Spoiler Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Boys Season 5.You’ve probably heard the saying, “you can’t make this stuff up.” It explains that truth is often stranger than fiction. In the case of The Boys, creator Eric Kripke thought he was writing pure fiction for Season 5. But, as it turns out, he seemingly predicted the future.
You might watch Season 5 of the Amazon Prime Video series and believe that Kripke is poking fun at the current political, economic, and societal landscape. And he is. But when you realize that the writers penned this season in 2024, before the November 2024 U.S. election, it becomes clear that Kripke may have unintentionally predicted some events.
‘The Boys’ Season 5 Was Written Before Current Events
It’s easy to forget that TV shows are written long before they stream. Sometimes, the writing process happens years before filming begins, followed by editing, and then the final cut you get to watch. Not only was The Boys Season 5 written before current events that it seems to mirror, it was also written before President Donald Trump was elected for his second term.
Kripke told TV Guide that before the 2024 election, he thought he and his team were writing the show to say, hey, look what America could have looked like had things gone a different way. Like many others, he thought that direction was unlikely. He was wrong.
The Boys has become known for parodying American culture and politics, and now, art is imitating life in a way that Kripke never expected. He says he’s actually “bummed out” that he wrote it before the election. His intent at the time was to “write a 1984 version of what creeping authoritarianism looks like in America.” He believed that the absurdity of the show would make fans laugh and say, “Phew, we really dodged a bullet.” Instead, he adds, “We got hit with the bullet.” This has made the final season of The Boys hit much closer to home than expected.
The writers crafted many ridiculous ideas about the state of the world centered around the all-powerful Homelander (Antony Star) and touched on issues of government, media, religion, and devoted followers. These have actually occurred in some fashion in real life. Let’s consider the increasing use of AI and deepfakes to both generate disinformation and accuse people of fabricating the truth. Homelander is offended that memes are being shared about him, while members of The Boys are thrown into one of many Freedom Camps across the country.
People are being labeled as terrorists for speaking out against Homelander, even for liking memes that disparage him. The government is using religion, which blurs the lines between church and state thanks to the introduction of Oh Father (Daveed Diggs), the new head pastor of Samaritan’s Embrace Ministries, with a shady past. He also happens to be married to Ashley (Colby Minifie), former Vought CEO and current Vice President of America. She does Homelander’s bidding for him, out of fear more than anything else.
Several characters also discuss invoking the Insurrection Act, giving corporate tax breaks to the wealthy, and granting Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) a pardon for his accusations of treason decades ago. In The Boys Season 5, Episode 3, when Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) is found in Russia, someone says that Russia isn’t the enemy of America. Sound familiar?
There are even more examples. In Episode 4, Homelander is obsessed with ascending, depicting himself as a God-like figure after seeing a vision of Madelyn Stillwell (Elisabeth Shue) as an angel. This narrative happened at the exact time that President Donald Trump received flak for posting an AI-generated, heavenly-like image of him wearing a white robe and healing someone lying on a table. President Trump claims the photo was intended to depict him as a doctor, not Jesus, in support of their efforts with the Red Cross. However, the similarities between the stories are striking.
Politics Meets Religion in ‘The Boys’ Season 5
In Season 5, Episode 4, Homelander is officially going off the deep end, declaring himself a lord, the messiah, the savior of the world. “We need to prepare America for my ascension,” he says. He uses Firecracker (Valorie Curry) as his mouthpiece and forces her to create a media narrative that supports his desires. While some initially believed that Firecracker was a parody of Marjorie Taylor Greene, since that former congresswoman has now spoken out against President Trump, Firecracker has been compared to others like Lauren Boebert.
This narrative is interesting because Firecracker, a religious member of the far right, is starting to question what she’s being asked to do. While she believes in Homelander wholeheartedly, once he begins calling himself a savior and threatening her steadfast religious beliefs, she questions his sanity and intent, and her role in fueling his egomaniacal desires. While Ashley has questioned Homelander and his decisions for a long time, even she admits that she’s acting out of self-preservation and fear.
The most terrifying reveal in the episode is the launch of The Democratic Church of America. This is to appease Homelander but also raise money for the flailing megachurch. If telling lies puts money in the pocket, why not go along with it? Homelander even has a statue erected of himself (sound familiar?) and presents himself as a prophet to the public. Some fall in line with his ridiculous proclamations, which is likely because they are too far down a rabbit hole now to turn back. It falls under the “you can’t make this stuff up” category. Apparently, you can.
Kripke adds that the ideas the writing team came up with seemed implausible at the time. The fact that things they wrote as totally “crazy” have come true is “really f**king troubling,” Kripke adds. He also says there’s more to come in the high-stakes final season that will shock viewers at how the show’s cautionary supposed alternate future storyline is mirroring real life. He said, “There’s a line in Episode 7 that Homelander says that was the craziest line we could think of, and it’s already happened.”
Perception of ‘The Boys’ is Everything
Perhaps it’s not so surprising that so many events in The Boys Season 5 that were written as satire have come true. In 2025, Starr felt compelled to speak out against the glorification of Homelander and those who praise the supervillain as though he is some type of messiah. He told Entertainment Weekly that they had to “knock them down a little bit on social media” to inform them that Homelander is not supposed to be the hero of any story. “They were really glorifying him, they loved him. Which is surreal.”
This pattern has happened with other TV shows. Fans have loved antihero characters like fictional vigilante serial killer Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) from Dexter, or the terrifying drug kingpin Walter White (Bryan Cranston) from Breaking Bad. However, Homelander hits differently since the show is meant to satirize the current political landscape and, instead, it’s holding up a mirror.
According to IGN, Kripke has never glossed over the fact that he created Homelander as a “proxy for Donald Trump,” viewing him as the “He’s not really getting the nomination, is he?” guy. Once Trump was elected for the first time, three years before the first season of The Boys, the show set out to “tell a story about the intersection of celebrity and authoritarianism and how social media and entertainment are used to sell fascism.” When Kripke realized they were onto something, he “felt an obligation to run in that direction as far as we could.” He never thought in his wildest dreams that much of the satire would come true.
The Boys Season 5 continues the show’s satirical tone. It remains to be seen how closely events in the fictional series about superheroes as villains will continue to emulate real life. But what was initially written as a tale of what could have happened is quickly becoming the story of what is happening.
Sure, The Boys is still an outlandish satire. It depicts characters with special powers and vulgar sensibilities performing horrendous acts with at least one-half of the population supporting them, convinced that Homelander is the savior he believes himself to be. In this case, however, real life appears to be even stranger than fiction, turning satire into reality.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
