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While it may be hard to believe now, superheroes were not always popular in the mainstream. There was a time when movies and television shows based on popular Marvel and DC characters were far and few between. However, the past few decades have seen a rise in superhero interest and fandom. When something is that beloved, there is bound to be a backlash.The Boysis that backlash. Based on Garth Ennis’s comic,The Boystakes place in a world where superheroes have not just gone corporate, but most of them are morally bankrupt. (EspeciallyHomelander, the show’s parody of Superman.) The pilot begins with protagonist Hughie Campbell watching in horror after A-Train, a parody of The Flash, runs through his girlfriend, Robin. This is the writers' way of letting the audience know to buckle up, because they are in for a shocking ride.
A lot of the edginess ofThe Boys' humor makes up its personality and separates it from other superhero shows.Butcher is a foul-mouthed anti-herowith a devil-may-care attitude and a morally dubious quest for revenge. Kimiko is an experiment by a terrorist organization who believes, at first, that her powers are a curse. Hughie Campbell, at first the story’s moral center, shows thathe’s just as prone to corruption as the rest of the worldhe’s living in. Even the heroes of the show have to use violence to survive. After all, this is a world where superheroes and supervillians can easily tear through civilians like they are tissue paper. The show’s violence is often so cartoonish that there is a psychological separation between what is shown on screen and what viewers are familiar with in the real world. Still, there is one recurring joke that takes things a bit too far.
The Deep’s Lewd Connection to Sea Life Is At Its Limit
The Deep, like the rest of the deranged supes in The Seven, is not a good person. (He’s a very different character thanthe one seen in the original comics.) He pressures Starlight to perform a sex act on him as part of her initiation in the first episode, and is as self-conscious and insecure as the rest of his teammates. However, given that he is a parody of Aquaman, who has long been the subject of jokes among superhero fans, he is given a special punishment. The Deep sharesAquaman’s ability to talk to fish, so, to torture him,The Boysoften forces The Deep to witnesssea life dying as a running joke.
This started as The Deep having an unwilling part in these animals' deaths. In Season 1, he tries to save a dolphin from a Sea World-like amusement park, only to accidentally end up killing it when he pumps the brakes and sends the dolphin flying onto train tracks, where it is run over. Had it just been that one joke, it could have been written off as another gag, but then the show kept milking the bit for all it was worth.
In Season 2, The Deep tries to save a lobster when he’s banished to Ohio, only to have it killed in front of him. Later, The Deep rides Lucy the Whale while chasing The Boys, only for them to run their boat through her. This was the first time an animal was named, taking things up a notch. In Season 3,Homelander forces The Deep to eat his friend, an octopus named Timothy. This is made more gruesome because Timothy is begging for his life and says he has a family.
In that same season, The Deep begins an affair with Ambrosius, another octopus, engaging in one of the most low-hanging fruit jokes a writer could make about someone with his powers. In Season 4, this gets even more deranged when Ambrosius is voiced by Tilda Swinton. Now, audiences had to hear what she was feeling. When The Deep breaks her tank after they fight overhis affair with Sister Sage, his first purposeful killing of an animal, the audience hears that her last words are that she loves him.
There Are Other Ways To Make Animals Funny
As much asThe Boyshas enjoyed killing off sea creatures, they haven’t been the only animals utilized for humor. In Season 3, when The Boys break into a Russian compound to find BCL Red (the weapon that supposedly killed Soldier Boy), Frenchie, Kimiko, and M.M. come across a hamster in a container. This hamster is Jamie, who quickly reveals that he has powers. He’s been a test subject for Compound V. Jamie uses his powers to break out his container and kills one of the scientists that experimented on him.
This plot point works because Jamie was the vulnerable one. He’s a small animal that was subjected to tests, and ultimately gets revenge on its captors. It’s cathartic. It also has the same comedic value asthe rabbit scene inMonty Python. The violence is shocking and unexpected to a humorous degree because the animal in question is so cute and small.
WhileThe Boysis no stranger to shock humor, and no real animals have been harmed, the animal cruelty jokes have become tired over four seasons. While The Deep’s suffering has become meme fodder, surely there are other ways to make jokes about him that don’t involve killing marine life. If Jamie’s memorable scene is anything to go by, there’s room for other types of animal jokes in the series. With a series as outrageous asThe Boys, there’s no doubt the writers can come up with something even more outlandish and creative.
