The Boys Series Finale Review: The Ending Gets Its Big Calls Right

Caution: spoilers ahead for The Boys’ series finale.Very little in The Boys‘ final episode comes as a surprise, and that’s meant as a compliment. Logical and satisfying beats twisty and nonsensical, and The Boys‘ final episode is, indeed, logical and satisfying. Overall, The Boys season 5 has been well-reviewed, scoring 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, but it hasn’t all been sunshine and Maeve-branded rainbows. This closing chapter has attracted more criticism than any of its predecessors, with The Boys‘ penultimate episode currently the lowest-rated on IMDb. Given that The Boys‘ fifth season is its most politically overt by far, such division shouldn’t be surprising.

It’s a level of division that underlines what The Boys has already admitted: finales are impossible and never please all corners of an audience. That will almost certainly be the case here, especially coming off the back of a lukewarm second-to-last outing.

Nevertheless, it’s difficult to see where The Boys‘ ending makes any major missteps. It’s not a perfect finale, but looking at how the core group of characters is handled, how the ongoing storylines wrap up, and how the final fight against Homelander plays out, events couldn’t have transpired any other way. This is how the story was destined to end — blending together a conclusion that stays faithful to the comic books with the fulfillment of the blatantly inevitable. The Boys‘ last episode isn’t worse off for its relative predictability, but rather thrives in taking characters to the destinations they’ve spent seven years working toward.

The Boys’ Final Fight Against Homelander Goes Down The Right Way

Even if The Boys abandoned the comics’ Black Noir twist long, long ago, the final fight draws heavy inspiration from its Garth Ennis source material. It’s Butcher vs. his red, white, and blue rival in the Oval Office, culminating in the supe supreme getting his skull opened by a crowbar. It’s the same result as the comics, but Amazon’s series takes a different route to get there, as Kimiko provides the eventual assist with a radioactive blast that de-powers Homelander and clears the way for Butcher to strike.

Karen Fukuhara’s version of “The Female” has been afforded infinitely more depth in live-action, so it’s only natural to see her playing a pivotal role in the climactic showdown. Her importance doesn’t detract from the fact this is Butcher’s moment of vengeance, and Frenchie being the driving factor in Homelander’s downfall keeps his spirit alive. The “take away all your powers” chest blast is a touch convenient, but The Boys has been heading in this direction since Soldier Boy first appeared in season 3, so love it or not, it’s hardly a rug-pull. None of this would have been possible without the guidance of Sister Sage either, which neatly resolves the “why didn’t they try this before?” question.

There are a few nice touches that make The Boys vs. Homelander feel complete. Involving Ryan gives the youngster an earned moment of heroism. Ryan rising up against his father, and teaming up with Butcher to do it, really brings The Boys back to its bare bones as a reminder of why this all started in the first place. The image of Homelander desperately trying to fly and flopping helplessly to the ground, meanwhile, is utterly priceless, and arguably an even better payoff than his mind-blowing death scene. Airing his embarrassing defeat on live TV only sweetens the pot.

The Main Character Endings Nail A Tone Between Bitter & Sweet

Since it started, The Boys season 5’s main priority has been character resolution. We’ve been treated to Butcher’s psychic therapy session, MM rediscovering his heart, Frenchie and Kimiko disagreeing over their future, Starlight reuniting with her dad, and the entire team airing their grievances at Fort Harmony. That same spirit underpins The Boys‘ series finale.

Butcher being killed by Hughie to prevent a global tragedy is an integral part of the comic story that Amazon’s version wisely keeps. The reunification of Mr. and Mrs. Milk is justice for a character who has regularly been The Boys‘ most sensible protagonist. Deep sleeps with the fishes, figuratively for once. Starlight’s new gig as a vigilante harks back to her pre-Seven days, while Hughie comes full-circle by embracing his girlfriend on a New York sidewalk (without seeing her explode this time). On a scale of Frenchie to Starlight, The Boys blends the tragic with the hopeful. Two members are dead, with a third deep in mourning. The other half of the team gets happily-ever-afters. The victories have come at great cost, and the emotional stakes resonate loudly.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of The Boys‘ ending is something Butcher himself acknowledges before promptly dying: the heroes don’t really save the day. Homelander’s death is merely a black eye in the overall scheme of Vought’s capitalist endeavors. Stan Edgar is back in charge, supes are on the loose, and it’s only a matter of time before “the new Homelander” emerges. It’s a truth that almost makes this entire journey feel pointless, and perhaps also smacks of leaving the door open for future spinoffs.

At the same time, how else was The Boys going to end? This is a show that essentially acts as a cynical stab toward corporate capitalism. Killing the world’s most powerful supe was never going to have CEOs and politicians sitting around a campfire holding hands and agreeing to feed the poor. Only a few episodes back, Stan Edgar was gleefully explaining to MM that the wheels of capitalism were impossible to stop, so it comes as no great shock that The Boys leaves the Vought situation largely unresolved. The ending, equal parts optimistic and devastatingly miserable, stays true to what The Boys has always been.

The Boys’ Finale Would Be Better If This Wasn’t A Franchise

It’s impossible to escape the irony that a TV show spends seven years mocking franchises, spinoffs, and shared universes, only for its finale to suffer because it’s part of a shared universe franchise with multiple spinoffs.

Soldier Boy’s absence from the White House showdown is a strange omission. The character had already nailed his colors firmly to Homelander’s mast, so should have been a natural inclusion alongside The Deep and Oh Father on the final villains’ team. And what a perfect ending Soldier Boy could’ve had if Starlight went off to fight The Deep, Hughie took on Oh Father, and MM was left for one last battle against his original nemesis, finally taking down the supe he spent years chasing. Instead, Amazon has packed up Jensen Ackles to, presumably, save him for another day. Soldier Boy on ice is one of the few loose threads in The Boys‘ finale that genuinely feels awkward.

It’s also a bad time to be a Gen V fan. After sitting out much of season 5, Marie Moreau and her fellow ex-Godolkin students do next to nothing in the finale, Emma’s amusing one-liners notwithstanding. The Boys‘ showrunner, Eric Kripke, has expressed a desire to bring the Gen V gang back in a future release, but with nothing set in stone and Gen V canceled, it’s entirely possible that Marie’s tame appearance in The Boys‘ final episode is the last we’ll see of the Godolkin Gang.

On one hand, The Boys has enough on its plate wrapping up stories for its own cast without adopting a completely different crop of characters from a sibling series. On the other, the very purpose of shared universes is encouraging viewers to watch multiple shows on the basis that everything is connected. To invest in a two-season spinoff and its characters, and see Marie built up as a vital threat to Homelander, only for those threads to ultimately feel unspent, is a good example of why shared universes rarely work. The Boys, having lampooned Marvel and DC relentlessly for five seasons, knows that.

Still, if a series finale’s biggest problem is bungling spinoffs in an attempt to handle its own business the right way, that’s still a pretty impressive effort. This isn’t a finale that’s destined to be universally loved. Such a thing doesn’t exist anymore. But it is a finale that, if you’ve followed The Boys since the beginning, feels like the right ending.

Release Date

2019 – 2026-00-00

Showrunner

Eric Kripke

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