This article contains spoilers for The Boys season 3.

As we’re fond of pointing out around here, no other show on television understands superhero culture and the effect of its prevalence on our world than The Boys.

Thankfully, The Boys season 3 answers many of those pressing questions. It’s now clear that The Boys’ universe mirrors our own more than one might even have expected. Here are all the references to the “real world” that we spotted in The Boys season 3. Follow along with us throughout the season and be sure to point out any references that we may have missed.

Episode 1 – Payback

Dawn of the 7

The Boys season 3 opens up with one hell of a homage. As teased last season, Vought Corporation has produced their own blockbuster superhero film called Dawn of the 7 a la The Avengers or Justice League, Zack Snyder’s or otherwise. Naturally the events surrounding the film contain many real world references like…

The Termite Scene

Look, we don’t want to relive this traumatizing scene any more than you do. But the explosive penile moment and its aftermath do contain some real life references.

  • For starters, The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke confirmed to Den of Geek that this scene was partially inspired by the Avengers fan meme that mused as to why Ant-Man didn’t just shrink, enter into Thanos’s butt, and then expand. The Boys had already done a butt explosion in season 1 though. “Once you take the butt off the table there’s really truly only so many more orifices you can go with,” Kripke notes.After the spectacularly traumatizing event, Hughie (Jack Quaid) is told that they can’t prosecute Termite because he just got a lucrative endorsement deal with Terminix, a real pest control company that is surely thrilled to now be associated with violent phalic death. Vicki (Claudia Doumit) notes that Butcher fed Termite a “metric-Belushi of coke”, referring to the tragic overdose of John Belushi.

Starlight and Hughie

  • Starlight (Erin Moriarty) wears a Billy Joel shirt to bed, undoubtedly one of Hughie’s as he adores the Long Island pianist.Joel’s “Uptown Girl” then scores the duo’s morning routine.Hughie and Starlight debate the merits of brushing with real life toothpaste Aquafresh or real life vaginal health cream Monistat.

The Church of The Collective

With its founder missing (and in reality dead), the cultish Church of The Collective doesn’t make an appearance in season 3 yet. There are still many references to the church and its veiled comparisons to Scientology though.

  • The Deep (Chace Crawford) and his new wife Cassandra say they’re pleased to have escaped “that fucking cult.”The Deep notes that Malcolm Gladwell (very much a real guy) dubbed him the next Leah Remini, the actress who in our world became notable for leaving Scientology and investigating its alleged misdeeds.The Deep is an author now, though Shia LaBeouf’s ghostwriter wrote his whole book. Vanity Fair calls The Deep “the thinking man’s superhero.”

Butcher and Company

  • Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) gets his daughter what appears to be an oversized Flavor Flav-style clock necklace for her birthday.Mother’s Milk is also now taking Lexapro as prescribed. In our world, Lexapro is a generic SSRI used to treat depression and anxiety.“Oi! Stevie Fucking Wonder! Will you knock it off?” Butcher (Karl Urban) says to Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) as she plays the piano.

Politics

  • Presidential candidate Robert Singer a.k.a. Dakota Bob (Jim Beaver) notes that Vought CEO Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) made a generous contribution to his Super PAC. PACs (Political Action Committees) are real life campaign donation structures that allow candidates to receive money from donors. Super PACs in particular allow for candidates to receive an unlimited amount of money from corporations, unions, associations, and individuals to campaign with. The “catch” is that the political candidates themselves cannot coordinate with these PACs but as Dakota Bob reveals here, they obviously find a way to do so anyway.Dakota Bob also reveals that Black Noir did something to a Hard Rock Cafe in Lagos that should have him brought up on war crimes.

Food

Episode 2 – The Only Man in the Sky

The Church of The Collective (Again)

This episode opens with more references to the fictional Church of the Collective that compare it to the very real Scientology.

  • Not Without My Dolphin, The Deep’s show on VTV, has real life actor Billy Zane playing missing church leader Alistair Adana. “You have become a toxic personality” Zane’s Adana tells The Deep. This is likely a not-so-veiled reference to Scientology’s concept of SP’s or Suppressive Persons.

