The Boys' Infamous Termite Sex Scene Was Inspired By A Certain Ant-Man & Thanos Meme

Warning: some truly disturbing spoilers ahead for "The Boys" season 3.

"The Boys" is not a show for the faint of heart — nor is it a show to watch in your family living room, where anyone could stroll past and accidentally glimpse the untold horrors of whale explosions or splattering guts. During the premiere of the "The Boys" season 3, some fans learned this lesson the hard way when they tuned in to meet a super called Termite (who was briefly glimpsed in season 1, though he went unnamed at the time). 

Initially, viewers expect the only NSFW content of this scene to be of the sexy variety. The squad encounter Termite at an afterparty for his movie premiere, where he slips away for a moment in private with his boyfriend. But vanilla sex has never been this show's style, and within minutes we learn just how kinky Termite can be when he shrinks down and crawls inside his boyfriend's urethra. Believe it or not, the idea for this scene began with a much more vanilla franchise: the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

You might recall the especially long lead-up to "Avengers: Infinity War," when the internet was abuzz with fans trying to figure out how Earth's Mightiest Heroes would take on Thanos. By far the most popular plan was for Ant-Man to take the lead by crawling inside the Mad Titan's butt and, y'know, expanding inside him. Sound familiar? It's no coincidence that "The Boys" put the Ant-Man theory to the test — showrunner Eric Kripke has revealed that their plan was to deliver what the MCU could never.

While Ant-Man sneaking his way into Thanos' rectum certainly would've sped up the events of the Infinity saga (maybe the Avengers could've wrapped it up in one movie instead of two!) the MCU did not ultimately send Paul Rudd into such uncharted territory. But over on Prime Video, the writers of "The Boys" are always down for crafting the most disturbing sex scenes known to man. Remember that time Popclaw crushed a man's skull in the throes of ecstasy? That's nothing compared to what happens within the first 15 minutes of the third season. 

While making love to his boyfriend via his urethra, the Termite makes the mistake of sneezing and pops back to normal size — ripping his partner apart. Kripke explained the origins of the scene during an interview with Variety:

"Craig Rosenberg wrote the script and deserves most of the blame for it. These evolve in a writers' room and the evolution of that sequence started with, 'We need The Boys to fight a superhero.' So then we ask, 'What big superhero haven't we done yet?' Someone says, 'We haven't done Ant-Man.' And then someone else says, 'There's that meme of Ant-Man climbing up Thanos' butt and blowing him up. So we should do that. 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 a** explosion?' Which we did, in season 1, with Translucent, which is hilarious."

In Kripke's own words, "Once you take butts off the table, there's really only so many orifices you can go in." He added:

"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."

We know where the story came from, but how did "The Boys" actually pull this moment off? Trivia featured in Prime Video's X-Ray trivia reveals that the shots of Termite shrunken down to miniature size were almost entirely CGI. The VFX team put a tremendous amount of research into figuring out what the objects would look like from Termite's perspective — including, I have to assume, an unprecedented amount of research into the tip of a penis. But the inside of the urethra? I hate to encourage your inevitable nightmare, but it was very, very real. Per Kripke:

"Even though it was very much sweetened by the effects, that is a practical penis. That is an 11-foot high, 20-foot long penis head that has a urethra, a tunnel in it, and built at great expense. We got Sony and Amazon to pay so much money to build this set. And it's just another reason why I love my job."

The 11-foot penis was actually the very last design from "The Boys" production designer, Arv Greywal, who passed away in October 2020. Greywal was also responsible for the Lucy the Whale incident, and countless other delightfully gory moments on "The Boys." This is precisely why the season premiere ends with a special tribute: "This season is dedicated to our good friend Arv Greywal."

"The Boys" season 3, episodes 1-3 are now streaming on Prime Video.