Creator Eric Kripke unpacks the wild three-episode premiere, reveals political inspirations for a new character and teases what’s ahead: “Episode six makes me cover my mouth with my hands every time I watch it.”

In the great nation of the United States of America — in The Boys‘ parallel universe where satirical humans and superhero characters coincide — the most powerful “supe” in the world, Homelander, is on trial.

In season four’s three-episode opener, Homelander, played by Antony Starr, is facing 12 jurors of his peers for actually doing something a former president bragged he could do over in our real universe: commit a crime in public and get away with it. Alas, such bragging rights prove more favorable in getting a “not guilty” verdict when jurors are mere mortals who the defendant could laser to death with the blink of his eyes, or snap in two with the flick of his wrist. Of course, Homelander is found not guilty.

Season four of The Boys — as creator/showrunner Eric Kripke has explained — reflects even more of the political chaos going on in real U.S. politics today than in previous seasons. “Did I know it was going to come out during Trump’s trial? Of course not. But we write what we’re either scared of or pissed off about,” he said of the show always being about Trumpism. “The show’s many things. Subtle isn’t one of them.”

And its core will never change, says Kripke when chatting again with The Hollywood Reporter about the premiere as the Boys, a group of vigilantes, pursue and try to bring to justice to the dangerous, murderous supes (the name for superheroes in the Amazon series).

Fresh from being vindicated, an annoyed Homelander tries to adjust to the demands of being a father and is furious with the incompetent remaining members the Seven, his group of elite supe fighters who are the stars of corporation Voight International. Right now there are four — including himself — who remain his “yes men”: The Deep (Chace Crawford); the new Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell), after Homelander killed the original because he never told him that Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) was Homelander’s father; and A-Train (Jessie T. Usher).

He needs three new recruits. One will eventually be his son, Ryan (Cameron Crovetti). But he is also facing a vacancy from Starlight, aka Annie, (Erin Moriarty), who left the group and started an anti-Voight, anti-Homelander national grassroots movement called the Starlighters. (Homelander repays Starlight organization for protesting outside of his trial by inviting three of his biggest “Homelander fans” to a private meet-and-greet, has members of the Seven kill the fans and then drops their bodies among the “Starlighters” crowd to claim they were killed there.)

Homelander’s first choice for a new Seven member is a young Black woman from Detroit named Sister Sage (Susan Heyward). The choice of Sister Sage, whose power is to be the smartest person in the world, may seem jarring at first for someone like Homelander, who some audience members have thought of as being racist or a white supremacist, but it makes sense if you think about, says Kripke.

“It’s funny you say that, because Ant [Starr] and I have actually talked about it. And if you look, I mean, he’s way more of a supe supremacist than he is a white supremacist,” Kripke tells THR. “He just hates humans. But, he loves A-Train. He likes if someone has superpowers, that puts them in a position where he at least doesn’t immediately try to murder them. And I think that’s Sage.”

Kripke adds, “He realizes that he’s surrounded by idiots. For as big as his ego is, he’s not stupid, and he knows that he needs someone intelligent around. And even though the world’s smartest person is a lot for his ego to take, and he really struggles with it, he does value her in a way where, as an African American woman who is the smartest person on Earth, I don’t think she found as much of that value. People weren’t listening to her, which was ironic and frustrating considering how brilliant she was. Homelander was willing to listen, and that’s what she needs.”

The Boys season four. COURTESY OF PRIME VIDEO

In episodes two and three, the Boys are also dealing with their own personal traumas. Hughie (Jack Quaid) neglects staying in touch with his father, who ends up having a medical emergency and is on life support; Frenchie (Tomer Capone) falls in love with a worker for Starlight’s organization who may know about the horrible things Frenchie did in his past; Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) is recklessly living life in denial that she may be jealous of Frenchie’s new relationship; and Butcher (Karl Urban) is still being a pain to everyone as he goes about trying to do something decent before the Temp-V drug he took in season three extinguishes his short life.

And then, there’s Firecracker (Valorie Curry), who comes in episode two. Ironically, it’s Sister Sage who ushers in arguably one of the most dim-witted and racist members of the Seven. How would Kripke describe Firecracker?

“I think it’s like [politicians] Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert,” he says, offering inspirations. “When we were writing her, [South Dakota Gov.] Kristi Noem wasn’t in our heads, but then she comes out and she’s shooting puppies and then it’s like, ‘There’s Firecracker! She’s literally shooting puppies!’”

And there you have it. With the new season, The Boys is off to satire what it pleases, while offering some gut-wrenching laughs if Kripke has his way. He says if audience members thought the first three episodes were a rollercoaster ride for season four, prepare to strap in for a rocket launch: It’s going to get crazier.

“I think every episode has at least one totally fucking bananas moment,” Kripke says. “I love the ones in episode five. Episode six makes me cover my mouth with my hands every time I watch it; so, I think there’s lots of good stuff going on.”

But, will it top Herogasm from season three?

Kripke releases a big, sly grin, “Not in the scope of Herogasm. But — and this was in the trailer, so it’s not a spoiler — Temp V-ed up farm animals is pretty terrific! And Tek Knight (Derek Wilson) taking Hughie down to the Tek Cave and being able to riff on Batman a bit is absolutely delightful.”

Ahead of season four’s release, Kripke announced that the already renewed fifth season of the Amazon hit series would be the last.

“From the very beginning, I wanted to wrap it out around season five,” Kripke told THR about the decision, calling season four the “calm before the storm” that ushers in the big “climax” with season five. “The show is a serialized story that is about Butcher and Homelander slowly crashing into each other, and the show doesn’t work without either of those. So, you just can’t keep that going on forever, you have to let them smash into each other.”

Although The Boys will end after season five, its universe will continue on with spinoff shows such as last year’s debut Gen V, the animated anthology Diabolical and a couple other projects that are in developmental stages, Kripke recently shared with THR.  “We’ve been lucky in that The Boys has become one of their flagships,” he said of Amazon. “We get a level of freedom that it’ll be hard to repeat anywhere.”

The Boys streams new episodes of season four Thursdays on Prime Video.