As if it wasn't already obvious from the trailers, The Boys took things up a few notches with Season 2 in various ways. The superhero dramedy has definitely drilled down into its satirical bent in the episodes released so far, setting a fitting tone early on with Translucent's heavily publicized funeral proceedings, from the clear casket to the mass gathering in the streets. That scene reached the apex of ironic sincerity with Starlight's pitch-perfect ballad, and it turns out showrunner Eric Kripke had even bigger plans for that song that got shut down by COVID.
When CinemaBlend spoke with Eric Kripke and The Boys cast ahead of Season 2, I wanted to hear a little bit more about that celebrity-skewering sequence. Don't worry, we'll get to The Boys' botched plans a little lower, but let's have Kripke set the scene up by laying out the inspiration for the funeral and Erin Moriarty's "You'll Never Truly Vanish" performance. In his words:
Yeah, I know We wanted to do one of those big, stupid celebrity funerals. They actually have them in the comic book; it's one of the elements that we took directly from the books, of like these big, stupid funerals that are always happening. You know, where there's merch outside and all that. So the most difficult part of arranging that funeral – outside of just having fun and being like, it's an empty glass coffin and just the stupidity of it – was Starlight's song. We really wanted a real Whitney Houston-like fucking barn-burner, you know? So me and and a writer on my staff, Michael Saltzman, and Chris Leonard, who's our composer, we wrote this big song, and then we had no idea whether Erin would be able to sing it. We didn't know whether she could sing or not. So I was like, 'Hey, are you up for testing out to see whether you can handle this song?' and she's like, 'Oh my god, yeah!' And then I think she said something in passing, and she's like, 'It's so funny, I used to sing on Broadway when I was a kid,' or something like that. Like, what?!? Then she went into the studio, and Chris Leonard was texting me, and he's like, 'Dude, we are good.' And she kills it! I mean, she's really singing; that's really her. She's really hitting those vocal heights. It's fucking insane.
Talk about a lucky move for casting. Not only is Erin Moriarty able to blast shots of blinding light from her hands – I'll fact-check that detail later – but she also boasts a pretty magnificent voice that feels tailor-made for the kind of barn-burner that Eric Kripke was talking about. Not only did she have the talent, but she also had the confidence to bring that song to life, even if it couldn't also bring Translucent back to life.
Erin Moriarty knocked that song out of the park, and showrunner Eric Kripke says that viewers only got to hear a snippet of the entire track.
We wrote a whole song. There's a whole three-and-a-half-minute song, man, that we only played like 20 seconds of. That was my favorite part. And that's why I love this show. To spend that much effort and and highly produce a three-and-a-half-minute song just so we can air a 20-second clip of it is why I love the show. I say all the time, I'm like, 'We are stupid like a fox,' because we're always putting that much effort into everything. That makes it a blast. It makes the world feel real to me, that all this stuff really exists somewhere.
Which brings us to the big plan that Eric Kripke & Co. had for The Boys that ended up getting squashed by the spread of COVID-19. The creative team wanted to give fans a chance to hear "You'll Never Truly Vanish" in its entirety, and not just as an audio track to be streamed on Voughtify. In Kripke's words:
I think we're trying to release it. We were trying, before COVID, we were going to shoot a music video. And we had it all planned, man. We had the directors, we were ready to roll. And then COVID happens.
Holy moly, to get a full music video for "You'll Never Truly Vanish" would have been the cherry and the icing and the sprinkles on top of the 20-second cake from the Season 2 premiere. I can just picture it having the same aesthetic as Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" video, or another mid-'90s vid from Celine Dion or Michael Bolton. Here's hoping that everyone involved can find a way to still make that music video happen now that productions are starting up again around Hollywood and other areas.
The Boys is currently streaming the first four episodes of Season 2 on Amazon Prime Video, with new episodes releasing weekly. Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more exclusives, such as why we probably won't see a Black Noir origin story soon, and keep current with our Fall TV 2020 premiere schedule to see what new and returning shows are on the way.
