Chace Crawford’s Scrapped Spin-Off Pitch for The Deep Sounds Like the Show ‘The Boys’ Universe Desperately Needs

Few characters in recent television history have walked the strange tightrope between deeply uncomfortable and genuinely lovable quite like The Deep. Played with an uncanny mix of narcissism and existential panic by Chace Crawford, The Deep became one of the most memed and unexpectedly endearing figures in the entire run of ‘The Boys‘, with showrunner Eric Kripke crediting Crawford’s instincts as the sole reason the character became a fan favorite. It is a testament to how thoroughly Crawford inhabited the role that, even now that the show has ended, audiences are still not ready to say goodbye to Kevin Moskowitz.

‘The Boys’ wrapped its fifth and final season on Prime Video in May, capping off what became one of the most acclaimed satirical superhero series in television history. The Deep himself met his end in the finale, killed by a giant squid after Starlight used her powers to push him into the sea, a poetic and darkly comedic conclusion to one of the show’s most tragicomic arcs. For a character who spent years manipulating sea creatures and being manipulated in return, it was exactly the kind of absurd exit the show had always promised.

Now, with the dust barely settled on the finale, Crawford has revealed that he once pitched a spin-off built entirely around The Deep, and the concept is far more thoughtful than anyone might expect. Talking to Armchair Expert podcast, Crawford described the idea as follows: The Deep gets kicked out and becomes a D-List actor, a washed-up figure you watch stumbling through productions of bad movies, framed through the dark comedic lens of ‘Barry’ rather than the superhero world of ‘The Boys’. The vision, as Crawford laid it out, leaned hard into the self-aware humor that made the character work so well as part of the ensemble.

Speaking separately to Who What Wear, Crawford elaborated that the pitch imagined a three-character half-hour comedy, drawing comparisons not just to ‘Barry’ but also to the tone of ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’, complete with a ridiculous stuntman dynamic. He was candid about his own reluctance to let the character go, admitting that he feels unsatisfied because he could keep telling stories about The Deep and that watching people respond to the comedy has been one of the most rewarding parts of his career.

The comparison to ‘Barry’ is particularly telling. Kripke himself noted that Crawford is a gifted physical comedian who brought a constant stream of improvised moments to the role, and that nobody foresaw just how funny the character would become in his hands. A standalone vehicle built around that specific comedic energy, one that does not require the full machinery of the superhero satire around it, actually sounds like a natural fit for the kind of prestige half-hour comedy space that ‘Barry’ occupied on HBO.

The idea did not move forward at Prime Video, at least not in any official capacity. The wider ‘Boys’ universe is continuing with a prequel project called ‘Vought Rising’ in development, set in the 1950s and exploring the origins of Vought Inc. Whether there is appetite for a Deep-centered story within that expanding franchise remains to be seen, but the fact that Crawford had a coherent pitch ready suggests the idea has genuine creative legs behind it.

The Deep stumbling through bad auditions, B-movie sets, and the wreckage of his own ego in a stripped-back comedy format sounds like exactly the kind of spin-off that would earn its place rather than simply trade on a beloved parent show. Whether or not it ever gets made, the pitch alone says a lot about how well Crawford understands who this character really is, so what do you think, would you watch a solo Deep comedy series, or does his story feel complete with how ‘The Boys’ ended things?