One of The Boys’ biggest claims to fame is just how sick and twisted it’s willing to be, especially when it comes to sex. In Season 1, a female supe accidentally exploded a dude’s head with her vagina while he was going down on her; in Season 2, we watched in horror as Homelander crushed another guy’s head while having public sex with a Nazi. The Season 3 premiere dialed things up even further by having an Ant-Man-inspired supe crawl inside his lover’s urethra, only to accidentally expand to normal size while he was up in there. (The result was horrifying.)
It’s understandable why the show keeps doing stuff like this; each time they do, they’re rewarded with a wave of mostly positive (if bewildered) headlines. There’s also the novelty that comes with taking advantage of the show’s adult rating. The family-oriented MCU is not allowed to explore how someone like Ant-Man would use his powers in the bedroom, so The Boys is able to fill that gap.
But there’s always the risk of having too much of a gross thing, and Season 4 has finally taken The Boys into that territory. This week’s episode, “Dirty Business,” features a storyline where main character Hughie (Jack Quaid) is tied down and sexually tortured for what must’ve been at least 30 minutes. The episode mercifully cuts away from the worst of it, but we see and hear enough to know that both his tormentors—the returning Tek Knight (Derek Wilson) and Vought CEO Ashley (Colby Minifie)—come on him at some point, and Hughie doesn’t enjoy any of it.
