The following article contains spoilers for the sixth episode of The Boys entitled “Herogasm” as well as mature subject matter.
The Boys is no stranger to outlandish debauchery, as evidenced by the season three opener, during which someone with shrinking powers blew apart someone from the inside. Fans have been extremely excited to reach the latest episode of the series once it was shared back in January 2021 that the sixth episode of season three was entitled “Herogasm.”
If you haven’t read the Boys comic books, you might be a little perplexed to see a content warning at the beginning of the episode, as the series has contained content of a sexual nature before. So what makes Herogasm so special that it needs a content warning?
What is Herogasm?
In the Amazon Prime Video series, Herogasm is essentially a Supe-filled orgy. The episode had Herogasm take place at the mansion of the TNT Twins, former members of the Payback team. It’s mentioned in the episode that Herogasm was celebrating its 70th anniversary and that Soldier Boy and Liberty founded the annual event. For those who don’t remember, Liberty was the old Supe name of Stormfront, the Supe who turned out to be a Nazi in season two.
The orgy was filled with Supe-debauchery, including but not limited to, a dildo conjured by ice powers, a flaming penis, the return of Love Sausage, a woman praising someone’s stretch abilities, nipples being stimulated by electricity powers, the Deep having sex with an octopus, and Mother’s Milk getting covered in… not milk. The scene was filled with naked Supes of all variates as well as the exhibition of drug use ⏤ all of which more than explains the content warning, especially the part about animals.
However, the comic book version was far dirtier than the season three episode. The comic book arc lasted for six issues between The Boys #30 and #31 as a miniseries entitled The Boys: Herogasm. The comic book Herogasm involved the entire superhero community and, as a cover, the public was told that for a weekend every superhero would be fighting a world-ending threat. Instead, they all flew to a private island resort in which every Supe engaged in whatever they wanted, whether that be weird Supe-fueled sexual activity or horrendous drug use.
There were a number of differences between the comic book version and the version in the show. For example, the comic book version had Soldier Boy sleep with Homelander to get into the Seven, which was not included in the show for obvious reasons, as was the case for many of the other differences. There was also a scene in the books that included heavy drug use, which included (brace yourself) a reference to smoking dried foetus and cutting drugs with Queen Maeve’s vaginal mucus.
Even though the comic book was more explicit, it does not take away from the fact that this episode of The Boys contained some of the best scenes from the series so far ⏤ not just the sexually explicit material, but the fight featuring Butcher versus Soldier Boy, and Butcher and Hughie as well. There are only two more episodes of the show before the end of the season, but hopefully the sixth episode was not the ceiling of how crazy this season, and by extension this show, can get.
You can catch The Boys when it arrives on Amazon Prime Video on Fridays.
