When The Boys premiered in 2019, it was a breath of fresh air. In a landscape over-saturated with comic-book films and TV shows, the loose adaptation of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s controversial comic series took a more cynical look at superheroes, or “Supes.” Our heroes were a plucky gang of regular blokes led by Karl Urban’s Billy Butcher, and the villains were the Supes who had fallen prey to depravity, corporate greed, and all manner of vice. After seven years and five seasons of idiosyncratic television that became a huge part of the superhero canon it satirized, The Boys has ended. The series finale, “Blood and Bone,” has garnered a, let’s just say, mixed reaction.
Some fans have even gone so far as to compare the final episode of The Boys to the ill-received Stranger Things and Game of Thrones endings. While complaints about its smaller scale, its relation to the fifth season, and its lack of fidelity to its canceled spin-off, Gen V, are reasonable, the vitriol around the episode, especially online, has reached hyperbolic levels. Therefore, it’s now time to ask: was The Boys series finale really that bad? Not at all. In fact, The Boys series finale is a great conclusion to the show. For such a send-off that reaffirms its bold identity, how could fans be so upset? The answer to that hefty question is complex, to say the least.
‘The Boys’ Season 5 Left A Bad Taste Some Couldn’t Shake
Before diving into the episode proper, it must be noted that The Boys series finale had multiple external factors working against it. First to note is that The Boys Season 5 wasn’t entirely well-received by audiences. There was a lot to love this season, particularly Valorie Curry’s heartwrenching performance as Misty Tucker Gray/Firecracker in the “One Shots” episode. Yet Homelander’s meandering quest for Godhood through an early version of Compound V took too many detours for some viewers to swallow. Meanwhile, others found the political satire more grating than funny. Therefore, the season had caused enough of a stink to put off certain fans. Others felt that the finale failed to wrap up its season’s lingering plot threads.
Courtesy of Prime Video
As for the former criticism, it’s truly not fair to judge a finale meant to wrap up five seasons’ worth of storytelling based on a single season alone. Now, as for the latter, that’s understandable. However, one could argue that season five’s threads were more of a character study than a momentous buildup throughout. A major dig at the series finale was its failure to utilize the characters from the prematurely canceled spin-off show Gen V. It’s easy to sympathize with these fans. Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair), Jordan Li (Londan Thor), and Emma Meyer (Lizze Broadway) did have cameos, but Gen V had promised that Marie would be pivotal in stopping Homelander.
Spin-Off Issues Overshadowed ‘The Boys’ Series Finale
We got an admittedly nice chat between Starlight (Erin Moriarty) and Marie as the Gen V crew escaped to Canada in The Boys series finale. This is tricky because The Boys itself never indicated that Marie Moreau would be a significant part of the story. Yet, Gen V continually asserted its own importance in the grand narrative. Either plans changed, or there was little communication between writers’ rooms. Therefore, The Boys had a choice to abide by a spin-off that not all of its viewers had watched or downplay Gen V’s set-up. Showrunner Eric Kripke chose the latter, which was ultimately the right decision, even if it does sting after Gen V’s cancellation by Prime Video.
Another spin-off series casts a shadow over The Boys series finale. That upcoming spin-off is Vought Rising, which will follow the rise of a super team in the 1950s and the origin of Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles). The Boys season 5 was also criticized for squeezing in setup for Vought Rising, leading to a heavier presence for Soldier Boy. However, the finale ditches the character altogether, as he was put back in cryosleep after Homelander choked him out in the penultimate episode. Whether the finale would have benefited from Soldier Boy’s presence is unclear, though it must be noted that the constant Vought Rising setup led to negativity around the season that certainly bled into the last episode.
One Last Classic Romp
Now that the external complaints about The Boys series finale have been addressed, let’s get into the content of the episode itself. For many, the scale, or lack thereof, of the episode was an issue. Essentially, Butcher and The Boys infiltrate the White House, kill Homelander, and that’s that. It is true that, generally, The Boys had become less visually ambitious as it progressed, with the fifth season taking place in more interior locations than ever. Nevertheless, while the setting of a world of corporate superheroes is expansive, the stakes have always remained intimate, the action following suit.
Directed by Kripke’s fellow Supernatural alum Philip Sgricia, the White House sequence is the best caper we’ve seen from this series in years. That mainly stems from its simplicity — the gang has to get from point A to point B — and the high stakes of stopping Homelander. Scgriccia conjures up the sort of rough and tumble adventure, where you’re feeling for The Boys’ safety at all costs as they encounter obstacles like Homelander’s sycophant, Oh Father (Daveed Diggs), on their way to the Oval Office, that we haven’t seen since season 3. With big, crowd-pleasing moments like Ashley (Colby Minife) coming in to save The Boys, the show truly regained its juice through this one sequence.
And that’s before you get to the knock-down, drag-out brawl where Billy Butcher, Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), and even Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) fight Homelander. Some people expected a massive fight where Homelander summons an army of Supes to fight The Boys, but that’s ultimately expecting this show to be something it’s not. The intimate brawl in the series finale feels immense because we know how much pain Homelander has caused these characters and what he could do as America’s de facto God.
