Turns out, The Boys creator Eric Kripke does have a line, and it took Gen V prosthetics supervisor Daniel Baker to find it. Season 2 marked the moment he and his team tried a gag so outrageous even Kripke had to step in and say, “Absolutely not.” And that’s saying something in a universe that treats exploding bodies like punchlines.
The now-infamous moment involved Black Hole and a full evacuation as passengers disembarked (iykyk as the kids say). “They’re like, ‘Nope, we can’t air this,’” Baker says. “So I’m like, OK, great. That’s the bar. It took a while, but we finally found the line.”
Where the Script Ends and the Chaos Begins
Every show’s script requires multi-department collaboration, but Gen V takes it to the level of mad scientist. Every episode requires early concept meetings about prosthetics, VFX, special effects, makeup, and costumes all to execute something the audience might see for just seconds.
Sometimes the builds evolve through multiple incarnations. Head of Student Life Stacy’s deadly stinger, for instance, required four different versions of her prosthetic butt before landing on a design everyone could live with. She was supposed to sting someone and die—but the actress wasn’t available to finish the gag. In the end, Chekhov’s butt never fired.
The Return of the Puppets (But Make Them Weirder)
Season 1’s beloved puppet hallucinations return in Season 2, but this time shifted from people to inanimate objects: a sandwich, a garbage can, even the sun. The puppet aesthetic remains Muppet-adjacent—but warped through the show’s deranged internal logic. And having a puppet sandwich vomit tuna? Pure joy for Baker. “Amazing,” he says. “Just amazing.”
The Most Time-Intensive Build of the Season? Not What You Imagine
Nothing in Season 2 demanded more precision (or more hours in the makeup trailer) than Kate’s shaved-head, stapled-wound look. Baker and his team explored every option: real shaving, wig work, prosthetic pieces, hybrid builds. They ultimately built a full prosthetic system: bald cap, hand-punched hair, a custom wound appliance, and a wig blended seamlessly over the top.
The end results included 27 pieces that took three to four days each to fabricate and four hours to apply, a process that makeup department head Colin Penman and team eventually cut down to two.
New Students, New Mutations, New Headaches
Season 2 introduces a wave of students with horns, stingers, and all sorts of appendages that needed to be created practically. One student’s horns went through 10 different styles before they landed on the final choice. “It was a morph between a devil goat and the little horns on a giraffe, with little tufts of hair around them,” Baker says. (Those would be ossicones.) “In the ‘80s, we would’ve done those practically anyway. Working with VFX, I’m always a fan of, ‘Let us build it in camera and then you guys take it home and put a spin on it and do some really cool stuff.”
The Best Work You Barely See
One of Baker’s favorite Season 2 builds appears in the premiere when a group of scientists inject themselves with V and die horribly. One’s organs exploding out of him was done practically. The melting face ended up as a hybrid.
Initially, Baker’s team designed a full “melting face” appliance. “ We originally designed almost a candle wax melting face, but we didn’t end up using it,” he says. “We did an insert where we took a head and actually melted it on camera. So it’s actually a full head that had silicone under structure on it, and we basically covered it with goo, blood, powder, some flocking, and an ENO antacid. It looked like it was bubbling, with acid burning on it.”
Living Inside the Boys Universe Without the Suits
Because Gen V is rooted in The Boys, all prosthetic work has to obey the same visual rules, even if the college setting lacks superhero costumes. “You look at Kate or Marie, and you know their power, but you don’t see them in suits,” Baker says. That constraint means everything has to read more naturally and, therefore, more horrifying.
Baker is quick to point out that “all this is possible because of Colin Penman being the brilliant head of the makeup department that he is, and having a great team in the trailer with Karlee Morse. It was really good to have people who cared about the world, building the fun stuff, and being able to play with your friends all day.”
Of course, final approvals came from Gen V showrunner Michele Fazekas and Kripke, who gave notes on when something pushed just the right amount—or, in the case of Black Hole, too far. Still, at least we know there’s a line. It’s just way left of center.
Prosthetics supervisor Daniel Baker’s credits include The Umbrella Academy, Murderbot, and The Last of Us. His go-to at craft services? “ The gummies. Any Sour Keys. It’s always good to have a Sour Key on a craft table.”
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