‘The Boys’ And ‘Resident Alien’ Share A Quirky Detail

It’s strange sometimes how a single idea or concept can be shared in two completely different stories. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the stories were copying off each other, but that ideas sometimes have a way of blossoming regardless of context. Writers often take different paths to arrive in similar places. Sometimes, the similarities are important and have a lot of ramifications for character arcs and plot. But other times, these might just be small tidbits of a story that’s more a coincidental curiosity than anything else. It’s still worthwhile to analyze, such as the case with The Boys and Resident Alien.

Besides having comedic elements to both shows, the two couldn’t be further from each other. The Boys is a R-rated superhero story that focuses on sex and violence while satirically commentating on everything from politics to corporate culture. Meanwhile, Resident Alien is about an extraterrestrial (Alan Tudyk) hiding in Colorado. He tries to make a life for himself while getting into sci-fi antics and some pretty heavy character drama.

Both shows have one critical concept in common: telepathic octopi. The Boys has a Aquaman knock-off called The Deep (Chase Crawford), who can communicate telepathically with sea life. For the most part, the audience couldn’t hear their conversations. But this changed in the most recent season as the audience could hear what The Deep’s octopus lover was saying to him. In Resident Alien, the alien is a descendant of octopi, and so an octopus communicates with him telepathically. On the surface, the decision to have communications with an octopus feels like a coincidence. But octopi are incredibly intelligent. If they are included in quirky science fiction stories, it’s certainly possible for them to have telepathic powers. It’s just very interesting to see these two completely different shows share this eccentric element.

The Boys are now streaming on Amazon Prime, and Resident Alien is now streaming on Peacock.