Homelander chugging breast milk and the infamous Herogasm bloodbath might have made "The Boys" fans squeamish, but they don't compare to the one scene that completely grossed out the cast during filming.
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00:00 A Homelander chugging breast milk in the infamous Herogasm bloodbath might have made the Boys
00:05 fans squeamish, but they don't compare to this, a scene that was as gross to film as
00:10 it was to watch.
00:12 One of the many oddities of the Boys is the way that any character, no matter how terrible,
00:16 suddenly transforms into an audience surrogate the moment they're trapped in the room with
00:20 Homelander.
00:21 A-Train is a selfish, murdering jerk for instance, but it's hard not to relate to him as Homelander
00:26 starts making fun of his weight and there's nothing A-Train can do about it.
00:30 Ashley is a power-hungry corporate stooge, but when she develops a hair-yanking habit
00:34 from the stress of working with Homelander, we have no trouble understanding why.
00:38 When Homelander shatters the eardrums of an innocent, daredevil-inspired soup, Ashley's
00:43 horrified expression perfectly matches how we feel.
00:54 Which is the case with Chase Crawford's The Deep, a character who could have been a main
00:58 villain in any other show.
01:00 Introduced as a rapist and further characterized as a shallow loser with an unsettling fish
01:05 fetish, Deep briefly stops being quite such a hateable character when Homelander is tormenting
01:09 him.
01:10 Outside of maybe Stormfront, nobody deserves to be treated the way Homelander treats people.
01:16 This is made most clear in the season 3 episode "Barbery Coast" where Homelander is feeling
01:20 especially sadistic and decides to force The Deep to eat an octopus.
01:25 But it's not just any octopus, it's Timothy, an octopus that the fish-talking, fish-loving
01:30 Deep has grown particularly attached to.
01:32 The Deep says, "He's begging for his life, his kids."
01:39 But Homelander insists, and The Deep's wife Cassandra urges him to go along.
01:44 And so begins the grossest, most agonizing 45 seconds in a show that's already filled
01:48 with gross-out sequences.
01:50 Unfortunately for Chase Crawford, the scene wasn't entirely done with CGI.
01:55 He explained to Entertainment Weekly how they made Timothy out of vegan products, which
01:59 helped a little but still didn't stop him from being grossed out.
02:02 He went on to elaborate.
02:04 But the main biting down part was like syrup and something else, it was disgusting.
02:10 But yeah, it was palatable, it was okay.
02:13 The Boys' VFX supervisor Stephen Fleet gave Corridor Crew a more in-depth explanation
02:18 of how they were able to make the Timothy prompt convincing.
02:20 He said, "A food specialist created a vegan tentacle, which looks like a gummy worm that
02:25 he could suck up.
02:26 It's the right size, not the right texture, we had to skin over it, but it gave him something
02:30 tangible because you want those chopsticks to grab onto something."
02:34 He went on to add that the ink is also real.
02:37 They created an ink balloon, which Crawford rehearsed with a number of times before filming
02:41 the scene.
02:42 At a certain point, it starts to feel like having the actor eat an actual octopus would
02:46 be easier than doing all this, which might be why PETA praised the show for how they
02:50 went about this scene.
02:52 But for Fleet, all these extra steps felt necessary.
02:55 He said, "I was like, 'This is not easy, this is not easy work, so we need to get as much
02:59 real stuff as we can into the arena here.'"
03:02 Of course, the grossness of Timothy's demise isn't just about the taste and texture of
03:06 what Crawford was eating, or the inky ooze dripping out of his mouth.
03:10 It's horrifying because there's an intense friendship between the Deep and Timothy.
03:15 Not only that, but there's also a weird sexual thing going on between them.
03:19 In a bizarre scene where the Deep is having intercourse with his cult-approved wife, Cassandra,
03:24 it becomes clear that Deep is more interested in Timothy, who is watching from the fish
03:28 tank behind the bed.
03:29 The Deep's deep passion for cephalopods is confirmed later on in season three.
03:34 He hoaxes up with one during Herogasm, and later tries to convince Cassandra to have
03:39 a threesome with himself and an octopus called Ambrosia.
03:42 "Babe, this is Ambrosia.
03:45 She's very pretty and she thinks you're strong."
03:49 But hey, we're not here to judge.
03:51 In fact, it's almost kind of sweet how the Deep clearly views fish as fellow people and
03:55 treats them as worthy of kindness and dignity.
03:58 We say almost because despite the Deep's good intentions with them, he keeps accidentally
04:02 getting them killed in brutal, humiliating ways.
04:06 He gets a lobster murdered after promising he'll keep it safe.
04:09 He gets a dolphin run over by a truck.
04:11 And he lets poor Lucy the whale get impaled by a speedboat.
04:16 "I promise we'll harvest your belly."
04:20 Timothy is the natural escalation of this trend.
04:22 As the Deep doesn't just accidentally kill him, he is forced to actively chew and swallow
04:27 a creature that he genuinely considers to be a friend, a confidant, and a lover.
04:31 Basically, the Deep is being forced to eat a fellow person.
04:34 Honestly, though, given all the stories we've heard about method acting and directors tricking
04:39 their actors for more authentic reactions, we're just happy the showrunners didn't make
04:43 Crawford eat an actual, living octopus.
04:46 After all, Jeremy Strong actually drank that revolting "meal for a king" in the Succession
04:50 finale.
04:51 And Will Ferrell really did eat some of Buddy's gross, syrupy treats in Elf.
04:55 "I'm not a fan of the way you talk.
04:56 I'm not a fan of the way you talk.
04:57 I'm not a fan of the way you talk.
04:58 I'm not a fan of the way you talk.
04:59 I'm not a fan of the way you talk.
05:00 I'm not a fan of the way you talk.