When life imitates art.
The Season 4 finale of “The Boys” features a shape-shifting supervillain trying to kill president-elect Robert Singer (Jim Beaver).
The episode came out Thursday — five days after the assassination attempt of former president Donald Trump, 78, at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Amazon retitled the episode from “Assassination Run” to “Season Four Finale” and added a “viewer discretion advised” warning that appears on-screen at the start.
The network and the show also released a statement addressing the similarities between the storyline of the finale and the Trump shooting.
“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,” the statement read.
“’The Boys’ is a fictitious series that was filmed in 2023, and any scene or plotline similarities to these real-world events are coincidental and unintentional.”
“Amazon, Sony Pictures Television and the producers of ‘The Boys’ reject, in the strongest terms, real-world violence of any kind,” the statement concluded.
Trump was shot in the ear while speaking to supporters at the rally on Saturday. The gunman was identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. He crawled onto the roof of a manufacturing plant more than 130 yards away from the stage at the Butler Farm Show grounds. He was shot and killed by Secret Service snipers.
The former president said in an exclusive interview with The Post that the assassination attempt was a “very surreal experience.”
“The doctor at the hospital said he never saw anything like this, he called it a miracle,” he said. “I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead.”
Based on a graphic novel, “The Boys” is a satirical superhero show that frequently intertwines with real-world events. Season 4 in particular has felt like a carbon copy of the current state of America’s political division.
The show’s main antagonist, Homelander (Antony Starr), bears many similarities to Trump.
Creator Eric Kripke, 50, told the Hollywood Reporter in June it was always his plan to draw comparisons between the show and the real world.
“When Seth [Rogen] and Evan [Goldberg] and I took it out to pitch, it was 2016,” he said. “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,” Kripke continued. “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.”
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Kripke said it’s intentional how the show channels current events such as the January 6 Capitol riots and the MAGA movement.
“We write about whatever is pissing us off or frightening us at the time,” he explained.
Kripke added: “I’m under no illusion that we’re going to change minds or change anything. We’re carnies. I get it. But to be able to just have a place to put our feelings and to say the things we want to say is a real gift.”
In May, Amazon renewed “The Boys” for a fifth and final season.
The first four seasons are streaming on Prime Video.
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