The Boys Season 3, Episode 6 - Review

Warning: the below contains full spoilers for The Boys Season 3, Episode 6, "Herogasm," which aired on Prime Video on June 24, 2022. To refresh your memory, check out our review of last week's episode.

"Herogasm" is simultaneously the closest and farthest The Boys has felt to its obscenely inappropriate and excessive comic book source. There's no downplaying the episode's title, a callback to an all-out superhero suck-and-stuff fest featuring [redacted], [definitely redacted], and most of all, [burn my eyes levels of redacted]. Although, showrunner Eric Kripke does what his streaming adaptation has done best with The Boys this season — replace the comic's most needlessly graphic moments of exploitative boundary pushing with emphasized urgency behind character development beyond savagery. Kripke shows his boys, girls, and supes a bit more compassion than comics writer Garth Ennis, which has turned an otherwise bottomless nihilistic superhero commentary into an engaging action-drama with far richer personalities at odds.

Consider the episode a Part II, fulfilling promised consequences from "The Last Time to Look on This World of Lies" with explicit parallels. Hughie (Jack Quaid) and Starlight (Erin Moriarty) confront their relationship after Hughie confesses his power trippage on V24. A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) butts heads with Blue Hawk (Nick Wechsler) after the latter handicaps his brother in a racist outburst. Mother's Milk (Laz Alonso) sets his crosshairs on Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) whether Butcher (Karl Urban) takes a bullet as collateral or not. There's no storytelling hesitation or stretching last episode's juiciest subplots — "Herogasm" allows for multiple climaxes, whether in tears or explosive enjoyment.

The fracturing of Butcher's demoralized squadron separates the primary team but doesn't suffer from mismatched pairings. Butcher and Hughie's allegiance with Soldier Boy allows Butcher to assess how his destructive qualities are rubbing off on Hughie, which Karl Urban translates into Butcher's first glimmer of regret since yelling at Ryan (Remember Homelander’s son?). Starlight and M.M. recreate the magic from their diner exchange in Season 2 ("To fathers and sugar."), as their union pairs so well after being hurt by those they care about dearest. Frenchie (Tomer Capone) and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) continue their feud with Russian mobster Little Nina (Katia Winter), which hopefully has run its course because outside Frenchie and Kimiko's romantic admissions, it's been the weakest element of Season 3 thus far. Maybe that's by comparison given how Butchie and StarMilk are such hot couplings — and even at that, it's shocking how well The Boys breaks up the band yet loses no momentum.

The show's depiction of violence has altered over the last few episodes, abandoning the fun-filled fiendishness that jokily presents brutality like The Deep's (Chace Crawford) botched dolphin rescue or Termite's penis-popper sneeze at the beginning of this season. Bloodshed isn't for caustic entertainment value anymore. Everyone's reaching their wits' ends, whether that's Kimiko's disgust over herself as a monster with or without powers or Butcher's inability to sacrifice his teammates for Homelander's (Antony Starr) death. The comics refuse to acknowledge when enough pulpy superhero vulgarity is enough — Kripke's series cares more about how extreme gore changes those who've seen too much. It's a savvy alteration, proven by A-Train and Blue Hawk's altercation that utilizes jaw-dropping ruthlessness as a storytelling device beyond another mutilated corpse.

Of course, "Herogasm" is about superhero fornication as pyros walk around with flaming dongs and ice conjurers manifest icy sex toys. The return of Love Sausage allows the seriousness to dissipate as Kripke introduces TNT Twins Tommy (Jack Doolan) and Tess (Kristin Booth), sleazy Payback members who host Herogasm for C-level supes with superpowered fetishes. The Boys holds nothing back as "big chocolate bear" M.M. gets glazed for the good of his partnership with Starlight, reminding us that even at the show's somberest, it'll still shock, challenge, and take viewers places they're probably not ready to witness. Perhaps never as fearlessly as Ennis' comic books, but that's so far been the show's enduring signature and creative superiority in Season 3.

Do you know what the best part of "Herogasm" is, though? Seeing Homelander afraid. Soldier Boy and Homelander tumble and brawl amidst the writhing sex-seekers, tossing lines about which is the superior version of Homelander or Soldier Boy. It's the moment The Boys has been teasing since Butcher first injects V24 or Homelander considers himself untouchable — Homelander realizes Soldier Boy and Butcher pose an actual threat together. Antony Starr takes us on a psychological journey as Homelander reveals his nastier split personality by talking back into a mirror, then returns to the same mirror, fixated on a bruise around Homelander's eye. What an incredible moment that colors the entire episode as we see Homelander like never before: frightened. Jensen Ackles is chewing his way through fast-food cheeseburgers as the perfect antithesis to Starr's braggadocious and full-of-himself Vought superchild, remorseless like a heat-seeking missile of vengeance with only hatred in his heart. Hope comes in the form of Butcher, Hughie, and Soldier Boy striking fear into Homelander, who has no answer.

"Herogasm" is an excellent episode about huge dicks and bigger fallouts.

Other highlights of this excellent episode include Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) outright fleeing from Soldier Boy because he's seen the bastard in action to Starlight's bombshell social media confession. It even squeezes in a good "Aquaman bones fish" zinger for good measure. Thanks, The Deep! Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie), meanwhile, reveals a heart as frigid as Stan Edgar's (Giancarlo Esposito), while it's up to the American people to believe Homelander's "facts" or the media's "lies." In order to rebuild, something must be broken — methinks The Boys is following this model by battering its characters before reassembling them in the next few episodes.