Eric Kripke Describes Tek Knight’s Sexual Assault as Being “Hilarious,” Fans Are Quick to React
The Boys is one of the most popular superhero series in the world, and its fourth season premiered on June 13, 2024, with the first three episodes. The season has been Certified Fresh so far and it is going strong, despite review-bombing by frustrated fans, who don’t like the political context of the new season.
The series’ showrunner, Eric Kripke, is known for reacting on social media from time to time, but he has also provided us with numerous background information in a series of recent interviews, so it’s always interesting to see and hear what he has to say about the show.
In a recent interview with Variety, Kripke discussed some of the most notable scenes from Episode 6 of the fourth season and revealed some background information related to some of the scenes. One of the more controversial scenes involved Tek Knight’s sexual abuse of the superhero Laddio, and Kripke had a very interesting take on it.
Kripke sat down for a talk with Variety and he answered several questions related to the show and some of the most recent moments from Episode 6, including – as we’ve said – the relationship between Tek Knight and Laddio, the series’ version of Batman and Robin. Here is what he said:
Let’s start with the Tek Knight sex dungeon part. Where did the idea come for it? And why bring Hughie into this situation now — kicking him when he’s down by having him sexually assaulted by his childhood hero after his dad just died?
Well, that’s a dark way to look at it! We view it as hilarious. Obviously, Tek Knight is our version of Batman, and we wanted to really play around with that trope: Batman’s fascist underpinnings as a really wealthy dude who hunts poor people, and then profits of the incarceration. So that was one.
Tek Knight was already set up to be a freak, so we were kind of already halfway there. Then the notion came up of, he should have a Batcave — but let’s be honest, the Batcave would be a sex dungeon. Like, even the real Batcave is just this side of being a sex dungeon. It’s really dark, and there’s rubber suits everywhere. It’s not that much of a push to add a couple dildos and then a weird urinal that turns into a face mask.
And in the comics, there’s a great storyline where Hughie goes undercover disguised as a superhero. That was a story that Jack had always asked us to do. So part of it is, always be careful what you ask the writers for. Then we finally had this Webweaver character and the idea of Spider-Man going down to be kink tickled in the Batcave is just too good to pass up. I’m sorry, I just couldn’t leave that on the table.
Were there any pieces of that scene, either in writing or when you got to filming it, that Amazon said “No, that’s too far”?
No, that was all pretty much as scripted. We had our poor writers’ assistant do a long list of real kinks, because we were looking for some. And I remember reading down the list and I’m like, “What’s cake farting?” And then they explained to me, and it’s a real thing — but don’t look it up. I just said, that’s incredible, we have to do that.
And then it seemed like it was a real natural tie-in to bring Ashley into it, because she does have dom/sub tendencies. I love that it’s just such a perfect setup that he doesn’t know his own safe word. It’s just like a beautiful comedy setup that he’s trying to find it the whole time.
Source: Variety
As you can see, Kripke had a very interesting take on the scene. And while the reporter rightfully asked whether such a take was too dark, Kripke found it “hilarious,” which is an odd way to look at sexual assault, regardless of the fact that the show satirizes certain aspects and doesn’t endorse such behavior. It also doesn’t put down the gravity and seriousness of the situation, which is important to know going forward.
But, regardless of whether this was an act of brilliant satire or not, fans have been quick to react, with a lot of them claiming that Kripke overdid it:
Male sexual assault is NOT funny and will NEVER be funny. The Boys Season 4 Episode 6 is literally VILE. fuck this edgy disgusting bullshit 😭
— Rasheed (@_rsheedh_) July 5, 2024
felt like sexual harassment
— p 🇫🇷 (@thrdmurder) July 5, 2024
As you can see, the comments are not unfounded and this will remain as one of the more controversial scenes from the series, which we will certainly be discussing in the future as well.
What did you think of the scene? Was it great satire, or a bit too much? Let us know in the comments below!