“We hired a model,” Eric Kripke revealed about the in-your-face moment from the premiere.
Let’s just call this service journalism. When the people want to know something, we provide answers. And, according to The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke, a lot of people wanted to know about this one particular thing that happened on the season 4 premiere.
Claudia Doumit’s Victoria Neuman — and fans — received an unexpected surprise when she swiped on her phone and saw a close-up photo of Billy Butcher’s butthole, the kind you risk finding when someone unlocks their private photos on Grindr.
Kripke took to X (Formerly Twitter) to clarify that this is indeed not Karl Urban’s butthole. That should be obvious, but there have allegedly been enough inquiries on social media to draw his attention.
How The Boys pulled off its own human centipede in season 4
“Because hundreds of you asked: the butthole from #TheBoys Season 4, Ep 1 is NOT Butcher’s (or Karl’s),” Kripke wrote on Sunday night. “We hired a model (I don’t know his name). I chose the pic, based on about 20 different butthole shots. Yep, Hollywood is a glamorous dream factory.”
On the episode, Urban’s Butcher tries to make a deal with Doumit’s Neuman to obtain the supe-killing virus first introduced in spinoff series Gen V. But she has one condition: bring her the secret Red River file that the Boys have on her as collateral. At first, it seems like Butcher is going to acquiesce. Though, he later has a change of heart and punks Neuman instead by sending her a picture of a man’s butthole.
Kripke earlier confirmed that the scene as they shot it “was Claudia’s real reaction at seeing the picture for the first time. All authentic.”
The first three episodes of The Boys season 4 dropped on Prime Video last week, and buttholes did abound. Rob Benedict, who appeared on Kripke’s Supernatural as God, played the character Splinter, with the ability to replicate himself in a particularly gnarly way. And he uses this power for selfish pleasures, such as creating a human centipede of the sexual nature with a bunch of his copies.
“I was very, very open and honest with Rob,” Kripke previously told Entertainment Weekly of casting Benedict for this role. “I think we heard from his reps that he was interested in the part. The minute I heard, I said, ‘Hold on! Let me reach out to him personally.’ He’s a friend, so I emailed with him. I’m like, ‘Yo! Here is exactly what this character is going to have do and the insane amount of nudity and everything else. Before you even audition, I just want you to know what you’re getting yourself into.'”
Episode 4 will arrive this Thursday. And if it’s not buttholes we’ll be seeing, then it’ll probably be something involving a squid or dildos or genital explosion. You know, if we had to guess.