The Boys Season 3: Termite and his horrific scene explained

The Boys Season 3 boasts the twisted superhero show’s most grotesque scene to date. Remember the Ant-Man vs. Thanos debate? Well, we now have an answer via the penis-strolling misadventures of Termite. 

When The Boys first arrived on Amazon Prime in 2019, it ruptured the status quo of mainstream comic book adaptations with its gut-splatting gore, incisive satire, and razor-edge tonal shifts. The first season’s funniest moments were only bettered by its horror, like Homelander and Queen Maeve abandoning a doomed passenger plane.

Quote, unquote “gritty” superheroes are ultra-popular, but The Boys’ outlandish violence has always felt like a tonic for drear and cheer. Find another show that has a man’s head being crushed into mush by face-sitting, a speedboat impaling a whale, or a courtroom covered in brain-bits after a chain reaction of head explosions.

So, it’s unsurprising to see the third season live up to its gruesome reputation. That said, the first 12 minutes of Episode 1 are something to behold: hold onto your butts – there may be a sneezy Termite around.

Who is Termite in The Boys Season 3?

Termite, played by Brett Geddes, was initially glimpsed in the first-ever episode of The Boys, when Hughie (Jack Quaid) and Butcher (Karl Urban) walk through a secret Supe sex club. He was also teased in an online instalment of Vought News Network: Seven on 7 with Cameron Coleman ahead of the new season’s release.

• Read More: We’re loving the surprise cameo at the start of The Boys S3

Episode 1 of Season Three marks his proper introduction to the show. It’s clear he’s meant to be a parody of Marvel‘s Ant-Man, or perhaps even DC‘s The Atom. However, there are a few differences; most notably, he shrinks and gets up to all sorts of mischief while completely naked in The Boys.

The Termite scene in The Boys Season 3 is the show’s wildest moment yet

The first episode, titled ‘Payback’, starts off with Frenchie (Tomer Capone) and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) tracking down Termite at the after-party for his movie premiere.

Termite heads into another room with his boyfriend to do some drugs. Then, his partner tells him: “I want you inside me,” prompting Termite to shrink down and crawl inside his penis, where he walks around and rubs the sides.

It’s all going rather steamily until Termite needs to sneeze, likely as a result of just snorting some cocaine. He desperately tries to hold it, but the result is anything but gesundheit for his boyfriend: as Termite grows back to normal form while still inside him, he splits his partner in two, ripping through his pelvis and leaving his entrail-drooping torso on the bed.

At this precise moment, as Termite shrieks in heartbreak and shock, Frenchie walks in. He tries to leave, promising not to say anything, but Termite engages the Supe-hunter in a fistfight before trying to crawl inside his bum. Fortunately, Butcher catches him in a plastic bag full of coke and shakes him around, immobilising him.

Termite’s penis scene was inspired by the Ant-Man vs. Thanos debate

Prior to Endgame’s release, fans proposed a simple way to defeat Thanos: Ant-Man could simply shrink, climb inside his anus, and return to normal or giant size. In an interview with Variety, The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke revealed this theory to be the direct inspiration for Termite’s opening scene.

• Read More: The Boys’ Jack Quaid trolled Star Wars fans for Scream role

Kripke, crediting Craig Rosenberg who penned the script, said it evolved from a conversation about which heroes they hadn’t spun into The Boys yet. After Ant-Man was raised, chatter inevitably moved onto the Thanos butt theory. At this point, someone said: “We should give the audience the thing that Marvel can’t give to them.”

“Then someone else raises their hand, hilariously, and says: ‘Didn’t we already do an ass explosion?’ Which we did, in Season 1, with Translucent, which is hilarious,” Kripke continued.

“And so, once you take butts off the table, there’s really only so many orifices you can go in. And it was Craig who mounted that argument. He’s like: ‘Look, the mouth isn’t funny and the butt has been done.’ So we’re going to blaze some new trail through the eye of the needle, as it were. And it was so funny.”

When is Episode 4 of The Boys Season 3 out?

Episode 4 of the third season of The Boys is due to arrive on Amazon Prime on Friday, June 10.