Netflix series 'The Boys' adds trigger warning about assassination attempt in the show

By 
 July 19, 2024

The Amazon Prime Video series "The Boys" added a trigger warning to its latest season in which a supervillain tries to assassinate the president-elect after a gunman tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump on Saturday in real life.

The episode was released this Thursday and the powers-that-be at Amazon evidently thought the finale's plot might hit a little too close to home so soon after the incident with Trump, in which a bullet grazed his ear.

Amazon retitled the episode from "Assassination Run" to "Season 4 Finale" and added a "viewer discretion advised" warning to the intro.

The disclaimer

“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.

A mirror

The show is a satire of American politics, and it's not the first time it has mirrored current events rather closely.

The supervillain who tries to kill the president-elect is supposed to be a Trumpian character, even if he isn't running for president like Trump is.

The show's pilot was making the rounds in 2016 right about the time Trump got elected, and the writers thought it served as an apt "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,” creator Eric 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.”

Distorting reality

But even though the show has been used to basically beat up on Trump and paint him as a fascist, Amazon still thinks it can depict an assassination attempt without anyone making parallels to real-life events.

Of course, in their fictional world, it would be Trump trying to get rid of his opponent, because they have twisted and distorted reality so much that they don't believe that kind of violence would ever come from their side.

“We write about whatever is pissing us off or frightening us at the time,” Kripke explained.

It's kind of the fictional equivalent of watching CNN or MSNBC.

People who don't hate Trump and Republicans feel like they are in a funhouse mirror and can't find their way out.

" A free people [claim] their rights, as derived from the laws of nature."
Thomas Jefferson