U.S. Presidents

Voughtland 

Vought’s very own theme park is filled with many real life references that reveal the company is trying its hardest to appeal to progressive consumers, including:

  • Brave Maeve’s Inclusive KingdomBrave Maeve’s Veggie TacosBLM BLTsWoke WokLGBTurkey Legs

Soldier Boy Throughout History

The little film that plays in the theater at Voughtland reveals that Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) was a prominent figure throughout The Boys‘ history…and our own.

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  • Soldier Boy supposedly participated in the Allies’ activities in World War II.During the Joseph McCarthy-led Red Scare of the 1950s, Soldier Boy happily provided Congress with a list of “avowed communists.”Soldier Boy had his photo taken with luminaries like Ronald Reagan, Hugh Hefner, and Princess Diana.

Media

  • “I want to get back in touch with my roots…like in Roots,” A-Train says of his new look, referring to the classic 1976 novel and 1977 miniseries about the trans Atlantic slave trade.Stan Edgar reads the children’s book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day to Victoria Neuman’s daughter.“Don’t be afraid of the zoom, you’re not Roger Deakins,” Ashley says to her cameraman, referring to the legendary cinematographer of films like 1917, Skyfall, and No Country for Old Men.Ashley appears to be quite the film buff actually. Upon learning that Stormfront committed suicide via biting her tongue she remarks that she “Million Dollar Baby‘ed herself”Ryan makes an incredible stop-motion animation short for Butcher using LEGO.

The Gun Show

References to America’s gun culture and political landscape abound during Butcher’s visit to the Vought Rifle Association (VRA) gun show to blackmail Gunpowder (Sean Patrick Flannery)

  • Gunpowder tells his audience that Robert Singer is going to follow the “George Soros globalist playbook” if elected president. George Soros is billionaire businessman and philanthropist in our world whose political donations are the subject of many right wing conspiracy theories. Someone shouts “fake news” as Gunpowder mentions the media.Gunpowder acknowledges that he and his kind at the VRA are “The Silent Majority” a term popularized by Richard Nixon in the U.S. and used again during Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns. Gunpowder’s book is titled “Triggered.” Vought manufactures a gun called the VR-15, which sounds similar to the controversial semi-automatic rifle AR-15 in our world.

Episode 3 – Barbary Coast

Little Miss Hero Pageant

The flashback to Starlight’s time on the Vought International pageant circuit provides a couple of real life references.

  • The whole ordeal is sponsored by State Farm Insurance which really makes me wonder if State Farm actually lent their name to The Boys for this purpose.The song that little Annie January dances to is “…Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears.

Music

Speaking of Britney Spears, this episode features several other prominent songs and musical artists that apparently exist in both our world and The Boys.

  • Mother’s Milk wears an NWA shirt.“They chauffeuring you around, huh? Like you Rihanna,” A-Train’s brother asks him. Payback’s arrival song back in the ’80s is Scorpion’s “Rock You Like a Hurricane.”

Nicaragua

While a lot of Grace Mallory’s (Laila Robins) Nicaragua recollections are fictional (like the part with, you know, the superheroes) a surprisingly chunk of it is based on real events and rumors.

  • For starters, Butcher notes that Mallory has a picture of George H.W. Bush in her office. So we can safely extend The Boys‘ continuity of presidents through #41.Operation Charly, or the reason Grace was in Nicaragua in the first place, is basically completely real. In the 1970s and ’80s both the Argentinian and American governments funded and supported right wing movements in Central America to prevent socialist parties from taking power amid the height of the Cold War. The operation purportedly began during the Nicaraguan Revolution between 1977 and 1979.Grace makes note of “Oliver North’s epic fuck up.” This is referring to the Iran-Contra affair – a political scandal in which the Reagan administration secretly sold weapons to Iran and used the money to fund Contras (right wing rebels) in Nicaragua. Mother’s Milk calls out Grace for another unsavory part of her role in Nicaragua – the purchase of the Contra’s plentiful cocaine. Mother’s Milk alleges and Grace confirms that the CIA sold all of that excess cocaine into minority neighborhoods in the U.S. to disrupt and destabilize them. This is based on several similar, reputable allegations in our world. “They don’t belong in a war zone. They belong on That’s Incredible!” Grace says of her unwanted Payback soldiers. She is referring to an American reality TV show about unusual individuals and paranormal phenomena akin to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not from the 1980s.

