‘The Boys’ Creator on That Firecracker Twist: “Some of the Best Acting We’ve Ever Seen”
[This story with The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke contains major spoilers for season five, episode five, “One-Shots.”]
Wednesday’s episode of The Boys contained one of the most compelling moments in the show’s history: Misty Tucker Gray, better known as Firecracker (Valorie Curry), was forced to go on her bombastic talk show and grossly vilify her pastor who she adores in order to please Homelander (Antony Starr), who has insisted on his followers on depicting him as the only true God. Homelander then “rewards” her act of soul-destroying loyalty by murdering her.
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Below, Eric Kripke talks about the two scenes, and how Marjorie Taylor Greene’s relationship with Donald Trump played a role.
So Valorie Curry only joined the show last season, but she knocked it out of the park in the role of Firecracker. The scene where she went on Truthbomb and turned on her pastor was, I think, one of the best in the show — particularly since she was able to maintain some of our sympathy through that horrible moment.
Valorie 100 percent made that scene what it was. That moment where she’s on the news, and choosing to sell out this man who practically raised her … the script, for sure, was there as a blueprint. What it basically said in the script was: “She takes a beat. Is she really going to go through with it? She goes through with it.” But what Val did with that, brought you inside of her heartbreak, you could see it killing her own soul.
And that was some of the best fucking acting this show has ever seen. And I agree, it’s just a heartbreaking, beautiful moment. And we always knew we would have an episode where she completely gives up everything she holds dear and that was going to be the episode where Homelander kills her.
Because for us, it’s like, everyone who’s in his orbit — or everybody who is in a certain public figure’s orbit — they give up every single conviction they’ve ever had, and then he destroys their careers. They end up just getting thrown out into the world. There’s this breed of people espousing Trump’s message who are more hardcore than him — the Marjorie Taylor Greens of the world. [When we wrote the episode], her sort of banishment hadn’t happened yet. But we were like: “But it’s only a matter of time before it does.” So were were like: Let’s write that. Because, I mean, Firecracker had it coming.
In this episode, you also take the action to Hollywood for a cameo-filled sequence mocking left-wing actors, which feels like a different take than the show’s usual satire of right-wing authoritarian politics and media.
I’m sure my politics are a secret to nobody. But the Left is so good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and they’re just so ineffectual in their messaging. I really love that line of, “Let’s get Lena Dunham to write an op-ed for The Atlantic” — just living in the left-wing echo chamber, like, somehow that’s gonna speak to people. It’s like their heart is in the right place, but they’re just a circular firing squad, and out of touch with what America actually needs. Until we get better at that, we’re gonna keep getting our ass kicked. So we were making that point.
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