The Boys Showrunner Eric Kripke Claims “The White Dudes Standing Next To You” Are “the Most Dangerous People”
John F. Trent
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The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke recently discussed the upcoming second season of the Amazon show based on Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s comic series.
In an interview with ScreenRant, Kripke was asked, “In season two, there’s the supervillain terrorists all over the world that have been activated by Homelander. However, you never really get the sense that they’re more dangerous than their creators. Can you talk to me a little bit about that dynamic?”
He answered, “Yeah, it’s a great question. We were really interested in exploring the idea of authority figures getting the public really riled up with xenophobia and racism, but ultimately the most dangerous people are the white dudes standing next to you. We wanted to reflect that story. So, the supervillains are, in a way, a misdirect.”
Just as a reminder in the first season of The Boys, The Seven included Translucent, Black Noir, A-Train, Starlight, Queen Maeve, The Deep, and Homelander.
There were three white men on the team in Homelander, The Deep, and Translucent. A-Train is black, it’s unclear what Black Noir’s race as he never takes off his mask. Starlight and Queen Maeve are both white women.
The Boys executed Translucent in the first season. He’s expected to be replaced by a gender-swapped Stormfront. It also appears that The Deep might get sidelined from the team as well.
Kripke then claims that part of Season 2 was inspired by real world events when a caravan of Central American immigrants attempted to illegally enter the United States of America
He continued, “We wrote it at the time of the travel ban, if you remember; the caravan that were ‘going to come over the border and rape all the white women.’ We were in that world, and the way that authority figures were drumming up fear in these outsiders was disgusting, frankly.”
He elaborated, “And so we wanted to reflect that story, which is Vought and the superheroes and Stormfront are really drumming up quite a lot of fear about these supervillains. When in reality, Homelander and Stormfront are the real threat.”
Not only did Kripke indicate that white dudes standing next to you are the most dangerous people, but he also reiterated that the show would explore white nationalism through Stormfront played by Aya Cash.
Kripke had previously detailed the second season would be about white nationalism in an interview with Coming Soon back in August 2019.
He told them, “Yeah, our version of Stormfront kind of evolves over the season. And I think the comic books version of Stormfront, with again, great respect to the comic, which I love, it’s a pretty straight forward character, you know? The first lines out of his mouth are like, “Schnell!” He’s pretty straight up just like a full-on Nazi. And it’s hard to do reveals with a guy like that.”
Kripke continued, “But where the idea emerged, and without spoiling too much, what I’ll say is under the writer room mantra of ‘Bad for the world, Good for the show,’ we’re all news junkies, and we tend to pay attention to things that are happening out there in the world, and how do we use our super heroes as a metaphor for that? And I am horrified and sad to report that there is a rise of white nationalism.”
Related: Amazon Announces Season 2 Release Date For The Boys
He then elaborated on how they will address white nationalism in the show, “And it’s taking a very different form than it took in the 40s. It takes a very social media savvy trying to attract young men and women form. And so, we got really interested in creating a character that could represent that for us. And so, as I would say, it’s not the version in the book, but I would say they have the same rotten soul.”
Speaking with ScreenRant, Kripke echoed those comments responding to a question about Stormfront and what Aya Cash brings to the role. He would also explain why they decided to gender swap Stormfront.
Related: Amazon’s The Boys Gender Swaps Stormfront For Season 2 – She’s Also A Feminist
He stated, “First, Aya brings such like a formidable intelligence and wit, and she’s just so sharp and smart. And we really needed that. The goal was to create Homelander’s worst nightmare, which is a woman who wasn’t afraid of him and proceeds to steal his spotlight. That’s the worst thing that that gaping black hole of insecurity would ever deal with. So that was the idea originally, or at the start, and why we gender flipped the character from the books – who is a man.”
Kripke continued, “And then she was our way to get into issues of white nationalism. Anyone who reads the books knows who this character really is, and we ultimately reveal it. She has a very hateful ideology, but we were really interested in modernizing it and how it’s sort of often expressed today.”
“It’s wrapped in a very savvy social media package, and a lot of these people come on as like disruptors. “We’re gonna be free thinkers about our hateful ideology,” and so they come off in a kind of an insidious way, because they’re attractive to young people until you dig a little deeper and then you realize it’s the same hate they’ve been peddling for 1000 years. And we wanted to reflect that in that character,” he elaborated.
The Boys will premiere its first three episodes on September 4th with new episodes debuting every Friday until the finale on October 9th. The second season will have a total of eight episodes.
Here’s the official description:
“The even more intense, more insane Season 2 finds The Boys on the run from the law, hunted by the Supes, and desperately trying to regroup and fight back against Vought. In hiding, Hughie (Jack Quaid), Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), Frenchie (Tomer Capon) and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) try to adjust to a new normal, with Butcher (Karl Urban) nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, Starlight (Erin Moriarty) must navigate her place in The Seven as Homelander (Antony Starr) sets his sights on taking complete control. His power is threatened with the addition of Stormfront (Aya Cash), a social media-savvy new Supe, who has an agenda of her own. On top of that, the Supervillain threat takes center stage and makes waves as Vought seeks to capitalize on the nation’s paranoia.
The Supes of The Seven also include Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott), A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), The Deep (Chace Crawford) and Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell). Recurring stars in season two include Claudia Doumit, Goran Visnijc, Malcolm Barrett, Colby Minifie, Shantel VanSanten, Cameron Crovetti, PJ Byrne, Laila Robbins and Giancarlo Esposito returning as Vought boss Stan Edgar, among others.”
What do you make of Kripke’s comments? Does this get you excited for The Boys Season 2?
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