  • Soldier Boy tells Grace Mallory that his charms worked on Loni Anderson, an actress best known for her role as Jennifer Marlowe on WKRP in Cincinnati. “I’m Michael Jordan. I’m not Malcolm X,” A-Train says of his public image. It is revealed that Frenchie’s (Tomer Capon) safe word is “Vincent Cassel”, the name of a prominent French actor.

Bigotry

Yeah it’s awkward to have “Bigotry” as an H3 on an article about real world cultural references but regrettably the concept is a major part of The Boys‘ world and our own.

Episode 4: Glorious Five Year Plan

Solid Gold

Soldier Boy’s appearance on ’80s variety show Solid Gold is a veritable treasure trove of real life references.

  • For starters, Solid Gold is a real thing. The show ran on Saturday nights from 1980 through 1988 and sought to present its audience with cutting edge pop music like other more popular series American Bandstand and Soul Train. On Solid Gold, however, the music came along with a garish gold set and weirdly indulgent aerobics dance routines. Solid Gold really was hosted by Marilyn McCoo. And believe it or not, all the musical acts that feature on Soldier Boy’s episode are also real: Kim Carnes, The Oak Ridge Boys, and Wayland Flowers.The song Soldier Boy sings is “Rapture” by Blondie.

Several specific media entities are mentioned in this week’s episode.

Movies

  • As pointed out by commenter John Horner last week, Hughie is still wearing a Last Waltz shirt. Directed by Martin Scorsese, this concert film captures the last-ever performance by rock group The Band on Thanksgiving Day, 1976.“You look like Ashton Kutcher fucked a clownfish,” A-Train tells The Deep.When knocking out nameless Russian guards, Mother’s Milk taunts them with the names of popular Cold War era movies like Red Dawn and Rocky IV.

Russia

Speaking of Red Dawn and Rocky IV, it’s clear that the U.S.’s fraught relationship with Russia has carried over into The Boys‘ universe. If anything, the introduction of corporate American superheroes appears to have made the Red Scare and the Cold War even hotter.

Episode 5 – The Last Time to Look On This World of Lies

The Legend

The introduction of Vought’s old VP of hero management, The Legend (Paul Reiser), leads to many references from our own world.

Drugs and Alcohol

So far this season, The Boys has enjoyed some sex and violence. But the third spoke of the vice trinity, drugs, has been underrepresented. That changes this week.

  • The cover story for Supersonic’s death is that he OD’ed on cocaine. It was previously revealed that Supersonic was addicted to opiates in his past (a victim of the opioid crisis, perhaps?) so him being felled by some measly old cocaine is a pretty weak coverup. Speaking of addiction and coverups, Maeve is supposedly sent to the Global Wellness Retreat in Malibu for her alcoholism. That is not a real location but is undoubtedly based on many rehabs and wellness clinics in Southern California.Starlight burns through some delicious product-placed White Claws.Mother’s Milk is “roofied” by Butcher. That term is slang for the pernicious date rape drug Rohypnol.

  • Hughie, ever the musical lad, is now wearing a Hall & Oates T-shirt.This is the much-hyped “musical” episode of The Boys and Kimiko and Frenchie’s dance down a hospital corridor doesn’t disappoint. The whole thing is scored to “I Got Rhythm” – a seminal jazz classic composed by the George Gershwin which first premiered in the musical Girl Crazy.

Hughie takes over from Ashley as this week’s cinephile, delivering the following two lines:

  • “If a guy in a car gives me a dirty look. I’m like Dom Torretto, because I’m quick and I’m all about family.”“I know it’s sketchy. I’ve seen Trainspotting.”

The Boys‘s political references continue this week down to calling out senators by name, suggesting yet again our two worlds are uncomfortably close.

Supe Porn Platinum

  • Crimson Countess sexually performs on a supe-themed cam site. We assume OnlyFans is around in this world as well but when you’ve got super-powered individuals running around it will surely lead to some revolutionary porn.Seth Rogen plays one of the Countess’s clients, “Sir-cums-a-lot-779” but he actually might just be playing Seth Rogen because he mentions starring opposite the Outbreak monkey.

Episode 6: Herogasm

The Imagine Video

Soldier Boy Is Old

“Herogasm” has a lot of fun playing around with some old references to highlight just how ancient Soldier Boy is.

