PETA Recognizes The Boys for Octopus Scene

It’s understandable if your first reaction to hearing the words “The Boys” and “PETA” in the same sentence is “Uh Oh. Amazon’s The Boys is known for being raucous, racy, and often pretty repugnant with its shock and awe humor – throw animals into the mix and you can only imagine how depraved things could (and do) get. However, this time around The Boys has actually scored big points with PETA in a good way, after choosing to use some technological workarounds to avoid harming a live animal in a pivotal (and disgusting) scene from season 3. 

(WARNING: Spoilers For The Boys Season 3 Follow!) 

In The Boys Season 3 Episode 3, The Deep (Chace Crawford) is welcomed back into super-team The Seven, as a surprise twist in the group’s reality show competition to find two new members. While The Deep thinks he’s back on Homelander’s (Antony Starr) good side, the psycho superman has  a… deeper re-initiation in mind: a seafood dinner feast, just for The Deep. 

Anyone who has watched The Boys knows that its version of Aquaman (Deep) has more than communicative ability with marine life – he has a crazy sexual fetish to go with it. So, after an early scene showing Deep getting off to an octopus in his fish tank (instead of the actual human woman under him), it’s a big, gross, twist that Homelander serves him his Octopus friend “Timothy,” alive, as the main course of dinner. At the goading of his fiancee and Homelander, Deep proves his unabashed desire to be back in the fold back eating Timothy alive. 

The seafood feast is certainly a disturbing sequence – even for the likes of The Boys. However, it’s good to hear that the show spent some budget on creating a CGI version of Timothy, instead of letting a real Octopus (or several) go through the distress of even simulated eating. 

Here’s what PETA said in a statement on the matter: 

PETA Awards Amazon Prime Series The Boys for CGI Octopus Scene

Los Angeles – PETA is honoring actor Chace Crawford, The Boys creator Eric Kripke, and the show’s special effects team with its “Tech, Not Terror” Award for the cruelty-free and thought-provoking scene involving a computer-generated octopus in the Amazon Prime series’ latest episode.

In the scene, Crawford’s character is forced to eat a close friend-an octopus named Timothy, whom the show depicts as an individual with a family, using cutting-edge technology instead of a live animal.

In an interview about the animal’s grisly and tragic end, showrunner Kripke explains that the mollusk “didn’t deserve the cruel fate of being eaten raw”-a fate many real octopuses meet, as billons of invertebrates are killed for food each year.

“The Boys’ real heroes are working behind the scenes, creating a realistic CGI octopus so that animals can live in peace,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “PETA is celebrating this series for helping viewers see every octopus as an individual like Timothy, not as an entrée or as entertainment.”

Highly intelligent and known to caress and kiss, octopuses communicate with each other using patterns and colors. They use tools, can unscrew jar lids, and have the capacity to feel bored. Those held in captivity have even attempted to escape and squirted their captors with water.

The Boys Season 3 is streaming new episodes Fridays on Amazon Prime Video.