Homelander, Take A Bow
Speaking of Homelander, let’s talk about one of the greatest villain performances of the modern era. Antony Starr created an icon in his hyperviolent, stunted child of a Superman stand-in. A large portion of the backlash against the finale comes from the fact that Homelander didn’t commit acts of mass violence. Starr’s performance was so compelling that a specific subset of “fans” began to see him as their own power fantasy for whatever reason. This misunderstands the dramatic function of Homelander. The finale’s tension stems from whether Homelander will snap, and if The Boys can get to him in time, so the expectation that he simply has to kill a certain number of people in the finale is confusing.
Homelander’s actual ending is practically perfect. After being de-powered by Kimiko, he’s beaten to a bloody pulp by Butcher. In Antony Starr’s finest hour, Homelander grovels and begs for Butcher’s mercy, hitting rock bottom as he offers oral sex and to eat his feces. Underneath all the bravado, he’s always merely been a scared, fragile child, and a petulant one at that. Starr, in one of his best line readings of the whole series, yells, “You can’t fucking do this!” Butcher doesn’t listen, prying his skull apart as his brains spill out. After all of the suffering he inflicted on others, christening himself God, Homelander getting an undignified death like this is not only cathartic, but also downright genius.
The Fall of Butcher Reveals the Show’s Heart
The second climax of the episode is just as fitting. Butcher, realizing the emptiness after avenging his wife Becca’s memory, decides that all Supes need to die. Therefore, he goes to Vought Tower and poisons the water supply with the Supe-killing virus, preparing to unleash it through the sprinkler system. Although he tries to talk him out of it, Hughie (Jack Quaid) is forced to kill him. Is this a bit rushed? Sure. But one of the core themes throughout The Boys that the series had forgotten was Butcher’s increasing infliction of the same sort of pain that the Supes employed.
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Butcher had to be stopped. The Boys aren’t monsters; this sort of “scorched Earth” violence stood against everything they represented. As much as the series forgot about this as well, Hughie used to be the wide-eyed moral center of the group, so having him put Butcher down is poetic. Some have interpreted Homelander and Butcher as two sides of the same coin, yet Hughie stopped Butcher from becoming his mirror. The final scene of dialogue between the two is a beautiful, bittersweet exchange that reinforces the heart the show so desperately needed to reclaim. Above all else, it affirms that Quaid’s sincerity and Urban’s grit were equally as essential to the Amazon series as Antony Starr.
‘The Boys‘ Found Its Soul Again
Really, writers Judalina Neira and David Reed give everyone a satisfying ending in The Boys. Kimiko goes to France to live her own life. Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) gets to live a life unburdened by power. The Deep (Chace Crawford) finally faces the consequences of his actions, murdered by ocean creatures. Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) rejoins his family, taking in Ryan, who at last gets to experience some normalcy. And, of course, Hughie gets to run his own electronics store, with him and Starlight expecting a child fittingly named Robin. The show’s final shot sees Hughie looking up, smiling, as Starlight flies to fight crime. As “Piano Man” by Billy Joel swells, superheroes represent hope again.
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Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s The Boys comics are cynical screeds against the idea of superheroes. Highly entertaining and intermittently brilliant, but they are not what the show is. Prime Video’s The Boys is about fighting for a better world, critiquing our own through the lens of Supes. Ending with a message of optimism feels well-earned after such a hard fight. In total honesty, the entire finale just feels right.
Yes, the season that preceded the series finale was rocky. Yes, the inclusion of spin-off shows like Gen V and Vought Rising didn’t go smoothly. These are but minor issues to a finale that gives us the sort of classic The Boys adventure we had been missing — a fight for the ages, the completion of arcs for superhero television’s most iconic villain and anti-hero, and fulfilling goodbyes. Most crucially, the Amazon show found its soul once again. The Boys started as a critique of superhero culture and will go down as an essential fixture of it without sacrificing anything that made it special in the finale. Now that’s diabolical.
All 5 seasons of ‘The Boys’ are streaming on Prime Video!
Developed by Eric Kripke.
Showrunner: Eric Kripke.
Based on The Boys by Garth Ennis & Darick Robertson.
Executive Producers: Eric Kripke, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, James Weaver, Neal H. Moritz, Pavun Shetty, Phil Sgriccia, Michaela Starr, Paul Grellong, David Reed, Meredith Glynn, Judalina Neira, Ken F. Levin, & Jason Netter.
Main Cast: Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Jessie T. Usher, Laz Alonso, Tomer Capone, Chace Crawford, Karen Fukuhara, Nathan Mitchell, Colby Minifie, Cameron Crovetti, Susan Heyward, Valorie Curry, Simon Pegg, Rosemarie Dewitt, Giancarlo Esposito, Jensen Ackles, & Daveed Diggs.
Composers: Christopher Lennertz & Matt Bowen.
Production Companies: Kripke Enterprises, Point Grey Pictures, Original Film, Kickstart Entertainment, KFL Nightsky Productions, Amazon MGM Studios, & Sony Pictures Television.
Episode Count: 8 (Season 5).
