The Deep

Lore & Background

In the television adaptation, the Deep is a white man with gills (which he is insecure about) and the ability to hear the suffering of all sentient aquatic life as they are eaten by humans, which he has had since childhood. On the decision to adapt the Deep as the assaulter of Starlight, show runner Eric Kripke said that he had found the plot line difficult to adapt responsibly, having engaged in multiple discussions of how to do so. When Starlight discloses the sexual assault on live television, Vought forces the Deep to publicly apologize for the sexual misconduct they covered up for him over the years and reassigns him to Sandusky, Ohio, where he is raped by a fangirl via his gills. The following year, Church of the Collective members Eagle the Archer and Carol manipulate him into taking a hallucinogenic substance which causes him to believe that his gills (voiced by Patton Oswalt) are confronting him about the root of his sexual malfeasance: his abilities and the death of a dolphin he had been romantically involved with. Following this incident and his arranged marriage to Cassandra Schwartz, the Deep joins the Church, also convincing A-Train to do so, and assists Queen Maeve in securing blackmail material to use against Homelander in return for her vouching for his return to the Seven. However, he is denied, and the Deep leaves the Church.

Reader's Guide

The Deep has also appeared in the promotional web series The Boys Presents: Diabolical and Death Battle!, and the podcast series The Boys: Deeper and Deeper. In The Boys Presents: Diabolical (2022) episode "BFFs", Crawford returns as The Deep. In the episode, the Deep is tasked with taking down a low-level pot dealer who has been selling Compound V, setting a shark upon him. After the Deep comes across a young Supe named Sky with the ability to control and give sentience to excrement, and being showered in it by her, he decides to leave her be. Crawford returns as The Deep in the second season of Gen V (2025), in which his character is revealed as an alumnus of the superhero university Godolkin University. It is also revealed that his full name is "Kevin Kohler", retconning the "Kevin Moskowitz" name he was using in second season of The Boys (while relocated to Sandusky, Ohio) as having been an alias. In the series, The Deep visits his alma mater as Sam Riordan asks if they have found the ones who attacked Cate Dunlap.

Did You Know?

• The Deep's gills are voiced by Patton Oswalt in a hallucinogenic sequence in the television series.
• The Deep's full name is given as Kevin Moskowitz in the third season of The Boys.
• In season five, the Deep dispatches an eel to attack and kill writer Adam Bourke via a toilet.