The first two episodes of The Boys season 5 are now streaming on Prime Video, and the second instalment, "Teenage Kix," introduces a parody of The Thing known as Rock-Hard.
This guy couldn't be any more different from The Fantastic Four's Ben Grimm, however.
If you haven't watched the episode yet, spoilers follow.
After Butcher, Starlight and Kimiko rescue the others from Vought's "Freedom Camp," Butcher reveals that the anti-Supe virus is almost ready. The team decides to test the potentially lethal liquid on the near-indestructible member of Teenage Kix, Rock-Hard, but things don't exactly go to plan.
Upon arriving at the teen Supe group's HQ, they discover that Rock-Hard has packed on the pounds (we're not going to go into the reason why), and has become a massive mountain of molten rock and hot, spurting... lava.
During a recent interview with Variety, showrunner Eric Kripke explained how they came up with the idea for this rather vile creation.
"One of the things that the show does well is try to satirize superhero tropes. One trope that we hadn’t done yet was the Thing, the giant, bulking, character made of stone. The reason we never touched it is because we can’t afford to do it. They’re these massive CG characters. We were trying to figure out a funny character that we could from the superhero world that we could do our irreverent spin on.
One morning, I came in and I’m like, 'Let’s have him gain so much weight and be so huge that he’s lost the ability to move. So all we really need are two eyes, like in a ‘Scooby-Doo’ painting moving around, that we could plug into this sculpture that we build and could pull off.' Jessica Chou, who wrote the episode, came up with having that Stephen Hawking automated voice where that’s the only way he can talk and he’s so filthy and gross. It was just really such a strange character."
Things don't end well for Rock-Hard and most of his teammates (MM decides to let Countess Crow live) after the crew releases the virus, but we find out that Soldier Boy survived in the very last shot. What did you make of the first two episodes of The Boys season 5?
In the fifth and final season of The Boys, it's Homelander’s world, completely subject to his erratic, egomaniacal whims. Hughie, Mother's Milk, and Frenchie are imprisoned in a "Freedom Camp." Annie struggles to mount a resistance against the overwhelming Supe force. Kimiko is nowhere to be found. But when Butcher reappears, ready and willing to use a virus that will wipe all Supes off the map, he sets in motion a chain of events that will forever change the world and everyone in it. It's the climax, people. Big stuff's gonna happen.
The Boys stars Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Jessie T. Usher, Laz Alonso, Chace Crawford, Tomer Capone, Karen Fukuhara, Nathan Mitchell, Colby Minifie, Cameron Crovetti, Susan Heyward, Valorie Curry, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jensen Ackles, and Daveed Diggs.
Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, James Weaver, Neal H. Moritz, Pavun Shetty, Phil Sgriccia, Michaela Starr, Paul Grellong, David Reed, Judalina Neira, Jessica Chou, Gabriel Garcia, Ori Marmur, Ken F. Levin and Jason Netter serve as executive producers.