a lot of discussion of like what are the shots, and what can we do and what can we get away with?”
In a later episode, The Deep goes on to have a threesome with his wife and the octopus in a very depraved but hilariously awkward sequence. The interview reveals that Crawford filmed using a puppet, with the octopus being added through CGI later on by the VFX team.
While shocking, it seems as if Amazon made the right call in keeping the scene as it fits into the series’ brand of outrage and dark humour. You can now watch The Boys season 3 through Prime Video.