  • “The two were like Kurt and Goldie,” Ashley says of Soldier Boy and Crimson Countess. She is referring to Hollywood soulmates Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn.Soldier Boy mentions he misses “bennies” as they were wired to the gills with them on D-Day. Benzedrine was the brand name for amphetamine sulphate. Yes, basically meth. It killed some folks.“That’s like killing Emmanuel Lewis,” Soldier Boy says, referring to the diminutive star of the ’80s sitcom Webster. “I’ll stand by our Mujahideen brothers to the end,” Solider says in a clip from one of his films. This is a humorous reference to the fact that the U.S. once supported its modern day antagonists against the Soviets in their Afghan War. Notably, Rambo III features the meme-worthy text at its conclusion reading “This Film Is Dedicated To The Brave Mujahideen Fighters of Afghanistan.”That same movie clip features a “Wilhelm Scream,” a famous audio track of a scream that is included as an Easter egg in many action films. Oh no. Soldier Boy, no … “Bill Cosby is America’s dad and he wouldn’t be caught dead wearing that. Cos, that’s a real man. Holy shit did he make some strong drinks.”

Miscellaneous

There are a lot of other smaller references in this episode that don’t fit neatly into one of our usual categorizations. They include:

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VNN Special Report (Political Media)

The VNN Special Report about Starlight, “A Nation Betrayed,” that opens this episode sets the tone for many real world political media Easter eggs to come.

Soldier Boy Is Old (Again)

  • The Legend watches Soldier Boy in an old music video singing “If You Wanna Be Happy” by Jimmy Soul. Like Watchmen‘s The Comedian before him, Solider Boy was involved in some pretty horrific historical moments. The Legend intimates that Soldier Boy used fire hoses on Black protestors in Birmingham during the Civil Rights movement. He also shot a rifle at Kent State – referring to the real life instance when National Guardsman shot and killed four students at Kent State University. The Legend also says there were some “rumors” of Dealey Plaza, suggesting that Soldier Boy was part of a CIA plot to assassinate John Kennedy. One moment that Soldier Boy was not involved in was the storming of Omaha Beach in Normandy on D-Day. He droopped by two weeks after for a photo opp.“If you’re gonna act hysterical, I’m gonna slap you like I’m Connery,” Soldier Boy tells Hughie. He’s charmingly referring to Sean Connery’s penchant for slapping women. “Your whole Marlboro Man act – it’s fucking crap,” Hughie shoots back. When Hughie tells Soldier Boy he has PTSD he denies he has “shell shock.” Shell shock was the term soldiers coined for what would eventually come to be clinically known as post-traumatic stress disorder.

Mindstorm

  • Soldier Boy compares Mindstorm to Howard Hughes – the American business magnate and subject of the film The Aviator. Hughes suffered from severe obsessive-compulsive disorder and spent his latter years isolated and mortally afraid of germs.Mindstorm has bipolar disorder and Hughie notes that lithium prescriptions are rare. Though bipolar disorder is treated with a variety of compounds, lithium was one of the first to prove effective and is still in wide use today.

Movies and Music

  • Flashdance is Kimiko’s latest musical obsession as she watches the iconic “Maniac” montage on TV.Black Noir wanted the role of Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop but Soldier Boy badmouthed him to the film’s producer Don Simpson. That role would eventually go to Eddie Murphy in our world and presumably in the Boys‘ world as well.Vought wants Tom Hanks to star as A-Train’s track coach in his upcoming biopic. Downton Abbey‘s Julian Fellowes is set to write it. “Hard pass on all this Exorcist shit,” Hughie says after a nun attacks him. Another Boys episode, another batch of graphic tees: Hughie wears a Doobie Brothers shirt and a Footloose shirt while Mother’s Milk dons a DMX shirt.

Food and Drink

  • Kimiko’s first ever sip of alcohol is Kirkland-brand whiskey. She probably could have aimed higher but the ~$30 bottle from Costco still gets the job done. The only place Hughie could find fish and chips for Butcher was nautical fast food chain Long John Silver’s. Poor guy.

Miscellaneous

New episodes of The Boys season 3 premiere each Friday on Prime Video, culminating with the finale on July 8.