I love The Boys, but the insanely dark resurfaced past of a lead star has ruined the last season

The Boys returned earlier this month for its fifth and final season, but amidst prosthetic penises, Homelander losing his mind (more), and Jensen Ackles’ jawline, the Tomer Capone of it all has been a looming dark cloud.

From the moment that his thick French accent hit my ears, I knew that Frenchie was going to be one of my favourite characters in The Boys. The fact that he’s bisexual was the cherry on top, and his relationship with Kimiko quickly became my OTP – one true pairing, in case you weren’t addicted to Wattpad in the mid 2010s.

But then season five rolled around, and a viral story emerged about Tomer Capone’s dark past. Admittedly, through my own ignorance, I was not aware that he served in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) for a number of years.

Born in Holon, Israel, but raised in Rishon LeZion, Tomer Capone was conscripted to the IDF in 2004, as is mandatory in the Middle Eastern country. He served as a soldier and then as a squad leader, and he fought during the 2006 Lebanon War.

A Tomer Capone interview resurfaced during The Boys

Credit: Amazon

With The Boys’ final season streaming, the Zionist Tracker Twitter page posted about Tomer Capone’s earlier service in the IDF. It went positively viral, amassing nearly 20 million views, which is how I learned about it.

Then, a 2016 interview with Ynet emerged online. In it, Tomer discussed taking a girl from her family in the “middle of the night.”

“In the middle of the night, you enter a family’s house, you’re not aggressive, but the family doesn’t let you get their 18-year-old daughter out easily, and a fight starts. Pushing, cursing, and we tear her apart and drive off,” he recalled.

“We arrive, we take her out of the car, she’s handcuffed and I grab her by the arm and she doesn’t struggle, but she lets go of my grip, signaling me to give her a hand more gently. Her eyes are of course covered with flannel. I bring her into the room, put her in and see eight other girls inside who look more or less the same. And they close the door in your face.”

Elsewhere in the interview, he revealed “pranks” he and the soldiers would pull at checkpoints, where “someone is transporting fruit, so you disassemble his entire truck and you cut open all of his watermelons, just for fun.”

Then, he admits to becoming disillusioned and “crazy” with the IDF’s mission, stating that soldiers are “paying the price” because politicians are “only interested in their personal needs.”

His more recent interviews are not that much better either, with him telling Deadline in 2024: “Of course, when people ask me, of course it’s about freeing Palestine but free Palestine from what? Free Palestine from terror, free Palestine from Hamas – yes. But the same goes for Israel. Free Israel from all of the extremist, weird people that are trying to take over my beautiful country.”

The Boys falls flat amid Tomer Capone’s past

Credit: Amazon

Most Read

People find ‘evidence’ iconic Love Is Blind couple who’ve been married for four years have split

Where is Zoe Sugg?! A full investigation into what’s happened to Zoella as she disappears

UK influencer vanishes in Morocco after mysteriously telling friends she’d ‘run out of money’

Though it’s important to note that my falling out of love with The Boys is in no way comparable to the ongoing plight of the Palestinian people, that’s exactly what happened when I tuned in to episode three. Once one of my favourite characters, I couldn’t – as some of Twitter likes to scream about – separate the art from the artist. All of Tomer’s scenes look different under the light of context.

The Boys has always been a comment on the political system, but also the state of the world in general. Considering the ongoing genocide in Palestine, and the role America is playing in it, you’d assume it would play into the plot. That hasn’t been the case at all; in fact, the show seems to actively go around the elephant in the room.

“But The Boys is a mockery of American politics specifically,” I hear you say, and you’re not wrong.

Yes, American politics is the centre of the show, but so are international moments. For instance, the showrunners were not afraid to reference Middle Eastern geopolitics in their Supe terrorist plot from season two, and Putin literally made a cameo in the most recent season.

The Boys has lost the plot

The Tomer Capone controversy is part of a larger issue: The showrunners have seemingly forgotten what made their show such a powerhouse to begin with.

It was never Homelander, or Homelander 2.0, Soldier Boy; it was the subtle but clear mockery of culture, news, politics, celebrities, capitalism and public figures. It’s spin-off Gen V continued with that trend, but it’s now been cancelled in favour of a prequel show about Soldier Boy and Stormfront. Yes, that’s correct, we’re ditching the interracial gender non-conforming relationship for a TV show about literal Nazis.

Credit: Twitter

Sure, the show has continued to make Republicans and conservatives look like idiots, but they don’t need help with that. Those puns and jokes might have sent the show to the number one spot five years ago, but it’s gone stale.

How can a show be a reflection of the world right now if it platforms a man who openly admitted to doing very questionable things? It doesn’t make sense, or maybe it does.

Maybe The Boys has unknowingly become a perfect imitation of modern liberalism: Woke on the outside, raging hypocrites underneath.

Tomer Capone and Amazon have been approached for comment.

For more like this, like The Tab on Facebook.

Featured image credit: Amazon