Amazon Prime Video has added a disclaimer to the season four finale of The Boys, which released on Thursday and contains similarities to the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump over the weekend that left two people dead, including the gunman.
“The season finale of The Boys contains scenes of fictional political violence, which some viewers may find disturbing, especially in light of the injuries and tragic loss of life sustained during the assassination attempt on former President Trump,” read a statement from the streamer posted to the Prime Video and The Boys official social media accounts timed to the episode’s midnight Thursday release.
“The Boys is a fictitious series that was filmed in 2023, and any scene or plotline similarities to these real-word events are coincidental and unintentional,” the statement continued, then concluding and making clear, “Amazon, Sony Pictures Television and the producers of The Boys reject, in the strongest terms, real-world violence of any kind.”
The eighth episode of season four was previously titled “Assassination Run” and has been renamed simply “Season Four Finale.”
The Hollywood Reporter cannot spoil the plot of the episode, but here is Amazon’s official description: “It’s January 6th as Congress certifies the election results to officially make Bob Singer President and Victoria Neuman his VP. But when Homelander reveals the truth about Neuman on live TV, it sends Congress — and the entire nation — into an uproar. Meanwhile, The Boys try to protect Singer from assassination, not realizing that the assassin is closer than they think. Annie struggles to figure out who Annie January really is — and to break free from captivity. And when Butcher makes his final attempt to convince Ryan to leave Homelander, things go horribly wrong, causing Butcher to embrace the monster within — and nothing will ever be the same again.”
(Check back in later Thursday for THR‘s spoiler-y take on the season four finale.)
Creator and showrunner Eric Kripke spoke to THR ahead of season four about how his darkly comic satire (which will end with a forthcoming fifth season and is also turning into a franchise) has always been about Trumpism. The latest season spoofed a certain trial and presidential election, and he commented on the show’s social agenda.
“When Seth [Rogen] and Evan [Goldberg] and I took it out to pitch, it was 2016,” he explained of the origin story of the series. “We just wanted to do a very realistic version of a superhero show, one where superheroes are celebrities behaving badly. Trump was the, ‘He’s not really getting the nomination, is he?’ guy. When he got elected, we had a metaphor that said more about the current world. Suddenly, we were telling a story about the intersection of celebrity and authoritarianism and how social media and entertainment are used to sell fascism. We’re right in the eye of the storm. And once we realized that, I just felt an obligation to run in that direction as far as we could.”
When commenting on how each season contains parallels to real life, Kripke explained that they write the seasons close to two years before they release — well ahead of the real-life news cycle they seem to constantly predict.
“Again we’ll find that the news is accurately reflecting whatever we’re talking about,” he said, citing the season four premiere plot of putting the show’s Trump-like character, Homelander (played by Antony Starr) on trial. “Did I know it was going to come out during Trump’s trial? Of course not. But we write what we’re either scared of or pissed off about. Someone asked me last year, about season three, ‘How are you so prescient with cops and over-policing in Black neighborhoods?’ Well, it’s been a problem for over 100 years. It was a problem five years ago, and, unfortunately, it’s going to be a problem five years from now. It’s always the same shit.”
The Boys has been one of Prime Video’s more successful original series: It regularly makes Nielsen’s streaming top 10 and has spawned a spinoff, Gen V, and an animated anthology set in the same world called Diabolical.
Sony Pictures Television produces The Boys with Amazon MGM Studios, Kripke Enterprises, Original Film and Point Grey Pictures.
