Caution: spoilers ahead for The Boys season 3

Thought that theory about how Ant-Man could've defeated Thanos was bad? The Boys season 3 proves just how much worse the hypothetical anal atrocity could've been. After Thanos made his MCU debut proper in 2018's Avengers: Infinity War, fans were given a whole year to consider how the Mad Titan could be defeated. By far the grossest method they conjured up was having Paul Rudd's Ant-Man shrink down using his Pym technology, enter Thanos through his Thanus (could use his ear, but where's the fun in that?), then blow the villain apart from inside by regrowing to normal size.

The suggestion that Thanos could be killed via sphincter shenanigans opened a whole can of worms. Would it actually work? Might Thanos squish Scott just by clenching? Could the unstoppable force of an expanding Ant-Man overcome the immovable object of Thanos' tough insides? And the biggest stumbling block of all - would Scott Lang deem saving the universe worth a trip up Thanos' butt?

Related: The Boys' Superpowers Twist Saves Season 3 From The Worst Comics Story

In its own inimitable tradition of superhero parody, The Boys takes those basic principles of "Thanus" and makes the MCU theory infinitely more disturbing. The Boys' version of Ant-Man is Termite - a shrinking supe first shown leaping into a woman's downstairs during a season 1 party scene (if not Termite, it's a supe with the exact same power and sexual kink). Butcher and Hughie paid the diddy diver little heed back then, and The Boys refrained from showing anything explicit - just a tiny naked man jumping between a pair of legs in a dark room. The Boys season 3's premiere ("Payback") takes a much closer look at Termite's favorite pastime. The micro-supe's male lover slaps his junk on a coffee table and allows Termite to climb inside. Not only does The Boys provide a Termite-view close-up of the man's genitalia, we also see an inside view of this unique sex act. Bringing those Thanus theories to life in a way Kevin Feige only dreamed of, Termite then sneezes... accidentally expands... and blows the poor victim apart from the shaft outward.

Brett Geddes as Termite in The Boys

The Boys season 3's opening episodes are packed with hilarious Marvel parodies, from Soldier Boy's twisted Captain America variant to that cameo in "Dawn of the Seven." Termite's penile exploration gives a grim remainder of 2015's Ant-Man, with its Thomas the Tank Engine fight scene and massively-proportioned bathtub. Termite's urethra expedition also begs the question of whether Scott Lang might've had other... options... when it came to entering Thanos' body and saving the universe. Once again, The Boys leaps upon a notorious aspect of mainstream superhero media culture and bastardizes it into something that'll haunt viewers forever. You'll never look Ant-Man in the eye again.

The manhood mishap also perfectly demonstrates how The Boys' franchise standing has grown - and how its license to shock has expanded - since season 1. Those early episodes can hardly be described as "restrained," but Eric Kripke is clearly enjoying far more creative freedom in The Boys season 3 than ever before. Had those first two seasons not become a roaring success, it's hard to imagine season 3 getting permission from Amazon to fill half a screen with an obscenely detailed CGI penis head, then blow the gland up in a hail of blood and flesh. The Boys is continuing to test the limits of bad taste with the freedom of a TV show that has earned the right to do exactly that.

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More: The Boys: Every New Super Confirmed For Season 3 (So Far)

The Boys continues Friday on Prime Video.