The Boys has held a mirror up to the world for four entire seasons so far, but its showrunner says that the superhero adaptation wasn’t designed to be so politically timely. If anything, the real world just became more and more similar to the show.
Showrunner Eric Kripke and Amazon Prime Video first started to turn the 2006 comic book series into a streaming show in 2019, at which point it oscillated between a violent take on the Justice League and a loose takedown of unchecked capitalism. But as the episodes ticked by, The Boys seemed to delve deeper into overt political commentary.
Speaking to Variety, Kripke explains that the show wasn’t exactly trying to “reflect reality.” Reality just became bonkers enough that you could mistake it for an episode of The Boys.
“The way [the series] reflects everything that’s happening in the world really comes from this understanding, that we found very early on in the process, which is this happens to be a television show based on a comic book,” Kripke says. “It’s not like we were designing it to reflect reality, but we happen to be making a show about violent authoritarians who present as celebrities. Then suddenly, the world changed to reflect the show, not just in the States – all over the world. Suddenly we found ourselves making one of the most current shows on television.”
Over time, that coincidence became increasingly intentional. Kripke says that the team eventually “felt an obligation… to say, ‘Well, let’s make a really current show, make it reflect reality and let it be a satirical take on reality as much as possible.'”
The Boys season 5 is expected to premiere sometime in 2026, but you can soothe the wait with some of the best Prime Video shows and best Prime Video movies.