“It’s all about serving the story and the characters, so we all work together to build that,” says VFX supervisor Stephan Fleet. “But its gotten bigger and crazier, and it continues to do so.”
The Boys follows a group of vigilantes, led by Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), who set out to take down corrupt superheroes, or Supes, especially Homelander (Antony Starr). In Season 3, the group is working for the Bureau of Superhero Affairs and apprehending problematic Supes, but their work changes as Butcher investigates the death of Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), one of the first Supes, in the hopes of finding something powerful enough to kill Homelander. “The concepts have gotten crazier [since season one],” says Fleet. “My relationship with Eric [Kripke] and the writers, and a lot of the crew, has grown so we have these shorthands where they’ll write to our strengths and we’ll do visual effects to their strengths.”
The season started off with one of Fleet’s favorite scenes, which he says was unprecedented. “Let’s not gloss over the fact that we shrunk a guy down and had him crawl into another man’s penis and then blow up from the inside out,” he says. “I don’t think there’s been another piece of film or television that’s done quite that. And I loved it, because again there’s a message to it, there’s a cultural message to that scene, and it starts the season off with a bang.” As a member of the LGBTQ+ community himself, Fleet says he felt like it had a deeper meaning. “I knew I succeeded when I went to a drag show in Toronto and they were playing it on the walls and everyone was talking about it.”
The biggest episode this season for visual effects was “Herogasm”, which Fleet says was a full team effort. “That one was one of the true combinations of stunts, special effects, visual effects, makeup, hair, wardrobe,” he says. “All of the departments coming together in simpatico to make that one.” With so many different superpowers, combined with the destruction that Soldier Boy brings, Fleet says it was an assortment of complicated effects. “It wasn’t like there’s just one big thing, there’s just so many things happening that it comes together… It was memorable, not only memorable for audiences, but very memorable to be there filming it. It was an adventure.”
Although “Herogasm” was a lot of work, the real challenge for Fleet was a scene where The Deep (Chace Crawford) eats a living octopus. “Incredibly complicated to put any kind of digital creature on a person in a close up that holds still and have people suspend their disbelief and be in the moment,” says Fleet. “I think we achieved that and I think we added humanity and character to the octopus without making it look like a cartoon. And it was really, really wonderful to see that come together and how the artists put that scene together, but it was really complicated to do.”
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