Showrunner Eric Kripke describes The Boys as many things, but “subtle isn’t one of them.”

We’re just under a week away from the Season 4 premiere of The Boys, and the showrunner is weighing in on some of the discussion.

In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke responded to fans calling Homelander a hero and concerns about the show becoming “woke” in its most recent seasons in one fell stroke.

“Anyone who wants to term the show ‘woke’ or whatever, that’s fine. Go watch something else. But I’m not going to hold back or apologize for what we’re doing,” Kripke told THR.

“Some people who watch it think Homelander is the hero. What do you say to that?” he added. “The show’s many things. Subtle isn’t one of them. So if that’s the message you’re getting from it, I just throw up my hands.”

ERIC KRIPKE ISN’T SURE WHAT TO MAKE OF FANS WHO THINK HOMELANDER IS THE HERO.

When asked whether the showrunners always intended to parallel former President Donald Trump’s ensuing presidential race via Homelander’s authoritarian rise to power, Kripe responded that Homelander was always intended to be a proxy for Trump.

“When Seth [Rogen] and Evan [Goldberg] and I took it out to pitch, it was 2016. 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,” Kripke said. “Suddenly, we were telling a story about the intersection of celebrity and authoritarianism and how social media and entertainment are used to sell fascism. 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.”

The Boys’ official X/Twitter account for Vought International—the show’s in-universe superhero agency—posted a photo of Homelander on trial on the same day Trump was found guilty of 34 felony charges of manipulating company records, emphasizing the connections. Speaking with THR, Kripe acknowledged The Boys’ ability to correctly depict real-life political instability.

“It’s not a spoiler to say that first episode [of Season 4], Homelander is on trial. A big concern is ‘Can you convict someone that powerful of a crime?’ And what does that mean for the various supporters or the people protesting him? Did I know it was going to come out during Trump’s trial? Of course not. But we write what we’re either scared of or pissed off about,” Kripke said.

Kripke has previously featured prescient political criticism in The Boys. Speaking with THR, Kripe admitted that A-Train’s prescient Season 3 storyline concerning officers over-policing Black neighborhoods during the height of the Black Lives Matter rallies was not coincidental.

“Some people who watch it think Homelander is the hero. What do you say to that?

“Well, it’s been a problem for over 100 years,” Kripke remarked. “It was an issue five years ago, and it will remain a problem five years from now. “It’s always the same thing.”

In our Season 3 review of The Boys, we gave it a 9/10, stating that it “achieves a balance between impactful storytelling and extreme violence that cements itself as one of the best shows on streaming, no matter the year or genre.”

The Boys Season 4 premieres on Amazon Prime on June 13.