Kripke’s Description of Tek Knight’s Sexual Assault as “Hilarious,” Sparks Fan Outrage: “Episode 6 is literally VILE”

‘The Boys’ remains one of the world’s most popular superhero series, kicking off its fourth season on June 13, 2024, with the release of its first three episodes. Despite facing review-bombing from discontented fans unhappy with the new season’s political undertones, it has maintained a Certified Fresh status and continues to thrive.

Showrunner Eric Kripke is active on social media and has recently shared a wealth of background information about the series in interviews. His insights into the show always attract interest, offering fans valuable perspectives on its development.

In a recent interview with Variety, Kripke delved into key scenes from Episode 6 of the fourth season, shedding light on the background behind some of these moments. One particularly contentious scene involved Tek Knight’s sexual assault of the superhero Laddio, prompting Kripke to offer a thought-provoking perspective on the matter.

Kripke spoke with Variety, addressing various questions about the show and recent developments from Episode 6, notably the dynamic between Tek Knight and Laddio, akin to the series’ interpretation of Batman and Robin. Here’s his insight:

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

Kripke offered a unique perspective on the scene, which sparked controversy. While the interviewer rightly questioned the darkness of this take, Kripke found it “hilarious,” an unusual stance on sexual assault, even within the show’s satirical framework that does not condone such behavior. It’s crucial to note that the show does not diminish the gravity and seriousness of the situation.

Regardless of whether this was intended as sharp satire or not, fans swiftly responded, with many feeling Kripke may have gone too far:

As you can see, the comments are understandable, making this one of the series’ more controversial scenes that will likely be debated in the future.

What are your thoughts on the scene? Was it clever satire, or did it go too far? Share your opinions in the comments below!

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